“To thine own self be true” writes William Shakespeare in Hamlet. “Let your conscience be your guide” the Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio and then asks Jiminy Cricket to serve as Pinocchio’s conscience.

High market share and high profit share result from high activity share.

High activity is a sequence of related smaller activities aimed at positioning your store as the best in the areas you select. Strategic Positioning means performing different activities from rivals or performing similar activities in different ways. Differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all of a company’s activities, not only a few.

Everything, everywhere is in a constant flux of change. I like this quote from Bruce Barton, author, advertising executive and politician, “When you are through changing, you are through.”

Away back in 1970, I read Future Shock, a great book by Alvin Toffler. Future Shock was about change, and the affect that the accelerated rate of technological and social change had on society. From an historic perspective the speed of change from the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century to the “super-industrial society” of the 1970′s was mind-boggling and it has only intensified thousands-fold since then.

Establishing a positive-price perception is critical in today’s economy. Duh! But the key is perception. You should only sacrifice gross dollars when the price point can significantly impact perception.

You don’t have to have the lowest prices on everything. You don’t have to be priced the same as your competitors. You must have your customers leave your store feeling like they received a value for their total shopping experience. This goes beyond shelf prices and integrates operations and retail execution.

In the early years of my business we held very few meetings. With a small staff we were able to communicate easily and informally. But as the staff grew in size, so did the quantity of meetings, eventually leading to a meeting albatross. We found ourselves spending almost as much time in meetings than in producing our work. Something had to be done, so, well, we called a meeting! A meeting on meetings! It turned out to be a very productive meeting.

In the marketing classic Positioning, authors Al Ries and Jack Trout, probably the world’s best-known marketing strategists wrote that it is unwise to use initials for a company name. They have coined the practice the “no-name trap”. While there are successful exceptions to the initial rule, Ries and Trout warn against using the letter “w”. As “dou-ble-U” is the only letter in alphabet with more than one syllable. Unfortunately I didn’t read the book until after I had named my company…unknowingly falling into the “no-name trap!”