Customer Focused Business Strategies
Customer focus is a survival issue, which mandates a posturing, a commitment, and skills "top to bottom," to identify and then satisfy the customer's needs...profitably. Customer focus must be the number one job priority of the entire organization. The process can be as simplistic as answering the telephone in two rings or as strategic as partnering with your customers based on a philosophy of "we won't ask for your business unless we have a plan to help improve your business." Eighty seven percent of American businesses as late as 1998 still are void of customer focus to the degree necessary to be competitive in the market place.

Competitive Products
Of course we need competitive products that are competitively priced. Sustained success however, dictates that our identity in the customer's eyes transcends our product because of a fundamental rule of business - we will never again long-term have a competitive advantage in product or price. Said another way, the day your identity is synonymous with your product line, and you're beginning to lose your business.

Value Added Services
The customer never needs your product. Think about this - the customer can get the same product somewhere else cheaper! In almost every case only forty percent of the customer's reason for buying from you and your company is specification and price. Sixty percent of their reason to buy is based on your value-added offerings. A good exercise is to begin addressing the question "what do you do for the customer beyond the product."

Competitive Skills
Today's economic environment is luring many individuals (and companies) into a false sense of security. History proves good times camouflage poor performance. If we are selling in the same way we did just thirty-six months ago for example, the salesperson is no longer effective or competitive. If we are managing our personnel as we did just twenty-four months ago, our people have plateaued in skills and abilities.

Marketing of Customized Solutions
Make no mistake, sustained and profitable relationships with customers are build around your ability and desire to bring tailored ideas and solutions to specific customer needs. Today we must immediately STOP selling product and BEGIN marketing unique systems, which are customized to the specific needs of each individual customer. This requires an in-depth understanding of the customer's business, its needs, challenges and opportunities in addition to superior creativity, problem solving skills and an integrated team selling psychology.

Maintaining and Raising Standards
The appropriate role model for you and/or company is an individual or organization in an unrelated industry. It is important to understand that the answer to most organization problems will not be found solely within their company and/or industry.

Additionally being "as good as" is no longer good enough. Standards must be set to insure that we are "better than" the competition and this requires utilizing role models from outside our own industry. And once those standards are set to the new benchmark they must be carved in stone with a mandatory goal attitude where 99.9 percent is not good enough.

Continued Improvement
Functioning in your business as if it were your own business in the best definition of Entrepreneurship. Unfortunately many individuals in business today "fold their tent" at the first sign of challenge. Sales people for example, run to management with a price concession upon hearing price objections. Marketers often state their programs were ineffective due to the implementation by the field sales team. And managers lament that they "can't find good people" when describing the below plan results of their department. Factually Entrepreneurship is a "crises to perform." It is a mentality of "how do I plan to perform within this environment in spite of all the obstacles."

Entreprenuership Mentality
When an individual states "I do the best job I can," what they are really saying is "I am not going to do anymore!" And this individual is in trouble. They had better hope the competition isn't getting better, tougher, or more competitive, because this individual is not!

Gold medal gymnast Mary Lou Retton when asked if she could repeat the winning performance in the next Olympics responded "A gold medal performance in one Olympics will only be routine in the next" A "grow or go" mentality in business is mandatory today because the bar is continually being raised. Survival in today's world markets mandate we remain in a constant state of growth and improvement. In reality - as harsh as it may be - it does not matter what you did last year, last month, last week, or even yesterday. We must get better today than we were yesterday. We must be in a constant state of improvement.