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
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 The Only Strategy You Will Ever Need 1
Building Business at Bill’s Burgers 3
“Amaze” and “Delight” 3
Moruga Scorpion Peppers 4
What If He Made a Better Hamburger? 4
What Do You Think? 5
An Undeniable Premise 5
We Make It Too Complex 6
That’s the Problem 6
It Ends up Being about the Customer 7
You’re Spread Too Thin 8
The Three or Four Things 9
You Don’t Need Gimmicks 9
If You Win on the Basics, You Win It All 10
There are No Silver Bullets; There’s Just the Bomb 11
2 It’s Really Not That Complicated 13
Build Better Cars. Imagine That 15
3 So Good at the Basics That You’re Cutting Edge 17
Substance, Not Flash 19
A Powerful Lesson 19
4 Deciding What Matters Most 23
Defining the Problem 25
Somebody’s Got to Buy 26
The Main Thing 33
5 Different Answers—All of Them Right 35
Wide Open Choices 37
Joe Calloway 37
Benjamin Franklin Plumbing 39
Wine to Water 41
Pinnacle Financial Partners 41
Southwest Airlines 42
An Advertising Agency That I Read about Many Years Ago 43
Somebody at Citi Cards 45
What Fits Us Best? 45
It’s Worth Doing Wrong 46
6 Relevance, Innovation, and Constant Improvement 49
A Moving Target 51
Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today 51
Lip Service 51
Improve Constantly and Forever 52
7 Culture, Focus, and More Focus: Memphis Invest 55
A Little Company with Powerful Lessons 57
Get the Fundamentals Right 57
The Culture Book 58
A Handful of Numbers 60
Absolute Intention and Focus 61
Clarity about Expectations 61
Meetings as Opportunities 62
Relationships That Wow 63
8 Working in the Business 67
Thinking When You Should Be Working 69
“When It is Time to Work in Your Business,” by Dr. Jeff Cornwall 69
9 Three is the Magic Number: Smile Brands 73
These Three Things 75
Pick a Lane 76
The G3 Approach 76
The Power of Simplicity 76
The Ultimate Sophistication 77
So Much Less Effort 77
10 Winning and Losing Inside the Box 79
There Aren’t Any Shortcuts 81
Deliver on Your Promise Every Time 81
They’ve Taken Their Eyes Off the Ball 81
If You Win on the Basics, You Win It All 81
Barneys versus Nordstrom 82
It’s a Sucker’s Game 83
I’ll Happily Take the Doughnut 83
Your “Table Stakes” Aren’t Working 84
Bells and Whistles Wear Off 84
Glitz or Profit? 85
11 Random versus Consistent 87
What a Wonderful Story! 89
That’s the Trap 89
Regular, Everyday Customers 90
If You Lose Inside the Box 90
12 Simplicity and the Blue-Tip Flame 93
You Can Move Mountains 95
What You Need is a Force Multiplier 95
Get Your Thinking Clean Enough 96
Blue-Tip Flame 96
13 The Trap: Let’s Do More 99
Better is Better 101
Lost in Trying to Be the Best 101
For Alabama Football, It’s Process 103
Treating Patients Like Customers 104
When Patients Talk Back 105
The Patients’ Lists 106
14 Clarity, Process, and Profit: bytes of knowledge 109
How They Did It 111
The First Order of Business 112
They are a Business Partner 113
They Could Be Doing Better 113
Defining Their Culture 114
The Monday Morning Boost 115
Plug the Holes in the Bucket 116
Workflow and Time Tracking 118
Get a Checklist 118
Everything Tracked through the System 119
Educating the Employees and Getting Buy-In 120
How to Run a Business 121
The Coffee Shop Generation 121
15 What Matters Most to Your Team 125
Understanding Employees Matters, Too 127
Understanding 127
16 Culture Drives Results 131
That’s a Shame 133
By Accident or Intentional? 133
Everything in Alignment 134
Making Culture Mean Something 134
You Have to Fire Them 136
Who Would Stay? Who Would Go? 137
True North 138
17 How Brands Win 141
Consistently Better at the Basics 143
Amazon 143
Coca-Cola 144
FedEx 144
Apple 145
Target 145
Ford 146
Starbucks 146
Southwest Airlines 146
Nordstrom 147
It Works 147
18 How the Internet is Killing Hype 149
Why You Bought the Chutney 151
Consumers Aren’t Shy 152
They’re Talking about You 152
Palm Trees, Azure Blue Skies, and . . . Cockroaches 153
“I Would Like to Apologize” 155
Do What You Say You’ll Do 155
19 Leadership: Grunder Landscaping Company 157
The Kid Was the Best 159
The Responsibility of Leadership 160
Getting Buy-In 161
Spider-Man, Doughnuts, and Thank-You Notes 163
You Can’t Just Put These Things on a Piece of Paper 164
Talk about It and Live It All the Time 164
He is True North 165
20 When Everything is Pursued, the Important is Neglected 167
Too Much Pressure 169
Sister Bear’s Nightmare 169
Executing in the Game They are In 170
Purpose versus Panic 170
21 The Rules You Can Break 173
“Fortunately, We Don’t Know Any of Them” 175
Visions and Missions are Great—and Optional 175
One Size Does Not Fit All 176
Changing the World . . . Maybe 177
“We Make Great Carburetors” 179
A Purpose That Took Morale Lower 179
You’re Kidding, Right? 180
It’s Just Supposed to Be Effective 181
22 Focus 3 Ninety 183
What Matters the Most Right Now? 185
A New Approach to Focus? 186
Where Do We Improve Right Now? 186
Make It Last 187
Get Absolute Clarity 187
What You’ll Learn 188
23 It’s 11:30 191
Taking Action 193
The Obstacle of Not Knowing 193
Take Out the Trash 194
Someone Busier Than You is Running 195
It’s 11:30 195
24 Ideas That Matter Most 197
25 More Resources 201
Index 205
About the Author :
JOE CALLOWAY is a leading performance expert who has helped hundreds of companies and entrepreneurs create and sustain success through his unique interactive keynote presentations that challenge people to take action on what matters most in their businesses. Joe has published five books, including Becoming a Category of One and Indispensable.
