I was asked yesterday to define the single most important factor in helping a business achieve phenomenal growth and success. I'm sure there are many answers to this question, but my answer typically comes down to the right people. If you can find, hire and motivate the right people, everything else is achievable.

But "the right people" means more than just hard workers, more than just type-A personalities, more than just a reputation for producing results. The right people have a deep-rooted passion for the success and satisfaction of their customers. Such passion and drive for customers, combined with the right mix of work ethic and focus, creates the best opportunity for success in any organization.

Mark Strother (pictured left with customer), a senior coach at HouseValues, epitomizes this customer passion and focus. Mark's job for the past five years, plain and simple, has been to make his customers successful. He spends every day on the phone (and occasionally in person) with his customers, teaching them what they need to do to accelerate their real estate careers.

Now, our entire organization is focused on making real estate agents more successful. But Mark embodies that better than anybody I know. He exudes passion for his job, and excitement for his customers. When one of his customers shares a success story, Mark's face lights up. He starts talking with his hands. He walks around the office bragging about the success of his customers. You'd think his daughter just made the Honor Roll. His customers are his family.

This customer passion is even more evident when Mark is on the road, working live with his customers. In Minneapolis, for example, Mark developed a state fair marketing strategy that helped one of his customer earn more than $50,000 dollars over the course of two fairs. You should see (via the power of YouTube) Mark and his customer talk together about this project. The video tells the story better than I can just how committed Mark is to his customers.

Mark is "the right people." Mark cares deeply for the success of his customers, and does whatever it takes to make them happy and successful. Better yet, his passion is infectious. Mark leads by example in his organization, and encourages others to care deeply about their customers as well.

Successful businesses, businesses with a reputation for customer centricity and intimacy, are built with people like Mark at the center.

Do you have people like this in your organization? If so, how are you helping them accelerate their impact on the business, and how are you helping their passion rub off on other employees?

There's been a lot of buzz this month about Netflix and Blockbuster Total Access, especially with Blockbuster's New Year Blitz of ads for their new-and-improved online service. I've been a loyal Netflix subscriber for years, and started using Blockbuster's Total Access a few weeks ago.

Bravo to Paul Williams at Idea Sandbox for pointing out some of the best elevator pitch writing in the marketing world today. It's been going on for years, right under our noses. Where is it? On your television, of course.

Paul points out several great examples of current and past television programs that concisely and accurately capture the premise and excitement of the program in just 1-2 sentences.

When was the last time you were able to capture the essence of your business in language this tight? And when was the last time that business or product description also excited your customer or prospect, and drove them to want to learn (or watch) more?

Read more here. Great work, Paul!

I'm a huge fan of Ron McDaniel and the work he's doing at Buzzoodle, so I'm happily taking his Buzz Challenge. As featured in his new book, Ron's challenging all marketers and business owners to accelerate the growth of their business by creating more buzz.

The list below is a fantastically diverse set of tasks, all of which can help you generate buzz. Some will take just a couple seconds, others a little longer. Some will be easy, others will take you out of your comfort zone. I can already see a few tasks I'm not comfortable with, but will push through and do them anyway.

An interesting side-exercise is to determine how many of these tasks you've already completed, or already make a part of your regular routine. How good of a job do you already do at creating buzz for your product or your business?

Below is Ron's Buzz Challenge list. As I complete each task, I'll cross it off below. Click here to get a clean copy for your own Challenge!

Email an Old Friend or Acquaintance
Contact a Stale Connection
Email Extended Family
Call Someone You Have Never Talked To
Congratulations Call or Note
Send a Surprise Letter
Any Day Card
Mail a News Clipping
Social Networking
Online Directory
Squidoo Expert Lens
Tag Your Website or Blog
Blog/Message Board Comment
Join/Participate in an Online Group
Talk to a New Person in Person
Contact a Reporter or Writer
Contact an Old Employer/Employee
Customer Follow-up
Call/Email a Person You Respect
Mini Announcements
Digg Your Site
Flickr Fun
Personal Success Email List
Did You Know? - Trivia
Instant Messaging
Text Messaging
Email a Useful Link to Someone
Testimonials
Celebrate Success
Write a Blog
Have a "Get To Know You" Meal
Host a Dinner Party
Arrange a Networking Lunch
Publish an Article
Meet More Neighbors
Send a Press Release
Give a Speech
Volunteer
Online Interview/Podcast
Conduct a Survey
Local Government Involvement
Open House
Interview a Leader
YouTube.com
Meet Business Neighbors
eNewsletter or Newsletter
Produce an eBook
Nominate an Organization
Challenge a Coworker to a Buzz-Off
Podcast Show
Host a Seminar or Training Session
Unexpected Booth
Organize a Group
Become a Board Member
Conduct a Focus Group/Roundtable
Conduct a Customer Contest
Organize a Charitable Event

Are you a small business trying to build a significant presence for yourself quickly, and for a low cost? In just part of an afternoon, you can:

Start a blog on Blogger.com, and teach people things you know. Home improvement tips, beauty advice, fashion trends, whatever you do. Blogger is free.

Register a "vanity URL" via GoDaddy to promote your blog. Just have the new vanity URL redirect to your blog, and that's your Web site! Your URL will cost just $7 bucks each year.

Start asking your customers for their email address, and start a newsletter via Constant Contact. It's free for 60 days, or free forever if your email database is less than 50 names. But if your database is between 51 and 500 names, it's still just $15 bucks a month. Your newsletter features teasers to content on your blog, which drives traffic back to your Web site. Professionally-designed templates are waiting and ready, all included in the price.

Promote your Web site and newsletter by printing business cards with VistaPrint.com. Your first 250 business cards are free, and to add a newsletter sign-up tout on the back (with URL) it's just $6 bucks. You'll pay for shipping, but that's just another $5 bucks if you do the economy ship rate.

So, you now have a custom Web site, custom URL, an email newsletter, and business cards to promote all of the above.

And your first month fees (including the annual costs) is $18 bucks. Each month moving forward, it's just $15 bucks a month.

Perfect for small businesses, right? Sure. But if you're a big company, or big agency, why not try these tools for your next marketing campaign? Your next product launch? Or your next guerilla effort? I'm guessing it'll be far cheaper than other options. And it'll take less than an afternoon to get up and rolling.

Last night my wife and I ate at Mama Lucia's, a fantastic Italian restaurant near downtown Kirkland, Washington. We eat there all the time - it has great food, a fun menu, good wine, good prices, and great service.

Last night we were seated at a table that wobbled, so we asked the waitress if they had a shim. We didn't need to be reseated, we just wanted to help fix the problem.

The manager came over and asked if we wanted a different table. Turns out, they had a larger party they wanted to seat at our table anyway, plus they wanted to fix the wobbly table and get us somewhere more stable.

The manager offered a free dessert for moving. We thanked her, but said it really wasn't necessary.

At the end of our dinner, the manager reappeared and asked what dessert we wanted. My wife chose a slice of cheesecake, and I also ordered an espresso.

When the bill came, I was surprised to see that they had comped us for both the dessert and the espresso. When I flagged down the manager and asked to pay for the espresso, she said absolutely not.

Successful, buzzworthy businesses know that little things can go a long way. Mama Lucia's might not have thought I'd blog to the world about their fantastic little restaurant, but I'm sure they knew they were creating a noteworthy experience - something that was likely to convert into at least a few repeat visits, and probably a little word-of-mouth to family and friends.

So, what's your espresso? What are you doing to let your customers know they're priority number-one? Big initiatives are great, but the little things can often have the same noteworthy, buzzworthy effect.

I wrote a couple days ago about my use of Microsoft Outlook's "Tasks" features to help me organize several aspects of my life, both professional and personal. Making lists of the things I need to do, and aggregating those lists in one place, has been quite helpful in increasing my productivity.

Getting more things done is a good first step. But I'm also getting more of the right things done, thanks to a daily "top five" list.

Let's first assume that your organization has set explicit goals for this year, and this quarter. Let's also assume that you've done the same for yourself - mapped what the company needs back to the specific things you need to accomplish this year, and this quarter, in order to succeed.

If you know what success looks like at the end of this quarter, you should be able to map that back into weekly, even daily, deliverables for yourself and your team.

And that's where the top five, and "first of five", come in.

Many people set priorities, but fail to effectively prioritize the priorities. If I have five priorities today, and get two of them done, were those the most improtant two priorities to get done? Did you get done the most important priority today?

With the myriad things on our plates each day, it's easy to focus on some of the easiest projects, or the emails in front of us, or simply be reactive to what appears the most urgent. But if we look back, that work rarely maps to the most important, most direct means of achieving our monthly, quarterly and annual objectives.

So now, every morning, I establish my top five priorities for the day. And I focus on achieving the priority at the top of the list. If I've prioritized correctly, I'm spending my time on the most important project - that day, and every day.

Tomorrow, the list simply shifts up. Today's #2 priority (assuming it didn't get done) becomes tomorrow's "first of five", and gets done.

Lists are important. Prioritized lists are better. And getting the most improtant priority done each day is far better than simply getting "a lot done."

To learn more about top five lists, and the "first of five", check out Verne Harnish's great work.

Bob Bly has started a good conversation about just how far permission can be stretched, particularly in the email marketing world.

Just because you've given a company permission to send you email, doesn't necessarily mean they can email you daily. Or multiple times daily. Unless that's what you expected, or what you requested.

Permission is not a binary decision by your customers. It's rarely black and white. Just because a new customer wants to stay in touch, and has put their email address on a signup sheet next to the register, doesn't mean they want you to move in and be their new best friend.

By effectively capturing permission intent from your customers, you can ensure that you're being as respectful as possible to 100% of your customers, while increasing frequency (and sales opportunities) with those who want such a deeper relationship.

Online communities don't really work when they're controlled by a company, brand or individual that has a vested interest in managing the conversation.