Indispensable: How to Become the Company That Your Customers Can't Live Without

Chapter 1. The Default Choice

Quick—Give Me a Name

If you were to list categories and say to me, "Quick, give me a name!" it would go something like this:

• Advertising agency: Engel Creative—They're the only ad agency I've used for 20 years.

• Computer services: Bytes of Knowledge—My computer crashes. They fix it. Period.

• Martini: Any martini made by Stephanie at Mirror—She is the Martini Goddess.

• Pen: Flair—My workhorse writing instrument. I can't quit 'em.

• Breakfast: The Pancake Pantry. Go there and you'll understand.

• Clothes: Saks Fifth Avenue. I buy clothes at many places, but if I could choose only one place, I'd take the men's store at Saks Fifth Avenue.

• Newspaper: The New York Times—I sometimes read three or four newspapers a day. If I could read only one, this would be it.

You get the idea. In each of those product categories, I have a default choice. These companies have become indispensable to me. I can't live without them. Well, okay, that's an exaggeration. I can live without them, I suppose, but I don't want to.

I'm always looking for lessons that I can use. That's the whole purpose of this book. To give you lessons you can use to make your business indispensable to your customers. There are many threads of excellence that the companies in this book have in common. One is that each company has established dominance in one area. They each have their turf, and you know what it is. There's no confusion about what they're good at. By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, Stephanie ...