How to write proposals,  sales letters, & reports. Neil Sawers. 2004. ISBN 0969790147.   This is a very useful small book on essential skills that many small business people do not have. The author is very organized and systematic about the  how, why and what of proposals, letters and reports.  His writing style is very direct and pragmatic.  There are lots of books on this topic around, but I liked his for being very focused on small business people.

Selling in a New Market Space. Getting customers to buy your innovative and disruptive products. Brain C. Burns & Tom U. Snyder.  2010. ISBN 9780071636100.  A worthy succesor to books like Selling in th ehigh technology market, this book speaks about a Maverick Selling  Principles.  It explains how to build highly successful sales teams that create markets from scratch by:

1. Articulating a compelling vision for the future
2. Pinpointing your target market
3. Controlling the decision making process
4. Exposing exactly how large organizations make product sections

The authors use true-life case studies showing how the Maverick Method has resulted in landmark deals and long-term success for innovative new products. I appreciated their understanding of short windows of opportunity.  Pay attention as they teach you how to build sales money maps, an often lost art these days.

Rethinking Sales Management.  A strategic guide for practitioners. Beth Rogers. 2007. ISBN 9780470513057. This is a very thorough book with a specific focus on sales strategy It is needed for selling is getting tougher every day.  She uses her form of  “customer portfolio matrix” , based on what I appreciate, the customers point of view.   I think her approach will assist managers in  setting  realistic objectives, designing  new strategies that add real customer value,  avoiding  wasting time on price-oriented customers and deployingresources for maximum results. Beth is from the UK which means her English is precise , but like the Economist, has depth on every page.  Not a quick read.

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Spanning Silos. The New CMO Imperative. David Aaker. 2009. ISBN 1422128768, 9781422128763. This is a specialist’s book.  After interviews with over 40 CMOs Aaaken has laid out how larger companies can better use their central marketing resources and eliminate the silos of marketing efforts that are often the norm.  This is not an issue that our clients have as they are more often worried about the silos called sales and marketing.  His ideas on how to achieve this cross silo agreement are also useful for the spanning of other silos in any company. As an academic the author is well researched and documented.  I would not rsuh out to buy this book, but it is certainly worth a library read. I appreciated his company stories.

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Managers Guide to Marketing , Advertising and Publicity.  Barry Callen. 2010. ISBN 9780071627962.  Callen explains:

• The 14 principles of marketing communications strategy
• Common marketing mistakes to avoid
• Techniques for creating powerful marketing messages
• The many choices for delivering your marketing message How to take full advantage of digital platforms

Today, you must come up with a bigger, better, brighter marketing campaign, or you’re guaranteed to be lost in the noise. This primer is ideal for anyone looking to position his or her organization as a powerful competitor in the twenty-first century.Briefcase Books, written specifically for today’s busy manager, feature eye-catching icons, very useful checklists,and sidebars to guide managers step-by-step through everyday workplace situations.  The text is simple, pragmatic  and a pretty good “Coles Notes” for marketing guide.

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socialnomics. how social media transforms the way we live and do business. erik qualman. 2009. ISBN  9780470477236.  I confess my first thought  was  not another fluffy book on social media.  This is anything but that. I consider this the sober second wave type of book that helps us determine where a technology change will really make a business difference. Examples:

The impact of having your profile available to the many and how that impacts your social behavior (What foes on in Vegas stays on Facebook)

LinkedIn is a defacto monopoly on business social networking. Once you have collected a set of references on LinkedIn why would you ever go to another site?

It is no good railing against the walled garden approach of Facebook, companies need to embrace it as another venue to meet and communicate with its target market.

Google is right to be scared of Facebook, people care less what Google thinks and more what their ‘friends” think about products etc. I just bought two items from Facebook marketplace that a few years ago I woudl have looked to ebay for. Facebook was easier, much faster and now I know the seller.

Books are being written as a crowd sourcing experiment – ask your followers a question on Twitter and write down what comes back.

Robert Murdock wanting to get his stuff not as easily searched by Google is another example of “Its my ball and I will play with it my way” thinking.  Did not work for AOL, Hasbro and Scrabulous won’t work for him

I advise you to pick this book up, it will help us dinosaurs come to grips with why the youth are embracing this media. You will enjoy his easy reading style and thoughtful analysis.

How the Mighty Fall. And why some companies never give in Jim Collins. 2009.ISBN 9780977326419. The Good to Great author has done it again  He explains that this was a much harder task than finding the commonalities for Good to Great.  He has done a good job.  He shows there are five stages of decline,

1. Hubris born of success.
2. Undisciplined pursuit of more
3. Denial of risk and peril
4. Grasping for salvation
5. Capitulation to  irrelevance or death

He illustrates how  the basics of Good to Great still apply and indicates that many of the fallen (A&P , Zenith, Circuit City, Merck….) were unable to do what the ones who came back ( Nordstrom, Xerox) , which was were they fell away from their basic strategy that helped them to grow in the first place.  From our practise we see that companies who fail to work a scenario strategy al a Schwartz (what is the best, worst that can happen  and what indicators will show you the trends)  are the ones who often make the wrong bets.  Check l out last months Wired magazine article on scenarios. It really works. This prevents the search for the silver bullet.

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Being Strategic. Plan for success;out-think your competitors;stay ahead of change. Erika Anderson. 2009. ISBN 139780312553982.   Likely one of the clearest books on strategy I have ever read. Many of our clients come to us with processes and plans that are an undisciplined mix of tactics and strategy. Anderson makes a some good definitions of strategy and tactics (e.g. Strategy is where you want to be, tactics is how you will get there) . The author clearly understands group dynamics making this an essential handbook on getting groups through strategy planning and execution sessions.  (I wish I had had this book 30 years ago. ) An easy read with sufficient activities and exercises that the reader has ample opportunity to imprint the learning.

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Mastering the Hype Cycle. How to choose the right innovation at the right time. Jackie Fenn & Mark Raskino. 2008. ISBN 9781422121108.   RocketBuilders has used the Gartner Hype Cycle many times to analyze a technology and applications. Having this book brings all ehe Gartner experience and view points together. It is actually two books.  The first half, is abook about recognizing the Hype Cycle and what technology builders and innovators can (should) learn from this.  The second half is for companies that want to innovate but want to be sure to get started when the Cycle is working for them. Others could use the book to help save stalled innovation projects.    I especially enjoyed the examples and overall pragmatic style (utility) of this book. Check it out more at the book website, www.gartner.com/hypecycle.

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The Designful Company. A whiteboard overview. Marty Neumeier. 2009. ISBN 9780321580061.  An easy to read but insightful look at the impact of design on long term profits and shareholder value.  I have waited a long time for an analysis like this.  You will find a well thought out and logical train from the core of design to the company bottom line.  Lesson learned was the story of Samsung and how a focus on design has resluted in significant product growth.  There are lots of folks with the CEO/designer genes beyond Steve Jobs in the world.   Good airplane book in that you do not need many  words to speak the truth.

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Salt. A world history. Mark Kurlanski.2002. ISBN 0142001619. I wish they had taught history this way when I was chained to my high school seat. Instead of itching to get at math, i would have paid attention. The author (who has a delightful easy to read writing style) cut his teeth writing about the Basques and also cod. This one is a real keeper. Yes it has some recipes (very old) and lots of geography covered (since everyone needs/uses salt). But the interlinking between the rise and fall of civilizations that followed the fortunes of the salt industry, is simply fascinating. Great airplane /holiday book – reads like a fiction novel and it just makes so much sense. The gold nuggets for me were the insights into how govts, families and cartes manipluate these markets and countries. One thing I believe is that cultures and people do not change.

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The Innovator’s Prescription. A disruptive solution to healthcare Clayton M. Christensen, Grossman & Hwang. 2008. ISBN 9780071592086. Ten years in the making, this is another very useful analysis by the Christensen team.    I quickly found seven immediate money making ideas for the tech industry in healthcare in this book.  As ever, the book is clear and well written, with fascinating footnotes in every chapter (almost a book within the book) . The author(s) are no fans of govt all in one funded ( ie Canada-style) healthcare – but they have an equal dislike of the present US model.

He echoes one of the results of the Rocket Builders – NRC Healthcare opportunities study – which was that opportunities lie in the interstitials between silos and layers o f the US and Canada system.  He extends it further by illustrating the fundamental and repairable structural flaws in the present systems.  The disruptive opportunities he shows up are very near, real and often just waiting for th erigth group to sieze onto them.

As ever he points out how to start with a less than ideal solution for the unserved market – which is easier in the US vs Canada, where we have a poor but working solution – we then require a dramatically better solution for disruption. He also suggests that a democracy is not the tool to effect change, unless the change is so subtle, few notice.  For every change proposed in a democracy, someone will lose from the status quo, and they have lots of political levers to pull to keep things the same.  He also repeats that it is impossible to effect the change from within- reminding us  that IBM was the only company to survive multiple disruptions, each time through first creating a distinct stand alone division , outside of the corporate culture.

Doctors  will cry out No! when reading the section on commoditization of health care services  – but if they look around they will see that it is happening . Using Christensen’s view, hospitals should finally be able to decide what type of business they are in (He IDs three distinct types)  and then they will be able to carve ot the metrics to help them change to a sustainable model.

A very good book for all of us, expecially if you have any interest in heathcare and healthcare dollars.

Get it here

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Image via Wikipedia

The Post American World  Fareed Zakaria. 2008. ISBN 9780393062359.  This could be a very important book, if the current crop of pres idential candidates ever read it. The author is a senior writer at Newsweekand the editor of Newsweek International.  For those of us who watch the international stage this book is a telling indictment of how much GW bush has squandered what little remained of US good will internationally. Theauthor presents some hopeful ideas however of how this could be turned around, so that the the US, unlike Britain and its empire, does not undermine its own leadership position worldwide.  His chapters on China and India are very insightful.  It strikes me as a balanced, optimistic and well researched book, full of worldly details.  He does ask that there be a sea change in US culture , to resist hunkering down and unilaterally forcing all other countries to the US position. Above all to be curious about the World, to listen to others,  not pander to temporary political winds, resist fear, get its confidence back.  Fort an academic style of book this was an easy almost to the point of engrossing read. You cannot help but learn a lot about the World, to counter Fox and CNN views.

Book cover via Amazon

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