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One of the people who most influenced me was Ben Shapiro, a marketing professor at the business school. He used to rant and rave and pound his fist: 'It's all about the customers!' And he was right. He was also right that, at that time, retailing was devoid of really talented people; he urged me to go in that direction.

The way customers relate to brands and how profit is generated has changed so dramatically almost every professional is being challenged to reconsider what they do in order to stay relevant.

Put your consumers in focus, and listen to what they're actually saying, not what they tell you.

It disturbed me that the music industry had gone down the drain, even though people were listening to more music than ever and from a greater diversity of artists.

Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You'd be amazed how many companies don't listen to their customers.

I was finding it very difficult to find a label that understood what I wanted to do and really believed that people wanted to hear something honest and a little bit different. So, I did feel a bit like a clown. You're knocking on everyone's door trying to get them to believe what you're doing.

The goal of listening to customers is not to please every one of them. It's to figure out which customer segments serve your needs - both short and long term.

Major labels didn't start showing up really until they smelled money, and that's all they're ever going to be attracted to is money-that's the business they're in- making money.

Dealing with those personalities and the people who run this music thing has been most challenging. It's hard to really communicate things to people who run a business yet forget the nature of the business. They only look at the bottom line and the financial return, you know, they forget what it is they're packaging. It's art.

The decline of the major labels has changed the audience. They aren't force-fed by a system any more. They can make their own decisions.