Twelve standard forms of value

1) Product : Create a single tangible item or entity, then sell and deliver it for more than what it cost to make
2) Service, Provide help or assistance then charge a fee for the benefits rendered
3) Shared resource: Create a durable asset that can be used by many people then charge for access
4) Subscription

Hidden benefts of competition

When any two markets are equally attractive in other respects, you are better off choosing the one with competition to enter
It shows that there is a market of paying customers for this idea, eliminating your biggest risk,
The existence of a market means you are already on the right side of the iron law of the market

Ten ways to evaluate the market

1) Urgency: How urgently do people want or need this right now
2) Market size :  How many people are actively purchasing things like this?
3) Pricing potential: What is the highest price a typical customer would pay for a solution
4) Cost of customer acquisition: how easy is it a to acquire a new customer? On average, how much will it cost to generate a sale in both money and effort?
5) Cost of value delivery: How much would it cause to create and deliver the value offered, both in money and effort? Delivering files via the internet is almost free, inventing a product costs millions
6) Uniqueness of offer : how unique is your offer versus competing offerings in the market and how easy is it for potential competitors to copy you?
7) Speed to market: how quickly can you create something to sell
8) Up front investment: how much will you have to invest before you are ready to sell
9) Upsell potential: Are there related secondary efforts that you could also present to purchasing customers? (Customers who purchase razors need shaving cream and extra blades as well; buy a frisbee and you wont need another unless you lose it)
10) Evergreen potential: Once the initial offer has been created, how much additional work will you have to put into it in order to continue selling?

Core human drives

Useful to have a basic understanding of what people want

1) The drive to acquire: Desire to obtain or collect physical objects as well as immaterial qualities like status power and influence
2) The drive to bond: The desire to feel valued and loved by forming relationships with others, either platonic or romantic, business enhancing self attraction and deep connection ( Hospitality/Grooming services, dating agencies)
3) The drive to learn: The desire to satisfy our curiosity (Education workshops)
4) Drive to defend: Desire to protect ourselves and loved ones and property (Legal services/insurance)
5) Drive to feel: The desire for sensory stimulus intense emotional experiences, pleasure excitement and entertainment (Theme parks, drama, theatre, cinema, games)

Economically Valuable skills

Not every skill or area of knowledge is economically valuable, making the leap from personal enjoyment to products and services will bring in payment/revenue

Five parts of every business

Value creation: Discovering what people need or want, then creating it
Marketing: Attracting attention and building demand for what you have created
Sales: Turning prospective customers into paying customers
Value delivery: Giving your customers what they promised and ensuring they are satisfied
Finance: Bringing in enough money to keep going and make your effort worthwhile

body language

Eye contact: The more the better, up to visual intrusiveness.
Facial expression: Be lively, smile a lot, look interested.
Head movements: Nod to show interest, keep your chin up.
Gestures: Be expressive and open, without overdoing it.
Posture: Stand erect, lean forward to show interest, lean back to be informal.
Proximity and orientation: Get as close as you can to people without crowding.
Bodily contact: Touch as often as you can without causing offense.
Appearance and physique: Go for color in dress, fitness in physique.
Timing and synchronization: Speed up your activities to just before the point of inefficiency

Streamlining fundamentals

1) Process to be streamlined needs to be chosen based on how valuable it is to the organization
2) Mistake to improve too many processes at one time
3) Good database to measure performance of current process should be in place before you make changes to the process
4) The way to begin is to ask whether the process is essential to the organization
simplication is better than computerization
5) Simplification is better than computerization
6) the real value of a process is how well it interacts with the other processes
7) the best designed process is worthless if it is not accepted by the people using it
8) excellent communication and trust are key elements in making the streamlined process methodology a success
9) the executive team needs to understand and fully support the SPI methodology and output from the process improvement team
10) external customer is the one who defines what the output from the process needs to be
11) combination of process and internal customer requirements must provide the organization with the best overall value internal customers desires may not be honored unless they add value to the organization
12) key process improvement indicators are increased external customer satisfaction, reduced output costs, reduced cycle time and increased employee morale
13) risks have to be understood before any changes are made to the process
14) employees assigned to the pit should enjoy reduced workload of 20 to 40 percent
15) variation in the cycle time and output quality should be minimized

Throughput

Throughput is the rate at which a system achieves its desired goal
Throughput is a measure of effectiveness of your value stream

Dollar throughput: measure of how quickly your overall business system creates a dollar of profit
Unit throughput: measure of how much time it takes to create an additional unit for sale
Satisfaction throughput: measure of how much time it takes to create a happy satisfied customer.

Value creation

Economic values for consideration when making a purchase:

Efficacy: How well does it work
Speed: How quickly does it work
Reliability: can i depend on it to do what i want
ease of use: how much effort does it require
flexibility: how many things does it do
status: how does it affect the way others perceive me
aesthetic appeal: how attractive or otherwise aesthetically pleasing is it
emotion: how does it make me feel
cost: how much do i have to give up to get this

Economic values

Values to consider before purchase:
Efficacy: How well does it work
Speed: How quickly does it work
Reliability: Can I depend on it to do what I want
Ease of use: How much effort does it require
Flexibility: How many things does it do
Status: How does it affect the way others perceive of me
Aesthetic appeal: How attractive or otherwise aesthetically pleasing is it
Emotion: How does it make me feel
Cost: How much do I have to give up to get this

Decision

Collect just enough information to make an informed decision and commit to it.
Life doesnt stop if you refuse to choose, world will move forward and you may choose to abdicate by choosing default.

Priming

Priming is a method of consciously programming your brain to alert you when particular information is present in your environment.
One of the fasinating ramifications of our brain's pattern matching function is that we are constantly scanning the environment for some useful information
Before reading, find out why you want to read this material and what kind of information you are looking for.
After defining your purpose, pick up the book and flip it through quickly.
The process only takes a few minutes but the impact it has on your reading speed is profound.
Brain filters out unnecessary.

Goals

Goals are useful if they are framed in a positive immediate concrete and specific format

Positive refers to motivation, goal should be something to move forward towards, not away from.
Immediate refers to time scale, goals should be things that you decide to make progress now on
Concrete means you are able to see the results in the real world
Specific means you are able to define exactly what when and when you are going to achieve your goal.

Cognitive switching penalty

Everytime you switch the focus of your attention from one subject to another you incur the Cognitive switching penalty. In order to take action, the brain has to load the context of what you are doing into working memory and if you constantly switch the focus of your attention, you are forcing your brain to spend time and effort trashing, loading and reloading contexts over and over again
That's why it is possible to spend an entire day getting nothing done
The cognitive switching penalty is a friction cost, the less you switch the lower the cost
T o avoid this, batching strategy is required.
Instead of attempting to juggle both responsibilities at the same time, i batch them together, dedicate time blocks to accomplishing those tasks.

Monoidealism

State of focusing your energy and attention on only one thing, without conflicts
It is often called a flow state
\State of human attention at its most productive
Eliminate potential distractions and interruptions
Eliminate inner conflicts
Kickstart the attention process by doing a dash
Pomodoro technique
Focus on an activity or task for a fixed block of time until its over, indivisible

Business

Every successful business
1) Creates or provides something of value
2) that other people want or need
3) at a price they are willing to pay
4) in way that satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations
5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operations

At the core of every business is
1) Value creation (discovering what people need or want and creating it)
2) Marketing (Attracting attention and building demand for what you have created)
3) Sales (Turning prospective customers into paying customers)
4) Value Delivery ( Giving your customers what you have promised and ensuring that they are satisfied)
5) Finance ( Bringing in enough money to keep going and make your effort worthwhile)

Iron law of the market is cold hard and unforgiving: fundamentally limited by the size and quality of the market it attempts to serve

Jamie Dimon's LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES

- Self-discipline, a work ethic, and a dedication to continuous improvement
- Fortitude and a penchant for action
- The ability to set high standards of performance and integrity. "Compare yourself to the best," he advised, "and treat other people the way you treat your parents. Do the right thing, not the expedient thing."
- Analytical skills that take a hard, honest look at all the facts, including "things we're not doing well."
- A willingness to share information with others and to use it as the basis for making the right decision. For that to happen, everyone a leader works with should feel free to engage in open, uninhibited conversations and discussions. "Have many truth tellers around you, not just one."
- A sense of the importance of loyalty, meritocracy, and teamwork in the context of the success of the entire organization. If someone is not doing the job, loyalty to organization trumps loyalty to the individual, Dimon explained.
- A feel for a firm's morale - something that can be severely damaged by organizational bureaucracy and politics
- Respect for everyone at every level, from the CEO on down
- A skill set that can "get compensation right" based on hard work and contributions to the company, including helping other employees. Long-term deals for CEOs and other top executives don't pass muster with Dimon ("I shouldn't have to bribe you to join us."), nor do compensation programs that automatically penalize failure. Leaders should be able to adjust for the fact that a person tried but ended up being wrong, he said.
- A sense of humility, based on the acknowledgement that no one rises to a leadership position without the help of others, beginning with one's parents.

Present like Steve Jobs

Key techniques to inspire not just deliver information in speech

1) "Clearly something in the air today" phrase
      UNVEIL A SINGLE HEADLINE TO SET or set the direction for THE THEME
      Make your theme clear and consistent

2) Provide the outline for presentation and verbally open and close each passage/section with a clear transition

3) Make it easy for your listeners to follow the story, outline will serve as guideposts along the way

4) Wow your audience with powerful phrases, dont be stiff,formal and lack bombast

5) Make numbers and statistics meaningful, make analogies for audience to connect the dots, contextualize it

6) Make presentation visual and simple

7) Rehearse