Highly Recommended. Harnessing the power of word of mouth and social media to build your brand and your business. Paul M. Rand. 2014. ISBN 9780071816212.  I first read Paul’s work when he came out talking about Word of Mouth marketing and his message was clear and powerful.  This book takes it to another level . He has now worked with so many companies on this that the examples just fill the pages on how to do this well. He covers the field from marketing, selling, customer service and HR  This book will make a believer of the most obdurate Luddite.  Should be part of  the C -Suite reading.

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The Art of Social Selling. Finding and Engaging Customers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Other Social Networks.Shannon Belew. 2014. ISBN 9780814433324. A superb book from Amacom. It is really hard to write a book like this that can stay current. The author is good at this and has an easy writing style. I always learn a few now things and methods. She stays pretty true that social selling is another tool to add to a salespersons kit. She has lots of data already that shows that high performers will do even more business using social media and they are already there.  As well she makes a good case for marketing and sales to talk about and agree on t buyer process and buyer persona.   A good resource for sales pros and leaders. Failure to grab this tool set , likely will be part of why your company remains or becomes an also ran.

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Maximize Your Social. A one-stop guide to building a social media strategy for marketing and business success. Neil Schaffer. 2013. ISBN 9781118651186. I have been following Neil’s writings since the early days of social media and he never disappoints.  I am calling this the state of the art book on social media . Its practical and thorough, with a good strategic focus. He takes you deep into how to make the best use of the tools and then how to organize yourself and your company on getting the work done well.Its a book for the beginner through to the polished professional – you will all get something valuable from it. At Rocket Builders we advocate a unified voice to all your communication traditional through to social. Neil has a very clear explanation on how to do that.  He surprised me with his chapter on G+, its the 2nd largest social network , but it goes way beyond that with its implications on SEO.  I spent an hour re-jigging my corporate and  personal g+ sites and I am just getting going, following his ideas.  As well he makes a compelling argument about expanding our use of YouTube,   it is the second largest search engine.  y eyes were opened wrto Instagram since the no of mobile content consumers continues to grow rapidly. Several of his points are echoing what was said in the Connected book.  This is a valuable book for any business person, plus it is a pleasure to read it.

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Baffin Island Stones (Photo credit: 9brandon)

Iqaluit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Iqaluit, anglican church St. Jude (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had the pleasure to return to Iqaluit at the end of September to make a presentation on social selling at the Annual Nunavut Trade Show. I was a guest of the Baffin Island Chamber of Commerce and once again they really looked after me.   (They haves a joke that God made the world in six days and on the seventh he was bored so he threw stones at Baffin Island. – It is pretty rocky – great if you are a geologist).  I recommend that if you have the chance to visit Nunavut- do so. It is unlike any place you would go “down South”.

I sat with some local artists and had a great talk about how they preserve their culture in their family. Lovely people and so  in tune with today. The trade show is quite the thing.  I  can saw some incredible clothing (art really ) from local furs.

It is still a tougher place to live – it seems that Maritimers last longer there than Pacific Coasters.  I agree.

Mural in Iqaluit (Photo credit: AScappatura)

If I did not come from Swedish stock – the openess (some could say bleakness) and the feeling that winter is never that far away might get to some of you . But the country is pretty awesome and the people more so.

Green house on stilts in Iqaluit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People there are building  a new country and it behooves us to help them in whatever way we can.   I talked about how the addition of social selling is helping to move us closer to communities of buyers.  This allows us to present more of the context of our work – allowing buyers to become more aware of the us and what we are trying to achieve,

Legislative Building in Nunavut (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Revenue and the CMO. How marketing will impact revenue through big data & social selling. Glenn Gow. 2013. ISBN 9780989721516.  This is a very helpful little book. In less the 83 pp the author really cuts to the chase on how marketing and sales are missing the boat in many companies and then lays out exactly what you have to do. In our practice I intend to recommend this book to all our clients.   If you have wondered what all this content marketing and social media is really about and that it seems to have some staying power, read this book and you will understand and get going.

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The Impact Equation. Are you making things happen or just making noise? Chris Brogan & Julien Smith. 2012. ISBN 9781591844907.  The authors wrote Trust Agents which was a good read.  This book takes from their journeys in social media and develops a theme of around why you do what you do using the tools available  (including social media) . The book is more of a journey not a workbook. In this journey you cannot help but develop a better awareness of how you and your business differ and how to better communicate it. A very personal book, it speaks directly to the reader taking no short cuts. Clearly written I do not think you will roar through the book , but it would make for a very pleasant cross country flight companion.

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New Product Blueprinting. The handbook for B2B organic growth. Dan Adams.2008. ISBN 9780980112344. I was looking for this book for quite some time as it was referenced as the new bible for product development to take over from stage-gate methods (Cooper). I finally found the whole name/author in What Customers Want. This is a very valuable book as it will save product and services companies a lot of money and wasted effort. As the author says, manufacturers can produce a six sigma product routinely, yet R&D departments still have 3 out of 4 products fail in the marketplace – with the funds expended wasted. Using Product Blueprinting a company will find out early where there is a market need before the product is developed. And yes using this method, Apple would have still developed the Ipod. The major difference in this process is the increased amount of effort and time done at the front end in market research , innovative discovery interviews and so on, with the seventh stage being a business case. This book fits with Agile so well. If reading this book prevents your company from going off on a product build based on the statements of a few sales guys it is well worth the read. The easy reading style, with great illustrations really brings the topic to life. A must buy for the B2B product manager/CEO

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Maximum Success With LinkedIn. Dan Sherman. 2013. ISBN 9780071812337. LinkedIn is always evolving and it must be difficult to keep up. One thing I do is monitor Dan Sherman’s writing as he works as hard as anyone to stay on top of lInkedin and help you monetize it. I learned some new ways for amping up the SEO of your profile as well as the TopLinked groups which exist so you can really add to your contact lists.  Well organized and easy to read this is a book for the beginner to the advanced user.

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The Flipchart Guide to Customer Advisory Boards. Vol 1 & 2. Mitch Gooze.  2013  Mitch  (The Customer Manufacturing Guy) asked me to review these two – books and I am glad he did. This a valuable addition to the sales/marketing literature.   Customer Advisory Boards are essential to build and grow smart companies.  We recommend to all our clients to build them.  So in these two volumes you have everything that you need to get your company ready to have one and step by step how to set up and run a CAB meeting.  Mitch has again done the marketplace a service.

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Lead With a Story. A guide to crafting business narratives that captivate, convince and inspire.  Paul Smith. 2012. ISBN 9780814420300.  The author has had a long career at P&G and many of his stories are from one of the best marketing firms ever. He has also collected many other in his 100 stories that are relevant in training and teaching  moments for many of your situations..  A big asset is his appendix that helps you find the relevant story from a classification matrix. His story on what sales people can learn from their own purchasing department was quick and insightful. In our practice we do not often find the sales and purchasing departments sharing war stories.  Content marketing gets real horsepower through stories, which makes this a very valuable book for sales and marketing.

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