I agree with Jerry, that the difficult part is figuring out ‘which is which’. I thought I’d elaborate on what, for me makes it challenging.

Its a no-brainer to figure out which ‘investment’ is profitable at the present moment. Its tougher to figure out which one will *eventually* reach high profits.

From the standpoint of leadership and motivation, if you perceive someting or someone to be of high or low potential profits, could that perception become a self-fufilling prophecy (like in that classic study about teachers’ expectations and their students’ performance)? Is the relationship between the “observer” and the “investment” a distant hands-off relationship or more interdependent? I guess it depends.

So these two things can make it challenging to figure out which is which.

About the matrix, I am wondering if there could be only two, not four combinations. Ie, just high profit and low profit. Because total profit would take into account the cost of “maintenance” if its possible to relate them together. But then headache and sleepless nights might not translate well into a cost (although it feels like one).

What I really enjoy and appreciate about using a framework like the one introduced by Mike, is that it helps me to adopt and experience different points of view, just to ask “what if”. Thanks Mike!

Comments anyone?

Cheers,
Galvanized

This is fairly complex. I used to be an agent, and I always saw the publisher as the customer. Just follow the money. I sold projects to the publisher, and they paid me and my clients. That makes the them the customer.

But in a world of scarcity, where publishers are competing for talent, they have to treat agents and authors as the customer.

Like most healthy relationships, they work best when each party treats the other with respect and doesn’t take the relationship for granted.

Thanks,

Mike

Thanks for catching the typo. I have made the correction!

Mike

Thanks for the great post.