Book Description
Selling Today: Creating Customer Value, one of the most popular sales information books on the market, offers readers a blend of time-proven fundamentals and new practices needed to succeed in today's information economy. It emphasizes the need for salespeople to be guided by the new principle of personal selling: establishing partnerships that are maintained by customer value, created by the salesperson. This edition stresses the need for sales professionals to cope with new forces shaping the world of sales and marketing, and emphasizes the strategies for long-term success.
It provides comprehensive coverage of consultative selling, strategic selling, partnering, and value-added selling. Sales force automation is also a major theme.
For sales and marketing professionals.
Book Description
This is the only book available today that provides a very readable, step-by-step guide for managing an incoming call center. The book combines theory with practical advice and is filled with over 100 charts and graphs, several case studies and an extensive glossary and index.
Customer Reviews:
Unbelievably good.......2007-01-12
It's hard to explain just how good this book is, but I'm going to try.
When I first ran across this book (late '90s), I had no prior call center analytic experience, but used this book to save my company over $4 million a year. It explains the basics of call center management, analytics & behavior so simply and effectively that you are likely to make huge value changes just by implementing those basics.
If you are already a call center whiz, and your company's call center are running smoothly with excellent customer service levels, there is still value here, but it's modest.
If your company is NOT doing its blocking and tackling, with repsect to its call centers, then this is a gold mine.
It literally is the highest ROI book I have ever purchased in terms of time and money.
Wow! So This is How Call Centers Work!.......2002-08-22
I've generally been an IT Director and Project Manager, so I read this book to get a better idea of my customers' needs. I was pretty excited to discover that there's at least one good summary of what call centers do and how they do it. For my own sake--and perhaps yours--here's my summary of Brad and Julia's summary:
1. Incoming call center management is the art of having the right number of skilled people and supporting resources in place at the right times to handle an accurately forecasted workload, at service level and with quality.
2. Though average call load may be predictable, calls arrive randomly--which means that they often bunch up.
3. A service level is defined as "X percent of calls answered in Y seconds", not as "X percent answered" or "Average Speed of Answer". (The ASA is skewed by the bad times when calls bunch up.) Abandonment rates matter, too, but fixing abandonment problems usually means fixing service levels.
4. Service level and quality don't conflict. If you try to fix service level with poor quality, it comes back to bite you with more calls and demoralized reps.
5. A good forecasted call load--including talk time, after-call work, and volume--is critical for budgeting people and circuits. Often, a good forecast should predict load by the half hour, using previous data, knowledge of upcoming plans, and good judgment.
6. To determine staffing needs, use a variation of the Erlang C formula. Its input is the number of reps, number of callers forecasted, and the time to serve each caller; its output is a prediction of waiting time. (Even better, add an input for response time, and you'll get the percentage who'll wait longer than that!) If agents have different skills, you'll need forecasts and calculations for each set of agents.
7. More staff, less waiting, fewer phone lines for people on hold. Less staff, more waiting, more phone lines. Formulas exist for phone lines, too.
8. Not everyone scheduled is always working on customer service. Schedule accordingly. Be clever about work schedules to get the right number working at the right time. Service level results tell you whether you got it right.
9. If you have too few reps on duty, queues get long (service level goes down), more circuits are needed, and customers get frustrated, sometimes abandoning the call. If you have too many reps on duty, you spend too much paying for them to wait.
10. Give senior managers good reports, but make sure they understand the points above.
11. Monitor the number of calls in the queue and the longest current wait. Service level and other metrics tell more about the past than the present. Be ready with plans for unexpected load (reassigning, rerouting, delay announcements, busy signals).
12. There are lots of tools and graphs to measure aspects of quality. Use them to identify root causes, not beat your employees. Reps should adhere to schedules, and do good work. Use monitoring capabilities to coach. Measuring based on "calls per hour" is unreliable, and invites cheating.
13. Customers are getting more demanding, automated systems are taking the easy calls, so reps have to be better trained and more skilled.
14. Create a good environment that uses technology well.
The book was written in 1997, and I don't know whether it's been updated. The authors have some commentary about email-based, web-based, and CTI-based systems, but the next edition might want to say more about the similarities and differences between those and the traditional call center.
Overall, I'm happy to understand more about the math and science behind this discipline. As another reviewer commented, it's clear that IT Help Desks have something to learn from the Call Center experience.
Call Center Management ~On Fast Forward.......2002-08-07
We were in the process of re-organizing our call center and based on the excellent reviews that I read, I choose this book. Well, the reviews were right. This book is excellent. It is very well written and explains all aspects of organizing and analyzing a Call Center. We have ordered a total of 6 copies and they are being utilized by the V.P. of Operations, Operations Manager, IT dept, and the Customer Service Dept.
Comprehensive handbook for management.......2002-07-10
The perfect book for the people that are managing the call centers. Especially when call center is just a part of your responsibility and you need a comprehensive and ehhaustive in-depth description of call center activities. Great book. Good for both excecutives to understand what the call center managers are doing (even in terms of languages they speak, very usefull, if you are not able to undestand sometimes the cc managers you need the book) and call centers managers in order to understand how to present their work to the executives.
Excellent book to get started and graduate yourself.......2002-06-03
This is excellent book to get started on concepts, key metrics in call center. I really liked the writting style and the way author has explained different concepts. I had no background in call center and I could comprehend almost all the concepts in this book.
I would recommend this book to any one who wants to know concepts, metrics and KPI within a call center environment.
Book Description
"Clients At The Core is an essential blueprint to helping us all take the next steps. The authors, battle scarred by the evolution of professional firm management and marketing from then to now, have captured the changing needs of the firms in this turbulent new economic era. This is a well-written book that uses plain language to convey practical, well thought-out ideas."
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Patrick J. McKenna, a leading international consultant to professional service firms
"The authors have captured the changing role of professional services marketing and firm management. There is valuable insight [in this] down-to-earth guide to competing successfully in the new environment."
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David Maister, author and consultant
"The book is a masterpiece! Aquila and Marcus have produced the essential guide for managing a professional services firm. They've marshaled their considerable real-life experiences and far-reaching vision into a veritable operating manual for the successful firm."
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Rick Telberg, Editor at Large, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
"At its heart, this book is the running shoe for legal and accounting professionals who want to put the client first. Following the evolution of the industry over the past twenty-five years, this must-have for every professional services firm is the key to leading in the turbulent and highly competitive waters ahead."
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Richard S. Levick, Esq., President, Levick Strategic Communications, LLC coauthor, Stop the Presses: The Litigation PR Desk Reference
"Client selection and retention is one of the critical success factors for a professional services firm, and Aquila and Marcus do a masterful job at educating us on the necessary ingredients of each. The chapters on firm governance and paying for performance are thought provoking and certainly challenging to the conventional wisdom. If you want a better understanding of marketing and leading a professional firm in these turbulent times, this book is essential."
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Ronald J. Baker, author, Professional's Guide to Value Pricing and The Firm of the Future
"Client at the Core is a commonsense approach to keeping your professional services firm relevant in the twenty-first century's client-driven economy. Aquila and Marcus have hit a home run with their insightful analysis and poignant prose."
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Jeffrey S. Pawlow, Managing Shareholder, The Growth Partnership, Inc.
Download Description
"August Aquila and Bruce Marcus reward readers of Client at the Core with an imaginative map for the perilous journey through the twists and turns of marketing and managing today's professional services firm. It is creative and thorough."
-Gerry Riskin, Partner, Edge International
"The authors have captured the changing role of professional services marketing and firm management. There is valuable insight [in this] down-to-earth guide to competing successfully in the new environment."
-David Maister, author and consultant
"The book is a masterpiece! Aquila and Marcus have produced the essential guide for managing a professional services firm. They've marshaled their considerable real-life experiences and far-reaching vision into a veritable operating manual for the successful firm."
-Rick Telberg, Editor at Large, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants
"At its heart, this book is the running shoe for legal and accounting professionals who want to put the client first. Following the evolution of the industry over the past twenty-five years, this must-have for every professional services firm is the key to leading in the turbulent and highly competitive waters ahead."
-Richard S. Levick, Esq., President, Levick Strategic Communications, LLC
coauthor, Stop the Presses: The Litigation PR Desk Reference
"Client selection and retention is one of the critical success factors for a professional services firm, and Aquila and Marcus do a masterful job at educating us on the necessary ingredients of each. The chapters on firm governance and paying for performance are thought provoking and certainly challenging to the conventional wisdom. If you want a better understanding of marketing and leading a professional firm in these turbulent times, this book is essential."
-Ronald J. Baker, author, Professional's Guide to Value Pricing and The Firm of the Future
"Client at the Core is a commonsense approach to keeping your professional services firm relevant in the twenty-first century's client-driven economy. Aquila and Marcus have hit a home run with their insightful analysis and poignant prose."
-Jeffrey S. Pawlow, Managing Shareholder, The Growth Partnership, Inc.
Customer Reviews:
Marketing 101, 201, & 301 for Professional Services.......2005-08-31
This book should burnish the authors' already high reputations for having cogent, jargon-free, and street-smart things to say about what it's really like to try to market professional services. An unusual blend of (clear and lucidly stated) theory about marketing, and real-world insights into obstacles clients can throw up--not to mention the high barrier of internal resistance that "professionals" instinctively erect when asked to be marketers--this should be your starting point if you're facing the complexities of marketing in this environment.
Think that "marketing is just common sense?" Think again; it's both a discipline and an art. Aquila and Marcus will guide your hand at both.
Gerry Riskin (co-author Herding Cats and Beyond Knowing.......2005-06-12
August Aquila and Bruce Marcus reward readers of Client at the Core with an imaginative map for the perilous journey through the twists and turns of marketing and managing today's professional services firm. It is creative and thorough.
Required reading for my marketing leaders.......2004-09-25
August Aquila and Bruce Marcus have written a clear and comprehensive view of what every accounting or law marketer needs to know about this new, unprecedented professional services environment. Their book not only explains the new environment, but it's also a rich primer of practical "how-to" advice on all the marketing tools available to the professional services marketer. Strategy is fine, but I find that few books get down to the step-by-step implementation tactics involved in winning new business like this book does - that's one of its best points of differentiation. After reading it, I bought copies for every one of my regional, industry, service line and national marketing leaders.
Aquila and Marcus Deliver Practice Advice for Success.......2004-09-07
In "Client at the Core: Marketing and Managing Today's Professional Services Firm," (Wiley, 2004) August J. Aquila, based in Minnetonka, Minn., and Bruce W. Marcus, in Easton, Conn., a pair of veteran consultants, combine their considerable experience, skill and insight into a veritable strategic planning operator's manual for today's consulting firm.
From the outset, they acknowledge "the professional world doesn't need another book on how to write a press release or write a brochure or run a seminar."
Instead, they provide a new perspective on the crucial subject of how to keep firms relevant to the needs of the marketplace -- mainly, creating clients and building a marketing culture.
They don't get tied up in ideas like "vision," or "mission."
Instead they talk about the new realities of the 21st Century and professions in turmoil: dot-coms gone bust, a stock market meltdown, and a rash of frauds, defalcations, misuse of corporate funds; and then a reformist reaction, still unfolding, that the authors term "a helter-skelter regulatory rush that was at least as punitive as it was appropriate. It would seem that the regulatory garment was cut to fit all, when all don't wear the same size."
"The time is past when just the presence of the professional was its own comfort factor. It's long been believed that the concept of the professional was so exalted, and so trusting, that people accepted advice unquestioningly. No more. The scandals of 2002 and 2003 seem to have bred a diminished - if unwarranted -- respect for professionals," they say.
"Traditionally, professional services have been a seller's market," according to Aquila and Marcus. But now the tables are turned. "It is now a buyer's market."
For today's professionals, here are six lessons you can take to the bank according to the authors:
1. Clients are more sophisticated. They no longer accept advice without questioning, challenging, demanding more reasoning and detail.
2. Because of the complexity of business today, clients demand that their professionals know more about the client's business and industry than ever before.
3. Professional services always function best when trust is at the heart of the relationship, but the corporate scandals of recent years have eroded that trust. That trust must now be regenerated. And the workings of trust are more important in the new economy than in the old.
4. Once the narrow structures of a profession were sufficient to serve clients. But clients now demand a broader spectrum of capabilities. The more broadly educated and well-rounded professional is the one with the greater advantage in meeting the needs of today's client. Clients demand that accountants know more than the basic skills of accounting.
5. Competition is now a fact of life. Clients know they have a choice.
Clients know the difference between marketing promises and professional services delivery. Today's client demands more real service and solutions -- not just a warm personal relationship.
To Aquila and Marcus, the new paradigm of professional services requires a new demand for partnership with the client and new participatory skills.
As they say: It's a buyers' market. Get used to it.
(...)
Focus on Application.......2004-08-22
"Meaty and rich with texture. The authors understand the application of marketing concepts to the CPA profession at a very deep level, and communicate clearly and concisely."
"Every page was another 'Yes!' when reading about the application of marketing principles to the CPA world. The authors nailed it."
Product Description
The industry s No. 1 selling book on call center management! Now updated and expanded, "Call Center Management on Fast Forward"; is the most comprehensive source available on running a call center. It covers every aspect of call center management - service level, forecasting, scheduling, resource calculations, metrics, quality, budgeting, reporting, strategy and key enabling technologies - in a format that is well-organized and easy to understand. The updated and expanded edition contains important new information, including: Trends in customer expectations; Best practices in performance reports and objectives; How to create an effective customer access strategy appropriate for today's environment; How to manage multichannel contacts with quality; New technologies and how they re changing customer contact services; Improving the call center s strategic impact and ROI; New case studies and examples from Wells Fargo, Starbucks, Aetna and many others.
Customer Reviews:
great for newbies as well as those with experience in the industry.......2007-09-23
I have been in the call center industry for some time and I find that you can't know it all, especially if you are in a large call center where roles are very specific. This book has help me understand the things that others do and has helped me to advance into other areas. The book is well laid out and explains everything fairly well, but not perfect. The book also gets right to the point of data is important to gather and how to best illustrate that data in a spreadsheet or chart. It has really helped me to better organize my KPI's and focus on just a few important pieces of data instead of having to sift through piles of numbers. This book has also helped me to become better at workforce management strategies and forecasting. Two areas I had little familiarity with. This book will certainly bring you up to speed quickly. Even after reading and applying everything in the book, I continue to reference it all the time.
Book Description
COMPENSATING NEW SALES ROLES How to Design Rewards That Work in Today's Selling Environment In every industry the traditional sales force is disappearing. To grow and prosper today, companies are focused on managing the total customer experience -- with an increasing number of jobs now playing key roles in the sales process. But what exactly are these new sales roles? How are they compensated? Now this action manual shows how to:
** understand why sales forces are evolving into new acquisitions specialists, retention sales specialists, telephone sales managers, service consultants, and more
** design state-of-the-art compensation plans for new sales roles
** implement a compensation plan that rewards top performers
** measure the effectiveness of the plan. JEROME A. COLLETTI is president and CEO of The Alexander Group, Inc., a nationwide management consulting firm specializing in marketing and sales. MARY S. FISS is a consulting manager with The Alexander Group, Inc. They are based in Scottsdale, AZ. WALLY WOOD (Sandy Hook, CT) is co-author of several books, including Marketing Myths That Are Killing Business.
Customer Reviews:
Awesome realities.......2000-09-09
This book is a must have for todays business managers in the ever changing world of sales. I am amazed at the insight and accuracy depicted in the book. It assisted me in the re-engineering of a tired sales force. Two thumbs up!
Book Description
Standing out in the turmoil of today's Internet marketplace is a major challenge. There are many books and courses on Internet marketing; this is the only book that will provide you with insider secrets. We asked the marketing experts who make their living on the Internet every day—and they talked. Online Marketing Success Stories will give you real-life examples of how successful businesses market their products online. The information is so useful that you can read a page and put the idea into action—today!
With e-commerce expected to reach $40 billion and online businesses anticipated to increase by 500 percent through 2010, your business needs guidance from today's successful Internet marketing veterans. Learn the most efficient ways to bring consumers to your site, get visitors to purchase, how to up-sell, oversights to avoid, and how to steer clear of years of disappointment.
We spent thousands of hours interviewing, e-mailing, and communicating with hundreds of today's most successful e-commerce marketers. This book not only chronicles their achievements, but is a compilation of their secrets and proven successful ideas. If you are interested in learning hundreds of hints, tricks, and secrets on how to make money (or more money) with your Web site, then this book is for you.
Instruction is great, but advice from experts is even better, and the experts chronicled in this book are earning millions. This new exhaustively researched book will provide you with a jam-packed assortment of innovative ideas that you can put to use today. This book gives you the proven strategies, innovative ideas, and actual case studies to help you sell more with less time and effort.
Customer Reviews:
Real Life Stories - And Much More.......2007-03-24
Richards provides many different stories from both small and large businesses which were successful online. She also summarizes the key points from these stories into simple, easy to follow guidelines for your own internet marketing. From each story, you can get a lesson to apply to your own business - and the reading is more interesting than a normal textbook. Also, each story contains a tip for new online businesses or those wanting to refresh their strategies. Since so much of online marketing is about websites and email mailing lists, these topics are also covered in depth. Overall, a useful book to provide you with some tips on how to make the most of your online advertising dollars whether you are just starting out or just want to be even more successful than you already are.
Online Marketing Success Stories: Insider Secrets From the Experts Who Are Making Millions on the Internet Today.......2006-12-28
Online Marketing Success Stories: Insider Secrets From the Experts Who Are Making Millions on the Internet Today Rene V. Richards is a must have for anyone running or thinking of beginning an online business. The book provides background information and current contact information for over 65 successful online business ventures. Tips and tricks of the trades are provided in an easy-to-follow format. While some of the stories are presented in interview format, others are presented as stories. There are multiple other sections which provide additional summaries of the best tips available from insiders of the trades. All of the information is helpful and intriguing, and it is highly recommended, with a 5 star rating overall.
There are many books covering Internet strategies - but few packed with real-world success stories, as this provides........2006-12-11
E-commerce is expected to increase by 500 percent through 2010, so any business anticipating success must have more than a retail brick n mortar presence: that's the message of a title which gathers over sixty true stories from those who have evolved successful businesses on the internet today. Learn from the culmination of hundreds of tips, which here represent the best, most successful advice. There are many books covering Internet strategies - but few packed with real-world success stories, as this provides.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
A Worthwhile Read.......2006-11-09
Rene V. Richard offers a comprehensive look at multiple "real world" success stories of on-line marketers. Then, when you as the reader come to terms with the fact that regardless of what you may have heard, success is possible in such an ultra-competitive market, Richard gives information, hints, strategies and techniques to help anyone achieve higher profits from a smaller investment. A worthwhile read if the world of online marketing appeals to you - even just a little bit.
Online Marketing Success Stories: Insider Secrets from the Experts Who are Making Millions on the Internet Today.......2006-10-21
Online Marketing Success Stories: Insider Secrets from the Experts Who are Making Millions on the Internet Today by Rene V. Richards, published by Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.
Rating: 5 stars out of five.
Rene V. Richards is an accountant and financial services advisor, as well as writer of investment articles. In Online Marketing Success Stories she describes a large variety of successful, online marketing campaigns, including strategies, styles, and secrets, of the great ones, such as Google and Microsoft, and smaller, but also successful, marketers.
Covered in 260 pages are how to successfully develop a website and create visibility for it on Internet search engines. She discusses how to get buyers to visit your site, purchase your products, up sell products, and dangers to avoid. Case studies of Corey Rudl, Robert Imbriale, Jay Conrad Levinson, Dr. Joe Vitale, Dr. Ken Evoy, Allan Gardyne, and Phil Wiley are included. So are Yanik Silver, Declan Dunn, eBay, and Amazon. If you ever wanted a wealth of information about search engine optimization (SEO), e-zines, META tags, branding, ad words, and pay-per-click, this book is for you!
This book is user-friendly and comprehensive, pulling into one resource a multitude of successful, Internet marketing strategies and tips, based on the successful careers of some the most famous Internet marketers.
Book Description
Cool isn't just a state of mind, a celebrity fad, or an American obsession -- it's a business. In boardrooms across America, product managers are examining vodka bottles and candy bars, tissue boxes and hamburgers, wondering how do we make this thing cool? How do we make this gadget into the iPod of our industry? How do we do what Nike did? How do we get what Target got? How do we infuse this product with that very desirable, nearly unattainable it factor?
In this wide-ranging exploration the authors Noah Kerner, a celebrated marketing maverick, and Gene Pressman, legendary creative visionary and former co-CEO of Barneys New York, have uncovered surprising and universal patterns and trends. They systematically parse the successes and failures of the last few decades -- in music and fashion, magazines and food, spirits and hip-hop culture. Their discoveries are pulled together in this definitive book on the commerce of cool.
Nike and Target endure as relevant brands not because of a shortsighted and gimmicky campaign. A dash of bling and a viral website don't amass long-term value. Brands are effectively developed when companies take substantial risk -- and face the possibility of real failure -- in order to open up the opportunity for real success.
Chasing Cool includes interviews with more than seventy of today's most respected innovators from Tom Ford and Russell Simmons to Ian Schrager and Christina Aguilera. And through this accomplished assemblage, Pressman and Kerner dig beneath the surface and reveal how emphasizing long-lasting relevance trumps a fleeting preoccupation with what's hot and what's not. In a multidimensional, entertaining, and eminently readable book that redefines how to appeal to today's savvy consumer, Kerner and Pressman explore the lessons to be learned by America's ongoing search for the ever-changing concept of cool. Readers will learn how to apply these lessons to their own businesses and creative projects in order to stand out in today's cluttered marketplace.
"Simply chasing cool is really a bad idea; inspired by cool is a great idea. Walk the street, see what's going on, and spit it out in your own way. Don't do it because you research it, do it because you breathe it."
-- Russell Simmons, chairman and CEO of Rush Communications
"I can't imagine having to hire a so-called Cool Hunter. If I had to go to someone else to be cool, I'd just pack up my bags and find a new profession."
-- Tony Hawk, professional skateboarder
"It's possible to be both mainstream and edgy. You can be the Goliath but you always have to think and behave like the David."
-- Scott Bedbury, former Nike and Starbucks marketing executive
"I love looking at trend reports because then I know exactly what I shouldn't be doing."
-- John Demsey, group president, Estée Lauder, MAC Cosmetics, Prescriptives, Sean John, and Tom Ford Beauty
"I don't believe in creation by committee. I think it's impossible."
-- Bonnie Fuller, chief editorial director and executive vice president of American Media Inc.
"We had to make a big decision at MTV when I was there. Do we grow old with our audience or are we going to be the voice of young America? We made the decision to be the voice of young America, which meant we had to let people grow out of MTV."
-- Bob Pittman, cofounder of MTV, former president of AOL
Customer Reviews:
Very insightful for anyone in marketing.......2007-10-23
As someone who works in the marketing business, I found the stories and insights in this book to be really helpful in my career. I would recommend it to anyone looking to get into marketing or seeking to build a brand.
Not worth your time.......2007-10-19
This book feels very disjointed. There is very little content and no real sense for how you would apply what little content there is. I am glad that I checked this out at the library instead of buying it.
MUST READ..........2007-09-16
One of the best books I've read this year...I couldn't put it down. My favorite part was how the authors break down real case studies and give inside information for brands that are relevant today. It was fascinating and informative. If you're into marketing, advertising, consumer behavior, pr, business, psychology, and more, you'll get a lot out of this book.
Chasing Tails.......2007-09-13
If you're interested in learning how cool the authors think they are (admittedly, they were successful at being cool), read it.
If you're looking for anything demonstrable or instructive, pass.
The Cool Inside.......2007-08-23
The book is well written and an easy read. Contemporary examples of "Cool Success" are inspiring and eye-opening. Any business owner can benefit from the insight provided in such conversational format.Chasing Cool will get your creative juices flowing as you embark on your next marketing campaign.
Book Description
This is the first book to explain how the fundamentals of marketing strategy must change in response to this broad-based increase in wealth
The authors specifically addresses how to fine tune a mass marketing approach that captures the value created from greater consumer affluence.
After years of expensive and largely ineffective attempts at one-to-one marketing and other complex varieties of microsegmentation, the business environment is ripe for a switch back to the relative simplicity of a mass marketing mindset
Flouts conventional wisdom: the authors in-depth research uncovered that today’s “moneyed masses” are completely different than the mass market of decades past in terms of how much they have to spend and what they are willing to spend it on. Reveals the mass marketing strategies a range of companies have already successfully used to hit pay dirt with products ranging from oral care to laundry detergent to exotic automobiles.
Customer Reviews:
Serving the super-modern customer.......2006-10-24
Mass Affluence complements The Dollarization Discipline (Fox and Gregory)by explaining the emotional needs of today's mass-market customer (the end-user to our broadcaster customers). Put the two together to see how product development and sales should work in the coming decade.
(Review based on reading a commercial executive summary of both books.)
Ideas you can use to reach affluent customers.......2006-06-30
So many books about marketing or business are long on high-minded concepts, but very short on ideas you can use when you go to work the next day. Mass Affluence happily breaks that mold and offers up useful ideas in almost every chapter.
Nunes does a great job of breaking down how to approach the large demographic of relatively wealthy consumers into different functional areas and makes a chapter out of each. He explains how something, like billing, was typically done in the past and how it should be handled now. Beyond that, Nunes has found pertinent real-world examples of every concept he discusses and gets helpful input from the business people out using the strategies on a day-to-day basis.
The result of all Nunes work (I'm sure it would've been easier to write the book without running down real-world examples) is a highly practical guide to setting up or improving upon a business that caters to wealthy, but not mega-rich, customers.
Highly recommended.
Why this one is a standout..........2006-02-22
There are zillions of books out there on marketing moderate to high end items, most of them repeating the same old principles (yawn). You certainly don't need to waste your time or money on those.
Happily, this one is different, showing sellers how to reach the elusive buyers who may fall somewhere between high end and moderate end...perhaps prefering items that fall somewhere between the High end of Moderately priced...or, if you like, the low end of Luxury. They'll spend plenty...but they have definite needs.
This book shows sellers how to appeal to those needs and to market the same (or similar) items in a way to appeal to diverse buyers.
By the way, it is always a plus when a publisher takes advantage of the "Look Inside the Book" feature on Amazon - and this publisher does. So don't take my word on the benefits of this book. Take a look at a sample page or two and see if it appeals to you.
I will add that there is a LOT of info crammed into this book and I learned quite a bit. I'd also recommend Let Them Eat Cake.
A ground-breaking, seminal work.......2005-01-03
A collaboration between Paul F. Nunes (Executive Research Fellow at the Accenture Institute for High Performance Business in Wellesley, Massachusetts) and Brian A. Johnson (Senior Research analyst at the New York City based investment research and management firm of Sanford C. Bernstein & Company), Mass Affluence: 7 New Rules Of Marketing To Today's Consumer reveals that there is a pendulum swing in marketing from "one-to-one" customer strategies back to mass marketing. But there's a problem -- Today's more affluent but cautious consumers aren't responding to the strategies that worked with their middle-class predecessors. Mass Affluence lays out seven new rules of mass marketing specifically directed for use with the increasingly affluent populace and shows how innovative companies are implementing these novel strategies with high-end products that fill a heretofore ignored middle-ground in ordinary product categories ranging from clothing, to oral care, to house hold cleaning, and more. A ground-breaking, seminal work, Mass Affluence should be considered mandatory reading by any corporate manager charged with the responsibility of marketing his company's services or products in today's increasingly volatile, global, and competitive marketplace.
A Marketing Book Than Can Make a Difference.......2004-09-30
It's not just the rich who are getting richer; it's also a broad swath of some 22 million U.S. households who have gained significant levels of wealth, income and discretionary spending over the past 30 years. In a meticulously well-researched and well-written marketing best seller, researchers Paul Nunes and Brian Johnson document the phenomenon of mass affluence. They then describe the tremendous opportunities marketers have in crafting innovative new products and services to serve the top 20 percent of households that have some 60 percent of the nation's discretionary spending power.
The timing of this important work could not be better for retailers and brands struggling to increase share and margins in a Darwinian marketplace. I've been involved in consumer marketing for more than twenty years and I've seen only a handful of marketing books that can really make a difference. "Mass Affluence" is one of them. We were so impressed with the book that we bought copies for all our associates. I highly recommend it.
Book Description
Stephan Schiffman, America's #1 corporate sales trainer, delivers more of the simple, direct, easy-to-apply sales advice that has helped thousands of businesses around the world. He reveals 25 new sales-building strategies that he's developed and tested during his years of training top-notch salespeople. Put these effective, yet simple, strategies to work for you!
Take Immediate Action
Be Punctual
Return Calls within Twenty-four Hours
Follow Through
Observe
Ask the Right Questions
Use Fallbacks
See Everyone at Least Once
Know When to Retreat
Keep the Closing Phase Simple
Customer Reviews:
The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople Has a Bad Habi.......2006-03-12
This book has a bad habit of being weak and juvenille. Very weak and ordinary.
GH
Boost of Energy.......2006-02-05
This encouraging book gives each of the author's 25 selling habits a great little chapter to explain and give a few examples of the technique. Even if you have heard the habit before, it gives you a boost of energy to get going. This book is a great one to have around for all salespeople- new and old.
Schiffmans' 25 Sales Habits Book Is Very Useful.......2006-02-05
The best thing about Stephan's 25 Habits book is that it summarizes what it takes to be a successful sales person.
It's easy to read, and even when you're an experienced sales pro like some of us grizzled old veterans are, you'll still find that there's things you could improve upon in what's explained.. so it's a great "self check" and tune-up, for all levels of sales reps.
Schiffmans' books (and Gitomers) are ones that I recommend all my clients read, as they're important, and their techniques work.
This one is useful, a good overview and primer of what sales success is all about. Nice work.
Ken Calhoun
What gives?.......2005-07-14
You want I should read this book and sell good? I read it and it aint working so good for me.
Never Forget the Fundamentals!.......2005-03-27
Funny, but people seem to believe all show business folks know each other (they don't). Same for sales trainers (we don't either!). So Stephan Schiffman and I, both successful sales trainers/authors/speakers/consultants, somehow managed to avoid each other out on the road for almost 40 years - before finally doing a sales training seminar together just a few months ago. As for me, I was impressed! He had the audience in stiches, while teaching them some very solid sales information.
Understand, "The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople" is not one of Steve's deeper works (he has plenty of those!). But it a wonderful tool for new salespeople who must first learn the basics of selling, and for any established salesperson who needs to get "re-threaded" (as we all do from time-to-time).
And don't get distracted by some of the negative reviews I saw about Steve's book. Those people are, in my humble opinion, missing the point. Even my material ("The Closers" series of books/audios/videos/newsletters/seminars) gets rapped on occasion. But as does Steve, I find solace in knowing how many salespeople have gotten rich using my material!
Note: You may have noticed that all of my book reviews carry "5 Star" ratings (*****). But that's not the sign of a "soft reviewer." I only review books to which I can honestly give a "5 Star" rating. You may assume, therefore, that any sales training/self-improvement book without my "5 Star" rating is either something less than "5 Star," or I simply haven't gotten to it yet . . . and there are certainly plenty of those!
Book Description
This book is designed for business professionals that are either thinking about taking their business globally or want to improve their global strategy. Beginning first with an overview of the global business environment, Mastering Global Markets: Strategies for Today's Trade Globalist covers all aspects of entering global markets from strategic planning to tactical implementation.
Books:
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- Social Work and Social Welfare: An Introduction (with InfoTrac®)
- Sports Marketing: A Strategic Perspective (3rd Edition)
- Strategic Brand Management, Second Edition
- Strategic Brand Management, Second Edition
- Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operations, Second Edition
- The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
- The 86 Percent Solution: How to Succeed in the Biggest Market Opportunity of the 21st Century
- The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters
- The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
Books Index
Books Home
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General
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
Retail Management: A Strategic Approach
Kleppner's Advertising Procedure (16th Edition)
Retailing Management
Advertising: Principles and Practice (7th Edition) (Advertising: Principles and Practice)
Operations Management: Processes and Value Chains, 8th edition
