The Merrill Dubrow Blog

The number 93.

Close your eyes and think about what that number means:

• Is it the weather report for Dallas today?
• Is it the number of wins I wish the Red Sox had this year?
• Is it the score my friend’s son got on his algebra test?

None of those answers are correct. The number 93 represents the number of days left in 2006.

Big deal!

So what?

Congratulations! You know how to read a calendar and you appear to be able to count.

As an executive, what it means to me is my head is filled with questions for 2007:

• What should our budget be?
• Are we staffed appropriately to exceed our budget?
• What new strategies do we need?
• What old strategies need to be revised?
• What conferences worked in 2006 and which ones will we be attending next year?
• Based on current trends in the world, what opportunities present themselves?
• What are the top three prospects we are currently working on?
• What technology do we need to add to make us more efficient?
• What products/services do we need to add to enhance our client relationships?
• What additional training programs do we need in place?

And to me this is perhaps the most important thing on this posting:

DECIDING WHAT A COMPANY SHOULD STOP DOING IS OFTEN MORE DIFFICULT THAN DECIDING WHAT IT IS GOING TO DO!

So if you’re in a market research company, is this what you are thinking about?

What else?

And if you are on the client side, tell us what you are thinking about. Are my thoughts in sync with yours? Is there overlap, or are we in different worlds—on different pages?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 8:50 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.