Once you have a picture of how you want your life to be, and you come to the realization that it’s more than just things to have and things to do, once you realize that what you and I really want is to have the room, the openness, to expand, […]
Phil
172 posts
Principle 1 Your customer is your paycheck. Don’t be fooled by the signature at the bottom of your payroll check — the guy who signed the check didn’t put the money there — your customers did. No customers, no money. You should change your customer greeting to “Hi, thanks for […]
[what we first learned in the 80s is that…] Firms that earned superior levels of customer loyalty and retention also earned consistently higher profits–and they grew faster as well….[W]e learned that customer loyalty is inextricably linked to employee and investor loyalty and that major improvements in the one often require […]
A common piece advice in retail: “Differentiate yourself. Then let the market know how you’re different.” That’s good advice, but here’s more: It’s easy to be different. It’s much harder to be distinctive. “Distinctive” means you’re different in a way that gets positive attention. Remember: it’s useless for a retailer […]
On advice-giving: People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. — source unknown One of my favorite Far Side cartoons shows a man in his bedroom getting dressed for the day. A sign by his mirror reminds him, “First Pants, Then Shoes”. This cartoon and the […]
Back in March, my friend Barry Campbell and his wife started investing in their own White Trash and Minor Vices Portfolio. As Barry explained: Everyone says “invest in what you know.” I’m about to put my money where my big mouth is. Carrie and I invest, mostly in index funds […]
Early in my career, the management team of a large professional firm asked my opinion about how they were conducting their affairs. I responded with a very honest, direct and candid answer–”Here are the things you are messing up, and this is what you should have been doing!” To my […]