Book Description
Why are people around the world so very different? What makes us live, buy, even love as we do? The answers are in the codes.
In The Culture Code, internationally revered cultural anthropologist and marketing expert Clotaire Rapaille reveals for the first time the techniques he has used to improve profitability and practices for dozens of Fortune 100 companies. His groundbreaking revelations shed light not just on business but on the way every human being acts and lives around the world.
Rapaille’s breakthrough notion is that we acquire a silent system of Codes as we grow up within our culture. These Codes—the Culture Code—are what make us American, or German, or French, and they invisibly shape how we behave in our personal lives, even when we are completely unaware of our motives. What’s more, we can learn to crack the Codes that guide our actions and achieve new understanding of why we do the things we do.
Rapaille has used the Culture Code to help Chrysler build the PT Cruiser—the most successful American car launch in recent memory. He has used it to help Procter & Gamble design its advertising campaign for Folger’s coffee – one of the longest-lasting and most successful campaigns in the annals of advertising. He has used it to help companies as diverse as GE, AT&T, Boeing, Honda, Kellogg, and L’Oréal improve their bottom line at home and overseas. And now, in The Culture Code, he uses it to reveal why Americans act distinctly like Americans, and what makes us different from the world around us.
In The Culture Code, Dr. Rapaille decodes two dozen of our most fundamental archetypes—ranging from sex to money to health to America itself—to give us “a new set of glasses” with which to view our actions and motivations. Why are we so often disillusioned by love? Why is fat a solution rather than a problem? Why do we reject the notion of perfection? Why is fast food in our lives to stay? The answers are in the Codes.
Understanding the Codes gives us unprecedented freedom over our lives. It lets us do business in dramatically new ways. And it finally explains why people around the world really are different, and reveals the hidden clues to understanding us all.
Customer Reviews:
First Impressions are Usually Lasting Impressions.......2007-10-12
The world molds us into beings that are far different from our inner selves. Perceptions, norms, stereotypes and the like cause us to consciously change. However, even when the child we were doesn't recognize the adults we've become, we're still that child at heart. Dr. R knows this. He has a method for stripping us of our worldly armor and displaying who we really are. He presents many scenarios where he has consulted with business to tap into the inner child so their products can relate to those subconscious core values. A great read for anyone in any line of work.
Good marketing and general information, opens mind........2007-09-22
The information and analysis offered by the author are very interesting, it changes the way questions and investigation are offered so that more interesting answers can be obtained.
Very Disappointing.......2007-09-20
Seeing the number of strong reviews, I bought this book expecting deep insight into how consumers across cultures differ in how they make buying decisions (as indicated by the subtitle). At the very least, I was hoping for a thought-provoking framework for thinking about this stuff.
Instead, I got surface-level assertions primarily targeted at the American psyche and seemingly supported only by casual observation and a few focus groups. Indeed, the lack of real scientific rigor and foundational theory supporting his words make it pretty easy to blow holes in every one of Rapaille's arguments (especially the ideas of the Reptilian Brain and America's Cultural Adolescence) and make the book frustrating to read. Like some other reviewers, I also nearly put it down after 100 pages.
On the other hand, the Codes that he's defined for Americans' views of things like food, quality, health, and money are reasonable enough. So to some foreign audiences and perhaps also to Americans and Marketers without previous exposure to cultural anthropology, I can understand how some of his ideas may seem profound.
If you don't fit into either of those categories, don't bother buying this book.
Great Information.......2007-08-15
I really enjoyed reading his book; it let me understand even some of my aptitudes with life.
Very inspiring book.......2007-08-14
This book really helps to understand the most important culture codes for USA. It is very interesting for everybody, it is a must for each marketeers and communitations manager.
Book Description
Consumers shop to satisfy emotional needs and desires-if a company is selling to emotion, then it's in the business of luxury.
What motivates consumers to buy? Is it pleasure? Education? Entertainment? Status? Or just an impulse? Knowing why consumers buy what they do is the secret to predicting how they will behave in the ever-changing marketplace. In most cases, much of what people buy are items they really don't need.
Focusing on the ""whys"" of spending, Danziger has meticulously profiled customers in more than 30 categories of discretionary spending through research based on surveys, interviews, and focus groups from a variety of people who make discretionary purchases. She provides readers with a vision of the future, giving them the foresight to anticipate the needs and desires of their customers.
This groundbreaking guide will help marketers of all products understand the underlying motivators consumers use to both make their purchases and become satisfied, loyal customers. In Why People Buy Things They Don't Need, Danziger examines:
* The 14 justifiers that give consumers ""permission"" to buy.
* Trends impacting why people purchase what they do.
* How to sell even more to these customers.
* The future of discretionary spending.
Customer Reviews:
Not the kind of book I was looking for.......2006-10-10
I thought this was a book to help consumers realize why they buy things they don't need, and thereby stop doing it. But it's the opposite -- it's aimed at helping businesses tap into our buying impulses and sell us MORE stuff! If you're a business looking to raise your sales, you might like this, but it was not at all what I wanted.
Kind of goes on and on.......2006-09-07
The comments by others about how the book at time rehashes statistics are true. At times I found myself glossing over pages just because it was number after number. I lost interest.
I also got to the point with the author's repeated fixation on 9/11 that I had to put the book down. Enough is enough. That fixation only revealed to me the fact that the author's insight and point of view is very limited to the current and is United States centric. The author doesn't address a broader global view of wants and have a historical perspective of why people want to help other spot future trends.
Understand how marketers manipulate you!.......2006-01-24
This book is written for marketers.
If you're a consumer, don't fail to read it - especially if you shop too much and save too little!
Delves into the reasons consumers want things and can be manipulated into believing they need them.
- Eric Tyson
Author of Personal Finance for Dummies and Mind Over Money: Your Path to Wealth and Happiness
An interesting study of the modern consumer.......2005-10-04
Its an interesting study.
I found that much of the people is a rehash of statistical studies in words. You may as well just look at the mathematical figures rather then read the words.
The other issue is the book was written not long after 911 and its long terms effects were over estimated by the writer.
i wish I read this when it first came out!.......2005-08-06
Because I sell luxury home and gift items, I was drawn to the title of this book. Sometimes that is not always a good indicator of what is inside, but in this case it was dead-on. The book helped me understand what I've seen over the last few years, as well as gave me some insight into where things are heading (and why). I keep talking about the book, and the list of friends and associates who want to borrow the book keeps growing, although I may not want to give it up. Only a few more pages to go....
Amazon.com
Harry Washburn and Kim Wallace, principals in a firm specializing in sales and marketing research, believe salespeople are most successful when they can read customers' true motivations and tailor subsequent strategies to fit their unique needs. Based on 20 years' experience with companies like AT&T, IBM, and Polaroid, they've developed a method for replacing traditionally combative sales techniques with ones that encourage a cooperative decision-making process. In Why People Don't Buy Things, they explain how to find each customer's "buying path" by determining his or her specific "buying profile," which they classify as either Commander, Thinker, or Visualizer--and then adjusting arguments, language, and demonstrations to match them. The result, they contend, will help salespeople overcome stumbling blocks that regularly drive possible business away before a sale is consummated.
As any experienced salesman knows, if an individual or group prospect has substantial objections to buying from you that are not smoked out and resolved in your favor, you will lose the sale.... Why people don't buy things is as important a factor in individual and group purchasing decisions as why they do buy things.
--Howard Rothman
Book Description
A field-tested guide to increasing sales by selling the way the customer wants to buy
"As any salesperson knows, if you handle a prospect's objections to buying, you often close the sale. Of course, it's not that easy, thanks to hidden objections and other obstacles. Harry Washburn and Kim Wallace ease the job here by offering new insights into objections prospects tend to raise, as well as how to address them." -Mark Henricks, American Way
Based on twenty-five years of research and practice, and featuring dozens of case examples, Why People Don't Buy Things offers a systematic approach to understanding customers' motivations and tailoring the entire sales strategy to fit the customer's buying profile.
"Why People Don't Buy Things picks up where positioning leaves off. Washburn and Wallace take the mystery out of the selling process and offer an innovative method for converting skeptical consumers into loyal customers." -John C. Ferries, former President-International, D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles
Customer Reviews:
Why did that one get away?.......2006-02-20
I have heard of different personality types for years, how to pick them out and what to do after you know their type, but it was always so complicated. The authors make it VERY easy to pick out the personality type, then they tell you what to do with the information. They give excellent examples from their own work with clients over the years.
This is not one of those books that is just an advertisement for their consulting or their seminars. Each of the three personality types is clearly described. A simple trick is given to remember how to pick each personality type. Then many real life examples of how to sell to that presonality type. All the authors have left for you is to modify the examples to the products you are selling, modify the presentation you already use so that it targets the three personality types in 4 or 5 areas and you will be selling in a way your client likes to buy.
What if you are doing group sales with a mixture of personality types in the same room? It is covered in this book.
This book is too good and too cheap not to get and read. The contents are too easy to not put into practice.
Wow!!!!!.......2005-01-20
Great book on why we sometimes let the big one slip away. Full of ideas and case studies to help anyone selling anything to better position their product/services and ultimately sell more.
Excellence In Sales.......2002-01-13
Let's face it. Most sales people we come in contact with drone on about what they think is gonna make you buy. Wahburn and Wallace have revealed profound conclusions of what customers want to hear, based on hundreds of research questionaires conducted with customers of highly successful companies. I've been in sales for 17 years and I gave up on reading sales books because they were not helpful. This one is different. It immediately helped me improve my presentation that I've been giving for the last 11 years. I thought it was as good as it was gonna get. Wrong. I'm making more money and saying what customers want to hear. Even better, more customers are saying what I want to hear. Buy the book. You won't regret it.
EXCELLENT!!!.......2001-08-15
I refer to this book on a regular basis to train my sales force. It reinforces what we have been working on for several years AND the results are there. Great job Harry and Kim.
Easy to Use Tool Guaranteed to Increase Your Sales Results.......2000-11-14
I am a CPA and Harvard MBA and have sold sophisticated tax shelters on a commission basis for years. This is one of the finest books on salesmanship I have ever read.
It is grounded in excellent theory, yet it presents the information in a simple manner that is easy to understand AND easy to implement.
The book focuses on two areas:
1) Know where your customer is in the buying cycle. a)Is he committed to do something yet, or not. b)Is this a repeat of a prior purchase or not? c)Is he evaluating alternatives? d)From whom will he buy the product or service selected? e)Is the price right?
2) Different personality types buy in different manners. The book describes three types. a)Commander (take-charge, action-oriented leaders) b)Thinker (logical, analyze details, and like knowing the answers), and c) Visualizer (practical, intuitive, see things as they are).
A buyer is interested in certain information at each STAGE in the buying cycle. Additionally, each personality prefers to receive their information in a different manner. By recognizing the buying stage and the personality of the buyer you are trying to persuade, you can choose the most compelling arguments to make every time. This will avoid 90% of the turn-downs other salespeople get when trying to close a sale.
I have read other books classifying personalities into 9 or 16 types. Other authors define 8 or 11 stages of a sale. By using 5 stages in their DREAM sales cycle, and 3 personality types, I think Washburn and Wallace have done salespeople a GREAT service. These categories are well defined, easy to identify, and easily utilized to increase sales with their strategies.
Readers looking for more advanced strategies in these areas can try Kerry Johnson's "Sales Magic" and "Selling the Way Your Customer Buys" by Marvin Sadovsky and Jon Caswell. However, I feel Washburn & Wallace's "Why People Don't Buy Things" has the ideal mix of quality content which works, is easily digested, and implementable. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Book Description
Why People Buy provides an original approach to studying and understanding consumers, showing how to identify their goals, wants, dbeliefs, and choices. Discussing these and many other issues from the point of view of the marketing manager seeking to attract new customers, retain old ones, increase business, or convert customers from rivals, O'Shaughnessy explains all the major criteria that enter into consumer choices. Original and provocative, Why People Buy is "must" reading for anyone involved in selling or buying.
Customer Reviews:
Could Be Invaluable If You Commit the Time and Energy.......2004-02-20
There are hundreds (thousands?) of books now in print which offer information and counsel concerning the sales process. In essence, that process involves cultivation and then solicitation but first an important decision must be made: Whom to cultivate? (In retail sales, obviously, anyone who walks in the door is a prospect.) When conducting workshops for salespersons, I strongly recommend that participants formulate criteria which describe what they consider to be their ideal customer. This profile should direct them to prospects which most closely match up with the criteria. Next I point out that the ideal customers they now have can -- and should -- comprise an extended sales force, serving as referral sources to generate leads. My point is that, except in retail sales, those who sell should select their prospects...not the other war around.
Baker's background is in financial services which presumably require extensive education to understand the specific products and services to be offered prior to the identification, cultivation, and solicitation of prospective buyers of those products and services. The title of his book suggests that understanding motivation (i.e. "hot buttons') is an essential part of the salesperson's preparation and indeed it is. He takes a direct and personal approach to his reader as if he has been retained to provide to the reader a combination of mentoring and coaching services. He carefully organizes his material within 12 chapters, skillfully "Tying It All Together" in the final chapter.
This book be most valuable to those who are new to sales or now considering a career in sales; also to sales managers, especially those who supervise others who are relatively inexperienced. To the former, Baker offers sound basics with a rationale for each; to the latter, Baker offers reminders of basics. (Working as I frequently do with sales managers, I am astonished by the fact that so many of them do not have a sufficient understanding of those basics.) I also recommend this book to another group which Baker may not have had in mind when writing it: Those in executive (non sales) positions who are frequently required to persuade others to support an idea or course of action. By now I am convinced that almost everyone involved in business is constantly selling, themselves if nothing else...and most do it ineffectively. Almost all of the strategies and tactics which Baker recommends can be as beneficial to those not in sales as to those who are.
Individual salespersons as well as organizations need a business plan which is cohesive and comprehensive; also one which prudently allocates resources, especially time and energy, where they will generate the greatest ROI. Given the complexity of the general subject of salesmanship, the art and science of ethical persuasion, it makes sense to consult several different sources (including Baker's book) and then cherry-pick whatever is most appropriate to your own specific circumstances (needs, interests, weaknesses, goals, etc.). Here are some other excellent sources: Dick Canada's The 24 Sales Traps and How to Avoid Them, Linda Richardson's Stop Telling, Start Selling, Paco Underhill's Why We buy, and Gerald Zaltman's How Customers Think.
Excellent Sales Book.......2002-08-05
This book gave me a good over view of the sales process and specifics on how to relate to the buyer. I have read many sales books, but this one hits the mark. I would recommend anyone who is either a professional sales person or striving to be one read this book. It goes way beyond basic sales training and gets into the mind of the buyer and the seller. Great Job.
A Great Book for those willing to appreciate it.......2002-07-22
An excellent book. Guy has managed to capture the essence of the buying process. This book is purely for those who can appreciate the fine principles to be applied during the sales process. It is not meant to be specific. However if applied properly, it will do justice for both the buyer and the seller. It's a guide for ethical and effective selling and how we as sellers can make selling so easy and effortless! Kudos to Guy!
Very nearly worthless.......2002-07-16
If the redundancy were eliminated, this book would shrink to fifty pages. I kept waiting for the author to share something worthwhile with me, but finally gave up halfway through out of sheer boredom. Anyone looking for a better book need look no further than Brian Tracey.
Learning to sell.......2001-10-23
I don't usually like how to books - because they don't really tell you anything. But this book is different. I learned more about selling from this book than any other sales training class I have ever taken. This book deliniates the essence of selling. The author's understanding of sales psychology is uncanny and intutitive. I would highly recommend this book for any person who is starting in sales or has been in sales for a long time. It is worth studying.
Book Description
"Tichenor provides another slam dunk against a simple, purely materialist explanation for male privilege in marriage. She shows us that even though money matters, women need an ideology of equality to draw upon to negotiate fairness in marriage."-Barbara Risman, co-chair, Council on Contemporary Families "Tichenor's research sheds light on the inner workings of families and helps us to clearly see the power of gender ideology and to understand how and why women's higher earnings can be a liability rather than a resource."-Beth Anne Shelton, professor of sociology, University of Texas at Arlington For nearly two decades the wage gap between men and women has remained virtually unchanged. Women continue to earn, on average, 80 cents for every dollar that men earn. Yet despite persistent discrimination in wages, studies are also beginning to show that a growing number of women are out-earning their husbands. Nationwide, nearly one-third of working women are the chief breadwinners in their families. The trend is particularly pronounced among the demographic of highly educated women. Does this increase in earnings, however, equate to a shift in power dynamics between husbands and wives? In Earning More and Getting Less, sociologist Veronica Jaris Tichenor shows how, historically, men have derived a great deal of power over financial and household decisions by bringing home all (or most) of the family's income. Yet, financial superiority has not been a similar source of power for women. Tichenor demonstrates how wives, instead of using their substantial incomes to negotiate more egalitarian relationships, enable their husbands to perpetuate male dominance within the family. Weaving personal accounts, in-depth interviews, and compelling narrative, this important study reveals disturbing evidence that the conventional power relations defined by gender are powerful enough to undermine hierarchies defined by money. Earning More and Getting Less is essential reading in sociology, psychology, and family and gender studies. Veronica Jaris Tichenor is an assistant professor in the department of sociology at the State University of New York--Institute of Technology.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Food Processing, published by Putman Media, Inc. on October 1, 2000. The length of the article is 1332 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Are you selling brands or solving problems?(reasons why people buy products)(Column)
Author: John L. Stanton
Publication:
Food Processing (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2000
Publisher: Putman Media, Inc.
Volume: 61
Issue: 10
Page: 37
Article Type: Column
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Reviewer's Bookwatch, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2006. The length of the article is 779 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People around the World Buy and Live as they Do.(Book review)
Author: Peter Hupalo
Publication:
Reviewer's Bookwatch (Newsletter)
Date: July 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: NA
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Soft-Letter, published by Soft-letter on February 18, 2000. The length of the article is 469 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: SALES TECHNIQUES: "WHY PEOPLE DON'T BUY THINGS".(Industry Trend or Event)
Publication:
Soft-Letter (Newsletter)
Date: February 18, 2000
Publisher: Soft-letter
Volume: 16
Issue: 7
Page: NA
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Books:
- The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services
- The Glannon Guide to Civil Procedure: Learning Civil Procedure Through Multiple-Choice Questions and Analysis
- The Green Pharmacy: The Ultimate Compendium Of Natural Remedies From The World's Foremost Authority On Healing Herbs (Green Pharmacy)
- The Hippy Survival Guide to Y2K
- The International Dictionary of Event Management (The Wiley Event Management Series)
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
- The Lovemarks Effect: Winning in the Consumer Revolution
- The New Glucose Revolution Shopper's Guide to GI Values 2007: The Authoritative Source of Glycemic Index Values for More than 500 Foods (Glucose Revolution)
Books Index
Books Home
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- The Stories of John Cheever
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Workplace
| Organizational Behavior
| Business & Investing
| Subjects
| Books
The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes
How Customers Think: Essential Insights into the Mind of the Market
WORDS THAT WORK: IT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT'S WHAT PEOPLE HEAR
The Wisdom of Crowds
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
