A curious mind armed with skill, experience, knowledge, and patterns can give birth to big brand revolution.

If you innovate broadly, focus on the customer experience, and deliver everyday a great product, you will gain share.

The truth is that business is simple: create great products, merchandise them at the point of sale, continuously innovate and surprise, reward and achieve a position of loyalty with your front line, and seek new truth from the market. Deliver the goods at a competitive cost. Price to earn a decent but not competitively inviting return. Not much else matters.

Epidemics of "bad" voice can kill your reputation overnight.

Looks do count. Deliver visually stunning merchandising. Engage at the point of sale. Help consumers shop with their eyes.

A curious mind does not say to consumers "What do you want?" A curious mind understands context, understands behavior, understands spending and spending patterns - the accumulation of a day's purchases, or spending over a week or a year. A curious mind asks the questions that open up the consumer to talk about her latent dissatisfactions, hopes, wishes, and dreams.

Time is a big enemy. Companies have a tendency to drift and to do what was successful yesterday. CEOs need to set a high goal, enforce a time-based output scheme and stay connected all the way down in their organization. They have to do this sincerely every day, everywhere.