In search of the big win

It's no accident that so many Americans are turning to life-threatening surgery to solve life-long weight problems.

This is precisely the same mindset that leads marketers to buy more SuperBowl ads instead of investing to fix customer service or to intelligently do online marketing.

Big fixes are sudden, certain and precise. They represent instant solutions to long-term problems.

The thing is, they are usually less reliable, more expensive and more painful than a more organic, slower solution.

As long as we need to show the boss (or our shareholders) that we're taking dynamic action, then the big gesture will remain supreme. Amazingly, the winners seem to be those that test and measure, live for the long haul and embrace small solutions that are easy to adjust.