Be the Best at What Matters Most

1 The Only Strategy You Will Ever Need 1 Building Business at Bill's Burgers 3 "Amaze" and "Delight" 3 Moruga Scorpion Peppers 4 What If He Made a Better Hamburger? 4 What Do You Think? 5 An Undeniable Premise 5 We Make It Too Complex 6 That's the Problem 6 It Ends up Being about the Customer 7 You're Spread Too Thin 8 The Three or Four Things 9 You Don't Need Gimmicks 9 If You Win on the Basics, You Win It All 10 There Are No Silver Bullets; There's Just the Bomb 11 2 It's Really Not That Complicated 13 Build Better Cars. Imagine That 15 3 So Good at the Basics That You're Cutting Edge 17 Substance, Not Flash 19 A Powerful Lesson 19 4 Deciding What Matters Most 23 Defining the Problem 25 Somebody's Got to Buy 26 The Main Thing 33 5 Different Answers--All of Them Right 35 Wide Open Choices 37 Joe Calloway 37 Benjamin Franklin Plumbing 39 Wine to Water 41 Pinnacle Financial Partners 41 Southwest Airlines 42 An Advertising Agency That I Read about Many Years Ago 43 Somebody at Citi Cards 45 What Fits Us Best? 45 It's Worth Doing Wrong 46 6 Relevance, Innovation, and Constant Improvement 49 A Moving Target 51 Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today 51 Lip Service 51 Improve Constantly and Forever 52 7 Culture, Focus, and More Focus: Memphis Invest 55 A Little Company with Powerful Lessons 57 Get the Fundamentals Right 57 The Culture Book 58 A Handful of Numbers 60 Absolute Intention and Focus 61 Clarity about Expectations 61 Meetings as Opportunities 62 Relationships That Wow 63 8 Working in the Business 67 Thinking When You Should Be Working 69 "When It Is Time to Work in Your Business," by Dr. Jeff Cornwall 69 9 Three Is the Magic Number: Smile Brands 73 These Three Things 75 Pick a Lane 76 The G3 Approach 76 The Power of Simplicity 76 The Ultimate Sophistication 77 So Much Less Effort 77 10 Winning and Losing Inside the Box 79 There Aren't Any Shortcuts 81 Deliver on Your Promise Every Time 81 They've Taken Their Eyes Off the Ball 81 If You Win on the Basics, You Win It All 81 Barneys versus Nordstrom 82 It's a Sucker's Game 83 I'll Happily Take the Doughnut 83 Your "Table Stakes" Aren't Working 84 Bells and Whistles Wear Off 84 Glitz or Profit? 85 11 Random versus Consistent 87 What a Wonderful Story! 89 That's the Trap 89 Regular, Everyday Customers 90 If You Lose Inside the Box 90 12 Simplicity and the Blue-Tip Flame 93 You Can Move Mountains 95 What You Need Is a Force Multiplier 95 Get Your Thinking Clean Enough 96 Blue-Tip Flame 96 13 The Trap: Let's Do More 99 Better Is Better 101 Lost in Trying to Be the Best 101 For Alabama Football, It's Process 103 Treating Patients Like Customers 104 When Patients Talk Back 105 The Patients' Lists 106 14 Clarity, Process, and Profit: bytes of knowledge 109 How They Did It 111 The First Order of Business 112 They Are a Business Partner 113 They Could Be Doing Better 113 Defining Their Culture 114 The Monday Morning Boost 115 Plug the Holes in the Bucket 116 Workflow and Time Tracking 118 Get a Checklist 118 Everything Tracked through the System 119 Educating the Employees and Getting Buy-In 120 How to Run a Business 121 The Coffee Shop Generation 121 15 What Matters Most to Your Team 125 Understanding Employees Matters, Too 127 Understanding 127 16 Culture Drives Results 131 That's a Shame 133 By Accident or Intentional? 133 Everything in Alignment 134 Making Culture Mean Something 134 You Have to Fire Them 136 Who Would Stay? Who Would Go? 137 True North 138 17 How Brands Win 141 Consistently Better at the Basics 143 Amazon 143 Coca-Cola 144 FedEx 144 Apple 145 Target 145 Ford 146 Starbucks 146 Southwest Airlines 146 Nordstrom 147 It Works 147 18 How the Internet Is Killing Hype 149 Why You Bought the Chutney 151 Consumers Aren't Shy 152 They're Talking about You 152 Palm Trees, Azure Blue Skies, and . . . Cockroaches 153 "I Would Like to Apologize" 155 Do What You Say You'll Do 155 19 Leadership: Grunder Landscaping Company 157 The Kid Was the Best 159 The Responsibility of Leadership 160 Getting Buy-In 161 Spider-Man, Doughnuts, and Thank-You Notes 163 You Can't Just Put These Things on a Piece of Paper 164 Talk about It and Live It All the Time 164 He Is True North 165 20 When Everything Is Pursued, the Important Is Neglected 167 Too Much Pressure 169 Sister Bear's Nightmare 169 Executing in the Game They Are In 170 Purpose versus Panic 170 21 The Rules You Can Break 173 "Fortunately, We Don't Know Any of Them" 175 Visions and Missions Are Great--and Optional 175 One Size Does Not Fit All 176 Changing the World . . . Maybe 177 "We Make Great Carburetors" 179 A Purpose That Took Morale Lower 179 You're Kidding, Right? 180 It's Just Supposed to Be Effective 181 22 Focus 3 Ninety 183 What Matters the Most Right Now? 185 A New Approach to Focus? 186 Where Do We Improve Right Now? 186 Make It Last 187 Get Absolute Clarity 187 What You'll Learn 188 23 It's 11:30 191 Taking Action 193 The Obstacle of Not Knowing 193 Take Out the Trash 194 Someone Busier Than You Is Running 195 It's 11:30 195 24 Ideas That Matter Most 197 25 More Resources 201 Index 205