books

The Playbook

April 15, 2008

Every year, sales gets harder and harder. Finding qualified salespeople (the closers and hunters) is challenging. Then try to find someone who can lead or manage the salespeople. Sales Leadership is an elusive thing.

Posted in books

Business Advice

December 29, 2008

It seems that as 2008 comes to a spiraling end, everyone is giving business advice. If you run a small business, here's some of it:

No Recession from Us has a bunch of links.
Duct Tape Marketing has some thoughts from thought leaders.
Caruso on Embracing the Internet
Doug Sundheim with Showing Up advice
Predictions for 2009
Advice from SCORE
Tips for Web companies from ReadWriteWeb (directed at companies, but solid advice for all)

Other Best Of lists for Business books in 2008:

I vote for you reading Seth's best blog posts. And my own thoughts for businesses in 2009 is: Differentiate and Sell. Not be everything to everyone. Be Unique and actually sell services. Especially in 2009, although I have elected not to participate in the recession at all.

Posted in books, economy, off topic

How the Mighty Fall

June 23, 2009

When I look at the fall of Nortel (and Alcatel-Lucent) as well as banking giants, Circuit City, GM, and more, I have to ask, "What happened?" In his new book, How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins writes about how once great companies have declined. Collins goes over the summary in Business Week where he identifies five stages of decline. Nortel came to mind as I was reading it but so did Lucent.

The whole situation is best exemplified by the music industry and newspapers. They didn't want to change - couldn't see the writing on the wall. Each was stuck in a revenue model that was supposed to work forever - and never bothered to examine a Plan B. Are you certain that you are not doing that?

In his book, Marketing Outrageously, Jon Spoelstra asks, "What business are you in?" Specifically, he talks about both railroads and Smith Corona.

Posted in books, organizations

Marketing Outrageously

June 26, 2009

In the book Marketing Outrageously by Jon Spoelstra, in Chapter 13, Jon writes about radio and TV advertising. Basically, you need to dominate a show or a channel to gain market share. Spoelstra doesn't talk about market share. He thinks it's about your brand being considered socially acceptable. PR firms want you to do Frequency and Reach.

Posted in Marketing, books

Linchpins

January 11, 2010

Who is the Linchpin in your organization? It's probably NOT the CEO.

Who creates the most value for your employees, shareholders and customers?

Seth Godin's new book is titled Linchpin. It's about changing your job to become a linchpin so that you become indispensible and you get more out of your job.

People often ask me what to write about on a blog or what to tweet about. How about writing about the Linchpins in your organization? The people that create value to your customers, your community, your organization. I'm in NYC this week for the book launch and to have dinner and Q&A with Seth, so more on this topic soon.

Posted in books

Some Good Books

April 10, 2011

I like to read mysteries to give my brain a rest. My favorite writers include Barry Eisler, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Randy Wayne White, Jack Higgins, Eric Van Lustbader, Robert Parker (passed away), Stephen Cannell (passed away), Michael Connelly, and Steven Brust.

The rest of the time I am reading blogs, articles, magazines, analysis, SEC filings and business books and writing.

Here are books I thought were good:

Crush It or Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk;
Referral Engine by the Duct Tap edude, John Jantsch;
Poke the Box by Seth Godin via the Domino Project (ebook or mp3 only);
Hub Mentality by Carl Woolston (thanks Greg Nielsen!);
Evil Plans by Hugh MacLeod is AWESOME.

Posted in books

The Whole Content System

January 9, 2012

Yes the whole content system is a mess. Newspapers, magazines, book publishing, music, movies and now TV - all are old school content business models that are in a state of upheaval. Unfortunately, the people in charge of these content systems are fighting the change that is happening - happening in large part because of the Internet - instead of trying to start making changes NOW.

Posted in Internet, Marketing, books, economy, technology, video

It's Not Just About Price

April 16, 2012

This article in the NYT article about Amazon is about the book publishing industry. Amazon is waging a battle against book publishers over price. As a book buyer, I often wonder how an e-book can cost almost the same as the printed version. In this article, the publishes yell about the way Amazon undercuts their other sellers and demands lower prices - like Home Depot and WalMart.

Reading the comments, I think most people miss two points: books can still be published without publishers (although they may be inferior products) and Amazon is more about ease of business - easy to order, easy to get delivered.

Posted in Marketing, books, sales and selling

On Mergers

July 20, 2012

"Not a single company that qualified as having made a sustained transformation ignited its leap with a big acquisition or merger. Moreover, comparison companies--those that failed to make a leap or, if they did, failed to sustain it--often tried to make themselves great with a big acquisition or merger. They failed to grasp the simple truth that while you can buy your way to growth, you cannot buy your way to greatness." --Jim Collins/Time

"Be the best. It's the only market that's not crowded." - from: Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America, George Whalin.

Posted in books, mergers

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