Notes
Introduction
1. The phrase “firing of customers” often evokes a visceral reaction, especially from people with long careers in sales and who know how hard it is to create a customer in the first place. But customers can and should be fired when they collectively distract the organization from achieving its vision (e.g., value-seeking customers driving the company to address their needs when the vision might be to move upmarket), when they subvert the processes of the organization for their own purposes (e.g., by taking advantage of liberal customer return policies to repeatedly return well-used items), when they are simply unprofitable and cannot be managed for greater profitability and when the people they know and to whom they might make referrals are likely to match the same profile.
Chapter 1. Managing the New Customer—and the New Customer Relationship
1. Al Ries and Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1980, 2000).
2. Moore's Law is named after Gordon Moore, one of the founders of computer chipmaker Intel. According to this Moore, the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 to 24 months. This accurate observation has led to significant improvements in the price/performance ratios of the processors that underpin computing devices and, accordingly, not only the functionality of those devices but also entirely new generations and types of products, and increased use of computing in appliances, ...
