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	<title>Tom Hughes Online</title>
	<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com</link>
	<description>Why not enjoy the journey?</description>
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		<title>Did you review 2011?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I’m assuming you are or will be comparing your actual 2011 results against your goals for the year.  Good for you!  But once you have that information I encourage you to take it one step further. Long ago I learned how useful it can be to review or do what we called a “post mortem” [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2012/01/27/did-you-review-2011/</link>
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		<title>What&#8217;s your customer worth?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[As I work with clients to help them increase revenue a common question is &#8220;What&#8217;s a customer worth&#8221;?  If your answer is something like &#8220;the amount of a sale&#8221; you may need to look deeper. To begin it&#8217;s important to understand the long term value of a customer in order to make good decisions associated [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/11/21/whats-a-customer-is-worth/</link>
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		<title>How good do you need to be to make an impact?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I often have deep thoughts while out in the woods running.  The idea for this post came to me on my weekend long run.  It has to do with, what seems to me, to be a shift in our culture to a &#8220;winner take all&#8221; mindset.  That, if one doesn&#8217;t win they aren&#8217;t good enough. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/10/07/how-good-do-you-need-to-be-to-make-an-impact/</link>
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		<title>Why the USPS isn&#8217;t Google</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I just heard on the radio about how many billions of dollars the U. S. Postal Service is losing.  The amount is staggering.  The commentators explained that the losses were due, in large part, to fewer people using “snail mail” favoring e-mail and text messaging instead. I was then amazed to learn what the Postmaster [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/09/12/why-the-usps-isnt-google/</link>
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		<title>Running and the U.S. Deficit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[  This post is about something I first learned from my running that I&#8217;ve successfully applied to building businesses, achieving business goals and achieving personal goals. I think it could be a useful strategy for solving our nation&#8217;s deficit. I run very long distances, 30, 50, 60, 75 miles at a time or more. In [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/07/06/running-and-the-u-s-deficit/</link>
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		<title>Missed expectations or how to waste a million bucks!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This is the story of how a regional bank is, in my opinion, wasting a ton of money on marketing and advertising because they set expectations they can’t meet.  There is a disconnect between what advertising promises, what the bank employees understand, existing bank policies and procedures and the expectations of the customer. In this [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/06/29/missed-expectations-of-how-to-waste-a-million-bucks/</link>
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		<title>Sports Illustrated is Stupid</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yes I think Sports Illustrated is stupid.  In this case not because of their potentially sexist swimsuit edition, or poor content but because of their business practices, specifically their marketing practices.  I was a happy SI customer until one day not long ago I received an envelope that looked like it was from SI telling [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/05/03/sports-illustrated-is-stupid/</link>
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		<title>How do you fire a client?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was recently asked this question and thought it a good one.  It’s something I’ve done and I believe there is an art to it.  If a business relationship isn’t working for you I think you have three options; live with it, change the relationship for the better, or separate.  Let’s make the assumptions that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2011/03/04/how-do-you-fire-a-client/</link>
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		<title>Customer service &amp; capitalism</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This year my Holiday customer service experiences were varied and included traditional retailers, to Internet retailers to oligopolies.  I’m an entrepreneur and capitalist so you shouldn’t be surprised that I found the oligopolies the most difficult to work with. But let me start with some good news.  My experiences with traditional brick and mortal retailers [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2010/12/27/customer-service-capitalism/</link>
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		<title>Using risk to improve profit margins</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In my business to business sales career I&#8217;ve learned to use risk as a tool to set expectations, position my price and protect my profit margins. It&#8217;s a simple tactic that can work for you too. When quoting a project my company would offer three levels of solution and offer to structure which ever solution [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.tomhughesonline.com/2010/11/16/using-risk-to-improve-profit-margins/</link>
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