Learn How to Improve Now from a Great Futurist (No, Not Me)

8. Trusted advisors. Find printers, online service firms, list brokers and other vendors that you can entrust. Don’t practice vendor bending, he advised, in which you take your best trusted advisors and reveal nothing about the financial performance of your company.

Instead, show all your trusted vendors financial statements, your balance sheet, circulation numbers and all vital information. “Say, ‘here’s what I’m looking for’,” Libey said. “’If you can figure out how I can get 10 percent better performance and profitability, you can have half of it.’ That way, you get 40 to 50 ideas that work. Open up and grow together or close up and die. Don’t bend over your paper buyer for another 2 percent off. It’s stupid.”