The Road Less Stupid

“I insist on a lot of time being spent thinking, almost every day, to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. I read and think. So I do more reading and thinking, and make less impulse decisions than most people in business. I do it because I like this kind of life.” —Warren Buffett

Find the Unasked Question—Create a question that will result in clarity and generate better choices. Separate the Problem from the Symptom—Identify the real obstacle that is blocking my progress. Check Assumptions—Differentiate the facts from the story I am spinning. Consider 2nd-Order Consequences—Clarify the risks and the possibility/cost of being wrong. Create the Machine—Create the executable plan and identify the resources (people and money) required to solve the real (core) problem and make forward progress.

finding the “right” answer is rarely the problem. What keeps us stuck are inferior questions that produce tactical or unattractive choices.

A problem is simply an unanswered question.

I can’t change the environment, only how I will play the game given the environment I’m in.

Framing the problem as a statement is always a mistake.

I have a couple of tricks I use to help expand the number of possible choices. One is to frame the problem as a “How might I . . . so that I can . . .” question. “How might I generate an additional $20,000/month in profits so that we can afford to invest in a new building and double our capacity?” is a lot better than “Our profits suck” or “Why do our profits suck?” I also think about “How did it get this way? Why does it stay this way? How can I improve the way it looks?”

A great question always has three common characteristics: It provides insight on what the actual problem is that needs to be addressed. It simplifies the problem and makes it solvable. It expands the number of possibilities available to solve the problem or improve the situation.

“Most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”

Most people, when asked to pinpoint their biggest problem, erroneously identify their problems as the gap between where they are and where they would like to be. For proof, check the answer you were about to write down. What you identified as the problem is actually a description of the gap. The gap is not your core underlying problem; it’s the symptom. The symptom is what indicates something is wrong, but it does not shed any light on what is causing it to show up.

The key to defining the root problem is discovering the obstacle (it resides in the gap) that is impeding your progress from here to there. It is the obstacle that is the problem, not the dissatisfaction with your current circumstances!

Tactical questions always produce tactical answers!

Diet books and elliptical trainers are tactical answers and have nothing to do with understanding or addressing the core problem that is sabotaging my fitness. I could own a dozen of them and still not have pants that fit.

a major saboteur of business success. Just because you’re sweating doesn’t mean it’s working. The three most fundamental questions to ask to help get clarity about the root problem/obstacle are: What are the possible reasons I am noticing this symptom? What isn’t happening that, if it did happen, would cause the perceived gap (symptoms) to either narrow or disappear? What is happening that, if it stopped happening, would cause the perceived gap (symptoms) to narrow or disappear? These three questions also go to the heart of Core Discipline #1—Find the Unasked Question,

One of my most frequent Thinking Time questions is: “What Don’t I See?” I like it so much that it is on prominent display in my office, including as a screen saver on my computer. This question is powerful because what I don’t see is what costs me money.

Consistent execution requires dashboards, processes, best practices, standards, metrics, and accountability to measure the critical drivers, monitor the progress, reward the success, and coach/train the people operating it. Measurement allows you to see which improvements (or corrections) are required in the execution to enhance the outputs and thereby accelerate the progress. All execution must be monitored and corrected, but these refinements are dictated by the dashboards, scoreboards, and measurements. Measurement is THE key to sustainability and a culture of accountability.

Designing a Thinking Time process that works for you will be no different than figuring out any other ritual you want to create.

The key here is to obsess about obtaining the outcomes and not about finding the perfect process!

My Thinking Time is highly ritualized. I have a thinking chair. The only time I sit in it is during my Thinking Time sessions. I have a thinking pen and thinking journal: I use them only when I am in Thinking Time mode. And I follow this step-by-step process to structure each Thinking Time session: A great Thinking Time session requires a great question as the launching pad. Prior to my Thinking Time session, I will create and write down a question(s) I want to think about. (In the remainder of this book, you will find examples of various Thinking Time questions I have developed and used over the years.) Often I create three to five questions that focus on a common thread or concern. Sometimes, during the actual Thinking Time session, I might change only one or two words in a question to see if I can get a different insight into the issue I am thinking about. For example, the original question might be: “Who is my target market?” I might change this to: “Who was my target market?” I could tweak this question to: “Who is my competition’s target market?” That question could easily…

I clear my calendar for sixty minutes, which will enable me to think for about three-quarters of an hour and then evaluate/sort the solutions and ideas I identified in the last fifteen minutes or so. I have three possible scenarios for my Thinking Time questions: Create a new question. Revisit a prior question that could use additional thought. Use an answer from a prior Thinking Time session as the basis for refining/fleshing…

For most of my questions, one Thinking Time session is insufficient, but focusing for more than about forty minutes is the limit of my capacity to concentrate. I will usually present myself with the same question (or with a possibility created in a previous session) over multiple Thinking Time sessions (two or…

I close my door, turn off the phones, and eliminate all noise and visual distractions. I sit in my chair (which does not face my computer or a window), question, pen, and Big Chief tablet in hand. (I am old-school, so I always think on paper and never the computer, where too many distractions and temptations pop up.) I set a timer on my computer that alerts me when my Thinking Time has expired and keeps me from fidgeting and looking at my watch. Right…

have an empty dot (“.”). It looks like this: Question: How would I run my business if 100% of my future customers were by referral only? ABC XYZ ____ The instant I write down an answer, I always create a new dot. My mind sees an empty “.” and assumes there must be at least one more idea.

If any of these ideas are worthy of future consideration or possible action, then I schedule additional Thinking Time on my calendar. If I don’t take the step of scheduling it on the calendar, it stays on my “To Do” list and never gets implemented or addressed. (A handy tool I use for To Do lists is to identify the lingering items that keep getting transferred from list to list throughout the year and do a Thinking Time session on specific To Do items to figure out what needs to happen either to get traction or remove them from my list.)

When we really take a hard look at the people we want to emulate, we will inevitably find that they all started at the back of the line. They practiced for countless hours, stayed in line, followed the advice of a great coach or mentor, overcame numerous obstacles, had some lucky breaks, committed to being a learner, practiced countless more hours, and eventually got to the front of the line. Here is an important point: Their success was not obvious at the beginning of the journey—to themselves or anyone else who happened to be watching.

If your dream is to become rich in business, then mastering business skills is compulsory. Notice I did not say, “Improving your product or becoming a better plumber is compulsory.”

In the world of business success, four primary roles must be performed: Artist (Creator); Operator (Technician); Owner (Business); and Board (Investor). At the beginning, when the business is smaller and lacks resources, the founder must fill all these roles, which is why small business owners are always tired and stressed.

An Artist is highly creative. Artists love their ideas and their art. They live to create art and find producing it highly energizing. Most artists would love to commercialize their work product and have millions of customers applauding its creativity and beauty, but they make the faulty assumption that the key to more applause and higher sales is tweaking the product. In other words, if they could only improve their art, they could make more money.

Operator (Technician) An Operator is a great Technician who adds value through time and effort. Operators focus on getting it done. The erroneous belief is that the harder they work, the more they will make.

Owner (Business) An Owner is engaged and involved in the planning, execution, measurement, and corrections necessary to proactively lead and manage the business and employees. Owners add value primarily through leverage (team) and measurement (dashboards and financial analysis).

A great Owner runs the business end of the business by measuring results and then either fertilizes the activities that produced the good results or changes the activities that caused the bad ones. Owners know and use all the levers in the business cockpit—particularly the financial statements, dashboards, and metrics of the business—to help them make great decisions.

Thinking Time If my business could talk, what would it say? Which hat has been my comfort zone and which hats are not getting worn often enough? For that matter, which hats do I not even own, and how can I acquire them? What, specifically, have I been ignoring about my business, and what specifically needs to be corrected? What skills or tools do I need to learn (or who do I need to hire) to help me overcome the obvious obstacles that are restricting my growth, sales, and profitability? What areas of my business could be delegated (or outsourced) to someone else (who is competent and has execution intelligence) to free me up to do the things that would add the most value? Artist Hat: What needs to be created? Operator Hat: What needs to be done . . . today? Owner Hat: What needs to be structured? Measured? Planned? Delegated? Board Hat: What could go wrong? How can I mitigate the probability of that risk occurring and, if it does occur, reduce the cost?

Culture is not values or mission statements; those are ideals, not disciplines. Culture is how we treat each other, how we talk to each other, whether or not we trust each other, and how we handle conflict. Culture is about accountability, measuring, a bias for urgency, a focus on solutions, calling it tight—saying what needs to be said—being kind and generous, acknowledging one another, and expressing appreciation.

I always tell prospective employees that their talents and willingness to hit my outcomes is what will get them this job, but their ability to perform inside our culture is what will allow them to keep their job.

Rules-of-the-game conversations are a standard part of our employee coaching sessions, “town hall” employee meetings, and performance reviews.

Here is a copy of the message we require our headhunters to include in the job description for the search assignments for our businesses. We also use this exact language in our “Craig’s List” ads. If you can commit to and live with the following principles, then you are the type of person who will be successful and help our company thrive. If you feel this level of engagement is not right for you or that you’re not willing or able to participate with us at this level, we are not a good fit for you. Our expectation is that you will take the steps necessary to do what you say you are going to do and be accountable for your actions. In other words, live “Above the Line.” We understand that not every person is ready for this level of performance, and we appreciate the honesty of those who decide this is not the right place for them. On the other hand, you would make an ideal candidate to join our company if you are willing to commit to the following Above the Line principles: Accountability: See It, Own It, Solve It, Do It Become part of the solution Respect for others and their feelings Act now! Ask the question: “What else can I do?” Ask the questions: “What coaching do you have for me?” and “What can I do better?” Personal ownership and pride Reject average Show others that you care

Here it is on a bumper sticker: Anyone who says customers are #1 has lost their mind! Employees are #1. Employees are the source of all value creation.

Thinking Time What is the culture we have now? (Make a list of how people act and treat each other . . . both good and bad.) What is the culture we want to create? (Make a list.) If this were the worst, most toxic place on the planet to work, what would the culture look like? (Make a list so you can start thinking about the opposites.) What would the culture look like if we were to become the “employer of choice”? What are the culture deficiencies in our business that are preventing us from being high-performance vs. high-maintenance? What are the beliefs employees must have that have led to the culture we now have? What are the new beliefs employees must have to construct our new vision of how we treat each other and work together? What are the specific rituals we can create which will help reinforce and memorialize our new culture? What are the difficult conversations I need to have to reset our culture and create a high-performance team? What are the simple rules of the game we must adopt to create a culture in which our people are truly engaged, committed to excellence, and do their best work?

The primary reason most goals are never achieved and most budgets are never attained is because they are hollow, generalized statements of hope and not rigorous nonnegotiable standards, plans, and measurable drivers. (You’ll see much more on these topics in “Cause and Effect.”) Here it is on a bumper sticker: Generalizations kill clarity. Clarity equals power. Power is the ability to act. Whenever there is weak, ineffective, or no action, it is usually a result of a lack of clarity and/or accountability.

A statement of a plan should sound something like this: Here are the specific, measurable steps I’m taking (broken down by week) and the milestones, timelines, resources, and personal calendar time I am committing to reach $2,000,000 in revenue this next quarter. These are the names of each lead in our funnel. This is who and how many I will call on this quarter. Here is the conversion percentage I will achieve. This is the monetary value of each transaction. Here are the exact things I will do and the specific results I will generate to make certain we achieve our $2,000,000 target. I’ll be reporting on these three specific measurable things (A, B, C) next week, and you should hold me accountable for achieving all three.

As one of my original mentors told me years ago when I tried to explain why I had missed a critical deadline: “Keith, good intentions do not achieve results. You have just given me some great excuses, but no good reason for why you missed having this ready for me.”

A plan is always executable (think cookbook or Google Maps). The key questions to ask in preparing to create your plan always start with How, What, or Who. How will we achieve this outcome? What specific activities are required to be performed? Who is going to perform them? What are our standards of performance? What are the critical drivers that must be consistently executed to achieve this outcome? How frequently must these critical activities be measured and reported to be successful? Who owns this outcome?

Thinking Time How do I need to rework our plans and budgets to make them granular and measurable? What is the specific recipe I need to create to make certain the outcome we have stated is achieved? What are the specific activities and milestones we must hit in order to stay on track with our stated deliverables? Who, specifically, is accountable and responsible for achieving each outcome? What are the dashboards I need to create to make sure we are measuring the critical drivers and making corrections based on our performance? NOW . . . Go Think! You will thank me later.

successful CEO has seven primary, non-delegable jobs. If these jobs are not successfully executed, the CEO will be ineffective, regardless of her charisma or Rorschach test. Clarity on Point A and Point B: The CEO is solely responsible for understanding and articulating the reality of where the business is today (Point A) and the vision of where the business should be in the future (Point B). Candidly, the most difficult analysis required in #1 is an honest assessment of Point A. Business owners are fairly accomplished at describing the dream, but clarity about reality is rare. If your desire is to go to New York City, it is mandatory that you know if you are starting in Hong Kong or Hoboken. Different resources and timelines are required depending on where you start. (“It’s Not About the Plan” provides my insights about this critical topic.) Identify the Gap and the Obstacle: Without a clear grasp of Point A and Point B, there is zero likelihood you can describe the gap between your current reality and your desired outcome. The obstacle is buried within this gap. There is some obstruction (defined as the problem) that is blocking the attainment of the desired outcome. If there was no obstacle, you would already be there, and you’re not, so there is. Understanding exactly what is obstructing your progress and defining this as a solvable problem (opportunity) dictates priorities and allocation of resources. (Reread the basics of Core Discipline #2—Separate the Problem from the Symptom in “The 5 Core Disciplines of Thinking.”) Design the Plan and Machine: With the obstacle clearly defined, a CEO can delegate and coordinate the design of the plan and the blueprint of the machine, which will allow the organization to overcome the obstacle and get from here (Point A) to there (Point B). Building a machine for the problem that isn’t is a complete waste of time and money. Allocate Resources: All machines consume resources. A CEO’s job is to allocate the business’s resources in a way that permits the business to stay afloat and simultaneously overcome the obstacle that is preventing attainment of the desired outcome. This is a massively tricky undertaking. It cannot be all one thing and none of another. Bills must be paid, employees nurtured, and customers served while simultaneously building the machine to overcome the obstacle in the way. In other words, the CEO must plan tomorrow’s breakfast while continuing to cook tonight’s dinner. Hint: A shift in priorities without a simultaneous shift in resource allocation is delusional. Anytime we announce new initiatives or change priorities, it requires a change in how we are allocating our resources (team, time, and money). It also requires that we do less of one thing to allow us to do more of something else. None of us has the ability to keep adding without curtailing or stopping something else. Top Grade for A Players: Machines do not operate themselves. The caliber of your team is the single most…

Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

We knew that if we didn’t learn the lessons, we would be doomed to repeat them . . . an unacceptable possibility given the pain we were in.

“A mistake is not a sin unless it is not admitted.”

Catching a big wave is not the same as being a good swimmer.

A good market tends to hide mistakes. Nothing takes the place of being actively engaged in the running of your business and being thoughtful (as well as skeptical) about the future.

No team has ever won the game with an “offense only” strategy. Great teams, the ones who win championship rings, all have fantastic defenses. They think about prevention, protection, and risks.

Not all progress is measured by ground gained; sometimes progress is measured by losses avoided.

The successful people we admire are not the ones who made it. We admire the ones who kept it.

Success does not make you invincible or bulletproof. What success does best is make you complacent and egotistical, which by themselves are sufficient to create disaster.

Bench strength is critical. Find the best people and compensate them VERY well. It saves money in the long run.

Stay lean even if you can afford to get fat. Keep overhead low!

Watch your cash VERY closely. Ask yourself, “Do I really need this? Will this help me make more money?” Once the money is spent, it’s gone forever.

Thinking Time As I look back at my most significant losses, stupidest decisions, and biggest mistakes, what are the fifty most important lessons I have learned? Where am I making some of these same mistakes again? Based on prior lessons learned, what do I need to change (immediately) to avoid the dreaded dumb tax? What are the rules and disciplines I will put in place to minimize the likelihood of repeating my mistakes?

Here it is on a bumper sticker: Ordinary things, consistently done, produce extraordinary results!

Think about one of your bad habits or business practices that is sabotaging you. Is this habit the result of some ginormous thing you did a couple of days ago? Doubtful again. It was an ordinary thing, consistently done. A track record of inconsistent and sloppy team meetings with wandering agendas and no accountability is a bad habit.

Unfortunately, the root of most if not all my problems is the need for instant gratification.

Thinking Time Trying to figure out how to immediately solve a problem in one fell swoop is stupid. I might not have the final “Holy Grail” solution to all my problems, but what are five things I can do immediately to improve my situation? Where am I inconsistently executing the right thing? Where am I not practicing with the level of intensity I know I am capable of? Where are we practicing but not correcting or getting the coaching that would give us insights about what we can do better? Where am I consistently executing the wrong thing? Where have I allowed the need for instant gratification to become a substitute for picking up the business end of a shovel and consistently breaking a sweat? What are three outcomes we previously set but have abandoned because of unrealistic expectations or inconsistent execution? Should any of these outcomes be resuscitated and reprioritized with the accompanying realistic plans, resources, and time frames? What are three bad habits/business practices we have tolerated that are undermining our results? What are the decisions I must make and the hard conversations I must have to break these bad habits once and for all? How will I adjust my behavior to create the success/outcomes I envision?

FOWTW: Find Out What They Want. This is anticipating problems, identifying pain points, and discovering needs. GAGI: Go and Get It. This is design and build solutions for the problem/pain/need identified. GITT: Give It to Them. This is how you deliver a solution . . . the experience and execution.

Start with what customers want. Start with their needs, desires, and pain. Start with the gap between the solutions being offered by the competition and where they (the customers) are frustrated. We mistakenly start with what we want to sell without finding out if what we’ve “got” is what they “want.”

As Peter Drucker commented, “When marketing is done right, selling becomes unnecessary.” And his definition of marketing? Finding out what customers want. (I miss Peter Drucker’s wisdom.)

Thinking Time What do our customers want and how do I know that this is the right answer? What is the solution I need to design to meet their needs and address their pain? Do I have the ability (skill sets and resources) to successfully build this solution? How will I deliver it to them? What is the experience these customers want? What exactly is the gap between where customers are frustrated and what the competition is doing? Where can we find pockets of target customers who are frustrated with our competition? Where is the competition weak or deficient in delivering the outcomes, solutions, and value the market demands? What should we be doing to communicate to potential customers that we are the aspirin for their pain? What are the three primary problems (pains) my target market has? Where have I substituted my judgment for what I want to deliver for what the customers actually want to receive? How could I check in with our customers to find out what new pains they are experiencing or gains they want to achieve?

the two most powerful phrases in a leader’s vocabulary are: Help me understand . . . What do you recommend?

Thinking Time Where have I done a poor job of posting the speed limit (explicitly stating expectations, deliverables, and outcomes)? Who are the people in my organization that seem to require repeat conversations about the same issue? What is the “belief coaching” they need to get clarity around the correct beliefs that will enable them to do and keep their job? What is the deliverable that is missing? What is the outcome I want that isn’t being delivered? Where am I frustrated because an employee is not performing at the standard I expect (and set)? Is the problem that I haven’t set a clear standard? Is the problem a lack of specificity about what I want it to look like? A lack of training? A lack of consistent coaching (calling it tight) when the problem arises? A lack of understanding about why this is important and why it needs to be done correctly every time? Where have I created (or tolerated) a culture of mediocrity, an absence of accountability, a fear of saying what needs to be said, and an inattention to results, measurements, and periodic correction? What is the belief my employees must have for this problem to persist and what belief needs to be substituted for my employee to excel? Who needs to get an apology from me? What is the coaching I need to deliver to make sure the problem gets fixed and stays that way? NOW . . . Go Think! You will thank me later. KJC

Leverage means doing more with less.

When business owners think about leverage, they typically think about debt, which allows the business to do more with less equity.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: The price of entrepreneurial success is discipline and structure.

freedom—just as entrepreneurial success—has a price: discipline and structure.

What is the structure we need to create the progress I want?

When I look at my business, where are the opportunities for me to tighten up the structure, processes, and efficiency of what gets done?

Here it is on a bumper sticker: About the stupidest thing management can do is to announce some lofty goal for the year (“Our revenue target is $6,000,000 this year.”) without any thought about the working plan to attain it. (In “It’s Not About the Plan,” I actually speak about the value of planning.)

Goal setters tend to fall in love with the goal instead of falling in love with the things that need to be done to accomplish the goal.

What are the nonnegotiable standards we must establish? What am I tolerating in my business that is sabotaging my results or that is incongruent with my standards? How do we build in the accountability required for the critical driver standards and outcomes we have committed to achieving?

Leaders inspire . . . Managers control. To be successful in business, we need both.

What The specific measurable outcomes (or standards) you—as Owner/CEO/leader—have prioritized for the business. The primary obstacle that is prohibiting the forward progress from Point A (where you are) to Point B (where you would like to be). Clarity on this “gap” is critical to understanding the problem and converting the problem into an opportunity. (Refresh your memory about Core Discipline #2—Separate the Problem from the Symptom by rereading “The 5 Core Disciplines of Thinking” at the beginning of the book.)

How The plan or strategy your team has created (with your adult supervision and input) to overcome this obstacle. The plan will also describe the resources required to execute the plan as well as the timelines, including milestones (interim targets) and delivery dates. The process, machine, tactics, tasks, and executables required to put rubber on the road and to make actual sustainable progress. The key is identifying the specific resources, skills, training, processes, systems, equipment, best practices, and operations required to drive results.

The great dashboards that display your critical driver results in a format that allows you and your team to have immediate optics.

The Big 8 is by far the most powerful tool in my business tool belt for creating clarity, ownership, accountability, and consistency with my team.

The single most powerful force I have in my life is the words that I use to describe my situation. The reason? The label becomes the experience. Said another way, the dog becomes yours when you name it. If I lose a ton of money in a deal, I might be tempted to say, “This is a catastrophe,” and therefore my experience will be a disaster of cataclysmic proportions. If, on the other hand, I lose the same ton of money and I say, “Now this is going to be challenging,” my experience will be challenging. The experience has not changed, only the label. By changing the label, I change my experience.

Where are the sources of leverage I can capitalize on that would increase my production, revenue, or profits? What do I need to learn, or who do I need to hire, to help us create and sustain the profitability we are capable of producing? When I look at my competitors who are bigger and better than I am, what leverage did they create or what resources were acquired to attain that level of success?

What ideas have we had in the past that we didn’t follow through on?

Where do we need to improve our execution so that we are more competitive in the marketplace?

The only constant in business is change.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: The reason companies lose relevance, go broke, or fade into the sunset is because they continue to grow, but fail to evolve. They rely on the wrong questions and old answers. Great questions, an open mind, flexibility, and a healthy dose of paranoia are your best friends in business.

If you will do these three things on a regular (daily) basis for ninety days, you will be stunned at the progress you will achieve. Write down your major outcomes every day. You will notice I did not use the word “goals.” In our culture, a goal has become synonymous with a wish.

Writing and rewriting your most significant outcomes (major objectives, not “To Do” list items) forces you to focus on the most critical things that need to be worked on and accomplished.

Plan your day before it starts. This simply means you sit down with your calendar and think about the most critical action items you must knock out today. Make sure your calendar reflects your priorities every day.

Be accountable to someone for your plans, commitments, and results. Here is the truth: Our brains are simply too powerful at making excuses and creating elaborate justifications for why we did not get something important done or did not follow through on a task. We make promises to ourselves, but we break them with alarming regularity.

Having an accountability partner who will hold you to your commitments is a key ingredient to making sustainable progress and for success. Someone who will tell you the truth; someone who will not buy into your cheap excuses for why you fell off the wagon or didn’t get the job done; someone to tell you “no.”

What would your revenue be if you had no competition? How much could you charge?

The customer has the only vote on whether or not that promise was delivered.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: You can’t be important everywhere, so be important where it counts.

Who is our target market? (This question can never be addressed too frequently.) What is our promise to them? How is our promise differentiated from our competition? How do I know this promise is being successfully delivered? Why isn’t this differentiation (strength) sufficient to cause more potential customers to stop doing business with our competition and to start doing business with us?

FOWTW—Find Out What They Want. Customers do not really care about what you want to sell them, nor do they care how much you love your product. Customers care about having their needs met. The customer gets to define success.

GAGI—Go and Get It. After you are clear about the pain, frustration, needs, and expectations of your customers, your job as a business Owner is to find the pain reliever (solution) that meets their outcomes and definition of success.

The best people in the world at sales and sales training have a formula, a script, a process, or a recipe they use. They rehearse and practice that process . . . repeatedly. They rehearse simulated sales processes, ask the toughest questions, raise the worst objections, and then design answers and responses to all of them.

What is their TRUE pain/problem/frustration?

What must happen to cause a customer to buy from me?

What can I do to cause my customers to say “I would have to be crazy to do business with someone else”?

What is our niche/specialization/area of excellence, and how can we more effectively communicate this distinction?

Who is my target market? Who can I create an alliance with that also touches or influences this target?

Where can we find pockets of target customers who are frustrated with our competition? What are we doing to communicate to them that we are the solution they are looking for? What is my competition doing that is causing my ideal target customer to do business with them and not with me? What is my compelling message to this audience?

What is the promise of our brand and what must happen to consistently deliver on this promise? What do I do for customers that no one else does? What can I do for customers that no one else does? What should we do for customers that no one else does? Do my ideal customers REALLY care about these differences? What is my reputation? What am I known for? What is my claim to fame? How do customers think and talk about my business? How would I like for them to talk about my business? What must change for them to talk about me that way? What must they be convinced of to start buying from me? Why aren’t my ideal customers using me now? What is the message I need to communicate to cause my target customers to engage with us? What are the best communication channels available to communicate this message?

I love what Dwight D. Eisenhower said on this subject: “In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” I love Mike Tyson’s quip even better: “Everyone has a plan until I punch ’em in the nose.”

To quote another great military strategist, Field Marshal Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

So, why do it? Because the value is not in the plan. The value is in the planning. Being intimate with how all the pieces are interconnected and which levers drive specific results is the key to knowing what to adjust when things get off course or delayed.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: If you cannot get clarity on the plan to achieve the outcome, change the outcome. Even with a plan, you probably will not hit the bull’s-eye, but at least you will not end up in a graveyard.

As you have already discovered in your life, the critical distinction is not falling in love with the effect (outcome). It’s consistently executing on the cause.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: Whenever the effect is missing, so is the cause. Execute and manage the cause and the effect will take care of itself.

Think of causes as critical drivers and effects as key performance indicators (KPIs). Stepping on the bathroom scale is a KPI. Diet and exercise are critical drivers. Measure and manage the diet and exercise, and there is probably very little reason to step on the scales. No question KPIs are powerful

they tell you what has happened after the fact (the bathroom scale) and are not predictive of what needs to change to create different results in the future. The predictor of your weight is directly correlated to your diet and exercise.

If you want to step up your optics for better decision making as well as your level of business mastery, you must identify and measure your critical drivers, too.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: The hard part is not envisioning the outcome or setting the goal. It’s figuring out what needs to change and consistently executed to reach this outcome. If you know what needs to change and get executed, you know what needs to be measured.

Serena Williams, Jordan Spieth, and Warren Buffett have one thing in common: They are measuring freaks.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: What gets measured is what gets done. What gets measured is what gets managed. What gets measured and reported can improve exponentially.

It is so easy to major in minor things. We have a tendency to find and work on the projects we can easily or quickly get knocked out instead of the harder, more impactful projects that will require much more time and effort but will yield significantly greater long-term dividends.

It is remarkable how powerful clarity of outcomes and deliverables can be at generating momentum, focus, and results.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: Operators react and sweat. Owners think and plan. The player on the field in a football game must get psychologically jacked up and mentally erase any doubts about the ultimate domination by his team over the opponent. Mental belief and optimism are critical to high performance on the gridiron.

The pregame and halftime locker room pep talks are designed to get the players into a “peak state” so they will perform at the highest level. In a football game, the players are the doers, the performers, and they must get amped up to excel at their job.

the second candy bar is never as satisfying as the first one . . . and the tenth candy bar is even less so.

Here it is on a bumper sticker: Pleasure is about stimulating the senses. Happiness is found by being grateful for what I’ve got. Success is getting what I want. Fulfillment is giving what I’ve got.