In David Maister’s book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, he says that creating the plan is the easy part. We all know what to do. It’s doing it that’s the difficult part. Having the courage to execute; having the discipline to continually doing the right things to move your plan forward — that’s the hard part.

So:

Do you have the discipline to make less products, but excellent ones? In consumer electronics, quantity has dominated quality. This is must be flipped around. Small updates with new product numbers only serve to frustrate people who just paid for your last new product last week.

Do you have the discipline to market your device the right way? Do you use simple language? Do you avoid technical specifications? Do you gather insights from your customers so you can develop the right messages?

Do you have the discipline for powerful media relations? This means not blasting hundreds of journalists at a time with bad press releases? This also means allowing your executives to create direct relationships with media members.

The discipline is the hardest part.

Do you have it?