Should Companies Focus on New or Existing Customers?

I've read two very interesting articles this week about customer focus:

In Keep Those Customers! on Inc.com Howard Greenstein says that companies focus so much of their energies on obtaining new customers that they ignore the customers they already have.  Christopher Penn, Vice President, Strategy and Innovation at Blue Sky Factory Email Marketing, quantifies this perspective:

A good marketer in general can move 10% of the attention they create into qualified leads. With good customer retention, good service, good product, you have a huge amount of control about keeping your customers. They’re yours to lose.

Not everyone agrees.  In Dear Catalog CEOs: New Customers, Kevin Hillstrom at MineThatData.com points out that no matter how customer-centric your company is there will always be customer turnover.  He addresses the idea of building customer loyalty directly:

If there were easy ways to increase customer loyalty, everybody would be doing it and loyalty would dramatically improve and the economy wouldn't be a mess, right?

His suggestion: "Focus a disproportionate amount of time and energy on finding new customers."  His point is that there are far more ways for companies to acquire new customers than ways for them to improve their customer retention rates.

A successful company should strive to both earn new customers and to please existing customers, but often resources are spread thin.  Which should be the priority?  Should companies give the majority of their focus to existing customer relationships or to creating new customers?

Do Meetings Have to be Boring?

I've mentioned previously how frustrated I get with meetings, and I know I'm certainly not alone.  I spent most of my afternoon today in an especially dull one.  There were four or five different presenters, many of whom repeated things that had already been said.  Everyone read from Powerpoint slides.  It was painful.

I wanted to write a few thoughts on how to make meetings less torturous, but unfortunately my brain has shut down for the day.  Luckily I found some posts that present some great ideas:
Make Meetings Fun
How To Make Meetings Less Boring, Super-Soakers Included

I don't recommend trying anything from this post, but if you do please let me know :)
Tricks to Liven up a Meeting

Tiger's Apology Is Too Little, Too Late

I have tried my best to ignore everything about the Tiger Woods scandal.  His personal life is of no interest to me, and frankly I'm sick of hearing about it.  That being said, I had to watch his recent apology to see how he handled it.  If you haven't seen it yet check out the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs8nseNP4s0

I'm not sure many people watching will view his apology as sincere.  Why did he wait for 3 months to issue an apology?  Did he think it would blow over?  Did he think people would just forget about it?  He had an opportunity to speak up early on (he did vaguely apologize for his "transgressions" on December 2nd) but this press conference only took place after he lost several sponsors. 

Businesses tend to make this same critical mistake.  They often try to salvage their image by denying any wrongdoing:

Ford and Firestone blame each other for deadly tires

Occasionally companies do it the right way:

Tylenol's quick recall causes only slight dip in stock prices

Don't wait for the public to demand an apology.  Once a mistake has been made get in front of it as quickly as possible.  Accept full, unconditional responsibility.  Apologize.  Then perhaps you can move forward.