Book Description
In Mavericks at Work, Fast Company cofounder William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre, a longtime editor at the magazine, give you an inside look at the "most original minds in business" wherever they find them: from Procter & Gamble to Pixar, from gold mines to funky sandwich shops. Want to stop doing business as usual? Then take some lessons from the 32 maverick companies Taylor and LaBarre profile.
Questions for William C. Taylor and Polly LaBarre
Amazon.com: Whom do you think this book will appeal to?
Taylor and LaBarre: This book should appeal to a wide "coalition" of business leaders and innovators--impatient, change-minded executives in big companies, senior leaders in smaller, entrepreneurial companies, young people with big dreams about their future and their careers. This book should inform and energize anyone and everyone who wants to do big things in business by shaking up the status quo and challenging the powers-that-be. One important point: We strongly believe that this book should appeal to women as well as men. It is not meant to be an uptight, starched-shirt type read--your typical all-male business book. The book doesn't target women executives per se, but we believe it will appeal to men and women alike.
Amazon.com: What's the story behind the book?
Taylor and LaBarre: In one sense, Mavericks at Work has been 18 months in the making. That's the amount of time that the two of us spent totally focused on the travel, research, interviewing, and writing to create Mavericks at Work. In another sense, this book reflects more than a decade's worth of learning, thinking, and writing about the best way to do business and the new cast of companies and individual leaders that represent the face of business at its best. First at that classic voice of the business establishment, Harvard Business Review, and then at the new-generation magazine that he cofounded, Fast Company, Bill Taylor has been traveling the world, visiting companies, and interviewing great business leaders. Much the same goes for Polly LaBarre--first at the venerable IndustryWeek magazine, and then as one of the original members of the Fast Company team, Polly has made it her speciality to discover, understand, and chronicle the most exciting and innovative leaders in business.
With respect to Mavericks, the book reflects our in-depth access to the 32 companies featured in the book. This is anything but an "armchair" business book. We logged tens of thousands of miles and spent countless hours visiting, conducting interviews at, and participating in meetings, training sessions, and events inside a wide variety organizations. We went deep inside these organizations, looking to understand the ideas they stand for and the ways they work. We participated in a filmmaking class at one of the world's most successful movie studios. We attended a closed-to-the-public awards ceremony at Radio City Music Hall, where employees of what has to be the world's most entertaining bank sang, danced, and strutted their stuff. We sat in on a crucial monthly meeting (the 384th such consecutive meeting over the last 32 years) in which top executives and front-line managers of a $600-million employee-owned company share their most sensitive financial information and most valuable market secrets. We walked the corridors of a 120-year-old research facility where a team of change-minded R&D executives is transforming how one of the world's biggest companies develops new ideas for consumer products. We walked the streets of Manhattan with teams of employees from a hard-charging hedge fund, who were sizing up ideas about stock-market picks.
Amazon.com: What makes this book relevant today?
Taylor and LaBarre: We believe that this is the right book at the right time, with a set of messages and a collection of practices that will inspire business executives and entrepreneurs to bring out the best in their companies, their colleagues, and themselves. Why this book now? Because business needs a breath of fresh air. We are, after five long years, coming out of a dark and trying period in our economy and society--an era of slow growth and dashed expectations, of criminal wrongdoing and ethical misconduct at some of the world's best-known companies. But NASDAQ nuttiness already feels like time-capsule fodder, the white-collar perp walk has become as routine as an annual meeting, and the triumphant return of me-first moguls like Donald Trump feels like a bad nostalgia trip, the corporate equivalent of a hair-band reunion. We've seen the face of business at its worst, and it hasn't been a pretty sight. This book is intended to persuade readers of the power of business at its best.
Which speaks to one of our major goals for Mavericks at Work--to restore the promise of business as a force for innovation, satisfaction, and progress, rather than as a source of revulsion, remorse, and recrimination. Indeed, despite all the bleak headlines and blood-boiling scandals over the last five years, the economy has experienced a period of transformation and realignment, a power shift so profound that we're just beginning to appreciate what it means for the future of business—and for how all of us go about the business of building companies that work and doing work that matters.
In industry after industry, organizations and executives that were once dismissed as upstarts, as outliers, as wildcards, have achieved positions of financial prosperity and market leadership. There's a reason the young billionaires behind the most celebrated entrepreneurial success in recent memory began their initial public offering (IPO) of shares with a declaration of independence from business as usual. "Google is not a conventional company," read their Letter from the Founders. "We do not intend to become one."
Nor does the unconventional cast of characters readers will encounter in this book. From a culture-shaping television network with offices in sun-splashed Santa Monica, California, to a little-known office-furniture manufacturer rooted in the frozen tundra of Green Bay, Wisconsin, from glamorous fields such as advertising, fashion, and the Internet, to old-line industries such as construction, mining, and household products, they are winning big at business--attracting millions of customers, creating thousands of jobs, generating tens of billions of dollars of wealth--by rethinking the logic of how business gets done.
Alan Kay, the celebrated computer scientist, put it memorably some 35 years ago: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." We believe the companies, executives, and entrepreneurs you'll meet in the pages that follow are inventing a more exciting, more compelling, more rewarding future for business. They have devised provocative and instructive answers to four of the timeless challenges that face organizations of every size and leaders in every field: how you make strategy, how you unleash new ideas, how you connect with customers, how your best people achieve great results.
Amazon.com: Can you give us a brief summary of your book--in 250 words or less?
Taylor and LaBarre: This book is a report from the front lines of the future of business. It is not a book of best practices. It is a book of next practices--a set of insights and a collection of case studies that amount to a business plan for the 21st century, a new way to lead, compete, and succeed.
Our basic argument is as straightforward to explain as it is urgent to apply: When it comes to thriving in a hyper-competitive marketplace, "playing it safe" is no longer playing it smart. In an economy defined by overcapacity, oversupply, and utter sensory overload--an economy in which everyone already has more than enough of whatever it is you're selling--the only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for a truly distinctive set of ideas about where your company and industry can and should be going. You can't do big things as a competitor if you're content with doing things a little better than the competition.
This book is devoted to the proposition that the best way to out-perform the competition is to out-think the competition. Maverick companies aren't always the largest in their field; maverick entrepreneurs don't always make the cover of the business magazines. But mavericks do the work that matters most--the work of originality, creativity, and experimentation. They demonstrate that you can build companies around high ideals and fierce competitive ambitions, that the most powerful way to create economic value is to embrace a set of values that go beyond just amassing power, and that business, at its best, is too exciting, too important, and too much fun to be left to the dead hand of business as usual.
Who are these mavericks? The core ideas in this book are rooted in the strategies, practices, and leadership styles of 32 organizations with vastly different histories, cultures, and business models. But all of them are business originals, based on the distinctiveness of their ideas and the power of their practices. They are rethinking competition, reinventing innovation, reconnecting with customers, and redesigning work. Together, they are creating a maverick agenda for business--an agenda from which every business can learn.
Book Description
In the last decade the business world has been dogged by bad leadership, CEO greed and the excesses of the dotcom craze. Now, as the authors of this lively new book suggest, companies and corporations are moving away from traditional methods of how to lead, manage and compete, towards a more 'maverick' management style that has proved highly successful.
Mavericks at Work is the first book to document this change – and to give readers a glimpse into the ideas and techniques behind fast–growing but unconventional companies such as Google, HBO, Lendlease and Southwest Airlines. It profiles some of the most exciting – and often eccentric – CEOs in the US, and details their strategies for success.
With its accessible tone, Mavericks at Work is both serious and fun; business 'edutainment' for a smart, ambitious readership.
Customer Reviews:
Become a Maverick.......2007-10-10
"Mavericks at Work" hit a home run for me. I love to think and act like a Maverick. I love to do "work that matters". This book introduced me to others who think like I do and have found business success. Thanks!
"Mavericks at Work" starts off with great a great introduction and keeps on going. I love the quote from Alan Kay (introduction): "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Why does business spend so much time trying to figure out what the competition will be bringing to the market place instead of trying to "invent the future"? Why not invent the market? Then you don't have any competition!
My favorite chapters were Chapters 1, 3, 4, and 10.
Chapter One - "Not Just a Company, a Cause: Strategy as Advocacy." This chapter does a great job of explaining why YOU need to create a Cause, not just a company. Causes make raving fans. Raving fans bring profits
Chapter Three - "Maverick Messages (1): Sizing Up Your Strategy". Take notes on this chapter, you will be glad you did. The authors give five questions every company should ask when sizing up your strategy.
Chapter Four - "Innovation Inc.: Open Source Gets Down to Business". Do you need some "innovative" ideas on how to get your company to embrace innovation as a way of life? This chapter shows you how. Don't be shy about putting some of these ideas to work.
Chapter Ten - "The Company You Keep: Business as if People Mattered". Great chapter on TALENT! Business today needs to put Talent at the top of the agenda for every strategy meeting, every business plan, every performance review, etc... All company's say that their people are their most important asset. Few prove it through their actions. This chapter shows some organizations that know and act as if People Matter and the payoff are increased profits.
Larry Kevin Adams
Author of "Selling: Powerful New Strategies for Sales Success".
theactionator.com
Stories to inspire - Lessons to Learn.......2007-08-10
Interesting stories and concrete examples are one of the most powerful ways to learn and be inspired. If you want to learn to succeed in the new world of work, then the collection of stories and examples in the book Mavericks at Work is a great starting point. The book profiles 32 remarkable US entrepreneurs who have battled bureaucracy and challenged the status quo, and won, while redefining success in their industries. The authors William Taylor, founding editor of Fast Company, and Polly LaBarre, a former writer for Fast Company, uncover some remarkable examples of how businesses are succeeding in hypercompetitive industries by being distinctively different.
Their findings are centered on 4 key themes:
1. Be different and pursue more than just money: Successful mavericks are fearless about breaking with outdated traditions and confining standards. Making money is only a small part of a bigger mission which they are deeply passionate about. Examples include Southwest Airlines, the company that pioneered low cost air travel and democratized the skies. The book highlights how Southwest saw it as their mission to make air travel accessible to all and by going after this wholeheartedly they innovated on different ways to save cost such as using second tier airports, not serving food and seating people on a first come first serve basis. Keeping this mission at the centre of the organisation has differentiated them from the competition and enabled them to consistently make profits is a loss making industry.
2. Tap other people's brains: The innovators of today rely on more than just their own insight and intelligence. They create systems to enable and encourage others to help them solve problems and come up with ingenious solutions. Examples include TopCoder Inc., a software development house for many large multinational organisations. They create competitions for technology geeks from all over the world to come up with solutions for software problems in return for lucrative prizes and prestigious ranking points. In this way they are able to use the wisdom of many to solve very specific software development challenges.
3. Connect deeply with customers: Connecting with customers is about a lot more than just traditional advertising, it is about really understanding what customers' value and connecting with that value system in a deep and meaningful way. Jones Soda asks customers to contribute photographs to be used on the labels of their cool drink bottles. Customers submit photos plus the story attached to each photo. Many photos are selected and placed on the bottles to be distributed in the region in which that customer lives. This creates a massive interest in the community as they discover "who is on the label?" and "what their story is?"
4. Partner with your employees: Maverick business enable employees to really understand what drives the business. They are given the opportunity to freely contribute to the overall mission of the business and be rewarded for doing so. At Cranium, a fast growing, innovative board game manufacturer in Seattle, the Chief Financial Officer holds companywide meetings on the company's numbers. He tutors the staff on cash flow and financial ratios, and every employee then assesses his or her own productivity. He recognizes that this helps keep the whole company focused on the right priorities
These are just a few of the many insightful, uplifting and inspiring examples that are highlighted in this energetic and well written book.
Great book!.......2007-07-25
This is one of the best business books I have read. Though it is written principally for managers and entrepreneurs, the book is truly inspiring for those starting up their own business. You will learn some very unconventional ways of managing your organization and innovating! "Playing it safe" is no longer playing it smart. The only way to stand out from the crowd is to stand for a truly distinctive set of ideas about where your organization should be going.
Follow Southwest airlines' example by not hiring industry veterans in your organization. Industry veterans are harder to retrain, and come to your organization with preconceived ideas. Hiring people new to the industry fills your organization with fresh ideas.
Don't hesitate to fire your customers if they don't fit into your organization's culture. ING, a bank unlike others, does exactly that. ING also innovates by being different from other banks. They open on Sunday for example, and deposits are in a person's account within 24 hours (other banks take up to 3 business days). If groceries and malls can open on Sundays, why not banks?
Pixar Animation, unlike other companies in its industry (who hire on contract basis), hires full time crew. This creates a team atmosphere where everyone gets to know each other, and thus can be more productive.
Use open source. A Gold mining company in Canada did just that when it asked people from all over the world over the internet for their insight on where gold could be found. With worldwide expertise available, they found their answer! Cirque du Soleil similarly scouts the whole world for talent. Talent is everywhere, and you have to go everywhere to find it.
Any entrepreneur should be asking the following two questions: (a) If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would really miss you and why? (b) Why would people want to work for you?
Don't hire great people, or else you have to change your whole work environment into greatness. Hire good and smart people, but they don't have to be great. You have to be able to shun traditional ideas.
Finally, just in case some of you are wondering, Samuel Maverick, a Texan lawyer and politician, is the namesake of the eponym maverick, meaning an unbranded range animal. Gradually the term was enlarged to include anyone who could not be trusted to remain one of his group.
Alan Kay, the celebrated computer scientist, said some 35 years ago: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
Gets the creative juices flowing.......2007-07-05
A very inspiring book in helping think outside the box. Loads of real-world examples throughout. Starts with great energy and passion by the authors, and (maybe) runs out of steam in the end. Or maybe I just wasn't as interested in the subject covered. Anyway... I bought three more copies as gifts for clients.
Describes what it takes to have a breakthrough corporate success in the new millennium..........2007-06-20
Like a host of the new "psychosocial" business books, Mavericks at Work describes what it takes to have a breakthrough corporate success in the new millennium. The focus is not so much on the business styles of the 50's and 60's, as illustrated by the work of, say Peter Drucker, but rather it focuses on the new gestalt of branding through an intense devotion to customer service. By examining companies from the large scale of Proctor & Gamble and the World Bank, as well as new upstarts like Craigslist and ING Direct to open source communities like Wikipedia and TopCoder, authors William Taylor and Polly LaBarre take a new approach to finding out what the basis of the new energy and focus of companies who's products or services allow them to differentiate themselves and pull away from the pack. As veterans of the cutting edge business magazine Fast Company, the authors are well suited to have the inroads and knowledge in witnessing what works (and what doesn't) for the new breed of entrepreneurs or those within established enterprises trying to re-write the rules of business in the new world order. In addition, the pair operate one of the best follow-on websites we've seen featuring outtakes from the book, a blog, podcasts, interviews and information about their 'Mavericks Live' special events around the country [...]. A must for anyone thinking about Business 2.0. - Tim Devine
Book Description
Dramatically increase your ability to sell by learning how to control the mind of your prospect using 30 psychological tiggers to motivate, influence and persuade.
Customer Reviews:
Worth Its Weight In Gold!.......2007-09-22
Sugarman really knows his stuff and he presents it excellently! Not only did I enjoy reading this book but applying the concepts I have learned in both my print ads and presentations I have increased my sales and will continue to do so in the years to come. I heartily recommend Triggers and Advertising Secrets of the Written Word to any businessman wishing to improve his or her bottom line.
Mind Control.......2007-07-21
The book has enough tips to control your prospect's mind. But the best part is the prose. It almost reads like a fable. I await a Sugarman novel.
Kishore Dharmarajan
Author of Eightstorm: 8-Step Brainstorming for Innovative Managers
Triggers never fail!.......2007-04-05
This is another amazing book by Joe Sugarman. I
have followed him for a while and this is one of
my most favorite books by him. I use it to get
some good ideas when I write emails to send to
my list. I highly recommend this one.
Matt Bacak
Author of Secrets of the Internet Millionaire Mind
and The Ultimate Lead Generation Plan
No look inside.......2007-02-22
Did not purchase.....there was no look inside to see if it was what I was looking for
This book is only for those who want to sell more..........2006-10-17
Are you a person who wants to sell a product or a service?
If so, I heartily recommend this book.
This book is for rank beginners and seasoned pro's. For beginners, it is an excellent introduction to the world of sales. For the seasoned pro, it is an excellent checksheet to make sure that all the bases are covered before going into that "big deal".
This book is a book about "sales think". That is, how to think in terms of making sales.
Also, this book is easy to read and because it is easy to read, I can easily imagine that some people might "skim" right through it and totally miss the incredible depth that is contained within this book.
For example, sales people know that people buy based on emotion not logic. Yet, sales people everywhere continue to use logic to sell. Why do they do this? It's because they don't know how to create emotion. My point is, on page 64 Mr. Sugarman shares a portion of an ad that he wrote. Within it is embedded the secret to creating emotion that sells.
I'll wager that the few people who've given this book a poor rating never even saw the real message and the real depth of this book.
Book Description
Positioning, a concept developed by the authors, has changed the way people advertise. The reason? It's the first concept to deal with the problems of communicating in an overcommunicated society. With this approach, a company creates a 'position' in the prospect's mind, one that reflects the company's own strengths and weaknesses as well as those of its competitors. Witty and fast-paced, this book spells out how to position a leader so that it gets into the mind and stays there, position a follower in a way that finds a 'hole' not occupied by the leader, and avoid the pitfalls of letting a second product ride on the coattails of an established one. Revised to reflect significant developments in the five years since its original publication, Positioning reveals the fascinating case histories and anecdotes behind the campaigns of many stunning successes and failures in the world of advertising.
Customer Reviews:
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 20th Anniversary Edition (Purchased on 09/04/2007) .......2007-10-05
I still haven't received my purchase, so reviewing it will be a tad bit difficult...
Got inspired!.......2007-09-21
I've got inspired from the basics in positioning. It delivers good examples of many American companies' positioing. I got inspired so that I can get my paper done very soon.
The best book ever on marketing/advertising/brand management.......2007-09-13
I make every new employee read Positioning no matter what their job description because it is really a book about the "battle for the consumer's mind", and that battle is waged in every department of every organization.
Positioning is the rule book for marketing success and the great thing is all the examples. Yes they are somewhat dated, but they make the rules easy to understand.
This is the book nobody at Ford read before they redisigned the Taurus from number 1 in sales to a hole in the ground.
If you work in brand management or advertising you must read this book. It should be stashed in a "break-glass-get-book" thing at every exit of every ad agency.
If you are studying marketing at college, you should memorize every word in the book and major in something else, and come out with the equivalent of a double major.
The importance of perception.......2007-05-13
If there's one thing that makes Positioning a classic and something that should be on the reading list of any marketer is the fact that it highlights what is the core of any marketing- perception is reality. It doesn't matter how good your product `really' is, or how hard you try, what matters is how your target perceives you vs competition. That basic truth, and how you could occupy the most desired position in the target's mind is the crux of this book. Perhaps some of the examples could get updated, but bottom line, this is the definitive book to read for any aspiring marketer.
- Mainak Dhar, author, Brand Management 101: 101 Lessons from Real-World Marketing
outdated.......2007-03-30
Positioning makes a few basic points that are helpful for someone who is not familiar with marketing basics. However, the examples are so outdated that some now disprove the authors' arguments. The more detailed chapters make less sense in an electronic culture. This book is really only useful now for those broad, basic ideas in the first chapters.
Book Description
Supported by more than one hundred candid interviews with top law partners across the United States, this best-selling law practice management book reveals how law firms can become marketing giants by learning a new conceptual foundation behind professional service marketing, advertising, and most importantly the secrets behind delivering great client service. This book promises to unlock revenue potential, bring marketing goals into focus and bolster confidence for law firms of all sizes.
Customer Reviews:
A Fresh Approach.......2006-11-03
I enjoyed this book. Dahut brings a fresh approach to have the reader think outside of the box when it comes to creating a differentiated new approach for the law firm, and the lawyer or lawyers within.
It's All About Service for Clients.......2006-11-02
This book is a must read for legal marketers, attorneys and those who provide marketing consulting services for law firms. If you take the time to not only read the book but also, seriously think about what the author is saying, and then incorporate those ideas into your the culture of your practice or the firm's practice, you will be rewarded.
Dahut's book is definitely not typical of the books one finds in the legal marketing area that tell you how and what to do. Rather he presents a powerful case that attorneys and law firms need to become client centered and to do so by changing their way of thinking to the perspective of the client. Further, Dahut believes that "... most of marketing is about providing superior service within the context of the client's specific needs and wants."
Attorneys and law firms need to become client centered and provide service that meets the client's needs. So, go buy a copy - read it -- then go implement it.
Not for the solo lawyer; not about marketing, except for the author.......2006-08-25
I was disappointed by this book. I am a solo litigation attorney, and I read the book to get ideas on marketing. It gave me some ideas. Perhaps the most valuable idea was to focus more on customer service; Dahut has an interesting discussion about exactly what that means and how we can do it better. By and large, however, this is a book by and for big firm attorneys. It is about big firm angst and how it can be combated by hiring experts such as Dahut to do extensive consulting work for your firm. Dahut does not acknowledge, and does not care, that most attorneys are solos or work in small firms, and that we have very different issues than agonizing over whether we have lost our soul by conforming too much to dead firm culture.
Strong ideas - useful and inspiring.......2006-06-26
This work is really true to its theme - it offers new perspectives on how to see business development and because of this new perspective, it makes the process very managable. I stongly recommend this book to anyone who is really serious about growing their practice.
An OK effort.......2006-03-20
the book was a quick read. after a few chapters, the message becomes repetitive.
Book Description
Baby boomers are the largest and wealthiest demographic and at the peak of their spending power. What marketing and sales professionals might not realize is that the majority of this spending power is wielded by women ages 50–75. They are the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated, active, and influential generation of women in history. Marti Barletta, the premier expert on marketing to women, calls them PrimeTime Women™ because not only are they in the prime of their lives, they also are the prime target for most marketers.
In her new book PrimeTime Women™, Marti Barletta provides the only comprehensive resource on the market for readers searching for practical applications to get into the minds, souls, hearts, and wallets of this influential demographic. This hands-on approach delivers strategic thinking and tactical ideas geared toward understanding and leveraging this enormously influential market.
Features:
* An inside look at what makes PrimeTime Women™ tick
* Never-before published research, developed in partnership with agency powerhouse DDB
* Strategic thinking, planning, and tips from marketers who have successfully targeted PrimeTime Women™
Customer Reviews:
How Could Marketers Not Get It??.......2007-03-11
I've always considered Tom Peters the guru of marketing. I bought Barletta 's book because of his comments on the cover -- that PrimeTime Women should be the centerpiece of every marketing/strategic plan. As always, I now agree with him wholeheartedly. This book makes an excellent case about why this is the market to go after, not the youth market. Barletta draws on statistics from the New Strategist, AARP, the U.S. Census Bureau and other organizations, and combines them with her consulting firm's own proprietary research to come up with a true "how to" book, with strategies and tips that companies can put into action right away. I've since bought her other book on marketing to women, and plan to spread her name as the consultant to hire before the competition does.
The nature and extent of a "prime marketing opportunity".......2007-03-06
Those who have already read Marti Barletta's Marketing to Women will welcome this sequel in which she develops in much greater depth her core concepts with regard to the purchasing power of what continues to be "the world's largest market segment." Of special interest to many readers is The GenderTrends(tm) Marketing Model that reveals in her first book why and how women reach different brand purchase decisions. She shares in PrimeTime Women some revealing and valuable new insights from all-new research and DDB Worldwide which will be of substantial value to senior-level executives - including but not limited to those primarily responsible for marketing - in all companies, regardless of their size or nature. Barletta carefully organizes and then presents her material within ten chapters which are divided between two Parts: Understanding PrimeTime Women(tm) and The Field Guide for Marketing to PrimeTime Women(tm), followed by an especially informative appendix which identifies "The Best Resources in the Business."
I presume to offer an admittedly unorthodox suggestion: After reading the Foreword and Introduction, proceed immediately to the final chapter in which Barletta offers an Executive Summary which includes a brief but brilliant explanation of "the seven building blocks" for understanding, reaching, and then increasing share of "the world's largest market segment." My opinion is that reading this final chapter establishes a frame-of-reference and thematic context for absorbing and digesting the material that precedes it. One reviewer's opinion....
As is her custom, Barletta makes brilliant use of a number of reader-friendly devices throughout her narrative that facilitate and expedite reviews later of key passages. They include clusters of bold face items, bullet points, and checklists. For example, in Chapter Seven, "The GenderTrends(tm)Marketing Model Applied to Women, a systematic and simple tool which is designed to achieve three objectives:
"1. structure the complexities of gender differences into an organized view of female gender culture;
2. show how to use the principles of female gender culture to enhance each element in your marketing mix; and
3. apply the resulting insights to the five stages of the consumer's purchase path."
In the same chapter, when examining the purchase decision process, Barletta focuses on the differences between men and women, and, the differences between PrimeTime Women(tm) and younger women. Then in the final chapter, "Notes to the CEO," she briefly discusses the aforementioned "building blocks" and this material offers a value-added benefit to non-CEO readers who are senior-level executives: She provides them with a convincing, research-driven argument to support whatever changes must be made in terms of (a) how their respective organizations view women 50-70 years old, (b) how they position what they offer to them, and most important of all (c) how they nourish and thereby sustain a relationship with them.
How important are relationships to women? As Barletta observes, "Women think that people are the most important and interesting element in life, and they are oriented this way from birth...Women see themselves - and everybody, really--as part of an ensemble company. Their core unit is `we' (sometimes `we two,' sometimes a larger group). They take pride in their caring, consideration, and loyalty to and from others...Women's first instincts are to trust and share, and their mentality is rooted in revealing, not concealing."
While explaining "how to win the hearts, minds, and business of boomer big spenders," Barletta also obliterates a number of misconceptions about female consumers in general and those who are 50-70 years old in particular. Did you already know that women control an estimated 80% of all household spending and the percentage is even high for PrimeTime Women(tm)? Also, that women make 55% of all investment decisions, 55% of all decisions concerning consumer electronics, comprise 60% of all home improvement buyers and make 80% of all home improvement decisions, control more than 60% of new car purchase decisions, and 66% of decisions to purchase computers? With regard to income, between 1990 and 2003, women's inflation-adjusted median income grew 26%, while men's grew only 8%.
"PrimeTime Women are the healthiest, wealthiest, most educated, active, and influential generation of women in history. This is their PrimeTime. And it's your prime marketing opportunity." Because of Marti Barletta, that "window" of opportunity is rapidly closing. What are you waiting for?
MARTI UNDERSTANDS RESPECT.......2007-02-23
What I loved about this book was that it just exudes respect for customers. Unlike a lot of books in this area, Marti Barletta isn't trying to teach 'tricks' about how to pretend to please women. She's much more serious than that. She's deeply informed, highly thoughtful and utterly determined that no company can really succeed without taking women very, very seriously. And she won't let women be ripped off by anything second-rate. This means that companies that want to win women's business have to take seriously the research she's done and the care and insight she uses to analyze it. There are a lot of "sell stuff to women" books out there that don't respect women at all, but just see them as easy pickings. They're phoney. But this book - and Marti Barletta herself: they're the real deal.
I learned a ton..........2007-01-31
PrimeTime Women is a breeze to read - like sitting around with Ms. Barletta, chatting. And in the room are dozens of fascinating, ready-to-rumble women, chiming in every so often.
The overarching theme of PrimeTime Women really isn't the money they control - it's the fact that they are taking control of their lives. This is a phenomenon unique to Baby Boomers (and a bit older). After fifty is better than before fifty. There has always been a small percentage of women who bloomed in their later years. For Boomers it's become a generational ethos.
The second part of the book is nuts 'n bolts. I was swept away by many of her "word-of-mouth" marketing paradigms. She eschews the cheesy WOM tactics so often used today in favor of real, truly inspired marketing/PR/promotional techniques.
Best Business Book I've Read In A Long Time.......2007-01-29
Marti Barletta is simply one of the best business minds of our time. Her brilliant insights, in-depth research, and smart marketing tactics make her stand head and shoulders above the crowd. PrimeTime Women, as Marti calls them, are one of the most overlooked business opportunities - but after you read her business case, they won't be for long. I've never finished one of Marti's books without having learned at least 10 new things about marketing to women. And I am a woman! And when it comes to PrimeTime Women, I was amazed to find out how much there really is to look forward to. Society has relied on negative simplistic stereotypes for far too long. Marti Barletta shatters these stereotypes in style, and proves without a doubt that PrimeTime Women are the powerhouse target of the future. Recommended for CEOs/CMOs in categories such as auto, financial services, healthcare, health and beauty, housing and real estate, human resources, auto, packaged goods, travel, hotel, small business, health and fitness, pharmaceutical, retail, entertainment, gifts, toys, etc.
Check out these endorsements:
"Marti Barletta--the First Lady of marketing to women--is back; and she's done it again. Marti calls marketing to 'prime time women' a 'radical opportunity'--and proves it. I not only agree, but also I would call anyone who does not make this extraordinary book the centerpiece of their marketing/strategic plans very, very foolish."
--Tom Peters, author of Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age
"PrimeTime Women will no doubt change the way corporate America views and markets to today's Boomer women. Based on new research and her experience in the field, Marti Barletta opens our eyes to the immense power of this emerging marketing force. She reminds us that women over the age of 50 hold the power of the purse in their PrimeTime hands."
-- Lisa Bacus, Director, Global Marketing Strategy, Ford Motor Company
"Full of expert advice about today's PrimeTime Woman: who she is, what she cares about, where she shops, and what she buys--PrimeTime Women is a must-read for advertising and marketing professionals who are determined to reach the hearts, minds and wallets of today's most coveted consumers: women 50-70 who are in their prime!"
--Dana Anderson, President and CEO, DDB Chicago
"With wit and wisdom, Barletta has pulled off the seemingly impossible: made the prospect of becoming an `older' woman sound like fun. Marketers, take note: a horde of PrimeTime Babes, with passion, power, and bulging pocketbooks, is heading your way."
--Linda Tischler, Senior Writer, Fast Company
"Marti Barletta once again breaks the mold and takes us to the edge of a new frontier in consumer behavior. No one who gives this book serious attention will fail to shoot forward at warp speed in their understanding of the largest market on the planet -Prime Time Women."
--David B. Wolfe, Principal, Wolfe Resources Group
"Written in a conversational, story-telling style, Marti delivers a compelling business case and an engaging look at what drives this powerful yet underserved segment of buyers."
--Cathy Benko, National Managing Director, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP
Book Description
Today's 18-to-40-year-olds make for a notoriously elusive group of consumers: they're savvy, sophisticated, and particular. They're all but immune to traditional advertising and have an instinctive sense of quality and fair pricing. Inundated with choices, they are drawn to brands that satisfy not just what they need, but what they crave. At the same time, these consumers are spending money like it's going out of style. Generation X has firmly refuted its slacker reputation and is nearing the height of its earning potential. Generation Y has more buying power than any previous generation of teens and twentysomethings. But how to win their attention and loyalty?
In Mind Your X's and Y's, Lisa Johnson proves that the buying habits of 18-to-40-year-olds can be anticipated. Johnson, coauthor of Don't Think Pink and a leading marketing consultant, pinpoints the new rules of engagement for this Connected Generation. Based on her own and others' groundbreaking research, she looks into the heart of the Gen X and Y psyche to identify its ten core cravings -- for adventure, for high-concept design, for new families and social networks, and for personal storytelling, to name a few.
This revolutionary book is packed with fascinating case studies of established and breakaway brands from every major industry, interviews with dozens of maverick thinkers and hundreds of consumers, and numerous revealing statistics. Johnson analyzes the scope of each craving to determine how it drives specific buying behaviors and offers relevant data that illustrate its impact. Mind Your X's and Y's equips anyone who wants to reach these consumers -- brand managers and their advertising, online, creative, packaging, events, and promotions teams; small-business owners and their marketing staff; advertising agencies and specialists -- with the know-how to transform market research into profitable strategies.
Members of Generations X and Y are the most coveted and hard-to-reach consumers in the marketplace. Mind Your X's and Y's is a master class in how to create compelling brands for this Connected Generation.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing assessment of the X and Y generations.......2007-01-04
If you need to understand how young people make purchasing decisions, this book will put you way ahead of the competition. Even my young, technically savvy friends have learned new things from reading this book.
A book that hits you where you live and shows you step by step how to influence one of the biggest markets in the nation today.......2006-09-07
I loved this book, it is one of the best that I've read this year.
This is an important book because it gives you a clear, step by step roadmap for influencing and persuading one of the most fickle (and over marketed) consumer groups of our era, those consumers between 18 - 40.
The author goes into exacting detail about how this market consumes information and how you can create messages that resonate with them and stick. She also tells you what doesn't work (I cringed several times as I recognized mistakes that I made).
If you are in this age range you'll find this book one of the most refreshing you've ever read because it will describe you and how you consume information (I know it did for me) and it will help you make the transition between the kind of marketer you are today and one that can be even more effective.
This book is a guidebook, a roadmap and a manifesto. Grab this book today, even if your market it older, one of the things that the author didn't cover is how much more like 18 - 40 year olds older generations are becoming in their consumption of information and their resistance to advertising. Most of the information in this book applies to anyone who is active in today's world regardless of their age.
I wish I could give this book more than 5 stars.
Dave Lakhani
Author: Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want and The Power of an Hour: Business and Life Mastery in One Hour a Week
Book Description
The essential follow-up to the BusinessWeek bestseller Trading Up
A BMW in a Costco parking lot?
A working class family with a 50 inch plasma TV?
A 27-year-old Japanese administrative assistant with a collection of Coach purses?
An 87-year-old retiree in Ohio exclaiming the value of Aldi brand honey?
What's going on in the mind of the new consumer?
Today's consumers can seem impossible to understand, and even harder to please. For instance, the average mall shopper will spend her $100, then leave when she hits that limit. She'll probably buy shoes rather than clothing, because she doesn't want to think about her dress size. And the store most likely to get her money isn't the one with the nicest display or the deepest discounts... it's the one closest to her parking spot.
In his research with dozens of leading companies, Michael J. Silverstein has interviewed thousands of customers, extracting fascinating patterns about what really drives their purchase decisions. His first book, the acclaimed bestseller Trading Up, has taught a generation of marketers about the "new luxury" phenomenon, and why consumers will happily pay a steep premium for goods and services that are emotionally satisfying, from golf clubs to bathroom hardware to beauty products.
But Trading Up only revealed part of the story of the new consumer. The same middle class consumers who are happily trading up at Victoria's Secret and Panera are going on treasure hunts at Costco and Home Depot. And they are often getting as much emotional satisfaction in the discount stores as in the luxury stores. Silverstein's new book explains how the new consumer approaches bargain hunting, and how even the most mundane shopping - for things like paper towels and pet food -- have become an adventure rather than a tedious chore.
It turns out that, in just about every consumer category, both the high end and the low end are growing and innovation rich. Many middle class consumers gladly spend $5.00 a day for a vente Starbucks latte; others spend 40 cents a day on home brewed coffee, feel good about their frugality, and save up the difference to buy Apple's newest Nano. Treasure Hunt explains the success of companies as diverse as Dollar General, LG, H. E. Butt, Ebay, Commerce Bank, and Tchibo.
Beware: in our bifurcated global market, businesses need a clear strategy for aiming high or low, while staying away from the treacherous middle, where so many have recently stumbled. If your offering isn't exciting enough to inspire trading up, but not enough of a bargain to satisfy the treasure hunters, you'll have no emotional connection with your target audience. And, like General Motors or Sears in recent years, your tried-and-true marketing strategies will go into a severe stall.
Treasure Hunt takes us into the homes of real people making real decisions, and into the CEO's offices of innovative companies finding new ways to accommodate them. Written with the same flair, empathy, and intelligence that made Trading Up an instant business classic, this book is an essential guide to the moods and habits of the constantly changing consumer.
Customer Reviews:
Why we scrimp then spluge.......2007-06-27
The BMW in the Costco parking lot is the operative metaphor of "Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer." Silverstein describes the flip side of "trading up" -- the trend in the luxury sector that was the subject of his best-selling first book of the same name. Consumers are buying more pricey goods, he writes, but they are also "trading down" -- treasure hunting -- for bulk goods and items that do not have high emotional value.
The phenomenon creates huge opportunities for companies that figure out how to meet customers at the bottom or the top of the price continuum, and disaster for those stuck in the middle. Silverstein profiles the market, introduces us to consumers that exemplify a variety of buying behaviors, then shows us companies that have figured out how to adapt and win.
Laden with numbers, charts and examples, "Treasure Hunt" could be the treasure map for businesses seeking to understand better how their customers think and what they want. But it's almost more interesting to read it for the glimpses it gives of your own spending habits.
Emotional Drive of the Buyer.......2007-02-22
One of the best book I have read in the last years. Meets the consumer new trends, and gives a good inspiration to make a big transformation in sales, marketing and R&D.
Profitable look at the consumer's quest for bargains.......2007-02-17
Consumer behavior - especially in malls and restaurants - is made up of a complex matrix of facts, opinions and projections. Amid that maze, Michael J. Silverstein and John Butman deliver an interesting, in-depth guide to consumption. The authors clearly define and illustrate the sport of "treasure hunting," and then apply that term to an analysis of shoppers' activities in a variety of industries, stores and markets. Shoppers who read this will understand how and why they fill up their carts; businesses will understand why shoppers select certain stores and online portals. The book's greatest strengths are the profiles of actual consumers in the U.S. and abroad. The personal stories are fascinating, if sometimes repetitive. We highly recommend this book to consumers, retail executives and restaurant managers. It's a must-read for all.
A failed sequel.........2007-01-10
"Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods" of 2004 was a very good (and very successful) book. Mr Silverstein had to come up with a sequel.
"Treasure Hunt" is the result, and its purpose is to address quite the opposite phenomenon; it could have been titled "Trading Down".
I think that most of the book's "stories" (or "case studies" if one wants a loftier description) are too loquacious and they very rarely make the author's point.
This book is, as most sequels, a let-down.
Needs an Editor, and Maybe the Editor Would Take a Pass.......2007-01-03
Over the last couple of years, I've read a number of Harvard MBA-type books on marketing and strategy, and I have to say this was the least useful, by far. Generally, I read and tip the pages that require followup in my own work--inject that sensibility into a marketing piece; develop a new piece that addresses x; develop an ongoing relationship with y consituency; etc.
I loved Trading Up and found it profoundly useful in my business. Likewise Blue Ocean Strategy. Others do great work emphasizing the key role women are playing in today's economy. Lots of tipped pages; lots of followup; lots of big benefits.
This book has its breakthrough point, which I appreciate. I shop at Costco and resale shops but don't need to, and my behavior is patterned on that of my mother. I splurge or trade up with my savings. And, as the book points out, this behavior is extremely prevalent among the upper income band. It's a lifestyle, not a poverty avoidance strategy--that's the point.
But jeez, Silverstein thanks literally 100 people at the end of the book (yes I read every page), and it reads like it. The cases don't link up with the text. Vaguely interesting stuff (e.g. material apparently trying to make the point that these trends are visible in Europe--a marketing ploy to sell books overseas?) are dropped into Chapter 2 and then fade away. You meet people; you meet companies. Some stories hang together and seem to have a purpose and some don't. And then you read the same sentence twice within a couple paragraphs. Earth to Butman--"their inner spirits first and their outer beauty second."
I sense that BCG decided they had a bunch of goodwill with a limited shelf life out there from the first book. "Let's pull a bunch of staffers together, crank for a couple of weeks, and see what we come up with."
My advice: Go to the library, take 8 minutes to read the cogent first chapter, and then "trade up" with the financial and time savings by buying five friends great lattes at the closest Peets.
--Kennedy School Grad with No Tipped Pages Tonight
Book Description
Today's richest market is the
New Customer Majority: middle-aged and older adults who make up the biggest percentage of the buying public. Never before have adults 40 years and older been in the majority. Understanding this population and persuasively selling to it require a new kind of marketing research arsenal.
In Ageless Marketing, authors David Wolfe and Robert Snyder document the results of a groundbreaking research project on the aging boomer generation, detailing the core values, buying behaviors, and emotional factors that distinguish the New Customer Majority. As more companies seek sales from multiple age groups, ""ageless marketing"" becomes critical to financial performance. Companies that master its subtleties have realized amazing profits. New Balance, for example, saw an annual rate of 25 percent or more with its ageless marketing themes, even when the athletic shoe industry had shown no growth since 1997.
Ageless Marketing introduces a new research approach in profiling this lucrative market. Companies that want to tap into this important segment will get insights into the characteristic values and motivations that trigger the New Customer Majority's spending choices. Wolfe and Snyder describe the challenges in marketing to this group, the stages and differences in their life experiences, and the ways to make meaningful marketing overtures.
Above all, readers will see how ""empathetic connections"" drive many buying decisions for this market, why traditional ploys simply will not work, and how to create marketing campaigns that yield continuing customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Customer Reviews:
Best of the Lot.......2006-11-27
I have recently read quite a few books on marketing to the "new senior" market. This is the best. It is centered on good marketing and business principles and provides factual information and sound research to support the key ideas. I ordinarily don't write in books, but this one had so many good ideas that I wanted to easily find, that, after a chapter or two, I picked up a pencil turned this into an idea workbook.
A Real Gem.......2005-06-14
I've read more business and marketing books than I care to remember, but this frog kissing process is necessary to discover those few books that deserve to be studied. Ageless Marketing is one of them. For the price of this book, companies will learn more about their customers than they ever will from research reports or data mining analyses. David Wolfe has made a genuine effort to give his readers the full benefit of the insights he has gained after spending two decades striving to truly understand what makes customers tick. The result is a marketing framework that should endure for decades to come.
While Wolfe has clearly demonstrated he's a disciplined scholar with this book, his humility is what makes it so credible. He is quick to credit the brain researchers and developmental psychologists who provided grist for his intellectual mill and he readily admits that much of what he tells us has been known for quite some time. The marketing profession should be a little embarrassed by this book. CEOs in search of growth strategies should be seduced by it.
It's About Time!.......2004-10-03
Boy, does business ever need this book!
I've been in marketing and advertising for 20 years --- I've worked with some of the most sophisticated brands --- I know what makes a sound business proposition, and I've seen companies desperate to find a way to build their sales and profitability. And yet I've never heard a business exec say, "You know - we really should be taking a look at the mature market."
Instead, what I HAVE witnessed is an obstinate blindness about what is clearly THE market opportunity of the next two decades. With baffling consistency, the marketing press is full of companies trumpeting their initiatives to capture the youth market. Brands well-established in the high-quality, high-income, mature market segment fervently re-invent themselves to appeal to more youthful consumers.
Mercedes, for example - a brand which virtually owned the "I've been working for 20 years and I've earned it" upper end of the auto market - has been diluting their valuable brand equity by introducing little mini-Mercedes cheap enough for young people to afford. Toyota - with executives wringing their hands over the fact that the average age of their buyer base is 46 - gallops off to build the Scion, intended to be sort of a college dorm room on wheels. (Ironically, they've found the Scion average buyers are well into their mid-30s.)
Every single week Ad Age and Brandweek have some article bemoaning TV's declining ability to reach the "highly coveted demographic of men 18-34." Who covets this audience? Beer and pizza makers, perhaps - other than that, and maybe motorcycles - in what categories are they the primary buyers? And advertising agencies stubbornly continue to limit the upper end of their media segmentation to 54 years old ("Women, 25-54"). What are they thinking --- everyone suddenly drops dead at 55?
On the contrary, as demonstrated so clearly and convincingly by this book, Ageless Marketing. The numbers are unassailable - Over the next two decades, the ranks of 50+ consumers will swell like a tsunami while the number of under 50 consumers will dribble to a trickle and then actually decline.
Not only that, but it shouldn't be news to anyone that older people have more money than younger people - a lot more. And in case you're thinking they hoard it under a mattress, know that their per capita spending averages 2.5 times the levels of younger people. In the automotive business, an article published recently in the Wall Street Journal said: On average, over the "lifetime" of a household, the individuals in that household buy 13 cars; seven of them - the majority - are bought after the head of household reaches 50 years of age.
So let me get this straight, Mercedes: you're going to enrich your brand by leaving your traditional older, wealthy buyer base behind in order to chase after a market segment that is shrinking and has no money?! Toyota - you're actually concerned that your brand is strongest among consumers that buy more cars and have more money?
The Baby Boomers once didn't trust anyone over thirty. Now there isn't a one of them that isn't over forty. Times have changed! In a way, times have gone back to normal. During what other period in history have teens and 20-somethings been the driving forces in commerce or culture? Revolutions, sure; they're always the driving forces in revolutions. But in commerce, they're not. They're kids for crying out loud - they don't have any money!!
It's remarkably difficult to break our culture's absolute conviction that young consumers are every marketer's best prospect. They're not. And until we all get that through our heads, we're going to continue to miss some major market opportunities.
Ageless Marketing not only helps you get it through your head, but it helps you understand that when you do market to older consumers, you need to change your ways. Older consumers screen communications differently, process information differently, respond based on different life priorities and selection preferences.
David Wolfe and Robert Snyder understand those differences, and help readers get in touch with what they need to do to act on them. Their wealth of experience and insight are apparent, and there are tons of examples and ideas that make it easy to understand how to apply what they're saying.
Obviously this is a topic I think is important. Thank heavens there's finally a book that collects all the facts and crystallizes the thinking! I give copies to my clients, and recommend it to my co-workers all the time. My own copy is dog-eared and marked up and so full of notes it's almost hard to read any more. I guess I'll just have to buy another copy!
A New Consciousness.......2004-06-15
Here's a book that offers a profound new vision of persons in mid-life and the years beyond, one that explore the complexity of the population they've labeled, "second-half customers". AGELESS MARKETING is a book that should be a text in every college business course as well as on the bookshelf of every person working in marketing and advertising in this country. It could enrich the curriculum of sociology and gerontology courses as well, as these authors have unique insights into how people think, feel and act at various stages of their later lives. There's a new consciousness, a new vision of a maturing consumer offered in AGELESS MARKETING.
A Ground-breaking Work.......2004-06-05
As people age, their buying preferences, priorities and behaviors change dramtically. Ageless Marketing is the only book that addresses this phenomenon -- and brilliantly. It is a must-read for anyone intereted in builiding a relationship with this large and lucrative market. I predict it will become a marketing classic.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant Marketing Information!.......2007-10-09
Mr. Keyer does an absolutely fabulous job at describing ways to market your Reiki practice.
Excellent tips and information for all Reiki practitioners who look to improve their Reiki practice.
Highly Recommended!
Reiki Marketing.......2007-10-05
There is an ever increasing amount of people being exposed to the potential of Reiki. A good number of these individuals will be drawn to Reiki for their own healing purposes but will become intrigued at the effectiveness of this complementary healing tradition. For some, this attraction will lead to many hours studying, training, and practicing to gain certification. Most then assume that after they become Reiki practitioners that they will naturally transition into having a thriving practice.
Unfortunately, practicing Reiki is like any other business venture. Once a practitioner, we each have to can decide if Reiki will be something we do mainly as a hobby or if we wish to practice fulltime. From there, we each have to decide if we wish to charge for our efforts and how we will go about gaining our client base. Ultimately, our focus and how we proceed will depend entirely upon our expectations and vision for our newfound skills.
Like most Reiki practitioners, I have had to work through my efforts by trial and error. The majority of Reiki masters simply don't teach their students how to run or market a Reiki practice. Therefore, I found the information in Reiki Marketing extremely useful. Often as Reiki practitioners we get so focused on helping people that we forget that collecting clients is a matter of business. Good business practice involved vision, organization, networking, and a whole lot of promotion.
Reiki Marketing.......2007-08-30
This book is perfect for the new Reiki practitioner who needs to understand the process of Marketing their services to the public,
Charles Lightwalker Author of Operating a Holistic Enterprise.
VERY disappointing.......2007-08-06
This book was a BIG disappointment. The quality was poor. It had lots of pages that just duplicated information presented on previous pages. The marketing information was VERY basic. There were no ideas presented that specifically pertained to Reiki. Most Reiki practioners are probably already doing many of the things the author suggests (business card, flyers, ads, info sessions). You would be better off purchasing a book written by someone who has years of experience and expertise in MARKETING. I learned my lesson. In the future, I will purchase Reiki books written by Reiki practioners and MARKETING books written by MARKETING professionals. To make this review helpful, I will recommend Harry Beckwith's book, Selling the Invisible. Afterall, Reiki is "INVISIBLE"!
Not all that great -.......2007-05-29
I expected a better quality of information. This appears to be a self-published book and really isn't worth the time...
Book Description
How to unlock the hidden 95% of the customer’s mind that traditional marketing methods have never reached.
Selling Points Practical synthesis of the cognitive sciences: Drawing heavily on psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and linguistics, Zaltman combines academic rigor with real-world results to offer highly accessible insights, based on his years of research and consulting work with large clients like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. An all-new tool kit: Zaltman provides research tools—metaphor elicitation, response latency, and implicit association techniques, to name a few—that will be all-new to marketers and demonstrates how innovators can use these tools to get clues from the subconscious when developing new products and finding new solutions, long before competitors do.
Customer Reviews:
Worst book Ever.......2007-08-10
I dont know if this is a marketing book!!
Too much text for less benefits
Ideas are not integrated with each other specially when connecting science with Marketing
Not too many marketing examples.
Even the examples did not show what where the exact results of the specified theories conducted
At the end of the book he fills it with text about creativity, oh please!!! this is supposed to be a book about marketing and how I am supposed understand customers not how to be creative
One more thing, he argues that products are how they are perceived in the mind of the customer and not what the products are in reality. Well, this is a very old idea, maybe the writer should read books for Al Ries and Jack Trout about Positioning.
Where was the editor?.......2007-07-13
The title holds much promise. The introduction intriguing. Yet as I trudged through this tomb, it finally dawned on me that there is much less here than the first glance promises. Two major problems: 1. The author puts forth a rather simple, yet vague theory of unconscious thinking, then discusses at length the utility of metaphors, but nowhere is the connection made between the two concepts. What is unconscious thinking that metaphors can magically make visible? What proof is there of any connection? This slight of hand left me shaking my head. Where is the model? Where is the empirical evidence? 2. The writing is at times entertaining, but beyond the introduction it is more and more rambling, redundant and scattered. It appears no technical editor was allowed anywhere near this manuscript. bottom line, I know no more about how customers think after reading this book, than I did before. However, I do now know how bad focus groups are (even though the empirical data appears absent.)
Great Insights into the Mind of the Consumer.......2007-05-20
This is perhaps the best text I've read on understanding the mind of the consumer. Zaltman takes potentially complex information and presents it in a form that is relatively easy to digest.
Zaltman explains how new brain science research indicates that the confidence marketers have placed in focus group methodology has been based on a number false assumptions including the following: 1. Consumers think in well-reason, linear ways to evaluate products and services. 2. Consumers can reasonably explain their emotions, feeling, preferences and behaviors - and translate them into words; and 3. Consumers' memories are accurate reflections of their experience.
According to Zaltman, the reality for consumers is really quite different. We live in a world where culture, emotions and desires play a larger role than logical decision-making. We receive and interpret information from the marketplace within a unique context. And, as consumers, much of our thinking takes place on a subconscious level, making it difficult for focus group participants to explain their behaviors. Our memories of what led us to make specific choices are far from perfect. On a conscious level we typically rationalize our decision-making without giving the underlying contextual complexities for our product and service choices.
In summary, Zaltman's text is a great place to learn more about current thinking on the mind of the consumer, the limits of traditional focus groups and some reliable methods for tapping into consumer insights.
Brand, Emotion , Listening , Usefulness.......2007-04-04
1. Rohit Deshpade noted that over 80 percent of all market research serves mainly to reinforce existing conclusions, not to test or develop new possibilities. Managers act as if endorsing current views merits 80 percent of their resources.
2. Recent studies of the effects of brain lesions demonstrate that when neurological structures responsible for either emotion or reasoning sustain damage, the affected individuals lose their ability to make the kinds of sound decisions permitting a normal life.
3. The operation of our memory and emotions occurs below our threshold of awareness. Why do people purchase expensive things? One answer reveals an important feeling relating to self-esteem. Once realized the company strengthens its relationships with the purchasing agents by acknowledging the feeling most closely related to self-esteem during sales calls.
4. The Western view of the mind states the mind does not exist absence the brain, body, and society.
5. Emotion allows the mind to reorganize, innovate, and produce something better and more useful. Memories are metaphors. People generally do not think in words, they think in metaphors. Metaphors help the individual to perceive the world, help to see new connections, and draw meaning from experiences. Without imagination nothing in the world would be meaningful. Without imagination we could not interpret our experiences. Without imagination we could not reason toward knowledge of reality.
6. When customers are exposed to product concepts, company stories, or brand information, they don't passively absorb those messages. Instead, they create their own meaning by mixing information from the company with their own memories, other stimuli present at the moment, and the metaphors that come to mind as they think about the firm's message.
7. Poor quality thinking cannibalizes high-quality thinking. Quality thinking takes time. True understanding takes time.
8. Many consumers view their clothing as a personal container or an extension of the self.
9. Largely ignored, are the Emotional benefits of the product or service. The goal is insightful consumer analysis feed by understanding how consumer mental activity occurs.
10. The more skilled marketers are in listening to customers, the more effective their marketing strategies will be establishing the value of the firm's offerings
11. The more clearly current and potential customers understand the value of the firm's offerings, the larger the top line will be.
12. Skillful listening tells the management team how large a challenge they face, especially in terms of meeting latent needs.
13. Michael Tomasello, states that cognitive skills have been learned fast because of social and cultural transmission.
14. When we encounter new ideas through verbal communication, they root themselves within a preexisting system that gives them relevance. Different cultures emphasize different thoughts.
15. 80 percent of communication occurs non-verbally.
16. Joseph Turner, reason and emotion are not opposites; they are partners who occasionally disagree but depend on one another for success
17. Logical thoughts are much easier to articulate than emotions.
18. Managers who deeply understand their consumers may accurately anticipate their responses to a new product before the firm presents it.
19. Unconsciously a buyer believes that the national brand works better and is therefore better for loved ones (severe sympthoms, self or spouse or child)
20. Fast stimulus to messages occurs when the message is flashed subliminally.
21. People perceive messages transmitted by a baby-faced person as more sincere because they see babies as innocent and honest.
22. The exact same dinner tastes different depending on whether one is dining with a close friend or an unpleasant stranger.
23. The correlation between stated intent and actual behavior is low. 12 percent of the time, customers actually purchases items that they verbal indicated that they would purchase.
24. Customer predispositions create feelings and thoughts toward the brand and unconsciously influence their reaction to the brand.
Does not deliver ..........2007-03-14
In one way I enjoyed reading the book as it pulled together various studies and experiments related to aspects of cognitive psychology and the use of some techniques (e.g. metaphors), but in the end the book simply does not deliver on the title.
For me, the failure of the book is that it does not propose any coherent, overall model of "How Customers Think" (or more importantly ... how purchase decisions are sub-consciously arrived at), just simply some interesting observations on different aspects of thought with little or not integration. I suspect that most people would read the book and think "interesting ... but what the heck do I do now?"
I'm waiting for a better book on the subject to come along ...
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- MCSE Self-Paced Training Kit (Exams 70-290, 70-291, 70-293, 70-294): Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Core Requirements, Second Edition
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- Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
- Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life : How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect and Happiness
- Mr. Shmooze: The Art and Science of Selling Through Relationships
- National Electrical Code 2005 Handbook (National Fire Protection Association//National Electrical Code Handbook)
- National Electrical Code 2005 Softcover Version (National Fire Protection Association National Electrical Code)
- Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance: A Relational Treatment Guide
- On The Wealth of Nations (Books That Changed the World)
- Prentice Hall's Health Question and Answer Review for the Medical Assistant (7th Edition) (Prentice Hall SUCCESS! Series)
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- Dilbert: Apparently, My Teamwork Speech Wore Off 2006 Mini Wall Calendar
- How to Prepare for the AP Microeconomics/Macroeconomics
- Public School Law: Teacher's and Student's Rights, Fifth Edition
- Living In Paris
- Accounting for Managers: Interpreting Accounting Information for Decision-Making
- Economics: A Contemporary Introduction Wall Street Journal Edition with Xtra! CD-ROM and InfoTrac Co
- Following the Pack: The World of Wolf Research
General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas
The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
