Rules to Break and Laws to Follow

Don Peppers & Martha Rogers, PhD, are the founding partners of Peppers & Rogers Group and 1to1 Media, the world's premier customer-focused consultancy and award-winning publishing company, now part of Carlson Marketing Worldwide. In addition to hundreds of trade and academic articles appearing in publications including Harvard Business Review, they are the coauthors of the bestselling "1to1" series of business books, available in seventeen languages. In addition, they have written a comprehensive graduate-level textbook, Managing Customer Relationships. Their most recent book was the highly successful Return on Customer, challenging companies to measure business success entirely differently, and documenting the customer base as a revenue-producing asset for businesses, capable of driving a company's long-term economic worth. Peppers and Rogers have been cited on numerous lists of thought leaders and business gurus, and serve on several boards.

"Harnessing the power of connected customers and networked employees is now the key to success and that's what this book is all about." (Bookviews.com, April 2008)

• Chapter 1: False Assumptions 1 A "Perfect Storm" of New Technologies 3Imitation, Circular Mills, and Mythbusting 4Crisis of Short-Termism: The Mother of All Problems 6Questions Every Business Needs to Answer 8Primacy of Customer Trust 12Chapter 2: "Value" Is the New "Profit" 15Jabbing at the Elevator Button in the Stock Market 17Focus Only on the Short Term and You'll Lose Sight of the Long Term 19Customers Create Long-Term Value, Too 20The Secret Life of Companies: Short Games 22Take the Money and Run 26Business Models Behaving Badly 29Short-Term Gain, Long-Term Loss 30Stupid Is as Stupid Does 34Chapter 3: Customers Are a Scarce Resource 37Using Up Customers 43Which Do You Choose: Customers or Money? 45Money Is Still the Root of All Investment 48What’s in Your Budget? 50Rethinking Your Whole Business 53Chapter 4: In the Long Term, the Good Guys Really Do Win 57Reciprocity: The Golden Rule Applied to Customers 60The Man with the Folding Chair 61Does Your Firm Practice Reciprocity? 65Customer Trust Is an Antidote to Short-Termism 68Treat Employees the Way You Want Them to Treat Customers 73Chapter 5: Increasing the Value of Your Business 79Embroider on Your CFO's Pillowcase: Customer Equity 80Ratcheting Up Your Customer Equity 84What Return Are You Getting on Your Customers? 86Value Creators, Value Harvesters, and Value Destroyers 89Getting Credit for Earning Customer Trust 92Chapter 6: Culture Rules 97Defining and Managing Culture 98Do as I Say, Not as I Do 99Welcome to the "Conceptual Age" 101Galloping Decentralization Means Culture Is More Important 104Creating a Culture of Customer Trust 109Hey! There's a Person in There! 113Chapter 7: Capitalism Redux: Greed Is Good, but Trust Is Even Better 117Reputations Go Online 120Taking the Friction Out of Commerce 122Playing the Ultimatum Game 124Technology Facilitates Reciprocity 127Technology Seen through the Wrong End of the Telescope 129Chapter 8: Customers and Honeybees 131Who's on Your Speed-Dial? 132Diverse Connections 135Customer-Inspired Innovation 138Word of Mouth: Business Opportunity? 143Chapter 9: Oops! Mistakes Happen: Recovering Lost Trust 151Competence Also Required 154Recovering Lost Trust 156Competitive Success Can Harm Trust 159Trust, Competence, and You 163Chapter 10: Innovate or Die 167Responding to Change 167Technology, Progress, and Change 169Creating a Climate of Innovation 172Supporting the Lunatic Fringe 175Creativity Cannot Be Commanded 177Chapter 11: Order and Chaos 181Efficiency Often Undermines Innovation 1833M Loses Its Innovative Mojo, Then Gets Its Groove Back 186Having It Both Ways 189Your Customers Can Help You Strike the Right Balance 192Does Trust Encourage Innovation? 194Chapter 12: The Wisdom of Dissent 199Diversity and Variety 201Size Does Matter 205Avoiding Bad Group Decision Making 206Chapter 13: Engaged and Enabled 211The Power of the Network 214Employee Engagement 216Employees with a Sense of Mission 221Giving Your Employees the Tools and the Power They Need to Create Value 223Chapter 14: Leaders Needed. Inquire Within 227The Twelve Laws to Follow 228Notes 239References 257Index 285