Yesterday I had one of those rare moments when I was feeling “caught up,” and so with a little free time I decided to do something really important.  I selected two existing clients.  I visited their websites and read their latest news and financial reports.  Next, I did a Google search and read some of the results.  Then I logged on to my Merrill Lynch account and read the latest research reports.  All of this took about an hour and I learned a ton of new things about my clients.

With this new knowledge, I thought about what value I could add that I am not adding today—a one-man brainstorm.  I put everything I thought of on the list.  Some of my ideas were free and easy to implement; others would require a fee.  Either way, they went on the list.  I came up with some very good thinking.  I narrowed the list for each client with a mix of free things (like a relevant white paper that I got from Harvard) and a few things that would require an investment from my client.