Be the Best at What Matters Most (Hardcover)

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