Winning with Customers: A Playbook for B2B

Afterword

It seems like it has taken us forever to complete this book! We started talking about tackling the project at the annual Business Marketing Association (BMA) conference in the summer of 2008. As we are writing some of these final words, it is now New Year's Eve 2009. By the time we go through the rest of the publishing process it will surely be summer 2010. Wow! Maybe it would have gone faster if we were better writers or clearer thinkers. We are certainly clearer thinkers after having spent nearly a year documenting what we have lived for more than 15 years.

In the Beginning

A good way to finish the book might be to go back to the beginning and reread some of the opening words and reflect now that you've had a chance to get a little deeper with us. Glenn Dalhart wrote the preface. Glenn has followed us closely for almost 10 years. He has a great perspective on the big picture of what we are up to. He wrote:

"I believe that CVC draws its power from the ingenious combination of three powerful business principles: outside-in thinking, competitive advantage, and continuous improvement (e.g., Kaizen/Six Sigma). First, CVC is absolutely focused on understanding and measuring value from the customer's point of view. This point of view is critical and is differentiated from the approach taken by most businesses that ask the question: 'How profitable (to me) is this customer?' CVC turns that table and asks a much different and more powerful question: 'Do you (the customer) make more ...