Eight rules to guarantee you have swag

The First Rule: Talk to a total stranger about your business, you will learn something you never knew along the way

The Second Rule: Give the customer at least one feature in the product that he or she can talk about. There is no point in talking in a language nobody understands. The human race loves to wave a flag. So ensure you plant that flag into the ground, which others can wave around

The Third Rule: Every rule you follow in your company should achieve something, even if it is only as simple as drink a glass of water after every one hour. Even breaking a rule is a rule; and science is magic that works

The Fourth Rule: Every job you produce must do one of the two things — make money or advance the brand. Also there is transformative works, which takes the files of the original creator and makes it million times better. Caveat: This happens once in a million times

The Fifth Rule: Start as close to the end as possible - and then work backwards. A huge number of books, for example, start too early, and then time plods on until it is too late, and the book launch day is yesterday

The Sixth Rule: Be a critic. No matter how wonderful the carton is, explore the awful things that could happen to them – because that is how the end user will may see. Pre-empt and see the stuff your box is made of

The Seventh Rule: Set the standards. But be aware of double standards. Therefore be on your guard. My German guru once said to me, “The key is not to get everything right, the key is to make it difficult for the client to prove that you’re wrong

The Eighth Rule: Give your team as much information as possible as soon as possible. Your team should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the job themselves, even if tomorrow you decide to extend your scuba diving vacation in Havelock Island