What a Baking Contest Taught Me About Finding Customers Rather than focus on your own enthusiasm for your products and services, focus on what will make your customer enthusiastic.

In an earlier stage of my career, I worked as an entry level editor at the publishing company Penguin before it merged with Random House.

Each holiday season, my division had a holiday bake-off. One department would bake desserts that would then be judged by the other. The editorial department would trade places with the publicity/marketing departments, alternating who would bake and who would judge each year.

I was really into baking at the time, bringing in things for my coworkers to eat even if there wasn't a festive holiday in sight. Not only that, but for my first holiday at the company it was marketing/publicity's turn to bake, so I had to wait more than a year for my turn.