Make sure that everyone in your company understands where you derive your revenues, and concentrate on exerting influence on state and national regulators. Also, stay focused on your primary mission and your primary revenue stream local service. It's easy to get seduced by all the fancy services and new technologies available today, but before you jump into something like electronic commerce lured by the promise of trillions of dollars of potential revenues remember the basics of the independent telephone business. You are in the business of providing high-quality local telephone service, and you can provide it through copper loops, coaxial cable, or wireless. Develop a strategic plan.
Effective planning is more important and more difficult than ever before.
Hopefully, planning is now a ritual within your company. This company competes against local incumbent GTE by leveraging its access to a long haul WorldCom fiber and going after GTE's best business customers. Develop a broadband delivery strategy. The broadband area has gone through lots of twists and turns since I first made this statement. Back in 1996, I advised you to start exploring the purchasing or overbuilding of your local cable TV system.