Author Archives: Adam Gartenberg

Continuing on a theme here, let’s look at yet another big law of small numbers.  Last week we talked about how little changes can help you double sales, and how some customers might be worth 40 times more than others.  Today I want to focus on the huge multiplier effect a small number of customers can haveContinue reading “The big law of small numbers, Part III”

I thought I’d continue on yesterday’s post with a little more about the way numbers can add up in unexpected ways. One of my favorite stories from business school comes by way of my Advertising professor.  Prior to joining the faculty, she had worked on the McDonald’s account at Leo Burnett.  She was relating a story about aContinue reading “The big law of small numbers, Part II”

Just like spaceships powered by calculations on a waiter’s bill pad, I’m always amazed at how a credit card bill seemingly filled with lots of $20 and $30 charges (and the requisite grocery bill) can add up to such a staggering high total after only a page and a half.     Let’s call this theContinue reading “The big law of small numbers”

My son’s preschool has composite pictures of previous “graduating” classes hanging on the wall of the stairwell that leads down to the classrooms.  And every morning that I’ve dropped him off, he’s paused on the landing to point to the picture of his older brother and say with a tone of extreme reverence, “That’s myContinue reading “Pride”

While in the car this morning, I heard the newscaster on our local NPR station read out the weather.  “Today the temperature will reach a high in the low 40s.”  I’m sure it was habit for him, the same way he reads the weather multiple times a day, multiple days a week. The only thingContinue reading “Habit”