Be the Best at What Matters Most: The Only Strategy You will Ever Need

Be the Best at What Matters Most: The Only Strategy You will Ever Need

Released March 2013
Publisher(s): Wiley
ISBN: 9781118569870

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Book description

Winners in business aren't the ones who do the most things; the winners are the ones who do the most important things

Be the Best at What Matters Most. is about the one essential strategy for business leaders, entrepreneurs, owners, managers and those who want to be one. Simplify, focus, and win by outperforming all your competition on those things that create real value for the customer. This is about substance, not flash, and the ultimate "wow" factors of high quality performance, consistency and relentless improvement.

  • Thought provoking questions, activities, and action steps are built into every section of the book

  • Author Joe Calloway, an International Speakers Hall of Fame inductee, has been a popular business speaker for thirty years and worked with hundreds of companies to help them create and sustain success

  • Author has published four books with Wiley

Be the Best at What Matters Most will help you and your team focus on taking the actions that maximize results, growth, and profit.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Chapter 1: The Only Strategy You Will Ever Need
    1. Building Business at Bill's Burgers
    2. “Amaze” and “Delight”
    3. Moruga Scorpion Peppers
    4. What If He Made a Better Hamburger?
    5. What Do You Think?
    6. An Undeniable Premise
    7. We Make It Too Complex
    8. That's the Problem
    9. It Ends Up Being about the Customer
    10. You're Spread Too Thin
    11. The Three or Four Things
    12. You Don't Need Gimmicks
    13. If You Win on the Basics, You Win It All
    14. There Are No Silver Bullets; There's Just the Bomb
  6. Chapter 2: It's Really Not That Complicated
    1. Build Better Cars. Imagine That
  7. Chapter 3: So Good at the Basics That You're Cutting Edge
    1. Substance, Not Flash
    2. A Powerful Lesson
  8. Chapter 4: Deciding What Matters Most
    1. Defining the Problem
    2. Somebody's Got to Buy
    3. The Main Thing
  9. Chapter 5: Different Answers—All of Them Right
    1. Wide Open Choices
    2. Joe Calloway
    3. Benjamin Franklin Plumbing
    4. Wine to Water
    5. Pinnacle Financial Partners
    6. Southwest Airlines
    7. An Advertising Agency That I Read about Many Years Ago
    8. Somebody at Citi Cards
    9. What Fits Us Best?
    10. It's Worth Doing Wrong
  10. Chapter 6: Relevance, Innovation, and Constant Improvement
    1. A Moving Target
    2. Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today
    3. Lip Service
    4. Improve Constantly and Forever
  11. Chapter 7: Culture, Focus, and More Focus: Memphis Invest
    1. A Little Company with Powerful Lessons
    2. Get the Fundamentals Right
    3. The Culture Book
    4. A Handful of Numbers
    5. Absolute Intention and Focus
    6. Clarity about Expectations
    7. Meetings as Opportunities
    8. Relationships That Wow
  12. Chapter 8: Working in the Business
    1. Thinking When You Should Be Working
    2. “When It Is Time to Work in Your Business,” by Dr. Jeff Cornwall
  13. Chapter 9: Three Is the Magic Number: Smile Brands
    1. These Three Things
    2. Pick a Lane
    3. The G3 Approach
    4. The Power of Simplicity
    5. The Ultimate Sophistication
    6. So Much Less Effort
  14. Chapter 10: Winning and Losing Inside the Box
    1. There Aren't Any Shortcuts
    2. Deliver on Your Promise Every Time
    3. They've Taken Their Eyes Off the Ball
    4. If You Win on the Basics, You Win It All
    5. Barneys versus Nordstrom
    6. It's a Sucker's Game
    7. I'll Happily Take the Doughnut
    8. Your “Table Stakes” Aren't Working
    9. Bells and Whistles Wear Off
    10. Glitz or Profit?
  15. Chapter 11: Random versus Consistent
    1. What a Wonderful Story!
    2. That's the Trap
    3. Regular, Everyday Customers
    4. If You Lose Inside the Box
  16. Chapter 12: Simplicity and the Blue-Tip Flame
    1. You Can Move Mountains
    2. What You Need Is a Force Multiplier
    3. Get Your Thinking Clean Enough
    4. Blue-Tip Flame
  17. Chapter 13: The Trap: Let's Do More
    1. Better Is Better
    2. Lost in Trying to Be the Best
    3. For Alabama Football, It's Process
    4. Treating Patients Like Customers
    5. When Patients Talk Back
    6. The Patients' Lists
  18. Chapter 14: Clarity, Process, and Profit: bytes of knowledge
    1. How They Did It
    2. The First Order of Business
    3. They Are a Business Partner
    4. They Could Be Doing Better
    5. Defining Their Culture
    6. The Monday Morning Boost
    7. Plug the Holes in the Bucket
    8. Workflow and Time Tracking
    9. Get a Checklist
    10. Everything Tracked through the System
    11. Educating the Employees and Getting Buy-In
    12. How to Run a Business
    13. The Coffee Shop Generation
  19. Chapter 15: What Matters Most to Your Team
    1. Understanding Employees Matters, Too
    2. Understanding
  20. Chapter 16: Culture Drives Results
    1. That's a Shame
    2. By Accident or Intentional?
    3. Everything in Alignment
    4. Making Culture Mean Something
    5. You Have to Fire Them
    6. Who Would Stay? Who Would Go?
    7. True North
  21. Chapter 17: How Brands Win
    1. Consistently Better at the Basics
    2. Amazon
    3. Coca-Cola
    4. FedEx
    5. Apple
    6. Target
    7. Ford
    8. Starbucks
    9. Southwest Airlines
    10. Nordstrom
    11. It Works
  22. Chapter 18: How the Internet Is Killing Hype
    1. Why You Bought the Chutney
    2. Consumers Aren't Shy
    3. They're Talking about You
    4. Palm Trees, Azure Blue Skies, and . . . Cockroaches
    5. “I Would Like to Apologize”
    6. Do What You Say You'll Do
  23. Chapter 19: Leadership: Grunder Landscaping Company
    1. The Kid Was the Best
    2. The Responsibility of Leadership
    3. Getting Buy-In
    4. Spider-Man, Doughnuts, and Thank-You Notes
    5. You Can't Just Put These Things on a Piece of Paper
    6. Talk about It and Live It All the Time
    7. He Is True North
  24. Chapter 20: When Everything Is Pursued, the Important Is Neglected
    1. Too Much Pressure
    2. Sister Bear's Nightmare
    3. Executing in the Game They Are In
    4. Purpose versus Panic
  25. Chapter 21: The Rules You Can Break
    1. “Fortunately, We Don't Know Any of Them”
    2. Visions and Missions Are Great—and Optional
    3. One Size Does Not Fit All
    4. Changing the World . . . Maybe
    5. “We Make Great Carburetors”
    6. A Purpose That Took Morale Lower
    7. You're Kidding, Right?
    8. It's Just Supposed to Be Effective
  26. Chapter 22: Focus 3 Ninety
    1. What Matters Most Right Now?
    2. A New Approach to Focus?
    3. Where Do We Improve Right Now?
    4. Make It Last
    5. Get Absolute Clarity
    6. What You'll Learn
  27. Chapter 23: It's 11:30
    1. Taking Action
    2. The Obstacle of Not Knowing
    3. Take Out the Trash
    4. Someone Busier Than You Is Running
    5. It's 11:30
  28. Chapter 24: Ideas That Matter Most
  29. Chapter 25: More Resources
  30. Index

Product information

  • Title: Be the Best at What Matters Most: The Only Strategy You will Ever Need
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: March 2013
  • Publisher(s): Wiley
  • ISBN: 9781118569870