What Sticks. Rex Briggs and Greg Stuart. Why Most Advertising Fails and
How to Guarantee Yours Succeeds. ISBN 1419584332. 2006. Things learned.
47% of advertising does not work (= $37B). 70% of marketing staff time
is spent on rework. $53 B of marketing money is wasted due to not
understanding customer motivation. There are no more important things
to get right than, 1. Customer motivation and needs (why would they hire
your product/co.?) 2. Positioning (how you differentiate) and 3.
Segmentation (Different groups of customers might need to buy your
products differently).

Then 31 % of companies got their messaging all wrong. = $35.8 B wasted.
Seeing a trend here? Sales and marketing is the last area in business
that needs a complete process chain style overhaul This book is full
of the data that shows you where the wastes are happening, how to put
in measures and processes to figure out what is happening and then what
to do to make it right. Remember the 70:20:10 ratio. Spend 70% of money
on present customers/products, 20% on sustainable extensions and 10% on
wild-ass innovation. However Test , Measure/analyse, deploy the
innovation. Measure everything! This is not an easy read, but a
watershed book for marketing & sales At Rocket Builders this is how we
do things, so I guess I am somewhat prejudiced. But our metrics and
results prove this correct.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark. Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg.2006. ISBN 0785218971. Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing. Good book. The metaphor; customers used to be like dogs, always happy to see you (Its all about you), but that has changed, customers are more like cats, its all about them, and they will pay attention when they feel like it. The authors have a process that you run through in order to ensure that every customer touch/approach is designed to get them to decide and act, at some time. They are fans of metrics and surprise, the application of Six Sigma to sales and marketing.Useful book, easy read and very salient.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

Reading Like a Writer. Francine Prose. 2006. ISBN 100060777044. A guide
for people who love books and for those who want to write them. This is
a guided tour of terrific writers and why their work endures, where it
lays out new methods, breaks or obeys rules and what each writer has to
teach you. Checkov, Flaubert, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Austen, Dickens,
Woolf, Le Carre, Joyce, Hemingway and many more (120 plus). This is what
your first year literature class might have been, had the prof truly
studied writing. Prose believes the path to good writing comes from the
study of great writers and how they deal with dialogue, words,
paragraphs, details, gestures, character and so forth. Completely
different and you may end up look at all writing with a changed view.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

The Wal-Mart Effect. Charles Fishman. 2006. ISBN 1594200769.

New YorkCity has no Wal-Marts. Ever wonder why?
The third book on Wal-Mart I have read – easily the best. Fishman
traces the impact year to year, from town to town and state to state in
the US and then through to the on and offshore suppliers. His findings?
The company is in trouble. Same store sales growth is dropping year
after year, the company does not know how to have fun and the Law of Low
Prices is working against the Wal-Mart ecosystem as well as what
consumers want . You learn about the numbers behind the growth and
where it comes from and what it does to product sourcing, quality and
suppliers. From personal experience I will say that selling to Wal-Mart
makes you believe that the company is just plain mean. The story about
Chile and salmon fish farms caused me much anguish. The author is a
Fast Company journalist who has done some serious homework. He can write
and the story flows. Vancouver council should read it.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.

Leadership, Rudolph W. Giuliani.2002. ISBN 1401359280. Written prior to
and after 9/11, this was an enjoyable book. It almost reads like a
novel. Giuliani had quite the career and work experience prior to being
mayor. This book helps explain a lot about New York and how he and his
team effectively turned it around. His insights into leadership and
creating a change culture are not new, yet as applied to a public body
make great sense. Yes it is partisan, but it gives insight into the USpolitical mind. Find it at the book warehouse.

Book reviews for the business side of the technology industry.