Bottom-Up Marketing
by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Tactics should dictate marketing strategy. While this may sound backward, the authors explain why it makes sense.
The tactical battle takes place in the consumer’s mind. Ries and Trout define a marketing tactic as “a competitive mental angle.”
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Treat Your Customers: Thirty Lessons on Service and Sales That I Learned at my Family’s Dairy Queen Store
by Bob Miglani
Miglani uses situations from his parents’ Dairy Queen store as the basis for customer service lessons applicable to business in general–including Fortune 500 companies like the one where he works as a sales executive. Thirty bite-size chapters in plain English make this a quick read.
The common thread throughout this book is a mindset focused on pleasing customers and earning their repeat business. Topics include customer service, up-selling, work ethic, leadership, and supplier relationships.
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Farewell to Manzanar
by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston
Farewell to Manzanar is the autobiography of Jeanne Wakatsuki, who was seven years old in 1942, when the U.S. government forced Japanese-American families from their homes, and relocated them to internment camps. She tells the story of life at the Manzanar camp, as well as her family’s difficulty in resuming a normal life after the camp closed, including her personal struggle to fit in with white kids at school.
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Rodin on Art and Artists
Conversations with Paul Gsell. Translated by Romilly Fedden.
Paul Gsell asked Auguste Rodin questions about his creative process and about art in general. This book is, for the most part, a transcript of those conversations.
Rodin’s favorite subject was the human figure. “Beauty is character and expression. Well, there is nothing in nature which has more character than the human body… The human body is, above all, the mirror of the soul, and from the soul comes its greatest beauty.”
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Real Influence – Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In
by Mark Goulston and John Ullmen
This book is about the “connected influence model.” Disconnected influence is about “getting what I want.” It’s adversarial and focused on the short-term. Connected influence is oriented around understanding the other party’s situation and “viewing your current actions as a springboard for future relationships, reputation, and results… In the real world, interactions are never isolated. Anything you do might affect your relationships, as well as your reputation, for a long time to come.”
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Policing Needham: A Story of Suburban Cops
by Lisa Brems
Much has been written about big-city police departments like NYPD and LAPD. Much has also been written about the Marshals and Sheriffs of the wild west. In contrast, Policing Needham takes a look at the history of law enforcement in the suburban town of Needham, Massachusetts. Local history is a microcosm of national history. So while the names and places in this book may be of particular interest to those with ties to the town, the stories are relevant to anyone with an interest in history and law enforcement.
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Winning the Profit Game – Smarter Pricing, Smarter Branding
by Robert G. Docters, Michael R. Reopel, Jeanne-Mey Sun and Stephen M. Tanny
Winning the Profit Game reveals the key to success: pricing which is integrated with brand management, cost management, and product development. Whatever the goal, such as market penetration, customer retention, or increasing margins, “the strategy should be reflected in the price.”
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The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
by Atul Gawande
Routine errors are frequently caused by little things that slip through the cracks due to poor communication and distractions. A simple checklist can eliminate these oversights. This book explores how checklists can improve quality and efficiency—and even save lives—in a wide range of industries. Given the crisis with health care affordability in the United States, I am impressed with the dramatic cost savings in the medical examples.
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The Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time
by Mark W. Schaefer
Twitter is a “non-intuitive communication platform” but Mark Schaefer has figured it out and experienced tangible results. “My four largest customers, five most important collaborators, and my teaching position at Rutgers University all came to me via Twitter connections.”
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The Higher Education Bubble
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
In the first decade of the new millennium we saw the dot-com bubble and housing bubble end badly. In this concise 48-page booklet, University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds explains why higher education will be the next bubble to burst. “Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them.”
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The Key Point 