Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. ~ Vincent van GoghWe often set out to do great things. In our mind's eye, at the threshold of a big project, we envision ourselves landing the big contract, tackling and resolving a long time problem, hitting the walk-off home run in the 9th inning of the 7th game of the World Series or creating a product that transforms the company.
The reality is often different.
The reality is that our victories, when we have them, are often small. Almost unnoticeable. And we usually don't achieve those victories, great or small, by ourselves.
The reason this is important is that if you are only focused on the big win, the home run, you miss a lot of victories. More importantly, the infatuation with big wins is one of the reasons our society has such a short term focus. If you believe in big wins, why invest in plodding research. If you only celebrate the "big wins," what incentive do people have to keep doing the work that is almost always behind those big wins?
If we only laud and praise the relay race runner who crosses the finish line, what incentive do the first three runners have to run hard? If a softball player only plans to hit home runs, what incentive does she have to learn how to run the bases?
A surefire way to destroy a business is to focus singularly on new customers, especially big new customers. Every organization celebrates when a new customer comes on board, but if you don't also appreciate and celebrate current customers and all that they do for the organization, you will find them quickly become former customers. Small customers make up the lion's share of business for most companies.
Smart companies find ways to support, nurture and grow their relationships with small customers. Absolutely the goal is to grow them into larger and larger customers. I am not suggesting that we should be AGAINST large customers, but that we should pay attention to HOW we treat customers who are not.
