Powerful strategies clearly laid out
584865
This is the best and most actionable book on negotiating and body language. Everything is included - nothing is left out and nothing is assumed. What to say and how to say it - what to do and how to do it so that every time you negotiate (and it's daily!) you're in a much better position to win what you want. Just brilliant. Buy this book NOW.

-- David Newman, author of&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Do-It-Marketing-77-Instant-Action-Ideas-to-Boost-Sales-Maximize-Profits-and-Crush-Your-Competition/dp/0814432867/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Do It! Marketing: 77 Instant-Action Ideas to Boost Sales, Maximize Profits, and Crush Your Competition</a>
4086602
Marty Klubeck has done it again--provided clear, detailed instructions on how you can be a better and more effective manager. In the Professional Development Toolbox, Klubeck offers a process for improving the skills and ability to perform tasks that make your people more productive. Having more productive employees in turn strengthens the company and makes you, the manager, far more valuable to the organization.

As we expect from Klubeck, the book is remarkably well organized. And he's no Ivory Tower theoretician but instead has long toiled in the trenches honing his insights and understanding of how human nature can derail the best improvement plans. For example, he makes much of one of the hardest parts of training: follow through. It's not enough to develop a plan and clap yourself on the back for a job well done. Rather, you need to stick with the plan through to the finish line or it will never work. And even then you need to know a few tricks--which he offers--to break through the inevitable resistance.

While I would like to have seen more personal stories to help illustrate the principles, Klubeck's conversational style and clear language make it easy to absorb the lessons and put them to good use. "Just following the guidance in this book," writes Klubeck, "promises to provide great returns for the time and resources you'll invest." Of that there is no doubt. In fact, any new manager looking to have an immediate impact could do no better than applying the principles in The Professional Development Toolbox. Equally valuable for veteran managers and trainers, the book can make your job easier and your team far stronger.
3177929
What makes this book powerful is that it offers a rare insight into the planning process used by successful businesses. Unlike many self-help books on setting goals and/or writing down intended actions, this guide is based on time-tested methods. In the business world, a plan is laid out by top executives, and must lead to task completion. For most of us, planning is performed casually at best, which often leads to unfulfilled dreams. The author of this book shows you how to create a plan, from start to finish, that if used, will certainly lead to successful completion of your goals. Though this system is rigorous, with SMART goals, objectives, strategies, tactics, ..., "war boards", alignment of business and personal goals, etc., it is conveyed simply so that you can easily make it work for you. It also allows for alteration of your plans, as needed, should life not go exactly as expected. In sum, this book represents an excellent opportunity to gain serious tools for success from an established expert on the planning process.
4110392
OutSmart! provides clear and useful examples of companies that have successfully uncovered business opportunities by identifying asymmetry and complexity.  It also provides a gentle reminder that astute thinking and swift execution are major advantages in our "complex, volatile and demanding" business world.  Mr. Champy does this through a series of readable studies of eight exemplary companies.  Each study is concluded with actionable thinking exercises and questions that can be applied across industries and business opportunities.

A primary reason why OutSmart! is a worthy business book is its distinct avoidance of prescriptive modeling.  Each business success profiled is unique to that company.  The book's examples are of companies that thought differently when confronted with unique business circumstances and uncovered monetizable opportunities.  Champy reminds us that true competitiveness is uniqueness and this uniqueness is not discovered or established once, but must be continually updated and adapted to meet ever-changing customer needs.  There is no way of fixing, modeling or formalizing uniqueness in such a way that will ensure competitiveness.  What Mr. Champy demonstrates in OutSmart! is that companies who operate outside tradition, and remain flexible enough to not become tradition, will dominate the future.

Some of the topics covered by Mr. Champy in OutSmart! may seem obvious, especially immediately after reading it.  However, it is important to read the book with a healthy skepticism of your own hindsight bias.  For example, all of the companies profiled in OutSmart! have a strong relationship with their customers and focus relentlessly on improving customer service.  Most companies today habitually tout that staying attuned with customers (customer service) is their strength, a source of competitive advantage.  If customer service is so apparent, why do so many companies fail at the obvious?  OutSmart! provides an apt reminder that just knowing something intellectually is not enough;  we need to successfully execute and continually improve on this knowledge for it to be a source of competitive advantage.

I look forward to the next volume; this book is the first of a four volume series.
1619151
WOW!  Talk about clarity.  Dan describes seven concepts and delivers seven KILLER strategies.  I've already started implementing the strategies...as Tony the Tiger would say, "they're great".

If you don't make ten's of thousands from these strategies, you've given up before starting.  They are transformative.
2323669
Once again, Anne Bruce has delivered a highly practical "must have" guide for managing employees--providing both drill-down tactics, as well as inspirational context, to infuse leaders with an unprecedented passion and skillset for improving the workplace. She addresses a wide range of very specific performance issues which managers regularly face, and delivers a very prescriptive solution for addressing these problems. She goes beyond addressing performance problems, however, and delivers tools for managers to proactively engage employees, leading to increased loyalty and retention rates (which have been shown to translate to improved customer service scores, sales revenue, and overall business success... not to mention a higher workplace morale). Anne shows how an internally engaged employee can improve an overall organization, and she shows how to create an environment that fosters this level of commitment and positive energy--thus preventing future performance issues. I have begun using her approaches as I manage remote staff, and have seen excellent results. Anne's approach and language is fresh yet ageless, as she delivers solid solutions for leading even the most difficult or insubordinate employee. As a side bonus, the book motivates managers themselves to live and work more positively!
2847449
Strategy and tactics are essential to all entrepreneurs wanting to not only be successful, but to win! Playing to win is a mindset as pointed out in the April 2004 Harvard Business Review - "Hardball: Five Killer Strategies for Trouncing the Competition." In "The Portable MBA Guide to Strategy" you will learn to formulate and execute effective marketplace strategies that enable you to transform your ideas into marketplace reality.

Divided into four parts, numerous experts expound upon what is strategy and how to use it to win in business:

Part One - Strategy: Winning in the Marketplace

Part Two - Strategy Inputs: Analyzing the External and Internal Environments

Part Three - Strategy Making: Identifying and Evaluating Strategic Alternatives

Part Four - Managing Strategic Change: Linking Strategy and Action

If you went to business school, this will be a great refresher. If not, this book will cover all the bases and create a solid strategic foundation applicable to the real world.

It's hard for me to say where to start; The Portable MBA is a cornucopia of indispensable knowledge. Chapter 5, Strategy for the Small Business seems like a logical place to start. And, if you're looking for funding, pay close attention to Box 5.4 on p. 124 for key questions to ask yourself. Chapter 6 on Digital Strategy is also compelling in its own right. While much of the book applies to larger entities, it is wise to study the material for two reasons; 1) It will help you learn how to build your company and 2) Studying larger competitors is tantamount to military generals learning the ways of their adversaries.

-----------------

Michael Davis - Editor, Byvation
544085
Like so many other authors, I am certainly not getting rich, and some of my titles are hardly moving. Anxious to learn how to improve results, I have skimmed through a handful of books presumably designed to teach the reader how to market his/her product(s). Most were disappointing, but Rutkowskas short volume truly offers something of value.

I was immediately impressed by the organization. Rutkowska quickly introduces her 4 Ps: product, place, price, and promotion. I found some of this material familiar, but most was not.

The section on promotion is the most impressive. Rutkowska discusses many useful strategies, including how to build mailing lists, how best to use social media, blogging, how to get reviews (including evaluations of results from various services), and the benefits (or non-benefits) of press releases and video trailers. As a bonus, she appends insightful interviews with six authors.

The prose is accessible and clear, and I look forward to spending many more hours on some of the hyperlinks provided. My only regret is that I did not read this 2016 publication at least ten years ago!
2264241
Bayler's book, The Liquid Enterprise is by far one of the best strategy and leadership books I've read. Really it transcends the category because it cuts through a lot of the fear-mongering fluffy garbage and delivers clear analysis, guidance, and a healthy dose of real-talk. The book is remarkably consumable and gives readers choice in how they ingest-- bullets, prose, summaries. What's particularly refreshing is that Bayler takes the concepts we hear about constantly-- Digital Transformation, Customer Experience, Innovation, blah blah blah, and extends their cultural context and implication. Within this framework, it really gets to the heart of the issue: the point isn't about "Digital"; the point is the recalibrating culture around the Network. If you're looking for a pleasant, at times funny, and consistently insightful read that cuts through the immense noise and drivel coming out of the business consulting world, give this a go.
2035635
In Top of Mind, John Hall offers a rich, meaningful, and intelligent guide to content marketing that really works. If you wish to stay top of mind with your target audience, engaging them powerfully and creating deep relationships, this smart, well researched, and compelling book will do more than deliver. Halls stories are empowering and his strategies are actionable. Highly recommended!
987007
Book Marketing Made Easy is the perfect description for this book!  It is a powerhouse jammed packed with simple strategies.  D'vorah has a wealth of expertise and a treasure-chest of ideas to market your book online.  What I really liked about the book is how she gives detailed steps for each strategy, along with where to find the resources to implement them.  Many of the options D'vorah outlines for marketing your book on line can be done with little or no investment. The best part is you can decide how you want to market your book on line and go to the chapter in the book to learn how.  As a recent published author, this is definitely going to be my book marketing Bible!
2892739
Finally, a clearly marked path to the real strategy for the new millenium! Professor Hatala has clearly and effectively demonstrated that you can be taught to build your social capital resources and learn to network effectively to achieve your gaols.  This book is easy to read with useful exercises that make the theory practical.
I will be using this book in all of my classes in adult retraining and job search.

Comprehensive, constructive and informative as both a teaching tool and a personal guide.
2090997
That's about the only way I can sum up how awesome and powerful this book is for writing web copy that sells.  Richard Bayan successfully organizes over six thousand synonyms and useful phrases into one slim book, which has never left my desk since I bought it.

What I love about this book is that it's much more than just a thesaurus, it contains a variety of useful phrases that work beautifully with basic copywriting strategies.  The fundamentals of writing sales copy is simple: Grab their attention, build desire, create a sense of urgency, and call them to action.  This book is a perfect complement to copywriting guides because it offers countless suggestions on how to word each step of your sales writing.

Some of the more original inclusions in the book include the section on justifying a high product or service price, and how to flatter the reader.  While some of the suggestions (benefits, call to action, elmininating risk) are quite common, you'll no doubt find phrases that make you say, "Why didn't I think of that before?"  Buy the book today, and you'll also tell yourself, "I can't believe I've been missing out on this."
326334
This book addresses the challenge of growth through marketing strategy; it focuses on specific types of opportunities and ways to capture them. Based on their research and experience, the authors have distilled forty tactical moves (e.g., eliminate complexity), each of which is presented with a brief set of questions to consider its use. The moves are clustered into five strategies, each having a lens and tool: 1. transform the customer's experience (Lens: customers; Tool: consumption chain analysis); 2. transform your offerings (Lens: products and offerings; Tool: attribute mapping); 3. redefine profit drivers (Lens: key metrics; Tool: unit of business analysis); 4. exploit industry shifts (Lens: industry shifts; Tool: industry shift framework); and 5. enter new markets (Lens: emerging opportunities; Tool: tectonic triggers framework). Each of these is explored in depth, with examples and numerous, detailed guidelines and insights, and much attention to execution (a chapter is devoted to making it happen).  A self-audit to assess your strategy and clarify your process is presented at the outset. A chapter devoted to a case study further enriches this excellent book. This book is strong on meaty content. Very highly recommended.
4699280
How to excel at stuff books have always clogged the self-help shelves. They usually contain five or ten logical thoughts that have been bloated into a full book.

On very rare occasion, however, something comes along thats the real deal, that contains no filler, that actually, truly, and tangibly boosts our learning abilities and human potential; that shows us how to think with a razor-sharp mind; that offers us a clarity that we should know but that nobody ever teaches us directly. This is it.

This book beautifully and brilliantly outlines strategies, and presents practical and easy-to-understand mental tools that really work, to literally rewire the brain for a rich and comprehensive understanding - not only of math and science, as the title would suggest, but of any content - through approaches more creative and effective than anything Ive seen anywhere. It is engaging to read, worth its weight in gold, and has certainly sharpened the way I approach thinking optimally and solving problems.

Full disclosure: Although I have never met the author in person, I was fortunate enough to have been contacted by her and sent an early draft of this work for review and feedback. I recognized immediately that this work was not only significant and meaningful, but also incredibly well put together, and deserving of a place on the bookshelf of anyone with a serious interest in learning theory, education, psychology, andragogy, or just plain self-improvement. The final published version is even more powerful and masterfully crafted. I plan to re-read and re-absorb its invaluable lessons periodically.

This book is the real deal.
2581333
This very clear and well-written book provides a very clear explanation of how to employ the enormously powerful SIMA technique.  As a manager responsible for employee development in a large information systems organization, I made powerful use of the SIMA methodology.  Through its use, we were able to fill positions based not only on "skill match," but perhaps more importantly, on "motivation match."  It was a win/win for both the employees and the company:  Employees gained insight into where their passions lay and were assigned to areas where their energies could be tapped, and the company got big productivity gains from their truly motivated employees.
3474075
There is nothing new or Earth-shattering in this book - it's about employing strategy within the context of e-commerce.  The authors' agenda, from the preface, is to "... demystify the Internet ... which then empowers CEOs and their key executives to design their own Internet strategy and control their own destiny."
The central theme of the book is wrapped in three imperatives: (1) clarify your business strategy, (2) construct an "e-strategy", and (3) integrate the business and e-strategy.
While the ideas and approach are straightforward and basic, the real gems are contained in the interviews with key executives who have creatively conceived of viable (and innovative) e-strategies and have successfully integrated them into their overall business strategy.  In my opinion the most interesting interview was with Philip C. Kantz (CEO, TAB Products). TAB Products makes folders, labels and other commodity items.  Not the sexy stuff of e-strategies, but that's exactly what this executive crafted and it transformed his entire business. Not surprisingly the creative part of the strategy was minor compared to the leadership abilities that were required to transform a vision into action and results.  This interview alone summarizes the entire message of the book. Each of the other four interviews provides insights about the creative, leadership and technical challenges of devising and implementing an e-strategy.
As you read this book don't be so quick to conclude that it is only stating the obvious. There are some wonderful ideas to be gleaned, inspiration and encouragement from executive interviews, and some subtle nuances in the authors' approach.  The structure and message of the book puts e-strategy and the Internet into the familiar framework of business strategy 101.  You'll benefit from the interviews, and will have a path marked with familiar landmarks towards implementing an e-strategy.