On Buffett...

Ah, Warren Buffett. In addition to investing philosophy, what can he teach us? How about fact-based decision-making and the art of contingency:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122403066764234719.html

In Carroll's review of "The Snowball", a biography of Warren Buffett by Alice Schroeder, she walks through Buffett's ability to take "a close look at an investment's intrinsic value, making a brutal evaluation of its risks, and calculating a margin of safety. The book also underscores the importance of learning from failures. The Buffett-Munger approach is to "invert, always invert. Turn a situation or problem upside down. Look at it backward. What's in it for the other guy? What happens if all our plans go wrong? Where don't we want to go, and how do you get there? Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead."

A great way to look at investing --- and any other problem for that matter...

Customer Advocacy and Your Business...

Ever since Frederick Reichheld's book The Loyalty Effect was published, marketers have been talking about the role of customer loyalty as a revenue and profit driver. Now that nearly 12 years have past, the critical question remains --- how is loyalty established?

Many sources now consider customer advocacy to be a critical driver of loyalty, and ultimately an organization's financial success. Forrester defines customer advocacy as "the perception on the part of customers that a firm does what's best for them, not just what's best for its own bottom line." Within the financial services space, Forrester notes a strong correlation between customer advocacy and an organizations:

• Simplicity
• Transparency
• Benevolence
• Trustworthiness

Do these qualities ring true as you think about your "advocacy" to various companies? How successful does your organization foster this type of advocacy? Is the relationship that an organization develops with its customers reciprocal?

In the final analysis, I believe the question really does go back to one of value and trust. In situations where I sense that a relationship is "just about the money" it certainly alters my perception of the strength of that relationship. Can we ultimately expect anything else from our customers?

Hiring Others: Price vs. Quality

As an "article poster", I haven't been adding a lot of value with specific comments, just locating content that I feel might be valuable. This one is a gem. It's a WSJ article that really articulates the thought process that folks like me go through in finding the best resource for a specific need. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but it's usually about the "passion and patience" of the vendor, not price. A great lesson for those of us marketing "value-added" products that compete with the Wal-mart's of the world.

Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118349567648257051-search.html?KEYWORDS=character+counts&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month.