In 1992, Mike Schwartz walked into a Harley-Davidson dealership in Delaware … and learned that he’d have to wait a year and half for his bike. Convinced that he could do better, Schwartz told his wife: “I’m going to buy that place.” She knew he meant it.

In the brave new world of excess supply, your customer is king. So says Peter Georgescu, former chairman of communications firm Young & Rubicam.

Here’s a winning formula from a turnaround specialist: Stick to what you are. Nobody wants a Mattel pacemaker or Ford frozen pizzas.

When he acquired high-end lawn mower manufacturer Snapper in 2002, CEO Jim Wier’s lowest-priced machine sold for about $350. Because Wal-Mart also sold six other kinds of mowers for less than $200, Wier decided to pull the plug on his marketing deal with the giant retailer. But, feeling that he owed an explanation, Wier headed to Arkansas to meet a Wal-Mart VP.

Southwest Airlines has run a profitable airline for more than three decades. Here are its secrets:

Ever hear of Internet time? It’s kind of like dog years: Each calendar year equals six Web years.

A recent McKinsey study of the world’s most profitable megacorporations finds that their achievements are made possible by some shared leadership outlooks and practices.

With America becoming a more service-based economy, it’s vital that you offer great service as well as great products. But how do customers and clients define great service?

Baby boomers knew Frank Perdue by his advertising slogan: “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” The guy even looked like a chicken. Frank Perdue really believed his chickens were better than anybody else’s. And he made sure they were.

Cristian Mitreanu, lead researcher at RedefiningStrategy.com in Chicago, maintains that, instead of strategy, leaders need a long-term focus, especially in serving customers.

Real leaders look outward to customers, even though it’s easier to focus on what’s happening in-house. Continuous improvement is difficult but not impossible. Here’s how:

Robert Crandall headed engineering and manufacturing at Eastman Kodak during the “copier wars” with Xerox back in the 1970s. He faced two problems:

You might blame sluggishness, complacency, arrogance or bureaucracy when your organization sinks into deep trouble. All those things matter, but management guru Peter Drucker showed us that none of them may be the main culprit.

Former Home Dept chief executive Bob Nardelli exemplifies some of the biggest rules of leadership:

Most people never heard of Gary Kelly until one of his planes slid off the runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport in December. But Kelly has been cleaning up after crashes for a while. For Kelly, leadership means getting the team behind you.

One of the most common blunders leaders make is ignoring the obvious. Three ways to avoid that fate:

For a while now, General Electric’s top dogs have been studying companies they admire, like Dell and Toyota, seeing how they do things and trying to figure out exactly what propels them to the leading edge. The GE group settled on five “growth leadership traits” common to all of those top companies … and copied them, of course.

In this Internet age, mail-order catalogs may seem like an ancient sales tool. But placing your product in a catalog can be a gold mine for a small business.

What do you do with company vehicles coming off their leases? Many employers now sell them to employees, a move that’s trending upward thanks to some attractive financial benefits and a new breed of technology to help manage the process.

Here are a few precepts, drawn loosely from the Lewis and Clark expedition, of maintaining a realistic optimism while leading your team into the unknown:

Visit their web sites periodically.

Surprise alone is not enough to defeat your opponent and win. But it can turn events in your favor. “Surprise,” Gen. Mark Clark once said, “is worth a thousand soldiers.” Case in point: the 1976 “Raid on Entebbe.”

Streamline your efficiency by catering to your “angels”

Granite Rock, maker of natural stone products, doesn’t accept product returns. Yet, the Watsonville, Calif.-headquartered company pleases every customer. How is that possible?

Golden opportunities are rare in business. They’re also hard to predict because they arise from random, unconnected events. That’s why practicing active waiting makes sense. Here’s what we mean: