andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

To Sell is Human

to-sell-is-human


To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth about Moving Others
by Daniel H. Pink

This book is about sales, but also “selling in a broader sense—persuading, influencing, and convincing others… Physicians sell patients on a remedy. Lawyers sell juries on a verdict. Teachers sell students on the value of paying attention in class.”

The old-school image of a dodgy salesman relied on what Daniel Pink calls information asymmetry—the seller had access to information which the buyer did not have. Clearly that environment has changed. The author replaces the old sales training mantra Always Be Closing with “the new ABCs—Attunement, Buoyancy, and Clarity.”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

Duct Tape Marketing

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Duct Tape Marketing
by John Jantsch

Jan Jantsch writes, “Marketing is getting people who have a specific need or problem to know, like, and trust you.”  The Duct Tape Marketing System is about identifying the target customer, articulating a consistent core message, generating qualified leads, educating prospects, and encouraging existing customers to refer new business.  The author presents many good ideas for marketing small businesses.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value

priceless-poundstone


Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)
by William Poundstone

Traditional economics assumes people engage in rational transactions. Not surprisingly, people make irrational decisions all the time.  In Priceless, William Poundstone draws from research in psychophysics (the study of sensory perceptions) and behavioral economics to explore the subject of pricing. Concepts such as anchoring, priming, and prospect theory (adaptation, loss aversion, certainty effect) are explained.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

The Dollarization Discipline

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The Dollarization Discipline: How Smart Companies Create Customer Value… and Profit from It
by Jeffrey J. Fox and Richard C. Gregory

Dollarization “is figuring out what your offering is really worth—in dollars and cents—to your customer.”   The book discusses the role of dollarization in sales, marketing, and product development.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

The Kindness Revolution

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The Kindness Revolution: The Company-Wide Culture Shift that Inspires Phenomenal Customer Service
by Ed Horrell

Ed Horrell writes about poor customer service in American business. “What is really surprising, however, is the number of companies that view service as the item to cut in order to make more money. They decide to focus on getting new customers at the expense of keeping existing customers loyal… They lose sight of the fact that it usually costs around five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. ”

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

The Truth about Search Engine Optimization

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The Truth about Search Engine Optimization
by Rebecca Lieb

The Truth about Search Engine Optimization explains what will improve your website’s visibility within organic search results. Just as importantly, it explains what can get your site penalized by the search engines. If you are looking for a programming manual with lots of sample code, this is the wrong book for you. Think of it as an overview of SEO for the CEO.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

The Unpublished David Ogilvy

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The Unpublished David Ogilvy: His secrets of management, creativity, and success—from private papers and public fulminations

This collection of David Ogilvy’s memos, letters, speech excerpts, and other documents was compiled by an Ogilvy & Mather executive to commemorate the founder’s 75th birthday. The writings span a 50-year period from 1935-1986. The cool thing about this book is that most of the contents were not written with the intent to be published, so it feels like a behind-the-scenes look at his management style as well as his thoughts on various subjects.

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andreweverett360 Book Review, Marketing

Email Marketing by the Numbers

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Email Marketing by the Numbers
by Chris Baggott

With a title like Email Marketing by the Numbers, one would expect the book to cover testing and analytics. “The organizations that embrace testing as an integral part of their programs simply outperform those that don’t… Rarely can the people within a company judge what is going to be successful outside of it.”

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