Loyalty for now The first kind of loyalty is the loyalty of convenience. I am going to look around, sure, but probably will not switch to another product. Switching is risky, it is time consuming. Switching means a new account manager or moving my software or reprinting something. Switching means I might make a mistake…

Loyal customers understand that there is almost always something better out there, but they are not so interested in looking. Loyalty can be rewarded, but loyalty usually comes from within, from a story we like to tell ourselves. We are loyal to sports teams and products (and yes, to people) because being loyal makes us happy. Why…

If your product is always better, you don't have loyal customers, you have smart ones. Don't brag about how loyal your customers are when you are the cheapest or you have clearly dominated some key element of what the market demands. That's not loyalty. That's something else. Loyalty is tested when there is other better options. Its…

Writing is therapeutic, at least for me. I don’t find it a chore or a challenge. Writing to me is like song and dance it is to Africans. We sing and dance when we are happy and sad, excited, anxious. I write when I go through those experiences. When I’m happy, sad, fearful, excited and…

It does not have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one. In fact, make several. Make more decisions could be your three word slogan. No decision is a decision as well, the decision not to decide. Not deciding is usually the wrong decision. If you are the go-to person, the…

This is the chasm of entrepreneurship. The marketing department used to be in charge of talking. Adverts are talking. Flyers are talking. Business cards are talking. Billboards are talking. Trade shows and exhibitions are talking. Now, of course, marketing cannot talk so much, because people cannot be easily forced to listen. Customers have lots of…

It's rare to find a consistently creative or insightful person who is also an angry person.* Anger and creativity cannot occupy the same space, and if your anger moves in, generosity and creativity often move out. It's difficult to use revenge or hostility to fuel great work. Ironically, when you decide to teach someone a lesson…

I have been fortunate to meet a number of very smart people, people who are skilled, competent and qualified. These are people with great ideas, ideas that can revolutionise the world, yet most of these ideas never see the light of day because people with ideas are scared to implement them. Today more than ever…

You have probably met one. You might have a boss who is one, or customers who act that way. Someone does not have to be in high school to act like a teenager. (Teenagers are supposed to act like that, it's their job. When adults act like this, though, it can get really ugly.) The…