Marketing Principles Book Reports - Spring, 2003

The following book reports were written by students in the Marketing Principles class at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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Title: The Backbone of Retailing

Author: Reviewer did not list

Reviewer: Rick Angold

The Backbone of Retailing deals with why small stores continue to stay in business against large store competition and other problems, the techniques they use to overcome these challenges, and ideas on advertising and promotion. Jane Cahill, the author, states, “The smaller store is the backbone of retailing and it is here to stay, (3),” against the argument that large store merchants will eventually wipe out all small retail stores. A key point that she makes in favor of small stores is the overall style and appeal of the shop. Small stores focus mainly on one thing, like home accessories, dress clothes, etc…and so on, and this organization is very appealing to customers. I completely agree with her, . I previously worked at Copelands Sports here in Reno, and the store was broken uporganized into departments. In addition, eachEach department resembled its own store in a way; . the The boardshop had snow and skate videos playing with loud music in the background, the golf shop had an entire carpet of putting green, as well as a practice machine and hole to putt on, fitness area was staffed with fit, intelligent personnel always dressing professionally. Another key point, made by a small-store owner, is that, ”The smaller store buys for its customers whereas a chain or department buys for its stores. (5)” This statement has to do with the difference in the types of service between the small and large store. Using Copelands as an example again, the most I could do to help people when items were out of stock was to say, “Yeah, I would check back in a couple of days, we’re always getting new stock in.” On the other hand, in my experience working a couple weekends at my Sister’s small store I would get the person’s information and call in an order immediately. However, the small store still faces many problems and the book makes it clear that there will be many discouraging moments and that the path is not easy for the owners.

One of the major problems is the competition against large store merchants who have lower prices, more volume, and a greater selection. I believe that it is extremely more efficient and cheap for me, a college student, to go shopping at the mall rather than drive around to many small stores and spend a greater amount of time and money. Nevertheless, this is merely the view of any college student, and small stores typically have older, more financially stable customers who care more about quality and service. However, the dilemma is that large store merchants have completely shut down small store retailers in numerous cities, and continue to steel steal business from all existing small stores. Pretty much theThe only reasons that small stores stay in business are there their high levels of quality, satisfaction, and service. Compared to the large store’s selection of popular brand name, low-priced, low-quality products, some are more inclined to visit the neighborhood retailer and spend more money for better service and quality. There are also many smaller problems that small stores face in general, such as the availability of parking, the high costs of advertising, and drought periods in sales. I witnessed my Brother brother and wife go through hard times because of a drought in sales, and their business almost went under. Nevertheless, small stores have survived this long, and by creating associations to help each other and by using clever ideas; these stores will continue to be the backbone of retailing.

The second part of the book deals with the techniques that small stores use to attract customers. One key tip to a successful business is promoting the opening of your store. In one case, a clothing store had a drawing for four free dresses and in three weeks had over 2,000 names and addresses of women who entered the drawing. The people I work with currently did a similar thing here in Reno with their small store. We held a drawing for a charm bracelet worth over $500, and after four weeks, we had over 1,000 names and addresses of women who live in Reno. Afterwards, we sent out flyers to these addresses informing the ladies of our new products. Another useful tip that the book gives is the way to decorate the display of a store. The book listed ideas used by clothing stores, accessory stores, and many others; it was clear that a catchy, original display would work the best to attract customers. I also have experience with this aspect of the small business, and I use it at the summer hat shows that I work. I have an old, rustic tent to give off the cowboy like feeling, and have my whole booth decorated with old road signs, cowboy hats, and even country music blasting in the background. I believe that the overall appearance of the booth is one of the biggest factors in making sales.

The rest of the book deals with ideas on how to make the shopping experience as optimal as possible. To name one in particular, the use of playpens for babies was successful in allowing customers to bring their kids with them and still be able to shop. Also, ideas on how to increase the size of a business’ clientele were given, like offering specials that don’t necessarily make the business money, but because of the great offer presented, many customers are attracted and of those some become repeat customers.

This book has given me many ideas as to how I would market my product, underwear with a condom pocket, as well as how to better run my hat business. It gave me ideas about how to promote my hat booth at the shows, as well as gave me some tips on staying competitive against the large store merchants. Originally, my product was merely going to be part of a catalog and that would be the only channel of marketing. However, I believe that this product would do exceptionally well in a small store, or even a kiosk at the mall. Underwear with a condom pocket is almost a behavioral buy, and like all other behavioral buys, it would need to be easily accessible and physically visible to all customers. Items like this are items that people do not necessarily look for, but more or less just find and want to buy. In addition, the book gave some useful advice on making a name and slogan for my product that will catch the customers’ eye. Two slogans I am thinking about are, “Be prepared, because you just never know,” and “Never go to war without a helmet.” This was an extremely useful book and I am glad I read it.

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Title: Big Brands Big Trouble

Author: Jack Trout

Reviewer: Dawn Rosemark

The book that I chose to read was Big Brands Big Trouble. This book I felt was very interesting and at times hard to put down. Jack Trout, whom is recognized as a marketing guru writes this book. In this book he talks about some big name companies, that both tried to expand their business and failed or how the number two companies stayed at number two.

Jack Trout’s main way of thinking is to never forget what made you successful. He feels a lot of companies try so hard to expand into other product ideas and getting themselves away from their original idea that all that it does is hurt them in the long run. For example, Xerox is a company known for making copiers. Consumers have a hard time thinking of them as anything different. That is why when they tried to venture into the computer business they failed. He also feels that experience has shown that bad things happen when the CEO doesn’t take an active role in developing a strategy and keeping things focused. AT&T had some of the same problems when trying to venture out into the computer and cable business. They found themselves too far away from what they were good at. Which could be the reason why their ventures ended up failing.

Trout also feels that the bigger the company the more likely the CEO has lost touch with the front lines. His feeling is that instead of having meetings on what is going on within the company you should go out and see for yourself. Employees don’t like to break bad news to the CEO so they may not say how bad things might be going. So the only way for him to find out is to view it himself. He felt that this was a problem for General Motors. If the CEO ventured out on to the floor and had some relationship with the actual workers one might have advised the CEO that Cadillacs that look like Chevrolets would never sell very well. Trout felt the reason why General Motors never became number one is because they had to many different brands and they all looked alike.

Another company that Trout talks about is Digital Equipment Corporation. This company had the first mass-produced minicomputer. DEC was the second largest computer company in the world to IBM. He felt their problem was that they should’ve never underestimated the bigger competitor. The founder was just fine being second and didn’t want to be aggressive and beat IBM on producing something first. Trout felt that when you’ve got a chance; try to become the next thing. DEC’s strategy was to try to be better than the leader. Trout feels that in a high-tech, rapidly changing world, you should not try to be better but to be the next thing.

Miller Brewing Company had problems with branding their products. They wanted to put all brands under one name. This caused confusion for the consumer that resulted in loss of sales. To many brands under one name just makes the consumer turn to what is more clearly on their mind, which could be just a Budweiser. Trout also feels that two name companies are not as good as one-name companies. He feels that getting in the mind with one name is tough enough, but having two names is impossible. Another problem with the use of two names is that one company can drag the other down. This is precisely what happened with Bridgestone/Firestone.

Trout also feels you should never give a strong competitor an edge. This is just what Crest toothpaste did for Colgate. When cavity prevention became less of a problem for people the toothpaste companies concentrated more on cavity prevention, tartar control, and gingivitis protection. Crest was there for the first two but the real battle was the gingivitis. So Crest went on with just the first two and Colgate was able to nail all three trends and send their product on to the market. This really hurt Crest.

Trout also talks about how board of directors and even consultants can hurt your business. Consultants, he feels, even if they spot a bad strategy and have doubts about it, will rarely run the risk of alienating their client who cooked it up. When the consultants objective is to get into a long-term relationship they don’t want to risk that relationship by being brutally honest with the client. Trout also feels that consultants rarely understand the mind of the customer. They are trained on how to get into to the mind of the CEO and the board. He has six principles on how the mind works:
1. Minds can’t cope.
2. Minds are limited.
3. Minds hate confusion.
4. Minds are insecure.
5. Minds don’t change.
6. Minds can lose focus.
He talks of how the mind of a customer is where the marketing battle is won.

Trout feels that the key to a successful board is to have a board that is involved. Many boards are made of people that sit on several boards and also of CEO’s that have failed. He thinks a board should be made up of a group of objective outsiders who bring some real skills to the board. Boards should not go after famous names, people who just make the board politically correct, or people who simply agree with the CEO.

Trout also discusses his thoughts on Wall Street. He feels that companies that are on Wall Street don’t do as well as the ones that are not. He talks of how Wall Street puts undoable growth rates on companies, which sometimes leads to companies being untruthful just to try to look good for Wall Street.

I felt this book had a lot of great points and ideas of what to try to be careful of when in business. Trout was able to show how even big successful companies don’t have all the answers to success. What I will take from this book when doing my project is not to lose focus on my main idea. And when I become a big successful CEO I will try to never lose touch with my front line.

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Title: The Circle of Innovation

Author: Tom Peters

Reviewer: Brooke Kizer

The Circle of Innovation, by Tom Peters, was the first time I had ever read a book about business. I found the book to be very insightful and a joyful to read. Tom Peters not only related the topics of innovation to business but he also related the topics to real life. While reading the book, it became very clear that much of his ideas could be applied to my current marketing product. How great is that!

The basic theme of the book is INNOVATION, in all its forms. “Whatever made you successful in the past won’t in the future.” This quote by Lew Platt, chairman and CEO, Hewlett-Packard, was one of the many quotes that Tom Peters used to get his point across. In The Circle of Innovation, Peters had 15 points he wanted to get across to the reader:
? “Distance is Dead.”
? “Destruction is Cool!”
? “You Can’t Live Without an Eraser.”
? “We are all Michelangelos.”
? “Welcome to the White-Collar Revolution.”
? “All Value Comes from the Professional Services.”
? “The Intermediary is Doomed.”
? “The System is the Solution.”
? “Create Waves of Lust.”
? “Tommy Hilfiger Knows.”
? “Become a Connoisseur of Talent.”
? “It’s a Woman’s World.”
? “Little things are Only Things.”
? “Love All, Serve All.”
? “We’re Her to Live Life Out Loud.”

In these chapters he takes a broad perspective to innovation, narrows it down to a
finite level, and then brings both perspectives full circle and puts two and two together. He begins by stating that the death of distance brings on new competition, communication, as well as people young in age. He believes in the destruction, not the change of an organization. Finally, he believes that you can’t live in the past, it’s better to “erase” all you mistakes away and move onto the future. On the smaller scale of things, he believes it’s “You, We, I” who ultimately have to become the innovators, the motivators, and the exceptional providers of service.

Bringing the two levels full circle, Peters combined all his ideas into the last eight chapters of his book. Here he explained that systems should be beautiful, products should be products that “WOW” vs. “wow.” Out with commoditization and embrace the odd, exciting, new products. Peters then took these exciting new products and talked about how to market and patent them. He went on to explain that the greatest market out there were that of woman and that only the most talented, those who live their lives out loud, should be apart of the evolving company or project.

This is truly one of the best help books that I have come across. I never realized that innovation could mean so many different things. When I first began reading the book, I thought it was going to be extremely boring. I thought I had one of those egocentric authors who annoy the heck out of me. Was I ever wrong? Tom Peters is intelligent, but he doesn’t tell you that, he shows you. Upon completion of the book I found that the ideas Peters presented not only could apply to the world of business, but also applied to life in general. The pieces I found the most inspirational were: “living with destruction”, “living with an eraser”, “building a resume”, “creating waves of lust”, and “living life out loud.”

Tom Peters brought his experience as well as many other minds to create a very helpful, comprehensive, business book. This man obviously has his stuff together. He’s not afraid to tell us when he’s wrong, when others are wrong, or when a whole system is wrong. He admits his shortcomings and those of others. In conclusion, he has unleashed an innovative book.

From the ideas that were presented by Tom Peters, it was easy pick some ideas that would help me with my marketing product. I basically narrowed my choices down to what I think are the best, six to-dos or hints. First - the best market to enter is the woman’s market. That is I should tailor my car alarm around woman, or at least keep them in mind when I design the alarm. Second – Create something new. Create something unlike anything I’ve or anybody has ever seen before in car alarms. I need to make my item unique. Third – Patent. Tom Peters suggests patenting the product as soon as possible. Fourth – I need to find the best and brightest people of the car alarm industry. Or, I need to at least seek advice from people who know about the car alarm industry. I should seek this advice to gain knowledge for myself as well as to better the design of my product. Fifth - I need to make my product very user friendly. My product shouldn’t be something that comes with too much instructions, or bad instructions at that. Finally the sixth hint I gained from The Circle of Innovation is that I need to be passionate about my product. I need to have an “obsession with the product.” I should also be enthusiastic about any change that I need to bring to my car alarm. These hints will greatly aid me and perhaps others in my upcoming marketing plan.

The Circle of Innovation has taken me for a spin. I have come across some new material that I had never been subjected to before. If I have been subjected to such material in my past, then material obviously didn’t “WOW” me in any way. Once again, the book is about INNOVATION and all it’s inner circles. It starts with the past; forget it, erase all memory and destroy. It moves to the new revolution; the revolution of the white-collars and the doom of the intermediary. Finally the book comes full circle with all the things we could become better at (service, talent search, living life out loud). Tom Peters says it best. “IF THE OTHER GUY’S GETTING BETTER, THEN YOU’D BETTER BE GETTING BETTER FASTER THAN THAT OTHER GUY’S GETTING BETTER…OR YOU’RE GETTING WORSE.”

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Title: Competing With the Retail Giants

Author: Reviewer did not list

Reviewer: Nancy Sherk

The book, Competing With the Retail Giants speaks about many different aspects of the retail market and how it has changed over the years. Some of the topics it discusses specifically are how to compete, reviving your marketing practices, improving the efficiency of your business, and team building. It was helpful to read about everything and it gave me a lot of ideas on how to improve my product and company when it comes to retail and how to survive.

In the section about how to compete it states "the most important action local merchants can take when faced with competition from discount general merchandisers in a market area is to find an existing store of the type announced, visit it and shop it." It gives about ten tips that a merchant should look for when checking out the competition. Each tip was related to a different point of retail and each were very important. One that I find particularly important when it comes to my product would be to check out the displays. When marketing my product, I am going to be sure to come up with a package and sign that catches the attention of customers and one that stands out from the competition. There are products on the market already that are similar to my 2 in 1 Sin Savor and I want to be able to withstand the competition.

It says in the book that "marketing is the area of retailing where most merchants are weakest." This point was surprising to me and it was interesting to read how one could overcome this weaknesses. One of the biggest mistakes that takes place is people not knowing what the average income of a family is in the U.S. This is important when it comes to pricing your product. Over pricing is something you see a lot in retail and although some people are willing to pay that price, many customers are not. I have learned when selling your product, you have to be aware of the area that you are trying to market in. If it is a higher class area, you might be able to get away with a higher price, but otherwise it is not a good idea. For my product, I will try to think of an average price that I think even lower income customers will be willing to pay for, but also a price that is going to make my company a profit.

As stated in chapter 8, "companies of all types are in a race to become more efficient than their competitors." Improving the efficiency of your business is something that a lot of businesses are working on at all times.” The book gives tips on how to learn your lesson an easier way. It says that many business owners do not like getting involved in the financial end of the business but it is obvious that financial ratios are the vital signs of the business. If you are not then it is likely that you are going backward and will not be in business much longer. This book was written a few years back and speaks about how computers were just becoming popular when running a business but in my opinion, if you do not run your business with a computer these days, there is no way you will succeed. One thing that stuck in my brain when reading this chapter was "a company can do all the right things with respect to marketing, merchandising, service and customer relations but if it is not run efficiently, it is doomed to failure." And it is obvious that the tips they gave would be successful when running a business of my own one day.

This book focuses on the business chain Wal-Mart and uses it as examples multiple times. In the section entitled "Team Building" it was stated that an important factor in molding Wal-Mart into such a successful chain was the associates, or employees. It is important to hire people to work for your company that are reliable and have a personality that is ready for the job that they are going to take on. Looking back at my job in high school, my managers went to great measures to hire people that they knew would be right for the job and that customers would enjoy dealing with. When starting my company for my 2 in 1 Sin Savor I believe it will be important to find employees who are obviously responsible and hard workers but also have the personality that can sell and be creative when it comes to a product such as the Sin Savor. They need to be able to have fun with the product and know what sort of audience to target in order to make the best sales.

This book had some good points to it that were helpful when it comes to my marketing project but overall I'm not sure if my particular product would benefit from some of the things that were stated in the book.

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Title: Crazy Times Call for Crazy Organizations

Author: Tom Peters

Reviewer: Ken Halen

This book, written in 1994, is about shaking up business. Mr. Peters advocates radically changing organizations, from the top down hierarchy of todays’ businesses to a more horizontally model. Every chapter is titled “beyond” something. The something is a management style that was popular at the time this book was written. It seems that the whole purpose of the book is to get the reader to look beyond what is currently in vogue and do what would be considered by current management to be crazy.

Chapter one is titled Beyond Change. In this chapter Mr. Peters talks of abandoning just about every idea that business has to run itself and take a bold step toward the future. He tells of companies have become more efficient while at the same time cutting the work force. He also talks about how “long-term” is not all that long in today’s marketplace. Change is not just important to Mr. Peters, but an absolute necessity. I don’t know a lot about business, but it seems to me change is always being talked about, just the specifics are different.

In chapter two, Beyond Decentralization, Peters talks about how organizations need to break down the vertical hierarchy and go to a horizontal hierarchy. As an illustration he shows how to get a rail siding looked at. Union Pacific Railroad had 13 different levels of management to go through before they could tell the customer that used the siding that it had a problem. Today, the inspector that discovers the problem tells the customer himself. Another illustration is a hospital that had at one time approximately one clerk per patient. They now have, after some training, two clerks that take care of 80-90 percent of the paperwork for four to seven patients. Also in this chapter he mentions that specialist aren’t special. You need employees that can do it all. All I can add to that is bravo. The fact that you have to go through umpteen layers to get anything done in a company has always seemed ludicrous to me. I’m glad to read Mr. Peters agrees.

Beyond Empowerment is the title of chapter three. Entrepreneurial is the key theme of this section. Mr. Peters says that every employee, the few that you have left after the first two chapters, should be an entrepreneur. Every employee should feel that he or she IS the company. They will do whatever it takes to do the job. The problem with that is, as Peters points out, is that the mucky mucks have a hard, if not impossible, time of letting go and truly trusting the employees. He mentions the simple philosophy of Harley-Davidson. Tell the truth, keep your promises, be fair, respect the individual, and encourage curiosity. Could it be any simpier? Likely not, but I would hazard a guess, not a philosophy that is adhered to by many businesses.

Chapter four, Beyond Loyalty, expands on chapter three. Mr. Peters talks about every employee as being an independent contractor, and thinking as such. He suggests creating a resume every year, and asking what have I done to make this a better company. He also feels that in today’s market, jobs have to be created by the people that fill them. You have to make yourself needed. He also explains in this chapter the need for education on a continuing basis. Mr. Peters feels that without continuous “retooling” through education, employees will lose the edge they need to compete in the market. He also says that powerlessness is a state of mind and illustrates that by using the example of a Lieutenant Commander at the Pentagon, talking to Admirals to get things done. The Lieutenant Commander should not have had, in fact, did not have the power to talk to Admirals, but he thought he did and acted as such. Acting as an independent contractor seems a self-evident way of making a company successful. The question I think was not addressed sufficiently was how to do that. Perhaps next book.

Titled Beyond Disintegration, chapter five deals with what you do after eliminating most of the jobs in your organization as was talked about in chapter two. Mr. Peters says the company needs to do two things. The first is to hire the best people it can lay its hands on. I’ll likely get in trouble for this, but it must be said, duh. His second point is that a smart company will do what it is good at and outsource the rest, which seems to be another no-brainer to me. And the really good company will be both the outsourcee and the outsourcer. The long and short of it seems to be, do what you a very good at and outsource the rest.

Chapter six, Beyond Reengineering, goes into how information is the key to the successful organization. One quote in particular seems to sum up the chapter fairly well. One of the higher ups in McKinsey & Co. is quoted as saying, “create a dynamic marketplace of readily available ideas.” One of the main points in the chapter is that with the ability to network so easily now, the need for a corporate headquarters is passé. You spread the people around where they are needed. Peters also brings up the idea of “cybrarians” as a necessity for the effective corporation. They would basically serve as librarians, able to navigate cyberspace for the purposes of acting as gateways for others, and to be able to network for the company as a whole. I like the idea of cybrarians. With all the information available out there now, a company needs someone to sort through it and glean the nuggets that are available amidst the garbage.

Beyond Learning is the title of chapter seven. In this chapter, Mr. Peters says that most corporations are bland and that they need to be curious instead. To that end he presents a list of his ideas for making a curious corporation. Some of the suggestions are doable, albeit accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Hiring curious people, and fostering new interaction patterns, and making the job fun, seem straight-forward enough. Even his suggestion of weeding out the dullards and nurturing the nuts doesn’t seem to far fetched to me. But then he gets into things like supporting offbeat education, and measuring curiosity, which seem to me to be a bit on shaky ground. That shaky ground is fairly solid compared to his suggestion of supporting generous sabbaticals, and by generous, he means three to six month breaks every five years. I can just see the corporate world jumping up to embrace that idea, no matter how sound it may be. I loved this chapter, though from my place on the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem to be something that the average corporation would likely do. But I really don’t know, maybe it would be easy.

Beyond TQM is the title of chapter eight. Here Mr. Peters talks about forgetting the idea of TQM and its related TGW( Things Gone Wrong), but instead go for TGR(Things Gone Right), and the accompanying WOW(Wow) that goes with it. He gives examples of WOW. A Japanese udon noodle maker wanted to break out of the pack in the saturated noodle market. So they started marketing noodles that had been exposed to classical music, saying that the ingredients were “livelier” when exposed and thus produced a better noodle. They now sell their noodles at 50 to 70 percent more than their competition. Another example he presented was of a cab driver that offered his passengers a fruit basket, a choice of newspapers and asks them what type of music they would like to listen to during the drive. The driver makes $12,000 to $14,000 extra in tips a year for his efforts. Peters wraps up the chapter by saying that you have to love your job to put forth WOW. It is not something you can fake. I noticed in our textbook, Southwest Airlines was noted as having Wow. This chapter seems like it is right out of a psychology textbook. Do something out of the ordinary, the books WOW, and you’ll receive positive reinforcement. Which will increase the probability of you doing the same behavior, thus increasing the the WOW factor. And on and on.

The final chapter that wraps up the book is Beyond Change (Redux). In this chapter Mr. Peters says in quite a lot of words what Nike has been able to say in just three. Just Do It. This summary chapter quotes a number of high ranking business people and what they have to say about the principles put forth in the book. Two of the quotes stand out for me. The first is by the co-founder of Sony, Masaru Ibuka. “The key to success at Sony... is never to follow the others.” The second quote is an old Chinese proverb, “It is dangerous to try to leap a chasm in two bounds. These two quotes sum up the book for me and help explain why Mr. Peters is so successful in what he does. Every corporation wants to be the next Sony. So everybody tries not to follow the other guy, or to do it better than him. But unfortunately it is a huge chasm, and many if not most organizations can’t make the jump. Mr. Peters is able to lead them to the edge of the chasm, and show them the wonders that lay just on the other side, but in the end it is up to them to jump. And with business being run by who its being run by, the faith to make the leap is usually not there. Which is probably too bad, for all of us.

Though this book is geared toward large business, with their cornucopia of employees and multiple levels of hierarchies, I found a few ideas that could be applied to GyroBoard. To me the main point of chapters two and three was that a company needs employees that can do it all. With a small start-up company likes ours, that would not only be nice, but it would be a necessity for us to have any hope of making a dent in the market.

At GyroBoard we would definitely adopt the Harley-Davidson philosophy outlined in chapter three. And not just mouth the words, but really put it in force. It might be difficult at first, but I feel that if it is done from the get go, it would become second nature to all involved.

In chapter seven, Mr. Peters has his list of 14 ideas of how to create a curious corporation. I believe we at GyroBoard would embrace these rules with open arms. By having the two of us as founders, we have already gone a long way toward hiring the nuts. Making it fun and changing pace would be the order of the day, not the exception to the rule. And being we are dealing with snowboarding and its surrounding style, hiring a few off the wall types would be relatively easy.

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Title: Crossing the Chasm

Author: Geoffrey A. Moore

Reviewer: Chris Kallies

Crossing the Chasm is definitely one of the better books I have read as part of an “assignment” recently. Perhaps this could be due to Geoffrey Moore’s past experience as a Professor of English, experience that allowed him to add a rich language to his book that keeps the reader interested. OK, so it’s not the latest Tom Clancy tomb but it’s a good read, none-the-less.

I ordered Crossing the Chasm on a whim; basically I ran my finger down the approved reading list and selected the first title that sounded relatively interesting. It’s somewhat ironic that I chose Crossing the Chasm, because I’m a network technician and the book is on marketing high tech products, which was something I could directly relate to.

So what is the “chasm”? It certainly sounds ominous enough and according to the title of the book, marketers must be interested in crossing it from some reason or another. Luckily, Moore does not keep the reader in suspense for long. It turns out that the chasm is a gap in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. The chasm exists in the period between early adoption and early majority. Why it exists is another story.

First one must understand the attitudes of the innovators and early adopters. Moore refers to this group as visionaries. Visionaries seek a radical change in the way their company does business. They’re always looking for the Holy Grail of software and hardware enhancements, a profound change that will improve every aspect of their business cycle as they know it, and they want to be the first on the block to own the product that facilitates this change. No expense is too large for the productivity gains that are going to be realized from the implementation of this product. In addition, the visionaries know that since they are the pioneers of their products there will be no structured support systems in place and they may have to solve many of the problems that arise themselves.

Now contrast the visionaries in the innovator and early adopter segments with the pragmatists of the early adoption stage. Pragmatists prefer to look for a well-established market leader to buy new products from. They want what Moore refers to as a “whole product relationship,” one in which every item that is required for FULL implementation of a product is in place. Pragmatists prefer working with the market leader because the market leader gets all of the support services behind them, secondary companies aim their efforts at the market leader. As an example, you would have no problem finding books on Microsoft Windows (market leader) but the choices would not be as great when it came to Linux (smaller market share). Pragmatists also tend to base their purchases on what others in their market are saying. With the new product on the left side of the chasm and a limited customer base, the pragmatists don’t receive enough word-of-mouth information from their fellow pragmatists in other companies.

According to Moore, what typically happens with the launch of a new product is usually a disaster on a grand scale. A company launches a new product and the visionaries love it. They get a couple of key contracts with companies that prefer to be on the bleeding edge and everyone in the company thinks the sky is the limit. But then, as the company attempts to cross the chasm, things fall apart. Their sales fall far short of projections and they can’t seem to make any progress with their target markets. Soon the company is bleeding cash, firing marketing managers, and on their way to falling into the chasm. This is because they failed to identify the differences in the psychographic makeup between the visionaries and the pragmatists. They were marketing to the cutting edge crowd when it was the firmly grounded pragmatists they were trying to win over. A bad situation to be in.

Luckily Moore has just the strategy to allow a company to escape the depths of the chasm and become entrenched in the early majority; he basis this strategy on the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Moore’s idea is simple enough, our goal is to dominate a mainstream market (this is Europe in WWII) that is currently in enemy hands (the Axis powers) and to liberate this market we need to partner with fellow militants (the Allied forces), create an entry market base (Great Britain) and use that to catapult us into our mainstream market (Normandy). All we need to do to complete the invasion is cross the chasm (in the analogy, the English Channel). Of course, the job is not nearly complete at this point. We must now define and dominate a very specific niche market (the beachhead). Once we have the niche market secured we can branch out to additional market segments on our way to majority market domination (all of Europe is in our control).

So that’s the idea in a nutshell. A key component of this whole strategy is making sure you properly select the niche market that your going to target to start and then make sure your entire focus is on that niche market. As Moore states on page 67, “Trying to cross the chasm without taking a niche market approach is like trying to light a fire without kindling.” Because the niche market is so crucial, Moore devotes a lot of time to explaining how to select your niche market. During this early crossing period your focus need to be on giving the customer a whole product solution. This may cost some revenue initially but earning a solid footing in that niche market will then become the bowling pin that aids you in knocking over other key markets. What one does not want to do during this crossing period is focus trying to make a profit. Profits will come about only when a successful chasm crossing has been made and not before then.

When assembling your invasion force, Moore stresses the importance of ensuring you can deliver the whole product. Moore presents the idea of the whole product using the simplified whole product model. At the center of the model is the generic product that can be thought of as the base product you’re bringing to market. Surrounding the generic product are all the items needed to fulfill the customers vision of what a successful product implementation would like. These additional items include additional software needed to fully implement the product, installation and debugging, training and support, etc. In order to implement the whole product a company may decide to create a tactical alliance with a company that can provide an additional piece of the whole product. As Moore puts it, “Tactical alliances have one and only one purpose: to accelerate the formation of whole product infrastructure within a specific target market segment.” Without forming these alliances and completing the whole product concept the pragmatists can never be won over.

The next step in winning the battle to cross the chasm is defining the battle. If one can successful define the terms under which the battle will take place, they are almost guaranteed success. In defining the battle, two clear objectives must be met. First, you must create competition for yourself. Why is this? Pragmatists prefer to buy in markets where there is competition and since the products that are crossing the chasm are a new type of product they have no direct competition initially. This allows the new technology marketer to define who the competition is going to be and as long as they select competition that clearly can not compete with the new product being marketed they are setting themselves up for success.

The second objective in defining the battle is properly positioning your product. According to Moore, “Positioning is the single largest influence on the buying decision. The important aspect here is making your product easy to buy. Unfortunately many companies focus on making their products easy to sell but the buyer doesn’t care how hard the seller has to work. They’re just interested in finding a product that is easy to buy. Moore presents a four step process for properly positioning your product:
1. The claim – A two sentence statement that clearly defines your products market leadership within the niche market you are targeting.
2. Evidence- You must back up your claim with supporting evidence.
3. Communication- This is where you get your claim and evidence to the right people at the right time
4. Feedback- Readjust you positioning based on feedback from competition and potential customer.

At this point we are finally ready to launch the big invasion. The key here is selecting the proper channel into the mainstream market. Direct sales, at least initially, is definitely the channel of choice for the new to market products that are involved in chasm crossing. Once the product has made it onto firm ground on the early majority side of the chasm, a change can be made to the channel that works best for both the seller and buyer, whether it be one-tier retail, internet retail, or some other channel. Once a proper channel is setup the product is well on it’s way to finally overcoming the chasm.

Overall, I found Moore’s theories on high tech marketing to be very enlightening. He presented his arguments very clearly and in a very concise manner that made it easy to follow his reasoning. All of his ideas are backed up by his own real world experiences and he also adds real world experiences from companies that have already successfully crossed the chasm.

Even though the product that I am working on for my marketing plan is not a high technology product I found a number of interesting ideas to use for my marketing plan. The one I think would be most useful is the elevator test, which states that you have to be able to define your position within a market and the value your product will bring to that market in the time it takes to take an elevator ride. This is done by filling in the blanks of who your product is for, what that group is dissatisfied with, what the product is, what it provides, why it’s unlike the competition, and what your company has assembled. If you can fill in each of those with one short concise sentence you can pass the elevator test.

As I stated earlier I was quite impressed with Crossing the Chasm and wouldn’t mind reading other works by Geoffrey Moore such as Inside the Tornado or The Gorilla Game.

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Title: Crossing the Chasm

Author: Geoffrey A. Moore

Reviewer: Brett Larson

OVERVIEW
Crossing the Chasm makes the case that high-tech products require unique marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries. The chasm theory describes how high-tech enterprises initially sell very well, mostly to the technically savvy population, but don’t quite make the transition into the mainstream market. Moore points out problems and remedies to enable high-tech products to cross the chasm into further success.

SUMMARY
Moore begins by explaining the Technology Adoption Life Cycle, a model depicting the various stages of adopting a new product. The model has five divisions, each representing a group of buyers to whom a product is sold to during its life cycle. Innovators, who are technology junkies, seek out a new product to be the first to use it. They represent a very small portion of the model. Early Adopters are also somewhat keen to try out new products in order to give their company a competitive advantage against competitors. The Early Majority represents the bulk of the market. They tend to accept a new product only if it has gained positive feedback and reviews against defects and compliance issues. This is considered the most challenging group to persuade. The Late Majority is as equally big as the aforementioned group. They are extremely skeptical of applying a new product to their lives and demand proof of its usefulness before they make the decision to purchase. The last division, Laggards, are those folks who avoid new technology all together. Unless someone is twisting their arm to buy, they will avoid it like a plague.

New products can exist either as a continuous innovation, referring to the normal upgrade of a product that requires no behavior change, or a discontinuous innovation, which rely on consumers to modify existing products and/or change their behavior. His model displays the spectrum of demand between the two innovations and describes the market penetration of any new technological product in terms of consumer attraction to the product. Moore believes there exists small cracks between the logical path of the adoption life cycle. The model experiences a first crack, which is a gap between the innovators and early adopters because a hot product can’t seem to benefit any other market field. The other crack is a gap between the early majority and late majority, transferring from the mainstream to the end user who lacks technical competence. These early majority customers who are willing to conform, want a product that works and integrates. To conclude the model, Moore points out a catch-22 problem between the innovator not being a suitable reference to early majority, but early majorities not buying without consulting many suitable references.

Unfortunately, as Moore demonstrates, companies with great products and exciting new technologies descend into a chasm, never to re-emerge. The market for the early adopters is quickly exhausted and new revenue becomes scarce as developers unload considerable amounts of resource to improve the product. Companies get so caught up in early market success that they never anticipate the chasm, and inevitably plunge to their corporate death. In order for companies to make the leap across the chasm without falling, Moore offers up a few rules to follow.

Labeled, the D-Day strategy, Moore creates an approach that involves a four-step process that allows an organization to attract pragmatist buyers in order to enhance their market penetration. The four steps include: target the point of attack, assemble the invasion force, define the battle, and launch the invasion. Target the Point of Attack is discovering whom you are selling to. By researching and rating each customer’s compelling reason to buy, you can produce a product that they truly need. This determines which market segment has potential and which do not, allowing the company to orchestrate an all-out planned attack. Assemble the Invasion Force is delivering a product that includes everything a customer is promised to receive. You must ally and partner up with other companies to define the “whole product.” Moore cautions readers to develop simple relationships with other companies slowly, in order to protect your business from frauds and espionage that may plunder your success. Define the Battle involves creating the products competition. Moore’s idea is that consumers develop more interest in a product that has competing alternatives than those that try to strive in a market all in itself. Launch the Invasion requires companies to tap into the proper channel of distribution in order to attract those stubborn buyers. Pricing should be controlled to limit the image of the product from becoming known as the market leader. Instead, pricing should reflect competitiveness between rival products so that as your product becomes more popular and margins rise, your cost of the product can begin to lower. Lower pricing will then attract the more economic and hesitant buyer.

Crossing the Chasm offers an exciting new angle into the marketing strategies for today’s high tech gadgets. Moore admits that while his methods of marketing differ greatly than the traditional processes, his methods are in no means a perfect solution. The market changes on a daily basis and decisions for challenging situations must be treated on an individual basis. Because technology today is changing so rapidly, statistical information does not offer much of a base to perform strategies for decision-making. His views are simply from what he has endured and encountered as a high level marketing consultant, and voices his experience to companies to be applied as a useful resource.

PERSONAL OPINION
After reading Crossing the Chasm, I conclude whether or not the time I spent flipping page to page was worthwhile by focusing on how much useful information I retained. Although Moore applies his useful ideas clearly through great examples, I especially enjoyed his personal insight into the market of high-tech products through which he relates to a marketer’s frustration and struggle to set new strategies. His ideas help me to understand the way people think and how to accomplish ways to accommodate a consumer’s buying behavior. I would recommend this book for anyone stuck in a position to deliver a new product in a high-tech market.

APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
Reading this book has helped me in many ways to discover better marketing strategies for my product, mainly because my product can be considered high-tech. The driving management system is a product that may require an alternative method to fulfill its existence throughout the adoption cycle. Since this technology requires the use of software and hardware, the flow into mainstream will require proper positioning and a planned attack to segment what consumer would be most interested in this product. Upon its release, the driving management system will be pretty much bare bone and accepted primarily only by the innovators. With high revenues sales, attention will focus into further improvement and usability for the product, so that the early adopters have to make as little as possible accommodation for the product to be used fully. With marketing information zeroing in on the market segment we can slip into, the high reviews of our product from the early adopters and precise positioning will persuade the early majority into purchasing the driving management system. Now as margins are increasing ever so rapidly from the government’s new legislative vote to equip every vehicle with our product, we can begin to lower the cost so that it makes it more attainable for consumers to purchase.

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Title: Customers for Life

Author: Carl Sewell

Reviewer: Emily Cornwall

Customers for Life explains how to keep customers happy and coming back by improving management and business skills thereby improving customer service. Exceptional customer service will give you lifetime customers.

In order to keep customers happy you must provide what a customer wants when he/she wants it and do so with exceptional service. Make sure that you don’t over promise and under deliver, but do the exact opposite. One example that is used in the book is when a customer takes his car in for service and is given a particular price quote for say $150. Then when that customer returns to pay the $150 he is actually only charged $140 for the service. He had to pay less than expected and in return was completely satisfied. Also, when a customer presents a problem or something isn’t done right, you need to fix it ASAPas soon as possible. Get to the bottom of what happened to cause the problem and fix it to ensure that the same issue doesn’t arise again. Above all, apologize for the mistake and/or inconvenience. Another point that this book makes is that “if the customer asks, the answer is always yes” (pg. 12). In other words you want to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that your customers are happy. You want to provide more convenient service than your competitors. Always keep the customer happy.

On the business and management end you must always be trying to find ways to improve customer service. Every business must keep in mind that “The best-and most profitable businesses- don’t want all the customers” (pg. 69). This book points out that in order to be successful you must segment your market. Once you decide which market segmentation to go after it will be easier for you and your business to meet the needs of your customers. This is very important and vital in providing exceptional service.

The first step in going aboutachieving this aim this is to hire good employees. Interview a lot ofmany different people to find the ones that stand out and will do an upstanding job for you and your company. Also, make sure that once you find these upstanding employees to treat them like you treat your customers. As Carl Sewell said says, “we We always try to thank our customers for doing business with us, and we always try to thank our employees for doing a good job. Both those thank yous are equally important.” (pg.62). If your employees aren’t happy chances are they aren’t going to provide exceptional service or be very personable with the customers.

The next step would beis to go to your customers or your competition. An example of doing this is to conduct surveys with your customers and find out where you are falling short. Drive around and pay a visit to your competition and other businesses and see how they run things. See if you can borrow any of their ideas to improve your business. Another key factor is making sure that your business looks presentable. Keeping your business facility clean and up to date is very important. Customers, as well as employees, want to feel warm and comfortable. It should almost feel like a home away from home. This will make everyone happy.

I think that Customers for Life is a book that every business owner should read. This book not only shows you the steps to take in keeping your customers happy, but also how to run and manage your business to become more efficient and in turn provide excellent customer service. Providing good customer service seems like it is practically common sense. Have Having a positive attitude and doing what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. However, this book showed me that so much more is involved in providing good customer service and in turn keeping lifetime customers. You must always evaluate your business and make improvements in order to stay on top and above the competition. In some cases this may prove to be difficult, but you must have the mind set that nothing is too good for your customers. In the long run this is what is going to make your business successful.

The parts of this book that I found to be the most beneficial were all of the managerial parts. This book explains how thethat best way to stay on top and run your business is to observe and review your business operations yourself. Don’t hire other people to do this. By doing it yourself you know exactly what is going wrong and therefore can implement the best corrective actions. This also puts you in direct contact with your business and your employees. By doing this you will not only know the ins and outs of your business, but you will also get to know your employees on a more personal level. Overall

I really enjoyed reading this book and learned a lot from it. The information is very useful and is presented in such a way that “if you don’t learn something from this, it’s your fault” (Stanley Marcus).

The concepts of presesented in this book will help me and my partner with our marketing plan by showing us how a well managed business will keep our customers happy and make us successful in the long run. Customers for Life provides us with the information we need to provide good customer service and keep us above the competition. We will keep these concepts in mind so that when we get to things such as distribution channels in our marketing plan we make obtaining our product as easy as possible for our customers. This book will also remind us that market segmentation is very important. It will force us to ask ourselves questions such as: who are our customers going to be? How can we make them our lifetime customers? Without happy and satisfied customers we have a failing business and therefore a failing marketing plan.

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Reviewer: Jennifer Grogan

How does one go about finding a committed customer? What do customers want? What do customers need? To answer these exact questions, I decided to read Customers for Life by Carl Sewell. In this priceless book, Carl describes the pros and cons of working in the pubic arena with respect to the customers that people encounter on a daily basis. Carl also talks about the process of providing quality customer service and the shortcuts one can take in solving a problem so that customers stay satisfied and not disappointed. Providing superior customer service is a battle in the market place today. Many companies have unique services that are geared towards satisfying customer wants and needs. From successful companies to determined entrepreneurs, the process of turning a one-time buyer into a committed buyer all revolves around the customer and what they are thinking.

So, what really goes on inside a customer’s head? From day to day, what are they really thinking about? How does one figure out what the customers really want and need? Carl believes that if people took the time to really listen to customers, they would figure out what they really want and need: “If you give customers a chance to talk, and if you’re willing to listen, they’ll tell you exactly what’s important to them”(3). This is a fantastic point. How easy is it to take a second and listen to someone? Normally, it wouldn’t be difficult for an employee to listen to their customer. Lets suppose it’s a hectic day at work: your boss is stressed, you’re stressed, and in turn the customer is neglected. Consciously or unconsciously, employees at a work place ignore customers when the timing is perfect to listen to them and provide them with excellent customer service. I remember this one incident at the Saturn dealership about a year ago. I used to own a cute and reliable Saturn sedan until it decided to have severe transmission problems. So, like any normal customer, I took my car straight to the Saturn service desk and tried to get an appointment. The employees I remember were completely rude and didn’t want to take the time to get me an appointment that day much less help me get a ride to UNR. The problem was that my Saturn couldn’t even leave the parking space, much less the parking lot because the transmission was all messed up. As a result, I internally became frustrated and I left my car there and for the first time I rented a car. This is just a prime example of what Carl is trying to explain in his book. Carl would say that the dealership should have taken a second out of their busy day to listen to my problem. If they would have listened to my problem I would have been happy to return to their dealership time and time again to receive excellent service. But, as it turns out I sold my car and when I hear people talking about buying a Saturn, I warn them about the service department and how unreliable and rude they are. In order to establish a committed customer, one must provide reliable and friendly service time and time again. I can’t even begin to imagine all the customers that businesses loose just because the employees are impatient and not willing to listen.

I absolutely enjoyed Carl’s book because it emphasized the importance of providing superior and unforgettable customer service through manners, timeliness, and thoughtfulness. The customer is number one, and anything that needs to be done in order to make them satisfied so that they will return in the future is utterly substantial. All in all, people make the world go round, and without their support, business wouldn’t be able to survive or flourish.

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Reviewer: Jennifer Smith

I found Customers for Life by Carl Sewell to be a very interesting piece of work with some really innovative thoughts and suggestions. Although this book was written over a decade ago the ideas of customer service and relationships are something that apply today and are still strived for by successful companies. In the preface of the book Sewell states his "Ten Commandments of Customer Service" and they state clearly ten rules that you should follow in order to create and maintain great customer relationships. All the ideas that he states are simple, but considering his success in business they are something that all companies should follow.

Some of the key ideas that Sewell states in his book are: doing everything in your power to help the customer (within means), asking customers for feedback, treating your employees with respect and holding them accountable, having a good reliable system, and just plain being polite. These ideas are lost sometimes in big companies; at least with the ones I have experience with, and I find it refreshing to read about someone using these ideas and being successful with them.

With the first idea of doing everything in your power to help the customer, within means, I find this to be a great policy to have with your company. All too often I feel like sales associates and customer service people I come in contact with do the bare minimum in order to appease you, but they rarely go out of their way to make you happy. One of the biggest reasons why my wall to wall heated carpeting will be so successful is because there will be a 24 hour hotline the customer can call if they ever have problems with the carpet or any questions. By showing the customer that even after the sale is done and their carpet is installed we will still be there for the life of the carpet to assist them in any way we can. Sewell gave examples of dropping people's cars off for them at their homes on Christmas Day even, complete with gift bow, at no charge and with a smile on their faces. That is the kind of customer service my company will strive for and if a customer wants their carpet installed on a weekend because they have company coming the following week we will do it. Sewell states that customer service isn't a 9-5 job, and I completely agree with that.

The second idea of asking customer feedback I feel is not only a great idea, but it is essential in creating any sort of relationships with your customers. Although this is a good idea there can be bad ways of going about getting customer feedback, one thing that Sewell suggests not doing is calling the customer for their opinions just because by calling someone at a bad time can put you on their bad side. I personally know that when someone calls me at home I either hang up on them, or yell at them and vow to never do business with their company, MCI! This may seem a little extreme but it is very annoying to get a call at home especially when you are very busy doing something else.

Sewell suggests focus groups, small surveys they can fill out at the counter while you are calculating their bill, and a longer survey they can take home and mail in later if they feel like it. I feel with a compilation of those three methods you can really get a feel of what the customer wants without assuming and possibly getting it wrong. With my company I will have them fill out the short three to five question survey and it will ask questions like; how did you hear about us? Have you ever bought a product from our company before? If so were you satisfied? I will also leave an area for general comments so that if there is something, good or bad, worth telling us about then they will have a space for it. With the longer survey we will send it to their home six weeks after the carpet is installed and have them fill it out, it will come complete with a self addressed stamped envelope so it will be practically effortless for them to get it back to us. By going to these measures to get a customer's opinion it will not only show the customer we care, it will also give us valuable information so we could better serve them.

The third idea is treating your employees with respect and holding them accountable. This is a really good strategy for two reasons; first of all if an employee is held accountable for their work then they will be sure to do their best because they know that if they don't they will have to work twice as much to fix it, and second because happy workers are nicer to customers. If someone is unhappy at their job you can tell, they are monotone and unfriendly and that kind of behavior reflects poorly on the business. For my workers I plan on creating a really comfortable and fun work environment, when they are successful we have parties, barbecues, and other types of recognition events. When a person comes to the house to install the carpet they will be the same person that you will deal with no matter what is wrong and you will have a direct phone number to call them 24 hours a day. I believe that good customer service begins with the employees and if you treat your employees with care and respect then they will work harder for you and in the end you will have created a better company. It is important to make money when you own a business but not at the expense of good workers, there should always be someone there to praise workers, not just to punish them.

The fourth thing that Sewell talks about is having a good and reliable system to carry out your business, he even mentions stealing ideas from the Japanese because they have really good business systems. Sewell also mentions why Wal-Mart is so successful and the biggest reason is that they have a good inventory system so they are rarely out of stock for items and they also cut costs because everything is electronic. For my heated wall to wall carpeting business we will be successful because we will be really organized, all our orders will be electronic, but there will also be one person in charge of every order so they can give the customer the personal attention they need. Our system will involve as few people as possible because we will all be on the same system so when an order is placed the call center, warehouse, and showroom floor all know so that if the customer calls any of the departments they will be able to help them.

The last thing Sewell talks about is being polite. Being nice to the customer just exemplifies what type of business you run and how you plan on treating your patrons as they do business with you. They know that you will be nice to them and that buying from you will be a good experience. Being nice and polite isn't everything but it is essential in building customer relationships and combined with all the other elements of customer service will create a good reputation for your company. During the hiring process I will stress the importance of politeness and how any sort of disrespectful actions towards customers or employees will not be tolerated. I will only hire people who I feel have good attitudes and outlooks on life. I also plan on having rewards for people who exhibit great customer service so my employees have more of an incentive to be courteous to everyone.

I feel that Sewell has some really good advice to give on customer service and these aren't things that he just pulls off the top of his head, these are things that he uses everyday with his business. I felt that reading this book was worth while and I learned things that I can use now in my job at the bank and in the future when I own and run my own business.

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Title: Customer Retention: An Integrated Process for Keeping Your Best Customers

Author: Reviewer did not list

Reviewer: James Burnett

The most important asset to any company is its customers. Good companies know how important repeat customers are to remain in business. In this book the author dispels any myths about the importance of customers, and addresses strategies for keeping customers. The first chapter in this book deals with the myths associated with the importance of customers.

“To satisfy the customer is the mission and purpose of every business. (Pg.1)” This quote sums up every thing that needs to be known about the importance of customers, but satisfying the customer is not always what it takes to retain customers. The customer’s life in any organization goes through as many as five stages. Acquisition is one of the five stages in this stage the business has gained a prospective customer. Retention is the second stage here the prospective customer has become a repeat customer, and now the business can profit from the long-term relationship. The third stage in this cycle is Attrition; which is, when the customer begins to break away from the business by reducing purchases. The reasons why a customer goes into this phase can be for many reasons,such as like: un-metunmet expectations, or problems with purchases. In this stage the customer begins to lose loyalty. The fourth stage in this cycle is Defection this is where the customer has terminatedterminates the business relations with the business, and has gone to a competitor. The fifth and final stage is Reacquisition in this phase the business has gotten a customer back by giving incentives or correcting an existing problem.

Customer satisfaction is a key strategy to keeping customers, but the business needs to be aware of problems, which directly or indirectly influence a customer’s buying habits. It is known that a good majority of companies spend more time trying to gain new customers rather than keeping current customers happy. A common myth among companies is that customer satisfaction leads to customer retention, but it is estimated that between 65 and 85 percent of customers who defect are either satisfied or very satisfied with the service that they receive. Basically there are many factors which lead to a customer being loyal to a particular company, and are more complicated than satisfying the customer.

Customer satisfaction is different than customer retention because satisfaction is just one element to retaining a potential customer. Focusing on customer satisfaction is a passive approach to business because once the companies realize there is a problem they have in most cases already lost the customer. Focusing on customer retention is a more pro-active approach because the company evaluates all potential problems and attempts or fixes them so that they can avoid complaints because complaints are a sign that the company is about to lose the customer. Satisfaction- oriented businesses focus on complaints, and evaluating those; however, many customers do not even bother complaining, but rather choose to take their business elsewhere. Because of the fact that the customer rarely complains, a retention- oriented business gains a valuable advantage in the marketplace because not only are they able to keep what customers they have, but gain new customers from satisfaction oriented businesses.

There are many steps a company can take to retain customers. One of the best strategies that can be taken to retain customers is by the approach that is taken while evaluating complaints. A company that is able to retain customers listens to, and evaluates all complaints whether registered or latent. The biggest problem facing large corporations is the limitations that registered complaint systems have. A registered complaint system no matter how advanced has flaws. One of those flaws has to do with the number of complaints which are received; because the number of complaints received exceeds the staff many complaints go unanswered, and the purpose of these systems are often used as a marketing strategy to gain new customers, which is only one piece of a marketing puzzle. It is a known fact that satisfiedSatisfied repeat customers have a propensity to buy larger quantities than a new customer; also a lifetime of spending will be more beneficial than one order. Another basic way to retain customers is by knowing what the competition is doing.
Good business people do market research to find out about their competition. A good way of gaining a valuable advantage in the market is by knowing what the competitors are doing with regards to how they deal with their customers because the competitor’s customer can just as easily be your customer if you offer something more than your competitor. Customers will only remain loyal as long as they feel they are getting the most value for their dollar.

There are four basic strategies to position themselves relative to the competition. The first strategy is defense; all market leaders must defend themselves from competition. When a company is in a state of defense the company offers new products so that they can maintain the lead in the market. These companies also pay close attention to what the competition is doing so that they are able to block all attempts from competitors to take their position.

The second strategy is offense, . the The type of company that would choose this approach would be strong companies that do not hold the lead in the market, but are making an attempt to take the lead. In this strategic positioning plan the company evaluates the weaknesses of the lead company and tries to improve on those shortcomings. These companies plan single or narrow attacks so that they can gradually bring down the competitor by attacking one area and waiting for the competitor to defend and find an opening that way.

The third possible strategy is called flanking. Flanking is a risky move, but offers big rewards. Successful uses require that the company to have competitive information about the competitor, and knowledge that the customer need is there before launching an attack. Companies that use the flanking maneuver are trying to satisfy a niche or a segment in a particular market.

The final strategy is guerilla warfare; this. This approach is for small companies trying to gain market position. This strategy is not meant to take position from competitors, but rather to keep pressure on them as to reveal weakness so that they can implement another plan of attack. Understanding that retention is important will help me both in selling my product and planning an attack against competitors.

With the knowledge that I have learned from this book I will be able to set up a system that will retain customers. If I can set up an effective system I will be able to have high customer retention, and be able to break into the new market that will be created by my product. With the retention of customers the company should be able to turn a profit quicker than if I was focusing on just bringing in new customers. This book also gave tips on how to effectively compete against competitors, because although this product will create a new market I plan to have indirect competition that will be offering substitutes.

This book was informative, and easy to read. I feel that a company should have a strategy in place to keep repeat customers. Retaining customers is probably one of the hardest challenges facing all businesses. What grabbed my attention was the fact that many customers who defected said that they were satisfied with the service that they received from the company they left. The only thing which was informative, but did not seem that it belonged in the book was the section on various tactics that can be taken against competitors. This book will really help any new business out because it lays out strategies a company can take to keep repeat customers.

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Title: Customer Service Over the Phone

Author: Stephen Coscia

Reviewer: Adam Crine

This book contains vast amounts of customer service techniques that will help in day-to-day interactions with all kinds of people including clients. The book’s definition of customer service when it is boiled down is, “. . . the act of one person helping another person.” (Coscia 15). This specific interaction determines how a company’s service will be perceived by customers.

One of the first main points that Stephen Coscia brings up is the fact that for any one-on-one relationship to work, both the customer and the Customer Service Representative must be honest with each other. There is not one problem that can be happily resolved with both people being happy, unless the truth about the cause of the problem is revealed.

I feel this to beThis is an absolute key in good customer service. Good business ethics are a must when working with customers and a good start in following these ethics is always telling the truth. There are no shortcuts around the truth and no one will last long in a business without being honest. Another great reason for telling the truth is that it can never really get you into any kind of serious trouble. Always telling the truth seems to be the best way out of things. Honesty and truthfulness is an aspect and great characteristic to possess.

After speaking on ethics the book went into detail on the specific guidelines to follow in “Solving Problems.” Contain, Qualify, Correct is a problem solving method that enables CSRs to get things done right the first time. Contain means that you are keeping the current situation under control. By keeping the situation under control you better enable yourself to perform your job. In the next step of Qualifying, you are to ask questions to determine exactly what is wrong. Asking questions helps you to control the conversation. Once these first two processes have been completed you move onto the correction of the problem by taking the proper proceedings to fix it.

These three simple steps seem to really break conversating over the phone into a simple process. Whenever I happen to be working personally with a customer I’ve learned that, if you break the problem down into these three simple steps, things seem to just operate much more smoothly.

Another important process that Coscia established in his book was for the importance of having qualified customer representatives, who know hot to ask the right questions. Today much of our system software includes a ton ofmany features with a very intelligent user interface. Coscia stated that in interviewing some CSRs, when a customer calls with a complaint the products are not usually broken. Therefore, CSRs must be expert qualifiers in their respective fields. Asking a qualified question is the only way a CSR can get the information he needs to do his job.

I feel thisThis is a very important aspect of having good customer service skills. If you are not closely familiar with the product you sell, advertise or market for you should take some time to do so. In thinking of this aspect, I look to my personal marketing project and look at the kind of people that I would hire to answer my phones and deal with any such problems we might have. I would want jobs to be simple so that I can hire cheap inexpensive labor and teach individuals, so production costs would not be so high. However, by ascertaining a more respectable person that I know would take time to learn about the company, and requiring a little more out of the job, I could find a highly qualified individual who would be willing to give his 110% effort.

For the past 10 years anyone who is in customer service, technical support, or consumer relations has most likely had to start handling e-mail inquiries. Coscia explains however that handling e-mail is as delicate as speaking over the phone, in that words are still weapons. E-mail does however offer a few benefits over telephone communication. For example, customer service departments that handle both telephone calls and e-mail, in most cases can defer the e-mail to a time of the day when the phones are not so busy.

I feel that internetInternet and e-mail have become extremely important mediums that people can use in avoiding all the hassle of a phone call. Nearly all Americans have used or know how to use the internet. By having a website perhaps or an e-mail address at which you can be contacted eliminates many phone calls and some what diversifies the way that questions come into the company. I feel that e-mailE-mail and internet is anare essential key to for a successful company in this day and age.

In one of Coscias’ last chapters he speaks about all the stress that comes along with being a CSR and effective ways in which it can be handled. Stress is said to be a national epidemic in America. Many employers and experts are realizing that stress, burnout and depression can affect productivity, absenteeism, turnover and overall health costs. Coscia states that “focusing on an angry customer’s behavior is an obstacle. Their behavior is a result of the problem. Fix the problem, and you will automatically fix the behavior” (Coscia 80).

The threat of stress seems to loom everywhere when there is something that has to be taken care of or “done”. Being the hard working college student that I am, I am accustomed to vast amounts of stress nearly everyday, aside from the beloved weekends! I have learned from experience that stress can in fact, lower your productivity level and keep your mind seems to not want to focusfrom focusing. I deal with this stress in a similar way that Coscia describes in his book. I always try to stay on top of my work and make sure that as soon as problems arise they are taken care of and out of my mind.

I would hope that in my specificthe company that I am creating for my marketing project I could create a peaceful working environment. One that is low in stress and does not work my employees to the point to which they do not even want to come to work anymore. I want employees to be excited to come work for me so that productivity levels are high and the company is overall, functioning well.

As this book by Stephen Coscia came to a conclusion, I looked back at all that I had been taughthave learned. Although many of the things the Coscia stated seemed to come as somewhat common sense, they are not practiced by all CSRs. In reading this book, it has helped my personal interacting interaction skills because whenever I get into a tight jam with a customer I know to just slow down and go back to the basics to solve the problem and keep the customer happy. Overall I thought that this was a wonderfully written book that explains in simple terms the techniques it takes to be a successful CSR.

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Title: Dealing with the Customer from Hell

Author: Shaun Belding

Reviewer: Jesse Reed

In Americas’ hurry up and get it done environment we don’t have time for multiple trips to a store. As customers we assume that our expectations will be met the first time and when that doesn’t happen emotions start getting the best of people. Dealing with angry, frustrated customers can be very challenging and nasty if not handled properly. One book, “Dealing with the Customer from Hell” by Shaun Belding, does an excellent job in describing some very effective techniques for diffusing the emotional stress that accompanies the upset shopper, as well as striving for a proactive win-win solution for both the shopper and the employee. A customer simply wants to be recognized as an important asset to the business, as well as being assured that the store and the employees truly do care about each individual shopper.

When an angry customer comes into a store usually a serious problem already exists. Predispositions from previous experiences will affect the way the shopper is expecting a situation to be handled, which in most cases the problem was handled ineffectively. Incorrect handling of a situation can be disastrous for the customer, the employee, and even the business. If a customer walks out of your store unhappy, with unresolved issues, chances are that they will never return. Making a customer feel important and satisfied is the number one factor in a retail business. Any customer that leaves a store with an unresolved problem will often tell many of their friends about the poor experience. Those friends will in turn tell more people and so on. This can create a very negative image of your business, and will eventually hurt sales. Every customer is important and should be treated so, with respect and honesty.

The first step when dealing with “The Customer from Hell” is to recognize that you, the employee, have been conditioned to deal with confrontation in a certain manner. Some people get defensive while others see it as no big deal. The best way to start dealing with the problem customer is to force a “pattern interrupter” on yourself. This can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths, or even picturing the customer in their underwear. The idea is that we are conditioned to react in a certain manner when faced with conflict, and when dealing with an important customer we want as much control over our own emotions as possible. Controlling your own emotional state is the first step to an effective resolution. The employee must control the situation, not the customer.

After an employee has control over the situation the next step is to listen to your customer, and listen intently. Make eye contact and show that you care. Don’t interrupt the shopper while they are talking, and be sincere in your listening. All too often an employee will cut off a customer in an attempt to remedy the situation before the customer can truly explain the real reason for the unsatisfactory experience. Let the shopper explain everything! Don’t square your shoulders to the customer, this is often a confrontational stance and body language says a lot. Try to stand still and avoid rocking back and forth. Most customers see rocking as impatience when listening to their problem. After the customer has sufficiently explained the situation, echo the important issue back. Be very careful to echo back only that which is truly relevant to the issue at hand, carefully leaving out the other details the are merely opinions or attitudes. Echoing back emotion will not help the situation and can have a negative affect, causing more harm than help. The echoing back of the important details will reassure the customer that you are indeed listening and do care. Secondly, it confirms the real issue at hand and that you understand clearly. Often times the echoing back of the issue will calm an angry customer down enough to start a proactive conversation.

Once the customer has explained the situation and you have listened intently and echoed back important issues the next step is to sympathize with the individual. Showing sympathy does not mean that you have to agree. These are two very different statements altogether. Sympathizing with the customer simply shows that you the employee really do care and want to fix the problem. A simple statement like “from what you’ve told me I can see why you would be so upset,” can really change the mood of the confrontation. This also reinforces that you do care. Sympathizing does not entail apologizing. An apology is often unwarranted as well as inappropriate at this stage. You want to make the customer feel respected without admitting any kind of fault on the store or it’s employees. Sympathy shows the customer that you care and you want to fix the problem so the shopper can leave feeling satisfied. Agreeing or apologizing will not have the same effect.

Once the customer feels like you care and want to fix the problem the next step is to thank him or her for bringing this complaint or problem to your attention. Without “customers from hell” how would we ever know about the issues that need to be addressed or fixed? This can be very difficult to thank an upset person who has been yelling at you, but it does work. The shopper gets the feeling of respect and appreciation once they have been thanked for bringing a problem to the stores’ attention. It also gives the effect that you don’t want to loose the customer’s business because they are an important asset to the store’s success. Sometimes this gracious attitude will shock the shopper so much that the hostility is completely gone by this point. By this point a solution looks more feasible as well as more approachable.

Once a customer feels like they are getting somewhere with you, the employee, the next step is to explore your options. You want the customer to leave feeling happy and satisfied, without compromising the business. Generally a win-win solution is always accessible, with enough thought. You don’t want to give anything away putting the store at a deficit, and you don’t want the customer to leave feeling like they got ripped off. At best you want to try and fix the immediate problem without being overly generous and giving things away. Yes, giving things to a customer for free will make them satisfied but it will only hurt the business. After a win-win solution has been determined by you or the manager, you want to respond to the situation immediately. Make the effort to resolve the situation now. Putting an unsatisfied customer off will not help the situation. You want your shopper to leave that day feeling better. Suggest your solution to the customer and ask if this would be a sufficient answer to the problem. More likely than not your solution will be just fine, and if not you can always revise to improve. If followed step by step this outline works very well for most situations.

After reading this book I was very pleased with its message. I felt that it covered everything very thoroughly as well as appropriately. The author Mr. Belding has had a wealth of “customers from hell” and his knowledge of dealing with them is expansive and impressive. He targets each aspect well and handles them smoothly with as little room for mistakes as possible. His steps get right to the point and direct towards a win-win solution for both the customer as well as the business. I feel that these steps are not only applicable for “customers from hell,” but also everyday confrontations that we all deal with. Relationships with friends, family and significant others would also benefit from this step-by-step confrontation resolver. This book has a much wider range of benefits that just “Dealing with the Customer from Hell.” I really enjoyed reading this book and feel that it will influence my life for the better.

The ideas presented in the book would be applicable to dealing with anyone, not just “customers from hell.” Having the knowledge to deal with a situation appropriately has endless benefits. Handling problem situations effectively will benefit any business in the long run, as well as keeping valued customers, suppliers and distributors happy and satisfied. The idea of listening and echoing back the important issues of a conversation would be extremely beneficial when dealing with suppliers and distributors. Many problems arise when working out the odds and ends of a business transaction, and being able to communicate effectively will help the process to run smoother with less frustration and mistakes. Knowing how to listen to your employees and help solve their problems will increase your stores’ performance. Any of these tactics have multiple benefits to a business and could even make or break a company in the long run. I would recommend this book to anyone running a business because the ideas and techniques presented have endless possibilities, not only for customers but also for everyday life.

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Title: Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service

Author: Ron Zemke and Kristin Anderson

Reviewer: Mary Quinn

Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service, by Ron Zemke and Kristin Anderson is a simply worded, well-endowed book targeted for service professionals. From the five factors of service quality evaluation to taking care of you as a service professional, this book covers all aspects of customer service. This book, being the compact, to the point prose that it is, lists not only main points of discussion, but addresses sub-points accurately. Examples are given so the reader can relate the ideas to their own experiences as either a customer, or a service representative. Lists are used to show the underlying premises behind each topic, and plainly worded explanations are given when needed to clarify the desired behavior or result.

The topics discussed include:
Fundamentals:
? The Service Promise - based on organizational commitments, common customer expectations, and personal promises,
? Fixing the broken Service Promise – satisfying disgruntled customers,
? Characteristics of a high-quality service provider – product knowledge, company knowledge, listening skills, and problem solving skills,
? Intangible service components – appearance, customer fact gathering, and a presentable environment,
? Basic customer types – internal and external,
? The Ten Sins customer service professionals have control over – “I don’t know”, “I don’t care”, “I can’t be bothered”, “I don’t like you”, “I know it all”, “You don’t know anything”, “We don’t want your kind here”, “Don’t come back”, “I’m right and you’re wrong”, and “Hurry up and wait”,
? Baber’s rules of customer service – Make the customer: feel heard, understood, liked, respected, feel helped, appreciated, and respected,

How To:
? Honesty as the foundation of excellent customer service,
? The three ways to make customers right – assume innocence, look for teaching opportunities, and believe your customer,
? The concept of “red” and “blue” rules – red rules for safety and legal aspects of the business, and blue rules used as guidelines with fuzzier boundaries to retain flexibility when solving customer complaints and problems,
? Doing things right, and doing the right thing – the former develops the employee’s knowledge in all aspects of the company while the latter addresses the actions taken by the service professional,
? Listening as an important, not to be dismissed skill – to figure out customer wants and needs, prevent misunderstandings and errors, gather clues to improve customer service, and build customer relationships,
? Taking time to ensure customer information accuracy, not only with shipping and billing information, but with ordering and product requirements also,
? The most common listening distractions are also given – noise (environmental), interruptions, daydreaming, technology, stereotyping, words and phrases that trigger non-related thinking, and personnel attitude,
? Types of questions to elicit accurate customer information gathering – background, probing, and confirmation,
? Hints to avoid poor questioning – asking at the wrong time, asking seemingly redundant questions, asking seemingly personal and irrelevant questions, and asking too many questions,
? Forbidden phrases are discussed and listed – “I don’t know”, “We can’t do that”, “You’ll have to…”, “Hang on a second; I’ll be right back”, and any sentence beginning with the word “No”,
? Non-verbal communication has nine dimensions – proximity, eye contact, silence, gestures, posture, facial expressions, physical contact, smell, and overall appearance. These things can all affect how a customer receives a message and how they will respond,
? Letter writing as well as e-mail etiquette for customer service personnel is also discussed. Emphasis on style, remaining on task with the communication, not using confusing jargon or internet slang, keeping it short, keeping it simple, and making the communication clear and succinct,
? What the authors call “Moments of Truth” – any contact with your organization the customer has is a moment of truth when that customer evaluates the company,
? Customer-focused habits – learn everything you can and learn constantly, ask the customers, ask the company – try to glean all the information from various sources that will help identify problems and assist customer service personnel in providing excellent service,
? Tips to tell when selling is good service – and tips to tell when selling is poor service,
? The idea that thanking customers at every step of the purchase process is given high importance by the nine guidelines that are attached to it. Thanking customers again and again is a way to let the customer know they are appreciated and wanted as patrons of the business,

Problem Solving:
? The Service Recovery Process is given – apologize, fix, atone, keep promises, and follow up – along with three rules for Service Recovery – do it right the first time, fix it if it fails, and the reminder that there are no third chances,
? An outline for customer service problem solving skills is also looked at – listen, probe, solve,
? There are several techniques given for dealing with difficult customers, and “Customers From Hell” – develop perspective, remembering professional status, and master the art of calm,
Taking Care of You:
? Stress reducing techniques are reviewed – breathing, smiling, laughing, relaxing, organizing, taking breaks and mental vacations, talking it out, exercising, and talking positive – as are ideas to treat oneself and give positive affirmation to self and others for doing well,
? Emphasis is placed on the idea that professional and personal relationships should be kept separate, that even customers who are known outside the business environment should be treated equally,
? Constant learning is stressed – learning of the company, the products, the people, the industry, and improving basic customer service skills.

The ideas that I left out of the summary pertained to call-centers and strict customer service counters located inside a store. I found myself grazing these spots in the book and had to force myself to go back and read them. I have never worked in those settings. While I could identify with the concepts and apply them to my marketing plan business idea, they did not seem to apply as a whole. Giving good customer service from behind a counter or via telephone is very important, and these ideas can be adapted for use in my business situation, they just didn’t seem to apply as a philosophy and my eyes glazed over.

What I can say by way of opinion on the book is this; I have worked customer service so long that what others may need to read, I do intuitively. From my first job as a newspaper carrier to my ten-year tenure in the restaurant industry, through my stint as a chemical tanker driver and espresso stand owner, to servicing a high-tech production floor, customer service has always been my highest priority.

I have practiced each one of these key concepts (and they are all key concepts) in real time, figuring out which ones work for every situation, and which don’t matter in certain settings. Appearance is key wherever you are serving others; a neat, clean, professional façade will place you in a higher light in the eyes of a customer than someone who doesn’t care about how they look. Speaking clearly and respectfully always gets a customers attention no matter what type of day they have had until they reached your business. Solving problems without bending over backwards has usually gained more respect – and more repeat business – than “giving away the store” has, in my experience. Taking a moment to clear your head and regain perspective allows you to face the next customer without allowing the previous, perhaps surly, customer to influence that next encounter. Even at twelve years old, I knew that dressing well, speaking well, and giving quality service would earn my way faster than performing in the opposite manner. My customer base grew faster, my tip cup grew heavier, my bosses gave me more responsibilities, raises and promotions came quicker, and success has always been in my grasp because I actually practice what this book places in front of the reader.

Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service would be an excellent book to place in the hands of personnel in any industry to give them an easy-to-read, quick grasp of the key foundations of customer service. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this book, or one like it, should be required high-school reading. There are more people in the workforce now who are in positions of servicing customers that do not seem know the first thing about customer service. It is not so prevalent in Reno, where entertainment and service seem to be the foundation of the city’s livelihood, but it seems that elsewhere the country could use a good customer service pep talk. This book is a good easy reading example that would probably get the point across. It brought to the front of my mind some key ingredients that I had let fall away as I learned my new trade. Even though I know these things, and have practiced them for many years, it is easy to set them aside when moving into a new environment. My resolve to apply the things I already knew has been renewed, and my customer service re-learning process has begun.

Yes, you say, but how does this relate to this class, and your project in particular? A key ingredient to the video rental industry is customer service; it is the key to any industry. Employees who have knowledge of the movie industry may not be a pre-requisite, and a video rental store could do just as well with only a clerk, informed personnel would enhance the experience of the customer visiting my video rental establishment. Uniforms give a structured, corporate look to any store and while a uniform would be a bit out of reach for a small independent video rental store, grooming requirements and a strict dress code would be within reach. Letting the employees know they are expected to have a professional appearance would be a part of communicating the seriousness of my commitment to presenting a well-organized, service-oriented face to the public. This would be the beginning of my philosophy of placing the customer, and their needs, first and foremost when developing the marketing plan for my business.

Taking the philosophies presented in this book, and taking them seriously, will translate into a professionally presented marketing plan, business plan, store appearance, employee appearance, and the willingness to back the marketing plan with a strong foundation of customer service. Gathering accurate customer information, listening to customers describe their wants and needs, documenting and analyzing customer concerns, and solving customer problems with courtesy and respect will culminate in making my store a source of pride for all who work there. Marketing takes care of the first step – getting the customers into the store. Customer service excellence will keep them coming back every time they have a DVD rental need.
My favorite quote from the book –
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
—Albert Einstein

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Title: The Design of Everyday Things

Author: Donald A. Norman

Reviewer: Rui Leng

Key ideas presented in the book

This book is about the psychology of everyday things (POET). By applying experimental psychology and cognitive science, the author analyzes the behaviors of the people when they interact with things and puts forward the principles for design of everything.

The author indicates that people are often frustrated with the operation of everyday things and that people have a tendency to blame themselves for difficulties with technology. In fact, the culprit is the bad design of products. People forms theories (mental models) to explain what they have observed. In the absence of external information, people are free to let their imaginations run free as long as the mental models they develop accounts for the facts as they perceive them. There are seven stages of action during people do things, one for goals, three for execution and three for evaluation. These stages include forming the goal, forming the intention, specifying an action, executing the action, perceiving the state of the world, interpreting the state of the world and evaluating the outcome. The seven stages form an approximate model. There are several gulfs that separate mental state from physical ones. Each gulf reflects one aspect of the distance between the mental representative of the person and the physical components and states of environment. Knowledge which directs the people to do things can be divided into two categories, i.e., knowledge in the world and knowledge in the head. Knowledge from the world is usually easy to come by. Human memory is essentially knowledge in the head. Designers can provide a large number of memory aids by using the knowledge in the world. Precise behavior can emerge from imprecise knowledge because of affordances and constraints. Affordance refers to the perceived and actual properties of the thing, primarily those fundamental properties that determine just how the thing could possibly be used. Affordances of objects convey messages about their possible uses, actions and functions. There are four different classes of constraints – physical, semantic, culture and logical. These classes are apparently universal, appearing in a wide range of situation and sufficient. It is unavoidable for people to make mistakes sometimes and it is the responsibilities of designers to design the products which support and tolerate the mistakes.

The point of POET is to advocate a user-centered design, a philosophy based on the needs and interest of the user, with an emphasis on making products usable and understandable. A designer should make sure that the user can figure out what to do and that the user can tell what is going on. The following principles will be valuable.

1. Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment by making use of affordances and constraints. Affordances suggest the range of possibilities. Constraints limit the number of alternatives. The thoughtful use of affordances and constraints together in design lets a user determine readily the proper course of action, even in a novel situation.

2. Make things visible to bridge the gulfs of execution and evaluation system, including the conceptual model of the system, the alternative actions, and the results of actions.

3. Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system. The principle of feedback requires sending back to the user information about what action has actually been done, and what result has been accomplished.

4. Follow natural mapping between intentions and the required actions; between actions and resulting effect on the system; between the information that is perceivable by sight, sound, or feel and the interpretation of the system state; and between the perceived system state and the needs, intentions, and expectation of the user.

5. Design for error. Assume that any error that can be made will be made, plan for it. Think of each action by the user as an attempt to step into the right direction and a natural, constructive dialog between user and system. Try to support, not fight, the user’s responses. Allow the user to recover from errors, to know what was done and reverse operations; make it hard to do irreversible actions.

6. When all else fails, standardize. When something can’t be designed without arbitrary mappings and difficulties, there is one last route: standardize. Standardize the actions, outcomes, layout, and displays. Make related actions work in the same way. Standardize the system, the problem and create an international standard.

Discussion

In my opinion, the author urges designers to study people, to understand the knowledge about how their design affects the users of product, and to take the customer’s needs and interests into account. The usability and understandability of products are the most important aspects when design a product. Humans do make mistakes, but with proper design, the incident of error and its effects can be minimized. With the author’s suggestion to design, the products will be much easier to use and have a strong ability to tolerate wrong operations.

Applying the ideas to design of Rainbow Color TV

For most color TVs, there is a manual and control panel to set the operation modes of TV. In fact, it often takes a long time for user to learn the manual and to use the control panel. In this design, by using the principles suggested in this book, it is much easier for user to operate the TV.

1. The buttons on control panel are grouped by their functions and each button has a different shape and an intuitive image on it to identify its special function. Therefore, it is easy for user to build up a natural mapping between buttons and their functions.
2. When the TV is connected to electric power at first time, a wizard will appear automatically on the screen to direct the user to set the operation modes of TV. The wizard will tell the user what to do in each step and will feedback information immediately after each step. The user can go back to previous step by only selecting “back” button on screen.
3. There is a special button on control panel to activate the wizard to set the operation modes. There is also another special button on control panel to resume the default mode preset by the manufacturer.
4. Any error operation will lead to a piece of warning information and some suggestion on how to remedy it.
5. There is a cancel button on control panel by which the user can cancel the previous step, previous several steps or error operation.

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Title: The Discipline of Market Leaders

Author: Treacy, M & Wiersema, F.

Reviewer: Miriam Resnik

Published in 1995, The Discipline of Market Leaders is still a popular business book that emphasizes the author’s view of what makes a company a market leader. Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema begin the book with the question of what makes a market leader, and then support their argument that a company has to choose one of the three attributes to gain market leadership; Price leadership, product leadership, or customer service leadership.

Treacy and Wiersema’s main premise is that while all of these components are important, a company can only compete in one of these categories. Many companies fail by trying too hard to be everything to everybody.

Price Leadership
One way to fail is to keep offering new and improved versions of a product without really changing it. Another is to make excuses for why you lag behind the competition. For instance, airlines competing against Southwest Airline’s position as a low cost provider of air travel, try to claim that they add more value with meal and luggage service. But the holiday traveler was not interested in food, just value.

There are many instances of the market price leader. Arco and Southwest are two that this book talks about. It was interesting to find out that during the Gulf War, when all the other gas companies were raising prices, Arco continued to charge ten cents less per gallon than their competitors. In the short run they lost tens of millions of dollars. But, in the long run they inserted themselves as the market leader for cheap gas. They still hold on to that after 12 years.

Wal-Mart is another prime example. Their motto is “always the low price, always”. One doesn’t expect to get amazing service at Wal-Mart. They offer a huge assortment of merchandise at deeply discounted prices.

Product Leadership
Product leadership is another way that a company competes as market leaders. One example that The Discipline of Market Leaders used was Johnson and Johnson (J&J), and their invention of Acuvue contact lenses. Before Acuvue, the idea of throwing out contacts was unheard of. They were product leaders because they were creative, they commercialized their idea quickly and they tried to second-guess the newest generation of contact lenses, staying ahead of the curve.

It only took J&J about a year to test and produce the disposable lens. They advertised heavily before any was sold. J&J started a high-speed production facility, so that when sales started to climb they had a six-month start over any competition. They kept searching for better materials to manufacture Acuvue with.

Customer Service
Some companies compete in the market place with customer intimacy. They are more concerned with what the individual customer wants rather than what the market wants. The Discipline of Market leaders uses companies like IBM, Cable & Wireless, and Airborne Express as some of their primary examples. They also used Home Depot as a superior customer driven business.

Home Depot hires experts in construction and home improvement as their customer service reps. the book recalls an employee that went over to a customer’s house to install a $7 dimmer switch. Home Depot didn’t make any money on the transaction. What they did was reinforce their customer base with their attention to service.

Airborne Express was especially interesting. They compete in a field heavily represented by UPS and FedEx. At the time this book was written, FedEx had a 46 percent share of the overnight shipping industry. They decided that they were not going to compete on such a large scale. They did absolutely no advertising. Airborne had sales reps doing all the sales. Airborne went after larger companies that had more specific times that they needed their parcels. They earned all of the business from Xerox. Because they made Xerox’s packages a priority by getting them at their destination by 8:30 am, Airborne beat out the competition.

Airborne helped Xerox set up a system for shipping parts that saved the company at least a week or two by integrating Airborne’s system with Xerox’s. Now any time Xerox needs anything shipped, Airborne knows immediately. This saved Xerox not only time, but money.

In order to excel in product leadership you need to choose between operational excellence and customer intimacy. The authors say that this choice is so important because whichever path your company chooses, you must emphasize different business structures, and management systems either way.

Relevance
This is where I could relate best to this book. In my own of business of bridal and tuxedo I want my business to excel in customer intimacy. I truly understand what the authors mean when they explain about operations vs. customer intimacy. Although I want operations to run as smoothly as possible, the customer is all-important to me at FORMALS. There are many choices for the consumer. Why should they not only visit my shop, but also purchase everything for such an important event as their wedding? The overall customer experience is key to me. I want to bathe my customers in elegance and service.

I don’t have the buying power to keep up with the new big-box stores like David’s Bridal. Although my store is completely computerized, I hardly consider it technologically superior. The only thing that can keep FORMALS as a market leader in the bridal industry is to add value through customer service.

The Discipline of Market Leaders is easy to read and understand. I definitely walked away from the experience with some good ideas to use in everyday life as well as this class. I would recommend this book to anyone who lacks real focus in his or her business.

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Title: The Effective Use of Market Research

Author: Robin Birn

Reviewer: Trevor Snow

Research or no Research
A marketing director once said of research: “A blind man uses a white stick to avoid walking into large obstacles in his path and to define his passage around the world. Market research is the businessman’s white stick.” The Effective Use of Market Research, Robin Birn’s third edition of the novel paperback, places emphasis on the important role of quality research in the science of marketing. Professor Michael J. Thomas, President of the Market Research Society, eloquently sated, “This book should become the last word in addressing the issue [market research].”

Over the last fifteen years, a new marketing revolution has taken shape, the utilization of research to aid decision-making. In the past, market research was not clear, strong, and focused as a management tool. However, with the new technological business market, research has become essential. First, the book clarifies the numerous and essential techniques involved with market research, which further aids in management’s decision process role. The text clearly shows how market research helps to “plan, focus, and drive the marketing process,” to determine if management is making the right or wrong decisions affecting their company’s well being. Furthermore, The Effective Use of Market Research explains the necessity for companies to take part in research activities, and those not taking part in these practices are not achieving full potential. In essence marketing is all about customer satisfaction. Congruently, research is about obtaining the best information to solidify customer satisfaction. “A company, which knows its customers and monitors its activity well, and has a good understanding of the key research techniques it needs, is likely to develop better and more competitive sales, marketing and communications strategies.” Now let us highlight three key elements dictated by Robin Birn, the need for information, effective research, and presenting the data effectively.
To begin, why does management need to make decisions with information? The answer is rather simple. Would you buy a house without looking into the purchase? I think not, so why is management any different. Information gives management a reassurance they know who their customers are and where they are going. In addition, information provides feedback on how well you, as the provider, are servicing your customer. Finally, information ensures knowledge of changes in the marketplace. In my opinion, the element of information is a no brainier. Walking blindly into a decision is like walking into a pit full of hungry wolves. I believe the problem does not lie on the need for information, but the means at which achieving information and that brings us to the next key element addressed by Birn.

After management understands the need for information, many are perplexed on how to obtain their needed info. Thank God The Effective Use of Market Research was written, because we can look at its contents to find and solve this troubling problem. Birn says the answer is research. The key to using research effectively depends on management’s ability to:
? Develop a sales, marketing and communications strategy with detailed actions for its implementation
? Develop a series of ideas that can be evaluated through research and proved or disproved
? Develop a database on the size, shape, and nature of a market and its structure, to understand the environment in which the managers are taking their decisions
? Assess the acceptability of the company’s products in the market
? Analyze the research to ensure that it can be acted on and is not just information to which to refer.

Obviously, this task was not designed to be easy and straightforward, marketing is a complex science. For those small entrepreneurship businesses, like the ones being asked to develop for marketing 210, these strategies seem to be complex and overlapping. For individuals running small businesses, modification of the research process could prove to be beneficial. In some respects, the idea of the marketing plan answers some of these questions, however only provides as a starting block. Everyone needs to develop a marketing plan. When developing the plan, first an idea has to be planted. But before the idea is acted upon, it is necessary owners to obtain customer information. Research is need. Next, an obvious sales and marketing strategy has to be clearly stated. Who do you want your product to attract? Again research is need. As you can see, research is no longer a recommendation it is vital.

Now, that research has been collected and analyzed, the need to effectively present the data is the next step in the market research strategy. Birn notes, “The best way of presenting data effectively [to management] is to present them before a report is written.” In doing this, management can understand the information that has been collected, and can determine the initial implications of the research results in a presentation format rather than a written document. Further benefits of making the presentation first include:
? Assists in planning- what is the new information, what is old information and what are the similarities in the data
? Helps to define whether the research objectives have been met and how successful the project was been in providing more pertinent information
? Identifies any problems with the research model
? Establishes what has been confirmed in the research conducted.

In my opinion, this is the most important role in the research process. Here the hard work finally reveals its payoff. All the information and knowledge gained has to be presented in a way congruent with management’s learning ability. Easy readable graphic presentations are the best approach for concurring this difficult task. People have short attention spans and void boring dull information, but colorful “pretty” presentation keep attention and gain the listener’s eyes and ears.

In short, market research is an essential part of the marketing structure. When developing the marketing plans for MGRS 210, every student MUST use some research to facilitate their planned attacks. Questions of who, what, where, when, and why can all be answered with an effective and clear-cut research scheme. Basically without research, there in no true successful marketing tactics.

Title: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Dont Work and What to Do About It

Author: Michael E. Gerbe

Reviewer: Larry Sumrall

E-Myth Revisited was written by Michael E. Gerber who owns a small business consulting company. The book is a fantastic book, easy to read, with content that makes the mind swim.

He introduces the book with four ideas about entrepreneurs. The first is that in this country there is a myth, which he calls the E-Myth, which says that small businesses are started by entrepreneurs who risk capital to make money. He goes on to say that the real reason businesses are started doesn’t really have much to do with entrepreneurship.

The second idea deals with what he calls the Turn-Key Revolution which is changing how businesses are run and who is running them.

His third idea is called the "Business Development Process" and claims it is "at the heart of the Turn-Key Revolution". This Business Development Process is essentially the name he uses for the systems used in turn-key companies and the fourth idea is basically implementation of the process.

One of the main points he makes throughout the book is that your business is a reflection of who you are. If you are sloppy your business will be sloppy. If you’re disorganized your business will be too. More importantly, if your business is to change, you must change first.

In discussing his first idea, the E-Myth, he states that most people who start businesses were probably working for someone else and were probably doing some kind of technical work. They were technical workers like a carpenter, mechanic, machinist, bookkeeper, hair dresser, computer programmer, etc. Gerber says that everyone who goes into business for themselves is basically three people rolled into one. These three people are the Entrepreneur, the Technician, and the Manager and they all want to be the boss.

The entrepreneur, he says, lives in the future. He is a visionary, a dreamer, full of energy and the catalyst for change. "The Entrepreneur is the innovator, the grand strategist, the creator of new methods for penetrating or creating new markets, the world-bending giantlike Sears Roebuck, Henry Ford, Tom Watson of IBM, and Ray Kroc of McDonalds". Gerber concludes his definition by stating that most people are problems that get in the way of the dream, which I thought was interesting.

The Manager lives in the past, craves order and sees all the problems. Gerber says the Manager is the guy who goes the store, buys those stacking boxes, takes them back to the shop, and "systematically stores " all of the nuts, screws and bolts into their own carefully marked drawer. He’s also the guy who paints pictures on the wall of all the tools so they, too, have a perfect place to hang.

The Technician is the doer of the bunch and lives in the present. He doesn’t want to deal with the Entrepreneur and the Manager, because they get in his way of getting the job done, the way only he knows how to.

The three personalities frequently conflict with each other. In order to run a business that doesn’t fail, estimated to be 80 percent of the small businesses started each year in this country, these personalities must become balanced. There are three stages of a business; infancy, adolescence and maturity. Infancy is the Technicians stage. This is where the business owner does everything, from the actual work of the business, shipping, receiving, answering phones, sweeping, etc. He, the master juggler, does this until too many balls begin to drop and he realizes that he can’t go on like this any more. So he gets help.

This is the Adolescence stage. He, now the Manager, has someone to do the tasks that he would rather not do or does not know how to do. He hires an employee. Someone with some sort of experienc, that he can trust to take on those tasks. During this stage, the Manager senses some freedom and loves it. Then, things start going wrong. His employee starts making mistakes. Staff that the employee has hired start to make mistakes. The Manager basically realizes that no one is doing things his way in his company and decides one of two routes. He decides to "get small" again which usually results in closing shop or he moves on to Maturity which is the Entrepreneurs stage.

Gerber goes into his second idea the Turn-Key Revolution. The idea behind the Turn-Key businesses in the world is really just franchising. This is where the business is the product, not the stuff the business delivers to the customer, "as if it were a product, sitting on the shelf and competing for the customers attention against a whole shelf of competing products (or businesses)". This is a model of a business "that fulfills the perceived needs of a specific segment of customers in an innovative way". He uses the seamless integration of systems that Ray Kroc of McDonalds made so effective as an example to follow.

After spending a significant amount of time on the McDonalds example he expounds on his "Business Development Process". This section is devoted to some of the systems of the franchise or Turn-Key business. He doesn’t suggest that all business should franchise, but rather use the systems and methods that franchises use. Probably the most important aspect of this section of the book is uniformity. Imagine that if you were to have 5000 shops, stores, restaurants, etc. The 1st and the 5000th should look, operate, taste and be exactly the same. Gerber states that a business owner should create a model or a prototype and that the model should follow rules, the first of which is as follows: "The model will provide consistent value to your customers, employees,... beyond what they expect".

The last part of the book emphasizes the different strategies that should be used once a business decides to implement the systems or methods of the Business Development Process. These strategies begin with defining your primary focus or aim and include organizational, management, people, marketing and systems strategies.

I truly thought this was a fantastic book. Two pages of a review don’t give this book justice, as it is filled with information. I could relate to the three personalities that a business owner possesses and after reading E-Myth I see the importance of good balance between them. As I consider my products marketing plan I feel that I am definitely in the entrepreneur stage of my product, and I continually find myself wondering if, indeed, I am fulfilling a need or a viable solution to a real problem.

The idea of creating integrated, seamless operations or systems is extremely appealing to me. I continually thought how I might apply the total uniformity of companies like McDonalds and FedEx to my personal situation. I believe that your business is a reflection of who you are. Those companies that display extreme order, regardless of what they deliver to the customer, have a better chance of fulfilling expectations than those who appear and are disorganized.

I enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to others.

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Title: Essentials of Marketing Management

Author: Ross M. Trump and Others

Reviewer: ?

The essentials of marketing from product planning to marketing channels are explained and detailed in Essentials of Marketing Management. This book was written by Ross M. Trump and various co-authors that are experienced or teach in the field of marketing. They each compiled their field of interests into the eight chapters, giving advice and information in the different levels of marketing. The eight chapters are Managerial Aspects of Marketing, Markets and their Significance, Product Planning, Marketing Channels, Demand Creation by Personal Selling, Demand Creation by Sales Promotion and Advertising, Pricing, and The Integrated Marketing Program. Essentials of Marketing Management has all the information that a large marketing textbook contains in a smaller, more detailed version.

A drawback about Essentials of Marketing Management was that it was published a years ago. It was published in 1966 and since then there have been so many changes in the marketing field. Technology advances has been the largest change, so it was interesting to read this book and compare to how it related to today’s marketing field. The basic concepts of the book are still the same as today’s marketing concepts. The book provided numerous statistics from consumer market segmentation to retail trade in the United States and it was hard to find that information useful because the data was so outdated.

When I was reading Essentials of Marketing Management, I realized that a lot of the concepts that it discussed were many of the subjects discussed in class. Subjects, such as the marketing mix concept, market segmentation, and many others are discussed in this book. Since most of the subjects discussed in this book were part of class, I was familiar with them. But Essentials of Marketing Management explained them again and gave some new insight into some of the areas. This book also gives great examples of different products, companies, and people that have either failed or succeeded in marketing. I like that Essentials of Marketing Management used large companies, such as Ford Motor Company, as example of how they used strategies in marketing to improve their company. This book would be a great, basic guideline for a small company or person that is just starting with a product.

The chapters that I found most useful in Essentials of Marketing Management for my marketing plan were Product Planning, Market Channels, Demand Creation by Sales Promotion and Advertising, and Pricing. In some subjects it was more difficult to relate my product to the book’s examples. This was due to the fact that my product is more technologically advanced than what was available when this book was written. Although I already have a product idea this chapter explained market segmentation, and product differentiation and identification. It helped me to understand the differences in segments of the population to target. This chapter also addressed packaging and the various items to consider when packaging a product. It explained how packaging is an “integral part of marketing strategy” and that the costs of packaging are a major concern (63). The chapter, Market Channels, explained the differences in the assorted marketing channels that are available. It compared and provided the positives and negatives of different channels and how each channel works differently for numerous products. It gave factors favoring the use of resellers and direct selling, it also gave the limitations on each.

The chapter five, Demand Creation by Personal Selling, was helpful also in explaining different ways in selling a product. It explained different selling techniques such as personal selling, door-to-door selling, and tips for promotional success. I especially liked that it went into management considerations in recruiting and selecting salesmen and supervising. Essentials of Marketing Management described what to consider when developing a training program. The book lists different areas that need to be addressed to develop the most effective training curriculum. There was a section about the supervision of sales people and I liked the way that Essentials of Marketing Management addressed that issue. It stated, “Proper supervision will improve morale and reduce turnover, increase profitable sales, reduce selling costs, develop better customer relations and, in general, assist the company in achieving any hoped-for objective through its management of the field sales force” (96). I think a lot of companies often forget that employee morale is important to the success of a business and I appreciated that the issue was mentioned.

The chapter on pricing was also beneficial. Essentials of Marketing Management states, “pricers must attempt to understand potential buyer’s reactions to various prices” (123). It also says that buyer behavior is hard to predict and that pricing is critical in the success of a product. This chapter also talked about competitive considerations in pricing and strategies that competitors use. The book describes different pricing methods and pricing concepts. Essentials of Marketing Management suggests, “that future costs , not current costs, are more relevant for price policy decisions” (120) What I found most helpful in this chapter was the specific equation of break-even point, break-even point in production units, and units of production. It explained each of these costs, what their importance was, and how to calculate them.

In the last chapter, The Integrated Marketing Program, it gave the steps to developing a marketing program. These steps are: Determination of specific marketing objectives, understanding the consumer, identification of alternative methods of market programming, and evaluation of alternative programs. It also had the characteristics of a good marketing plan which were confidentiality, appropriateness, feasibility, comprehensiveness, and flexibility. All of these points have been discussed in class and it was great to get more insight and a different view on them from Essentials of Marketing Management.

I actually found Essentials of Marketing Management a useful book that clarified many marketing issues for me. I was familiar with most of the subjects because of readings and lectures from class, but this book was a good supplement with class. It provided information on how I can improve my marketing plan and provide more information. The book was published in 1966, so in some areas I found it harder in helping with my product’s marketing plan. Because my product is more technologically advanced, than the time that this book was published, there weren’t any specific examples for something like it. Essentials of Marketing Management was a good information source that provided information about marketing products and their marketing plan’s development.

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Title: Future Perfect

Author: Stan Davis

Reviewer: Marie Schultz

In Future Perfect author Stan Davis has visualized the new business economy for 2001, and discusses how technology and the concepts of any time, any space, no matter, and mass customizing will impact the future of business as we know it in 1996.

The first concept which Davis discusses in Future Perfect is that of time. Davis believes that time should be viewed as a resource rather than a constraint, and that organization should be used to push a strategy instead of a strategy being dragged along by it’s organization. In order to implement a business strategy most efficiently, it must be considered in the future perfect tense. Davis explains that the realization of strategy is always futuristic, and because organization is the key mechanism for implementing strategy, for realization of the future, time must be an intrinsic dimension to it. When time becomes viewed as an intrinsic dimension of something, it gets treated more as a resource to be drawn upon and less as a constrained to be gotten around. In viewing time in its intrinsic sense, it can be resourcefully transformed for competitive advantage.

According to Davis the idea of space can also be reevaluated and transformed for competitive advantage. When space is limited, rather than viewing it as a constraint, it should be redefined so that it can accommodate the new need. In order for a business to have an edge, it must pack more value into the original space, or it must shift the space to meet the consumer’s needs. This is accomplished by making products less fixed in their space via miniaturization, portability, and allowing people to do things themselves by removing intermediaries. Producers must shift their sense of space in order to better fit the consumers changing needs and situations, but they also must reorganize their internal space and structure for maximized efficiency in the future. Networking and information systems will allow them to change their structure and make their internal space more resourceful. Technology is constantly changing the concept of space, and businesses must respond to this by continuously reevaluating their space and the space of the consumer in order to maximize their utility and potential.

The third concept Davis believes is essential for a business’ competitive advantage is that of no matter, which refers to the shift away from tangible goods towards intangible services, as intangible services provide a much greater value. Davis predicts that in the future, businesses will be less industrial with more of their revenues resulting from intangible services. He explains that resources are finite, whilst information is infinite, and the greatest value added in today’s “new economy.”

Davis predicts that another key to the future lies in using new technologies to deliver mass-produced goods and services to individuals on a tailorized basis and mass scale simultaneously. Mass customizing, or mass customized technologies, products, and services will become commonplace and essential to the markets of 2001. The more a company can apply technology and marketing to deliver customized goods on a mass basis relative to its competition, the greater its competitive advantage. Identifying the segments and niches of the market, and providing customized attention to these particular groups will greatly benefit companies in the future.

The new economy defines business in terms of the customer’s changing needs rather than a producer’s point of view, resulting in a major shift in the framework of organization, according to Davis. Previously, the mechanical model of organization was the most generally practiced. This model is characterized by dividing things up into their smallest parts, giving specialized attention to products, to the resources that create them, and to the markets that need them, paying little or no attention to their interrelationships or interactions. Davis predicts that the most successful model of organization for the future is a holistic model rather than a mechanical one. With the holistic model the whole is the sum of the parts and their interrelationships, and it is the relationship of the parts that give them their significance. The future lies with the companies that understand their relationship to this whole depends on their connectedness to it and their compatibility to all other parts of it. The key to their success will be coordinating and integrating the parts properly, a concept completely overlooked by the previous mechanical model. Davis then concludes that when management takes a holistic approach to organization, and treats time, space, and no-mattter as resources rather than roadblocks, our methods of organization will no longer be lagging behind in the end. This is his notion of Future Perfect.

I believe that all of the concepts that Davis illustrates in Future Perfect have, indeed, come into commonplace in the business world. Davis’s predictions are now realities, and technology has greatly impacted the role time, space, no-matter, and mass customizing, perhaps more than Davis had envisioned. I feel that these concepts are most apparent in the technology sector, and I kept thinking about Dell Computers as a company that has really undertaken all of these concepts. Having been a mere 14 years old when this edition of Future Perfect was published, I really had no concept of how greatly new technology and innovations impacted the way businesses were organized. Reading this book in 2003 was more like Back to the Future than Future Perfect, though still insightful. I found it ironic that Davis often referred to the economy or market of 2001 as the market of the future, when 2001 was perhaps one of the most distorted and challenging years in market history. The only thing I didn’t understand was why Davis failed to define and differentiate the terms business and organization until the last chapter. It would have made the book a little bit easier to understand in the earlier chapters. Aside from this I found this book to be very informative, and it has given me a greater perspective on how business has changed within the past decades and how understanding time, place, no-matter, mass customizing, and the holistic model of organization will provide me with a better business strategy for the future.

I will be able to apply nearly all of these concepts I have learned from reading Future Perfect to my product’s marketing plan; especially those of place, no-matter, and mass customization. I have taken into consideration that I need to reevaluate the space which I have defined for my product so that it is less limited, and there are less intermediaries involved in it’s distribution. I also have realized that the concept of no-matter is important in increasing the value of my product, so I have planned on increasing the number of intangible items included with the key-free system; such as a warranty, an instructional video for its installation, and a guarantee. I plan to take advantage of the idea of mass customization by offering different combinations of remotes and accessories coinciding with the initial key-free system, tailoring to the needs of each individual interested in my product. I also believe that Mr. Davis’ idea of time as a resource rather than a restraint may help reduce my stress level as the due date grows nearer! The concepts I have learned from reading Future Perfect will serve as a guide in the construction of my marketing plan, as well as my future in business and marketing, as I continue to look ahead in the Future Perfect tense.

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Title: Gonzo Marketing

Author: Christopher Locke

Reviewer: Gill Cariaga

There are three categories that I’ve worked on, in this book reviewThis book review has three parts. First, are my personal interpretations and understanding of Gonzo Marketing. Second, are the positive and negative points that I got from the book. And finally, my brief conclusion and feedback.

"Gonzo Marketing" is about market advocacy. It describes how the existing advertising system must do an about-face. It's about transforming the marketing message from "we want your money" to "we share your interests." It's about tapping into, listening to, and even forming alliances with emerging on-line markets. Companies that support and promote these communities can experience greater market share, customer loyalty, and brand equity.

The author, Christopher Locke, has set off to teach companies how to talk to their customers and not just offer lip service, to their customers. In Gonzo Marketing: Winning through Worst Practices, Locke takes on the myths and monuments of marketing armed with new ideas.

Essentially, Mr. Locke has two messages. The first is that innovation and ideas are the lifeblood of any successful company, but that trying to codify and structure innovation has a stifling effect. He encourages managers to relax the usual norms and conventions and not worry too much, because it is from this sort of environment that innovative thinking will occur. Second, he tells the business community to wake up to change; the. For example, the Internet means new ideas, new thinking, and new breeds of consumers.

The author suggests that marketing departments and companies fail at marketing because only individuals can convey enthusiasm through stories. "All we have is intuition and stories to try to make sense of the world, to provide some sort of vision of where we're at and where we may be headed." It is pointed out that profound changes are evident, requiring a shift to a very different marketing model. Marketing has disconnected businesses from their markets, and "Gonzo Marketing" seeks to reconnect them through conversations, stories, and people.

Gonzo marketing “is marketing from the market’s perspective. It is not a set of tricks to be used against us, instead, it’s a set of tools to achieve what we want for a change.”

Gonzo Marketing also explains the evolution of the micromarket. Mass production created the need for mass markets. But globalization has been cutting the mass market into smaller and smaller pieces for many years now. The rapid proliferation of the Internet has only increased the growth of these micromarkets. While only global giants were once exposed to the power of micromarkets now companies of every shape and size must learn to deal with them.

The bad news for companies is that micromarkets are here to stay. As Locke puts it, “The web is a non-stop planet-spanning celebration. And we ain’t goin’ back in the box.” The good news is that companies can be active participants in these micromarkets. But the evidence of micromarkets in action is all around. Internet chat rooms allow micromarkets to flourish and communicate like never before. But the evidence of micromarkets in action is all around. Internet chat rooms allow micromarkets to flourish and communicate like never before.

Mr. Locke doesn’t make his case in a vacuum. In many chapters, such as Chapter 5, on “Social Marketing and Public Journalism,” he moves through positions and arguments of others, and in so doing, sheds light both on their views and his own as he differentiates his position from theirs. This gives the book added value as a tour of some of the better thinking on the subjects of marketing, advertising and media.

Locke points to companies like Ford Motor Company, Delta Airlines, Intel, and Bertelsmann who are already reaching out to micromarkets. In February 2000 Ford announced that it was giving each of its 350,000 employees a computer and Internet access, and. it It didn’t take long for those other companies to follow suit. Sure, Ford wanted to put technology in its people’s hands, but, “the real deal is that Ford has unleashed 350,000 independent – and genuinely intelligent – agents to fan out online and listen carefully.” First people start listening, and then they start talking.

He offers some interesting ideas, but unfortunately I doubt that any of his examples would result in a positive return of investment for any of the companies involved.

Oddly, the real message I drew from “Gonzo Marketing” is that companies can do interesting, different styles of marketing, as long as they focus on being “useful” or helpful to the audience they are addressing. It’s not enough to be “relevant” or “entertaining”—those are good, but good marketers must go further: be useful, be helpful – be someone that your audience “knows, likes and trusts.”

Gonzo Marketing is just as audacious and outrageous as I'd hoped. But Locke also manages to sample enough material from the leading strategists of traditional and non-traditional marketing to ensure that his bold statements have to be taken seriously.

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Title: Guerrilla Marketing Attack: New Strategies, Tactics & Weapons For Winning Big Profits From Your Small Business

Author: Jay Conrad Levinson

Reviewer: Vanessa Hartley

Guerrilla Marketing Attack is a book for small business owners. The book describes how a smaller business can become a leader in the market, and create a larger profit. The main principal is to create and implement a marketing plan as inexpensive and effective as possible, so that you become a leader. The way to go about this is in a war like manor: patience, aggressive, imaginative, sensitive, and ego strength.

The book explains the way to become a leader in the market in a concise, humorous, and aggressive way. Levinson is able to create an enjoyable book. Sometimes other marketing books are dry and loose sight of what they are trying to say because there is too much detail, and try to make people sound ignorant. This book keeps the ideas simple, but with idea that the reader is intelligent. The humor keeps your interest in book by being clever, but not corny. I really enjoyed the book because you can also apply the tactics to all aspects of life.

One main point of the book is companies do not have the patience to see the results of the marketing. According to the book, it takes 9 nine times for the prospect to become a buyer, which means that the advertisement needs to be shown 27 times. Most people and companies want instant results and think that if results are met quickly then the marketing is not working. This leads the company to think that they need to change and implement a new plan. The key to a successful plan is patience and repetition. Levinson suggest that a company sticks with a marketing plan for at least a year, but usually companies will only commit for three months.

Another point of the book is aggressiveness. Companies have to be willing to make their name recognized and known, they need to be very confident in what the product or service, not be afraid to venture where others have not, and get personal with the customers and the community. The use of certain channel to enable a company to be known is essential, a company has to decided what is the best way to get the attention of prospects whether that is through direct marketing, or other media support. A company also needs to be smart with the budget for marketing, it suggested to be at least 10% of the companies profit. The product should be the main focus of the marketing, not a clever slogan or jiggle. Customers want to know how the product or service can benefit them; people also buy the total package personality, product, service, and confidence.

Many companies also believe that a sale is the final part to the marketing plan, but they are wrong. Following up with a call, offer, and other communication is the key to keeping the customer happy. If the customer is happy they are more likely to tell someone else about the company, and free good publicity is always good to have.

After reading this book, I started to think about the marketing plan for Formals Bridal Shop. One of our main goals is to maintain our position as the market leader for bridal and evening wear in the Reno area.

I agreed with the book about patience and repetition when it comes to advertising. I would like to see our company implement the plan, and stick with it for a year to see if the profits dramatically increase. I think, if we keep up with our mailing list, and follow through with call our brides to see if they are satisfied, will also increase sales because they will want to tell their friends about us of all formal occasions. Also going to trade show could help us.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book and I agreed with tactics of being aggressive. Guerrilla Marketing Attack is a great tool for small business if they would like to become market leaders, and increase profits. I would definitely recommend this book to everyone.

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Title: Hey, I'm The Customer

Author: Ron Willingham

Reviewer: Keith Armington

I’m not happy! I want a refund. ! How many times have you heard that? How many times have you listened to customers complain about a product. ? How do you deal with them? What do you do to make them happy? Do you give them what they want just so the wont be upset with you or the company? Customers keep businesses in business by giving them happiness and enjoyment knowing that the product that they bought will be high quality and be able to come back and receive the same service the next time that they come in. There a ways to keep customers happy and to make costumers enjoy the product they have bought.

The best way to make the costumer customer feel welcomed in a business in by greeting them. First impressions are colossalextremely important. If they customers can remember you when they need to do business again they’re going toit will be easier for them to remember you if you made a good first impression. Greet everyone with a smile no matter what. It’s going to happen your going to be so busy that you’re not going to be able to greet the customer right away, by just making eye contact will a costumer customer happy, this will let the customer know that you know that you are there. After providing them with business, thank them for coming in. This always does the touch. Makes them feel important and they’ll return for more service. Also as much as we hate having customers being rude or not talking to you, always show them that you care, have interest in what they are trying to buy, try to learn a little about them, figure out what they are buying your product for. Remember they pay your salary. Without them we wouldn’t have any money or be able run a business. Make them feel like they are important people in the world and we are attempting to make their life easier, by helping them shop for the product that they want.

The next best way to make a costumer customer happy is by listening to them. Once again, show them that you care. Make them feel important. Once you have figured out what type of necessitate that they need then you start giving suggestions to what you have. Eye contact is important also, “Drifting Eyes Means a Drifting Mind”, stated by Ron Willingham. It’s true eye contact keeps a customer interested with the salesman. The customer will know that all of their attention is focused on them. Showing body language may not seem as important as eye contact, although it is. Expressing body language is just as important, the way you stand, the way you hold you’re self up. This will present confidence in what you’re selling. This will also give the customer the sense that there going to taken care of by the salesman.

Customers have needs and they have wants. Some people need things to survive and some just flat out want something to enjoy. Being able to help customers figure out there needs and wants will establish connections between you and the customer and will open themselves up because they are confidence. Now that have had the customer come in, whether they bought anything or not, don’t you want to keep them happy and want them to return? When a customer leaves, thank them for coming in; thank them for purchasing an item from your business. This will leave the customer thinking I’m important there, they care about me. I will return there. This will keep the business in business.

Customers have and always will have problems about some thing that they have purchased. Many times it’s the customers fault, because maybe they didn’t put it together right or they don’t know how to use it properly, but this always creates a problem because they feel that they have been cheated. Customers will do anything they can to be able to get what they want, from making a complaint to the manager, to even calling the corporate office and even to the point calling the Better Business Bureau. Hopefully it never gets to that point. When the customer comes in with a complaint, listen to them, figure out what kind of problem they have and determine why it has become a problem and try to fix it. Give the customer possible solutions to be able to fix the problem. If this doesn’t work then try something else, guaranteed there is going to some type of way to fix the problem. Many times, a business is going to run into a situation when we are going to lose money trying to fix the problem for the customer, but fixing a problem will make the customer happy, later in the future it work out for you. The reason is that when you make someone happy they’ll tell at least ten people, those people will come to you business and buy something from you. Even though you lost money at one point, you have gained it back with showing that you care for ever customer that walks through the door.

Another key way to success in business is teamwork. Not only can you satisfy customers with teamwork by showing that the company cares for every customer, you show that you’re there for them. Once again customers want to be happy no matter what the problem is. Our job is that. Make them happy, give them what they want with out having to create more problems, well lose money but it will be earned in another way.

Stain Absorbing Carpet, is my marketing project. I’ll tell the customer that this product will not stain not matter what. In the event that it does, stain I’ll repair it or possible even give them a new one with no questions asked. If they are dissatisfied with it then ill give them a total refund. As learned from this book, customers have the right to be happy. They pay the money for the product, so I will make sure that they are happy.

Wrapping up, as I have stated before, making Making the customer happy is what is needed to be done. They are the ones that make it possible to have a pay-check. Much of the items stated in this book I agree with, many of the items should be done every time a customer comes in. Businesses will start noticing that more and more people are coming if they keep customers happy. By making customers happy, this will bring business, which eventually lead up to an increase of business chains. If every business made a little effort to make customers happy when they are unhappy, the business world wouldn’t be such a mess. Making the customer feel important with the product that they have purchse purchase should on every business priority list.

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Title: How to Mind-Read Your Customers

Author: David P. Snyder

Reviewer: Dawn Hadden

When a salesperson gears up to make his pitch to a large corporation’s buyers, the tactics he has at his disposal to secure a purchase are as varied and complex as the buyers themselves. Books and manuals abound describing sales techniques guaranteeing skyrocketing sales through quick fixes that stop just short of pure dishonesty. David P. Snyder’s book How to Mind-Read Your Customers takes an innovative approach to sales using psychology. Throughout his book, the author emphasizes the importance of understanding the behavioral patterns of potential buyers in order to tailor sales presentations toward their ideologies and preferences.

Before a salesman can mind-read his customer, Snyder asserts that he must employ a deep introspection of himself. Excellence in the field of sales occurs only when a person is focused on his personal purpose in a company and his product’s purpose and value in customers’ lives. If a salesperson can’t immediately identify what competitive advantages he offers his company and his product offers his customer, he must immediately vacate his position and find a product he can back with passion. According to Snyder, even the dullest of consumers can sense hesitance and reluctance in a salesperson’s attitude towards a product.

Therefore, the book suggests that salespeople should pen both a mission statement and a values statement that truly reflects their devotion to the company and the product. These statements, however, shouldn’t be generic catch-alls good only for display and admiration of ethically-minded people but should specifically mention aspects of the company that are especially good or worthy of striving for. Finally, the author suggests that salespeople should hold tight to their morals in a fast-paced world, thus attaining an unshakeable core that won’t crumble should a sale fall through.

Next, How to Mind-Read Your Customers delves into the heart of its message: behavioral analysis generates sales. Brain-wave research indicates that infants with certain responses to stimuli, such as hollering and screaming every time their mother’s leave the room, match brain-wave pattern charts of adults with anxiety disorders. Furthermore, the author and numerous associates and friends of the author recognize basic tendencies and preferences showing up in young children carried on throughout their adult lives.

Using the Harvard-developed DICS Behavioral Methodology, Snyder classifies these innate traits into four distinct behaviors: drive, influencing, steadfast, and conscientious. Though the author admits that every individual possesses at least a bit of every type, one category supersedes the rest and determines the way he or she will act and respond to situations. While each behavior has its strengths and weaknesses, the real power for a salesperson occurs when he can recognize both when he is exhibiting weaknesses akin to his own personality type and when he sees potential customers exhibiting behaviors linked to another personality type. Since “people buy more frequently from people who are just like them,” the author encourages salespeople to tailor their behavior and presentations toward the particular behavioral patters they identify in customers.

Snyder first delves into the behaviors and mindset of the driven subset of society. Characterized by intensity and self-absorption, “D’s” are the movers and shakers of the business world. The author hypothesizes that their drive landed them jobs as CEO’s and COO’s, but their anxiety leaves a prospective salesperson with little time to present his product. In order to sell to a D, a salesperson must weave all of the following into his pitch: flattery, innovation, and firmness. Since most D’s use their drive and success to compensate for mediocre self-images, Snyder recommends soothing their insecurities with affirmations of the buyer’s worth and pull within his field. Mentioning that the product will put the D on the bleeding edge of technology won’t hurt either; these driven buyers crave new, exciting ideas and enjoy the power of bringing more wealth to their companies. Finally, in order to make a quick sell, salespeople are encouraged to play “hard-ball” with the driven crowd. Subtly suggesting that the price could be lowered to accommodate a less than stellar financial situation puts the driven person on guard. If a D guesses his authority or power is being undermined, he will jump to redeem his image and close the deal.

Another type, the influential and sociable, is just as extroverted as the driven type, but distinguishes itself with friendliness. Genuinely interested in other people, the “I” carefully listens to each individual’s cares and concerns. If a salesperson meets an I, he can expect comfort and questions and instead of the high strung, self-absorbed, out-of-time D behavior. In order to make a sale, Snyder advises first making friends. An I desperately desires acceptance on a personal level, and pushing a product or cutting review sessions short will hurt his feelings. Thus, a salesperson must create a warm, friendly atmosphere with an enthusiastic pitch. Influential buyers desire recognition and acceptance, so mentioning their accomplishments, importance, and likeability could induce buying behavior. Finally, pinpointing other companies that have benefited from the product and suggesting that implanting the product would boost the I’s image gives the influential and sociable buying crowd just the push it needs to see how the sale would benefit them.

Half of the introverted behavioral class is composed of conscientious people. Characterized by judgment, suspicion, and an eye for details, the “C” employee makes the perfect buyer. His discerning eye for weeding out shifty salespeople allows his superiors to rest easy when it comes to financial matters. Unlike a sale to a driven person, who enjoys quick, exciting gratification, the salesperson selected to make a pitch to a conscientious person can expect several tedious, detail-oriented meetings before closing a deal. Snyder urges such salespeople to know cold, hard facts and to avoid grandiose, sweeping generalizations about how a product could improve their company. Instead of devising an answer to a technical question on the spot, the hopeful salesperson must admit that his knowledge is incomplete. The author assures that conscientious buyers will uncover the real facts, and the sales relation won’t be salvageable. A calm, conservative speech detailing a product’s infallible past, which alludes to an infallible future, seals the sale with the C buyer.

Finally, the last behavioral type, the steadfast personality, rounds out the introverted half of society. Though far less critical than their discerning counterparts, the conscientious buyers, a steadfast person expects a moral and ethical sales pitch. Described by Snyder as the “salt of the earth,” the steadfast buyer accomplishes all his goals while preserving his personal code of honor. In order to sell a product to such a buyer, the author encourages marketing only traditional, proven products. The salesperson must be very patient and always choose integrity over a quick sale. Though the S buyer tends to forgive a salesperson’s lapse in judgment, such an act permanently severs all selling power. However, a presentation chock full of facts, sincerity, and patience prompts the steadfast buyer to transform into a repeat customer.

The author concludes How to Mind-Read Your Customers with three interviews with top-notch businesspeople who incorporate Snyder’s behavioral analysis into their sales strategies. According to Snyder, all three own enormous corporations, swim in a sea of millions, yet still maintain integrity and honor. The key to their success is the seamless integration of customer service, sales, and marketing.

In order to integrate Snyder’s ideas into my marketing plan, I will mostly consider the demographics of my final buyers and the wholesalers I hope will carry my merchandise. The product I’m detailing in my forthcoming marketing plan, a GPS dog collar, will sell to some of the most loyal, steadfast people in the country: pet owners. As caregivers for another living being, such dog owners demonstrate care and patience with animals that don’t always comply with their keepers’ wishes, such as keeping the carpet free of stains. Therefore, driven, anxious people probably consider their time too valuable to waste frolicking frivolously through a park or cleaning up messes, so they wouldn’t compose any of my market’s segmentation. However, interpersonal, friendly people gravitate towards animals, which in turn provide the reassurance and acceptance that I’s crave. Discerning classes (conscientious and steadfast) have long been associated with patience and caring and therefore likely own pets. These three classes, characterized by attention to detail, perfectionism, and genuine caring, seem like perfect buyers for a device that could bring their furry friends back home. Magazine ads targeting specifics of each behavioral type would entice a huge subset of my market segment.

I enjoyed reading Snyder’s masterpiece, and I found his insights into the human psyche quite intriguing. While I find it difficult to believe all of humanity can be subdivided neatly into four classes of people, I do recognize dominant traits in my friends, classmates, and family since reading How to Mind-Read Your Customers. The stress points of each behavior group are dead on, and pacifying or pleasing each can be achieved with Snyder’s strategies. However, most people, myself included, believe that assuming a chameleon-like persona and modifying one’s actions to surrounding situations instead of relying on an unchanging set of principles, in itself makes a person untrustworthy. While Snyder admits that a calm, cool sales presentation is always a seller’s best bet, he doesn’t account for the inevitable times when people from each behavioral class compose a board of buyers. How would one compensate for the vast personality differences between a driven, anxious customer and a discerning, patient buyer who will combined decide whether to accept or veto your sales pitch? These flaws and the general disorganization of How to Mind-Read Your Customers, however did not detract from the fact that gleaning psychological information about a buyer proves very useful in securing a sale

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Title: How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist

Author: Caroll Michels

Reviewer: Jeff Griffin

This book is directly applicable to my product, which is a sky surfing fingerboard. I envision these being handmade with the focus on quality rather than quantity. Pushing them past those craft fair gadgets you see, but not so far into the art world that they enter into the realm of high theory. Knowing this, the book How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist shows me how difficult it will be to accomplish a task like this. However, by reading the tips and strategies presented, I do have a greater understanding of what it would/will take.

The book is structured almost as a novel, having different chapters for different problems and solutions to them. It doesn't read like a novel, rather like a ‘how to’ sort of manual. Therefore, I wish to present this report in a similar structure. The following is an overview of selected, applicable chapters:

Launching or Relaunching Your Career: This chapter describes overcoming career blocks and entering the marketplace. Schooling is focused on in depth, as the author did research to see how many art and design schools offered courses in marketing or “real-life issues” as she puts it (the results were surprisingly low, around 24%). This chapter points out many common problems in marketing yourself independently and gives you the knowledge to prevent them before they happen. Such problems include: lack of funding, validation of one’s self /work, the myth of scarcity, and questioning art as a profession.

Public Relations: Keep Those Cards and Letters Coming In and Going Out: As the title states, this deals with public relations, effectiveness, and usage of mailings, posters, and so on. Michels gives an interesting example of an artist in New York passing out flyers, putting up posters and generally promoting this certain show. The show never did exist in a traditional manner, but it did in a conceptual manner. People were talking about it, people were curious about it. Her point was the act of people talking about it and creating a stir was the actual show, and it was incredibly successful. These are the characteristics that you want your work or product to have. You want it to be talked about, to be respected and questioned. This chapter, of course, deals with the traditional aspects of public relations and self-marketing, but nothing new here, other than what I stated above, the rest of the chapter comes as complete common sense, which definitely does need to be stated for some. Could be repetitive for others.

Presentation Tools and Packages: Crucial to selling a successful product, my personal favorite chapter. Having been in many art/painting classes, I see so many people present their product/art in an unprofessional manner, which is detrimental. I would much rather see a bad product presented well than a great product presented poorly. It really makes all the difference and the book supports my perspective.

Pricing Your Work: Very interesting and applicable to my product. This chapter draws parallels to what we do in class as far as covering your overhead, materials and labor. It gives many examples of people underpricing their work, which often, Michels says, is more detrimental and common than overpricing your work.

Rationalization, Paranoia, Competition, and Rejection: So good. A very important chapter. Rejection is something that not only artists face. Artists traditionally have to deal with rejection, but the examples and inspiration given here crosses over to almost any profession dealing with marketing.

The Mysterious World of Grants: Fact and Fiction: This chapter tells the reader that the money is out there; some grants are large, some are small; some are for fine arts, some for more of what I’ll be doing. Michels says that grants are awarded by juries and reflect personal taste of the juror, or the possibility and probability of the given project to be successfully completed by the person. I’ve heard that it’s very hard to get grants, but this chapter sheds some light on how to go about doing it.

These chapters serve as excellent references, as you would experience these problems while marketing yourself. With this kind of structure, I see this book more as a problem solving reference book rather than a ‘read it all at once’ type of novel. The points that are made are valid, and quite valuable. I always approach such books with an extremely skeptical mind, both about the author and their background. After reading this, I am impressed with Michels’ forthrightness, and utter confidence in her tips. Because of her assurance, I become almost completely indifferent to her background, which I did question before opening the book. When she hits on something I have previous knowledge of, her opinion meshes perfectly with my preconceptions. Such information gives me the opportunity to believe in her new information presented, a very pleasing quality.

Now that I have presented the good aspects, I must say something slightly negative not about the book itself, but the “art world” in general. After reading the book, I feel close to absolute depression, as it shows so many problems and obstacles that must be overcome to be successful and profitable in such an independent and creative field. As I contemplate the subject now, making profit doesn’t make a success, but it is the ultimate goal in a society such as ours. It is what the book focuses on.

The plan for my product will be to manufacture such a fine crafted, almost luxury type of item that if I do experience any competitors, I will certainly be differentiated by my perfection of craft. This perfection of craft will be achievable only after much practice and experimentation with materials, and machining tools. I want to restate that I in no way intend this to be seen as “high art”, yet I do not see it as a toy you could buy at a craft fair. I want to skirt these lines, but not cross into either one. This book basically told, and will continue to tell me how to put myself out there. It gives examples of both high art marketing and lower end, like craft fair marketing, both giving me valid information for my product.

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Title: Image Marketing: Using Public PerceptionsTo Attain Business Objectives

Author: Joe Marconi

Reviewer: Guissell Delavega

There were several key aspects of this book. All of the different points of this book were tied around the central theme, which was developing an image for a company. In Joe Marconi’s book he creates a guide on how to develop a marketable image. He teaches the reader to develop skills that can help large businesses or corporations develop the perfect image for their company. The skills he teaches are: market research, how to effectively use public relations, credibility, and maintaining a desirable image. Marconi’s book not only illustrates how to use image marketing, but he also gives great examples of existing companies that have been able to create a great image. Thus, helping the reader understand exactly what he means.
Several things must be known to an organization before it begins to develop its image. Knowing its key market is the basic information that the corporations must know. Marconi explains that the businesses must decide what exactly is it that they are selling? Who are they going to sell to? Are they men or women? How old are they? What do they do in their free time? By answering these simple questions it is possible to move on to more advanced questions. Such as, does the company have a perception now? What is their perception of the product verses competitors’ products, if any at all? Is my competitor’s product better or is it just better know? By knowing the answer to these questions the company can now begin to develop their image or change the current image they have.

The next move toward creating a market image is changing what the people think of a company verses how people think of them. A great way of changing the perception of a company is by using pubic relations. By using public relations companies can get image advertising. This is intended to influence how people think of the corporation. In this image advertising the company wants to show the consumer how much happier he/she will be thanks to the product or service of the company. Creating memorable and a short bottom line for an ad would be a great way to attract consumers to buy the product because it’s easy to remember the product that goes with the ad. A few examples are: Bell System with “Reach out and touch someone”, State Farm with “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” or Nike with “Just do it.” Also when using image advertising, Marconi warns not to go overboard. If a company uses too much advertising they will create advertising clutter that will harm the company more than help it.

Another element to also consider when developing an image market is getting and maintaining respectable credibility for a product or service. There are several ways generate reliable credibility for a company. A company can use celebrities, the “halo effect”, or sponsorships. However, a company must be careful when selecting any of these options. The company has to use the right options so that they don’t create the wrong image. By using a celebrity that has a bad reputation the consumers would begin to associate the beliefs of the celebrity with that of the company. For example, Marconi states that if a company wants to sell Jell-O, the celebrity they choose should not be Madonna or Mike Tyson. It has to be someone who has a good relationship with food or the targeted audience. Someone like Bill Cosby would be the better choice. He has respect and the status of a father type figure. If a company chooses to use the halo effect, (This is when a well known company produces something other then what they are well known for. An example would be the Swiss Army brand of pocket knives uses their name and begins to produce watches that claim to be as reliable as the pocket knives they sell.) they need to be able to relate the new product to the previously made product they sell.

Marconi also gives different ways of maintaining the image of the company once they have established the image they desire. Some of these aspects are to stay within the limits of the image created. If the company wants to seem very moral minded, it would be in the best interest of the company not to get involved with political figures or negative attacks that other companies express. Also, these corporations should donate money or other resources to the ideals they stand for.

Thus, in Marconi’s book he defines the various stages of producing an image for marketing a product. He suggests several ways of creating the right market for the product or service the company has to sell. The ideas given were to begin by doing some market research. After Marconi shows how it is possible to use several different public relation strategies to come up with the proper perception of the company. He continues with being able to use the right icon for the business’s credibility. Towards the end he demonstrates how different companies can keep the perception or image they want.
Marconi has several great ideas for the making of an image market. Before I began to read his book I had no idea how many different options I had for marketing my product. Overall I really liked the book. Marconi develops the book so that not just overly sophisticated people could read his book. He developed it so that the average business person could understand the meanings and phrases that he uses. Another key element that helped with the understanding of his book was that he uses several examples throughout the book. So, if at one point I did not understand what he was explaining I could see his examples of what he showed to better help me understand. I also liked that Marconi suggested several ways to use the image marketing. Thus, making it possible for any one business, regardless of what they were selling, to use this book. The best ideas of the book that he used were the halo effect and the ups and downs of using endorsements and sponsorships. I did not know what the term halo effect meant, but after reading that section I understand that it is what most successful companies do to expand or further develop their companies.

I feel that for the product that I’m offering, image marketing would not be a key aspect of my selling strategies. I did find one or two paragraphs in the book that spoke over how to use lobbying to develop the image of my company. Marconi suggests that by lobbying a product service or idea I am also showing the public, consumers, my stand on certain views. This can be very beneficial. I may not be using the exact term of image marketing to sell my product, but I do plan to lobby an idea of enforcing stricter punishments for previous violators of DUI’s (driving under the influence). They can instead buy my product and keep their license but not have the freedom to drive their vehicle if they have been drinking and are over the drinking limit to drive.

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Title: The Italian Merchant in the Middle Age

Author: Armando Sapori

Reviewer: Eiko Iwasawa

In the Middle Ages, Italy was broken up into a great number of city-states, which were engaged in constant warfare in attempts to destroy one another. That caused friction within the individual city-states. The Friction was basically caused by the differing political aspirations of individuals or groups. The factors of this fighting were to gain control of public affairs. Italian merchants were involved in this society in aspects such as business or education. Each of these factions had the strongest personalities of the town as leaders, such as men who knew how to stir up the people and lead them into fratricidal wars. Therefore, a spirit of faction was a dominant feature in the Middle Ages. The belief was that fighting stimulated the mind and developed the mental faculties. It incited all the possibilities of human nature into action, but it caused a lot of mistakes. It paved the way for the progress of the mankind.

The Italian merchants brought civilization everywhere and opened the way to future progress without resorting to the use of violence and warfare. They prevailed through their audacity, sustained by a subtle intuition and high moral values, love of their country, religious faith, and culture. They invaded softly without any harm, that idea did not cause any problem like some country caused a war later because of the invasion to the other countries. Their way to invade and get into the other country is great.

My plan is the fashion spray. That is to control our temperature. If we get colder, we need to wear more cloth or coat to cover the cloth; we really want to show people. Only the time, we are inside, we are able to take off the coat. However, if we use this spray, we do not need any cloth over us. Moreover, this is a hand sized product, so we are able to carry this all the time. Whenever we feel cold or hot, we just need to spray to the body, and we will feel comfortable.

A love is the best way to get people attracted to their thought and idea. If I am able to add this way to my project, I would like to use love to my project that I love my country, and that is why I need the product I believe that is necessary to my environment. To think of my country, people, and myself with love, the product would be important for us to have in the future. The Italian merchant loved his country as a mother loves her children. The Italian merchants abroad were also supported by a constant reminder of their birthplace and which inspired the respect and admiration of the foreigners who surrounded them. Together with his love of his country, a deep religious feeling was one of the nobler aspects of the character of the Italian merchant in the Middle Ages, and it was also an instrument of strength for him. Italian merchants did not like or have a talent for writing, or they even did not know how to hold a pen according to this book. They were not good at mathematics either. The absence of account books and the obscurity of the entries are the problem they had. How did they develop their country with that condition? They accepted the other country’s idea in their country to have a teacher. In the Middle Ages, schooling was started, and the workshop was the merchant’s idea for education. It influenced the society later. The idea of workshop affects the practical idea. A great feeling for business was gradually born in merchant. To appreciate the benefits that he could draw from this type of schooling, the workshop fundamentally constituted a great center of life in the Middle Ages. The workshop was to exchange information, and very often discussions about business or education took place. The game of forecasting sharpened young minds.

Warner Sombart had simplified the economy of the whole of Europe and reduced it to make it conform to the limited economic development of central Europe. He uses the present as a comparative measure for evaluating the past. He believed that the merchant was very quarrelsome by nature. The author disagree with him, in some parts, she defended against him such as the education system. Warner Sombart said, Italian merchant did not know about the calculation, writing, and even though how to hold a pen. However, the author insisted that the Italian calculation is different from the other country. Therefore, they need to double check to trade with the other country. The double checking affected the Italian merchant successfully.

The company was made of men who knew one another. At the beginning, in the early Middle Ages, these men belonged to the same family. In Japan, we had the same policy at that time. I believe that this is the easiest way to control governors. That caused their thought similar and narrow ideas. They had a hierarchy in the relatives, but that did not work to make other new ideas. Do men have to be the top of the hierarchy? The century, women are still in the lower class to compare to men. Men could control the society. I thought this was in the loyalty. The same idea, same way of thinking, and that caused boring society. They needed new idea from anyone from lower class, different family, and the like.

Italian merchants constantly thought about their birthplace, and that affected the growth of their strength. I would like to use this technique in my plan for making my plan stronger. It is important to take time to think about the plan itself as it was just born. If we go back to original or traditional ideas, we can rethink our plans. Therefore, it is necessary to go back to consider it.

The workshop the merchant made was good to know the other ideas. In the workshop, we exchange ideas, and develop them. I believe that it is difficult to work on a plan without considering past ideas. For example, to think of media, it is possible to say that they would not exist without its audience. Media always changed up to the request or desire of the audience.

The author said that the partnerships were the general rule even though individuals were stronger among the merchants in the Middle Ages. I will work on my project by myself. It would be weaker than people who have partners. How am I able to have "partners" in my project? I believe that it is better to get ideas from same person constantly about it. That would be "partner", help me out from the loneliness. As I talked before, the workshop is different from this idea; I will randomly ask my plan to other people. The branches were run by partners or by senior employees whose freedom of action was limited by powers of attorney. These branches received instructions from the central management frequently and in some areas at regular intervals. They need hierarchy of the employees.

In short, I would like think about my country with love to produce my product. The love is the best way to emphasize my idea and communicate with people one another. Communicate with other people by workshop, partnership, and as an employee. I believe that I am able to create my idea more practical, and interesting.

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Title: Just Say Yes!

Author: Nulman

Reviewer: Alejandra Fuentes

In the book “Just Say Yes” the main focus is how to give extreme customer service and how to receive it. The author points out the many examples on how, if your company doesn’t have the best customer service what you can do to change it and what your objectives should be.

Similar to the title, Nulman points out first of all that the answer to any problem should be, No problem! He says that most customers only want to encounter a friendly and confident salesperson with some knowledge. Also they should have to power to make the decision on the right thing to do for the customer. Any reasonable request made by your customer should be able to be handled quickly.

Most employers do not have customer service training, although it’s mostly training people to be decent and nice, because it is too expensive. Many discount retailers have gone out of business because of poor customer service. Statistics show that many people are less sensitive to prices when service is good, again because people usually just want to be recognized.

Nulman states that the no problem philosophy also extends to small simple gestures that are unexpected by customers. He gives examples of someone he knew that was leasing a car. His friend was sent thank you notes and even a tin of cookies on signing and every time he signs he receives some cookies. It sounds simple, but gestures like these make a customer loyal, because they will remember those cookies.

He moves onto how most customers when faced with bad customer service usually do not make the effort to voice their anger, they usually just stop coming back. There are a few guidelines given to develop good customer service from the beginning. They include developing a customer service program, set goals to determine performance measures and recognize and reward performance. To me this is key because employees need to be motivated and recognized in order for them to do there best. Usually employees like customers only need a little acknowledgement. The author spells out what he calls “SMART customer service”, where there are five issues in implementing good customer service. Specify that you are willing to do anything to win the customer over and pass that on to your employees. Measure your results from extreme customer service with surveys and show incentives to your customers. Agree with your company on the importance of service in your business, have the details posted and spelled out. Realize your goals by measuring the responses by directly speaking to the customers and from repeat business. Time the program so that every issue dealing with customer service has a deadline, so that it can be taken with seriousness.

The author outlines how to build customer loyalty in a few steps. Helping customers overcome suspicion, establishing yourself as an expert and creating a sense of community. This he describes as focusing on the customer before the product is sold. These steps go hand in hand in creating extreme customer service.

Once companies have established themselves as being better they usually want to be bigger. To maintain their position in the market when going bigger they have to stick to they’re credo that made them better. Giving an example of how when IBM went bigger they lost they’re three point credo and it ended up backfiring and they’re business had a decline.

The author refers to another book, Customer Loyalty, by Jill Griffin, where she speaks of attachment as being part of customer loyalty. There are four different types of attachment from a customer, no attachment, where the customer has not been given many reasons to remain loyal. Latent attachment where there is high respect for the product but does not have may repeat purchases. Inertial attachment, or as discussed in class habitual buying, where there is a low level of attachment but high repeat buys out of convenience or habit. The premium attachment where there is high loyalty and high repeat buys. So this again is linked to being able to get the customer to be loyal by creating a quality experience.

Nulman, moves on to explain the four different types of customers there are. Switchers, good customers with repeat purchases that are not loyal to a brand. Habitual customers, who stick with a particular brand out of habit. Variety seekers who love to purchase a product but will experiment with other brands. Also loyal customers, these people stick with a particular type of brand and have high commitment to it. Once you have figured out what type of customer you have, depending on the industry, you can employ different tactics to secure them as your customers.

To have good customer service you need to have good employees. There are three different types of customer service employees. Underachievers those who usually like to say,”It’s not my job”. Safe-zoners these people are in the safe zone, they are likely not to offend anyone but won’t go out of their way much. Overachievers, they’re usually the self starters they truly want to succeed in whatever they set out to do. Most people who are in the safe zone just need to be trained so they can realize that their own success is tied with the success they have with their customers. They just need a little bit of motivation.

Employees need to be taught to treat the customer as they would treat any customer and not to treat them on looks or who they are. Our perceptions of people dictate how we treat people. Everyone does it and that social conditioning needs to stop. Most people even if they are spending $50 or $5,000 all want to be treated the same. This is another step that is taught in training for extreme customer service.

The overall view that the book takes is on the right path. All suggestions made by the author are things that make common sense in customer service. True you can’t build up your customer service reputation in a week but by following what you know is right for the customer they will begin to recognize that and reward you for it by being loyal to you. In every aspect of the business from employee, owner and customer they would all benefit from just being able to be decent towards the customer and acknowledge their needs.

In applying this philosophy to marketing the Thermal Zip, as any product, you need to be able to attend to the customer to build your customer base so you can have those repeat purchasers. The follow up needs to be strong so the customer knows that you’re thinking about them and appreciate their business. Customer issues need to be able to be resolved by all customer service associates, not to show the customer you are indifferent to their needs, but to show you will help them in any way to solve their problems and make it right. So with this book, I do feel it shows some important guidelines that all companies are aware they need to follow. The outcome that businesses want is all the same, we want loyal customers that like dealing with us and therefore will spread the word about us, we just need to know how to get there and extreme customer service is key.

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Title: Knock Your Socks Off Selling

Author: reviewer did not list

Reviewer: Louanne Sandoval

When I first started to read this book, I thought I didn’t really need to know about Selling. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Selling is everything. Marketing relies on selling. Buying relies on selling. Selling can make or break a project or product.

“Nothing Happens Until Somebody Sells Something”, is a very true statement. Business has been focusing on brands, positioning, marketing, service, innovation, globalization, internet and technology. What these all have in common is selling. All of these items are very important to the product, but selling is what gets it out there. Selling is what will make the product get to the end user.

This book is about strategies, tactics and techniques that a seller needs to understand and use to turn prospects into customers and customers into business partners. This book tells you what to do to keep customers coming back again and again. This book tells you how to build and maintain long term relationships.

From the first chapter to the last, you are given the steps to take to ensure that you can sell and be the best there is out there. Some people are what they say born to sell. Others have to work hard at getting there, but this book tells you how. “Successful selling is a learnable set of skills—for those with the fortitude, aptitude, and persistence to succeed. There are no other rules.” The authors explain how to learn to sell, and how to succeed. With a few basic skills, and persistence, anyone can achieve their goal.

The authors give you step by step assessments to set your goals and know what you have to learn to succeed. Through their teaching and with a little self-discipline, anyone can learn to push their product and succeed. Most salespeople need to have trust and belief in their product in order to sell. I think when I present my product and service to the Reno community, I can project a much needed service and discuss the benefits for all. Most people are willing to listen if the salesperson is knowledgeable.

There are two type of selling approaches. The consultants think in long term. They are considered experts and don’t really sell. They make recommendations that help the prospect buy. Consultants are confident. The Sales Rep thinks only short term. They are considered representatives of the product or vendor. They want to sell, sell, and sell. They are usually fast talkers and fight to gain a positive image.

To really sell your product or service, you need to be a consultant in the eyes of the receiver. The Customers want confidence and experts. They want to know that you understand their needs and can recommend the products based on that knowledge. I know that the commitment to selling my project will be with the confidence and knowledge that the customer demands.

According to the authors, there are five commitments of Consultative selling. The first is finding and understanding the customer’s needs. This is a very important task. If you don’t know what the customer needs, how can you sell anything to them. To find the perfect product for the customer’s needs is the primary task. I think that the light rail transportation from Reno to Carson City is a service that this community will embrace. There are a lot of commuters daily between Carson City and Reno. To have a commuter train will fill that need.

The second Commitment is partnering with the customer. Once you’ve identified the problem, you must find a way to convince the prospect to become a partner with a solution to the problem. The problem I face is the long commute to Carson City from Nevada, wear and tear on your person and auto, and the need for a better, safer and faster commute.

The third Commitment is helping customers achieve their business objectives. There is an implicit belief on the part of the consultative salesperson that they are seen not just as selling, but as helping the customer meet his or her business needs, and in return the customer will bring more business to the salesperson. If one person likes the train, how many more will he tell of this great experience, and it goes on and on.

The fourth commitment is believing that your products and service are a great fit with your customer’s needs. Once you have determined that your product and service can solve customer problems then you are more willing to present and stand behind your product.

The fifth commitment is believing in yourself and your ability to help customers solve their problems. You have to know more than just general information about your product and service. You have to know that the product and service will fit the customer and the customer needs.

Customers and prospects are very demanding. They have many options and they want the salesperson to meet their needs on their terms. Observing customers is a good approach to finding what the customers want and need. How to approach the customers takes organization and planning. The factors on getting organized are reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness. Almost everything you do for your customer falls into one of these categories.

Prevention is the best way to overcome objections. If you identify all the possible objections beforehand, then you’ll be prepared to meet the customer with an answer to their objection. You can never be too prepared.

With all the great strategies in mind, and the well planned explanations and step by step instructions, this book is a must for any salesman. I know that after I read this book, I felt I could do a great job of selling. All I needed was the proper foundation and strategy. I need to think ahead, long term. I need to be a consultant, not a sales rep. After this book, I am ready to sell!

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Title: Knock Your Socks Off Service

Author: Thomas K, Connellan and Ron Zemke

Reviewer: Laura Dziuk

One of my responsibilities on the project that my team and I are working on will be the marketing- promotion concept. The book that I read is called “Sustaining Knock Your Socks Off Service” The authors are Thomas K, Connellan and Ron Zemke. Both authors are on the staff of Performance Research Assoicates. Performance Research Associates is one of North America’s premier training and consulting firms. The book is actually excellent in terms of guiding you on how to get customers and keep them happy with your service. Thomas K.Connellan and Rom Zemke, talk about customer contact being very important, but not to forget that we need to have a system that supports excellence. The first part of the book tells you that it is easy to start service quality but continuous service improvement is not easy. He also mentions that there are several Barriers to High Quality service. Some of those Barriers include poor communication between departments, lack of support, employees not rewarded, understaffing, inadequate computer system, lack of support from other departments, inadequate training in people skills, low morale and bad organizational policies and Procedures.

Continuous feedback is another key element for sustaining Knock Your Socks Off Service. We need to know what direction we should go. According to K.Connellan
and Zemke, “Without feed back, your service effort is a transatlantic flight with no Navigation tools, flying along on auto pilot with no sense of direction until it inevitably runs out of gas.”(pg33). In other words if you don’t have a good feedback technique from your customers, you don’t have a complete service system. K. Connellan and Zemke talk as well about how important training is and about the development of employees. According to “ Knock Your Sock Off Service” training and development is a never ending process. It starts on an employees first day on the job and ends when the goal is reached

In conclusion K.Connellan and Zemke said the we need to look upstream and downstream to see how you can improve service-delivery system. We need to use links, after all, service quality is really achieved at the subsystem level, where something is received form somebody and then changed in some fashion and passed to somebody else. In other words, we need to use links.
There is a good story about the Hawthorne effect, to which is an old Folklore that is based on studies conducted at Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works in Chicago by Harvard Business School professor Elton Mayo.What happed was that Mayo did frequent
changes in the working conditions, many of them in the amount of illumination. Mysteriously, productivity increased with increased illumination.

In our project I will concentrate on customer service, so “ Knock Your Sock Off Service” has been very helpful. I will concentrate on the Barriers and how I can have a good feedback mechanical system to help me have excellent customer service quality. I will start with one of the Barriers that Connellan and Zemke mentioned in theirbook. Communication between departments. Lack of communication within departments can cause millions of dollars being lost to a company. This is one of my own experiences. While working with a big corporation a few years ago, we had a case that because of the poor communication between departments the company lost sales of almost $100,000.00. What happened was that one of our best customers required an order for specific part number that in that particular moment didn’t show in our inventory.

So the answer of the customer service department to our customer was that we did not have the part in stock there-for we could not fill his order. What the customer service should have done was get a little more information from the material planner Dept. before (especially for this large $ sale) she told the customer about not having stock in inventory. The material planner dept. got the part in the building an hour before the customer called in for the order. According to Connelland and Zemke we tend to focus on our own task and department and fail to see the big picture.

Inadequate communications between departments reduce performance and sometimes cause a lot of misunderstanding internally, in this particular case the company lost the sale. A system for Rewards and Reinforcements is very import in any company. Money is important in peoples life, but people are not one-dimensional. People are usually more positive when financial and psychological needs are met, but when a person is having a bad day in the office a simple pat on the back can make him or her feel like a million dollars.

Another important thing is continuous feedback. Feedback gives us the opportunity to check how the customer feels about our services. According to Connellan and Zemke a common financial measurement used by distributors is days sales outstanding (DSO), the numbers of days that the customers take to pay their bills. With the feedback system they found out that most of the customers with late payments were dissatisfied with the service. The company did some changes in the shipping process, which was the department that was causing most of the customers dissatisfaction. Over some time DSO started decreasing, the company started getting faster payments, and of course the customers were more satisfied.

Most companies do a good job of having a good service-system. For example, Disney, “Disney does it when it touches up the paint on the horsehead itching post on Main street every night. It does it by spending four days training grounds keepers to answer questions guests might ask”

In conclusion I will say that a good service quality system has to have the links. First the Goals, inputs, activities/behaviors, output results and feedback. Doing this will enable us to join the Disney’s and many other organizations delivering Knock Your Socks Off Service.

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Reviewer: Priscilla Saucedo

Knock Your Socks Off is a very inspiring book that teaches its readers how to begin achieving outstanding customer service. It helps you match the people that you do business with to the right products, services and solutions. It helps us relate to and respond to unsatisfied customers to keep them coming back. A. Blanton Godfrey wrote, “ It’s not enough to merely satisfy the customer; customers must be “delighted” ---surprised to have there needs not just met, but exceeded.

Customers are what keep any business running. Everyone who works for a company has the effect of whether or not a customer leaves happy. It all starts from the person who orders the products, stocks the product, prices the product, sells the product and finally the last person who they usually go through before leaving your business, for example a check out person or in some cases a financial official. This book emphasizes that to a customer you are the company. You need to create a trust with your customer. Customers need to leave your business knowing they received the best products or service they can possibility get. You need to keep your customers informed. Let them know if there will be a problem or delays in receiving your products or services. Show your concern and understanding and let your customers become aware of any information that may help them understand the situation better. Everyone along this chain has the responsibility of selling products that will leave the customer completely satisfied. Happier customers mean happier employees. Training your employees helps them deal with stress in the workplace. Encouraging the people you work with to go above and beyond and offering recognition and incentives to employees for there outstanding services, are some ways to keep your employees happy. This also keeps your business turnover rate low and helps you lower costs in hiring and training new personnel.

Knock Your Socks Off Service also emphasis that providing great customer service produces better financial results for your company. A satisfied customer will always return to your business knowing that they will leave completely satisfied. If you make there visit an unforgettable one they will be more than likely to refer your company to their family and friends. However, providing unsatisfactory service can harm your business. A dissatisfied customer will tell ten times more people of their bad experience than there good ones. This book teaches the art of service recovery. By identifying the customers problem you can begin the steps to make your customer happy. There are six steps to service recovery, 1) Apologize, 2) Listen and Emphasize, 3) Fix the problem fairly and quickly, 4) Offer Atonement, 5) Follow up and 6) keep your promises. Teaching your employees these practices can assure you that everyone will be able to make any unsatisfied customer a happy one.

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Title: Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery

Author: Ron Zemke and Chip R. Bell

Reviewer: Shawna Korinek

Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery, by Ron Zemke and Chip R. Bell, was a very interesting and highly educational book to read. I have been in customer service jobs for about 6 years and learned things from this book that I wish I had known all along. When given the chance to pick any book that had to do with business I went for one that would educate me not only for school but would improve my skills at work as well. I found many of the points relevant and a lot of the ideas usable. I say with confidence that Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery is a book that is well worth reading.

Everyone who works within a successful business should know that it is more cost efficient to keep old customers than it is to establish new ones. I feel that the main point of Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery was just that, it is important to keep old customers satisfied and loyal to your company. Zemke and Bell state on page 13 that “a customer who has been with you for five years can be up to 377 percent more profitable than a customer you have only just wooed to your products or services.” In other words it pays to make your loyal customers happy. The last thing a company wants is a dissatisfied customer but unfortunately businesses encounter these circumstances all the time. Having good customer service representatives that have been trained and conditioned to provide excellent service recovery is the answer to obtaining satisfied customers. Working in retail customer service I have learned that being able to think fast and provide quick and accurate solutions to customer problems is crucial to obtain customer satisfaction.

“Nothing is ever gained by winning an argument and losing a customer” Anonymous, page 99. It doesn’t matter if the customer is right or wrong the only thing that should matter is that the customer’s problem is taken care of promptly. Empowering frontline representatives to make decisions allows for less confrontation and faster problem solving capabilities. It also represents the commitment that a business has to making their customers happy. However, there should be limitations on what they can do. With too much freedom and a person that doesn’t like confrontation, the business could be faced with customer service reps that overdo restitution. This could prove to be costly to the business and leave the customer feeling guilty. Setting expectations and giving the proper training on what is allowable is extremely important and worth while.

According to Zemke and Bell, good service recovery starts with the right people. Customer service representatives need to be able to listen to the customer. They need to empathize and assure the customer that their problem is important and will be taken care of. After assuring the customer their problem will be taken care of, the problem needs to be taken care of as quickly and accurately as possible. If there happens to be delays in the service recovery process the customer should be updated regularly to avoid unnecessary anxiety. After the problem has been resolved and the customer leaves, the business should have some form of follow up program. This was one of my favorite ideas that I got from the book. Providing good service to a customer is great but to follow up on the situation later is the key. The follow up is a very sincere gesture and it shows the customer that the company really cares. So what about the customers that did support your company but over time their business has dwindled?

Having a way to track lost and “at risk” customers could prove to be very beneficial to your company according to Zemke and Bell. If you have some form of database that shows each customer and their activity you should start a research project that could give you some very valuable information as well as spark up old relationships. What Zemke and Bell have found is that finding out why, by ways of phone, letters or surveys, a customer has not sought your services for some time shows the customer that your company is loyal to its customers. Upon finding out why the customer’s patronage has dwindled allows the company to restore the relationship and make possible changes to the way things are run. In my opinion repairing relationships with lost or “at risk” customers is a great business decision.

In developing my project I will not just focus on my wholesale selling channels, I will also make myself available to all of the users of my products. They will not be able to buy directly from me but they will be able to find answers to questions, and solutions to problems. If anyone has a problem with my product I prefer them come to me. Not only will I be providing excellent service recovery but also it will allow me to narrow down my weaknesses within my business. I will also use the idea of a customer complaint database that Zemke and Bell suggested. If I have this database then it will be easy to do follow-ups on any problems that my customers have experienced with my products.

Not only would I recommend reading Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery by Ron Zemke and Chip R. Bell, I plan on reading more of their books. I feel very fulfilled upon completion of this book and I look forward to putting the ideas I took away from it to use.

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Title: Living On The Fault Line, Managing For Shareholder Value In Any Economy

Author: Geoffrey A. Moore

Reviewer: Robbie Roberts

Managing For Shareholder Value In Any Economy is directed towards executives working for large corporations. The idea behind this book is to focus on increasing a firm’s shareholder value. Every decision a management makes should be to help increase stockholder value. The author explains a number of different steps the company can make to help accomplish this goal. Some of these ideas go against the grain of current economical ideas, yet they seem reasonable.

Large firms get a large amount of capital from investors purchasing stock. The shareholder value of a company is a measurement of the firm’s success. If a company ignores the value of its stock it will no longer be able to earn extra capital to reinvest into the company allowing for more profit. Stock entitles its owner to a percentage of the future returns on the company. The future value of stock is determined buy two main factors, the competitive-advantage gap and the competitive-advantage period; the entire book focuses on increasing both of these values.

Competitive advantage is one of the keys to dominating a market. The book states that one of the best ways to gain and maintain an advantage in the market place is to focus resources on “core” production and outsource “context”. Core is the thing that your company dominates in and makes the majority of revenue. Context is the other stuff in the business that helps production of your core products. This means instead of trying to do every thing in house, it would be better for stockholder value to give these context jobs to other companies. A lot of businesses do the opposite of this and would rather pay there own employees, but this waist’s time and also can sacrifice quality. While your company is strengthening its position in the market the competitors are wasting time on the context.

The rest of the book focuses on specific ways to safely reduce the context within the business and increase the strength of the core. These techniques seem practical and the supports them with good evidence and reason, however they are more about management than marketing. They are important in establishing the direction in which the firm wants to head to increase stockholders value, but not that important as far as marking is concerned. The important part is that marketing focuses its resources on promoting the core of the company.

Marketing does play an important role in helping a company gain a competitive advantage in the market place. The marketing department has to keep the idea of stockholder value in mind when establishing its game plan. If the marketing team does not understand completely what management is doing they will become ineffective. The key is to know where the company is trying to gain a competitive advantage and target this market.

The marketing department must first decide what kind of market to attack. The author breaks these markets into two categories: A and B. Market A is a larger market with a broad array of competition. The market has been tapped but new opportunities are opening up. Market B is a smaller but is neglected by the current market leaders because it would be to expensive and risky for firms to go after. Basically this means the marketing can either try to get a small piece of a large market or a large piece of a small market. The author favors marketing categories B because it can offer higher returns and allows the firm to establish a unique and strong position. These markets are more attractive to investors because it creates a higher GAP and over time a longer CAP.

Managing For Shareholder Value In Any Economy is a good book that is very informative on companies that rely heavily on investors contributing capital. As far as the scope of my project is concerned stockholder value is irrelevant. I really did enjoy reading this book and it brought up a lot of important points. The idea of allocating resources toward the core of a company is a very good piece of advise.

Global Siren is more than just a global positioning system, it also includes sending and receiving distinct radio frequencies, and writing the program for the entire system. This is just the production of the product and does not even take into account shipping. One of the problems I was having with establishing my marketing plan was trying to include all of these pieces of the product into the company. After reading this book I have decided to focus on just one part of the product and outsource the remaining.

Global Siren is a product that relies on every global positioning system in vehicles to be a Global Siren brand. This would be very difficult to do because this is a Market type A with strong manufactures already in dominating the market. Instead of trying to bully out these enormous companies I will instead try to make them my allies. The marketing plan would be more effective if it focused on getting the current manufacturers to include Global Siren modifications.

The core of the company will be to sell the units that are installed in the emergency vehicles. Global Siren will be able to get a large piece of this market because it is smaller and easier to get into. If the company can manage to consume a large piece of this market it would be hard for another company to come in and take business away. Geoffrey Moore made an important point that a company cannot just focusing on producing a high GAP but also must try to extend the CAP. The way I intend to increase both of these important parts of the company is to break the marketing into two phases. The first phase will be to gain a strong hold in the emergency vehicle units. Once Global Siren units are implemented in a large amount of emergency vehicles the marketing will shift over to selling the technology to g.p.s. producers.

This marketing scheme would allow the company to focus on the core production of units to be installed in emergency vehicles, and outsourcing the technology for the unit in the vehicles. This will make more resources available to gain a strong hold in the market and not over stretch the company. Then once I switch the focus over to personal production I will have corned the market and force all the g.p.s. manufacturers to either install my product into their units or else they will lose customers and give the competition a competitive advantage.

This book not only gave me a number ideas as far as focusing what Global Siren is going to produce but how to use stockholders value to my advantage. Since large firms such as the ones currently producing the majority of global positioning systems do rely on stock value. If I could come in with a new technology and get one company to pick it up then its competitors would have to follow or get left behind. It is almost like taking there stockholder value hostage and forcing them to either buy my product or decrease there GAP and in turn CAP.

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Title: Making Customer Satisfaction Happen

Author: Reviewer did not list

Reviewer: Dario Carrillo

This book report will discuss the book Making Customer Satisfaction Happen. At the beginning of this book it states and reaffirms the importance of the customers and their satisfaction. This section of the book will be explained in further detail later on. The next section of the book gives examples of unsatisfied customers and depicts the problems in each situation. The middle section of the book gives a model on how to actually make customers satisfaction happen. Then at the end of book it tells you how to implement your plan and how to measure the customer satisfaction. The general topic of this book was about how to make customer satisfaction happen.

It starts off by giving an example on how Ray Kroc’s a sales manager for multimixer milk shake machines. Went out on the field and asked customers their input on products. AT the time he was doing this he opened up his own McDonald’s. He applied his customer research and formulated a plan to better serve his customers. That plan he devised or better yet the incentive of measuring the customers’ point of view is applied even today at the same company. It is a part of why that company became successful. The point the Author is was trying to make was that a business no matter what it is, the business needs to learn everything that it can about it’s customer so it can sell the product or service the customer wants. If the business fails to do this then they would probably see other competitors succeed by doing it, and the business left out would need to contemplate some new line of work.

The beginning of book mainly tells you and reminds you that the customer is the most important thing to a business. It says customer satisfaction is vital strategic weapon for any type of organization. The book drills this into the reader and states multiple times why the customer is the most important thing to an organization. Some of the statements mentioned are:
1. Businesses should treat customers, as they would want to be treated.
2. The customer is no dependent on the business. The business is dependent on the customer.
3. The customer is not an interruption of our work. They are the purpose of it.
4. The customer does us a favor when they call. We are not doing them a favor by servicing them.
5. The customer is a person who brings us their wants. It is the business job to fill those wants.

Once this was clear too the reader the book gave examples on how customers were unsatisfied. One example the author used was the bank branch. A client of the bank called in and inquired about a mortgage rate. The caller failed to reach anyone who could actually help him. This has happened to me and I’m sure to a lot of other people. (Very frustrating) Another example the book gives is about how a car dealership, who had an internationally recognized name, who had a stylish interior, and a service manager in a sports coat. Gave poor service and was overcharging him to do a simple repair on the clients car. The mom and pop repair shop did a better job in customer care than the dealership. This was an example on how a big company focuses on short-term profits at the expense of long-term customer satisfaction and retention.

The true basis of the book was the model give in which the reader could use to Make Customers Satisfaction Happen. This model had four steps to it. Step one was to identify the customer. Meaning know who is actually buying the product or service. Step two was to identify the customer’s needs and expectations. Knowing the customer’s vantage point, finding out what they want. Step three measure customer perceptions. This means knowing what their perception is towards your product or service and knowing the customer’s perception towards the competitor’s product or service. Step four was to develop an action plans. This included services that came with the product or service sold. (Invoicing, accounts payable, delivery and customer service).
So this model served as a guide on how to structure your company so it could be customer orientated. That’s pretty much what the book was about.

My opinion of the ideas presented in this book is favorable to them. The ideas seem to me as common sense, a business should have the utmost respect towards their clients. The steps the book gives on how to make customer satisfaction happen seem understandable and not too cumbersome to implement. I don’t think the author needed to drill the customer is most important thing to business point as much as he did. Than again thinking about it maybe that was a good thing. You have to be sure that point gets across even if you say bluntly and repeat is a bunch of times.

Businesses exist is to make a profit and what better way to make it, than by making sure your customers are satisfied. Satisfied customers give good word of mouth and recommendations to your business and that is a goal most businesses aspire to. Unsatisfied customers can be costly and can hurt your business. The book gave an example and analyzed how twenty complaints really translate into 500 dissatisfied customers. The 480 customers who didn’t call in a complaint actually complained to other individuals like family and friends. This number grows even higher than the 500 to about 5000 people. These people will be seriously influenced by what they have heard negatively about a business’s product or service. Therefore the 20 seemingly harmless complaints really is a far higher number that can affect a company badly.

The way I would use these ideas is by making sure I first know who my client is and know what they want and need. Then I would find out what my clients perception of my product is and find out what her perception of the competition is. I would then develop a plan on how to take action and how to structure my company as to fill my customer’s needs and wants. I would need to take care of complaints quickly and efficiently and make that my clients know if they have a problem with the product (heated women’s shoes) they should mention it to us. The book stated that complaints that were resolved quickly meant a higher retention of clients.

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Title: Managing Corporate Culture

Author: Reviewer did not list

Reviewer: John Ahdunko

The book started began with an introduction about corporate culture. By definition, corporate culture is the pattern of shared beliefs and values that give the members of an institution meaning, and provide them with the rules for behavior in their organization. Some of the key points in this book are the culture’s current popularity, guiding belief, daily beliefs, culture and strategy.

The first key point that is discussed is guiding and daily beliefs. According to the book, guiding beliefs provide the context for the practical beliefs of everyday life. Guiding beliefs gives the main direction to the daily beliefs. A daily belief on the other hand is entirely different species and must not be confused with guiding beliefs. Daily beliefs are rules and feelings about the everyday behavior that occurs. These beliefs are the basic survival kit for an individual. They show what to do and what not to do. From time to time one might wonder how many guiding beliefs a company should have. The answer to that question is simple; there is no limit. But word to the wise, if you have more than four beliefs people tend to only allow themselves to remember three beliefs or values.

A great example, as shown in the reading, is the Ten Commandments. How long have they been around and how many can a person honestly name them by heart? Guiding beliefs are very important for things such as showing the employees, investors, and competitors what the company stands for. They also determine and drive the company’s strategy. Guiding beliefs come in two varieties, external and internal. External is how to compete and how to direct the company while internal is about how to manage and how to direct the organization.

Capturing beliefs was the next key point in this book. Capturing a guiding belief of an organization in words that are meaningful is a very hard and tiresome task. The best way to find a good guiding belief is by studying the culture. In order to complete this task, a person may ask as many people as possible about the culture in the organization. Once this interview process takes place, finding such people as informants and avoiding simple respondents is generally a good idea. Usually limit the initial inquiries to the senior levels. Anthropology is very similar to this type of search. They seek out information using informants and collect priceless artifacts. But unlike anthropology this search is not quite as bad because we are only trying to seek out the guiding beliefs. These are one of the organizations artifacts, while the daily beliefs are how things work and run in the company. Knowing how to hunt for these beliefs is the true test. As one story after the next approaches, a person will start to notice patterns. These can be separated into guiding beliefs, daily beliefs or statements about what is important and what makes things work. Most stories have all of these elements and must be teased apart to get at each dimension. Once these guiding beliefs are captured and linked to strategy, then you must find what helps or hurts your strategy. The approach used in this book in order to find what hurts the strategy relies on constructing a simple matrix to assess the cultural risks involved.

The degree of cultural risks depends really on two questions. The first is how important is each action to the success of the strategy? The next valued question is how compatible is each action to the success of the strategy? These questions rank high/medium/low. The answers are then classified under negligible risk (compatibility with culture is high and not crucial to the strategy), unacceptable risk (critical to strategy but low in compatibility with culture), and manageable risk (neither fatal nor benign).

Once the matrix and beliefs are found, there are three pitfalls that a person must try to ignore. These pitfalls usually occur through any efforts to change that a manager is trying to make within a corporate culture. The first pitfall is the nonevent. With this, the nonevent occurs when thousands of employees hear about the first step to making changes within their company and then hear nothing ever again. Like all diagnosis, there is prevention to this. It consists of making a low key approach. This means talking about the idea over such places as lunch and dinner. It is very important however to deliver the information without a fanfare program and not proceeding too far until the necessary support is given. If this pitfall has already occurred, there is a correction. The correction is to try to change the focus of the expectation to appreciation of the beliefs themselves. Usually the reason why these actions don’t take place anyways is due to the lack of necessary beliefs. The next pitfall is the pleasing the boss syndrome. The diagnosis for this pitfall is when people sometimes support certain corporate values because their boss has pushed them to do it. The prevention of this syndrome is very difficult. Many bosses need to limit themselves to not include their own beliefs into the recommendations of the staff. Luckily, there is a correction to pleasing the boss syndrome. It’s simple, reward constructive disagreement. Constructive disagreement is defined by having a belief that is tested and holds its own ground. The final pitfall is the most devastating of all; cynicism. It’s caused by employees adopting the view that management is telling them “don’t do what we do, do what we say.” This occurs when management puts out the beliefs and values and doesn’t follow them even though they are their own. The prevention to this is simple. Don’t make a belief or value that is not within reach and can’t be lived up to. The common correction to this is to reevaluate the beliefs and values so that all can live by them.

The conclusion to this book ends with the question, “who are you and what do you stand for?” The point of a corporate culture is all about meaning. If it’s not present, then the firm will probably not be so successful. I personally think that without these types of beliefs, our system of running a business would not be valid. You need these types of tools to strengthen performance from employees, finances, and to bring the corporation together as one instead of being divided like so many companies today.

One example that was brought up in the book that I found interesting was the transition in the First Chicago bank. In short, First Chicago found itself being at the top of the market and then slowly decreasing to being the ultimate low. After switching CEO’s, the new boss reevaluated the beliefs of the company. By doing this he changed many of them by stating a mission statement and rewarding those who excelled in their jobs. By making both his employees and the consumer happy, he found his company to be one of the highest most profitable companies. I would apply this to my product by figuring out, more in depth, who my consumers going to be, who my employees are going to be, and what beliefs and values I have for this particular product. This is a little bit further than the project recommends, but I found this book to be very educational and informative.

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Title: Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service

Author: Chip R. Bell and Ron Zemke

Reviewer: Natalie Caravelli

In Chip R. Bell and Ron Zemke’s guide to Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, several aspects of successfully managing a business are discussed. Having been an assistant manager for one year and now a manger for eight months at Hot Dog on a Stick, I fully understand all of the aspects, and their importance, especially that of delivering the best possible service to one’s customers. Regardless of how you choose to look at it, the consumer plays the most important role in a service- based business. and every Every element of the customer’s experience will help determine their satisfaction and if they choose to return to your business or one of your competitor’s.

The first step in ensuring your customers are receiving the best service possible is choosing the right people to serve them. As described in Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, hiring employees should be seen more as casting actors in a play. The person who is chosen should possess all the skills needed for their particular role. The best way to do this might be to use multiple selection methods and have potential cast members go through a series of interviews and screen tests. This will help to decide if they are the creative, positive, friendly, and courteous employees you are looking for to serve your customers and give the best impression. Your employees should feel as though they are performing for the customer and, “If each and every cast member, not to mention the writer, director, stagehands, costumers, makeup artists, and lighting technicians, have prepared themselves and the theater well, the audience enjoys the show and tells others about it.” I agree it is a good idea to treat your business as a theater with actors performing for the customers. Using this method, the customer will feel welcomed and have a memorable experience which they are sure to return for and tell their friends about.

The next aspect of excellent customer service is to know who your customers are and develop an intimate relationships with them. Developing an intimate relationships requires listening to the comments, questions, and complaints of your customers, understanding why it is they feel this a certain way, and responding to the need they have presented. By developing these relationships you will know each others business and be capable of fulfilling the constantly changing needs and expectations of your customers. Getting to know your customers can involves paying attention to your customer’s lives, keeping track of them, and knowing details about even the average American’s lifestyle so you can modify your business to be convenient in their routine.

In maintaining relationships with customers, you must also be prepared for complaints. As stated in Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, “A complaining customer is your best friend.” If not handled successfully, the disgruntled customer may be lost to your biggest competitor- but this doesn’t always have to happen! According to research, a customer who complains and receives some sort of response, whether in their favor or not, have has a 95 percent chance of returning, where as a completely satisfied customer has a 90 percent likelihood of returning to your business. “Customers who are properly handled can become even more loyal than customers who have never had a problem.”

In order to achieve great customer service, you must be able to focus on it and know what you want. It also must be expressed to the other people you are working with so everyone is focused on the same purpose. As quoted from Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re liable to end up someplace else.” This is especially true in having knock your socks off service. “Your vision of what superior service looks like is the foundation of getting you where you want to go,” says Bell and Zemke. They explain that in order to achieve your purpose, you should develop a service strategy statement to define for your employees the “rhyme and reason of the work they do.” If everyone is working for the same definition of customer service, your goals and objectives will be much more easily achieved. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”-Ecclesiastes

A statement in Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service that I found to be a good customer service rule to live by is, “If it ain’t broke…fix it.” There should always be room for improvement in even the best businesses. Even if there isn’t something wrong with a certain department there should be no reason it can’t be improved. Customers will always be impressed when they notice something has been improved from the last time they did business with you. Anything that is more convenient or more exciting will always be a plus. Some easy ways to get information for improvement include customer surveys, focus groups, customer advisory panels, employee surveys, mystery shopping surveys, and toll-free hotlines. By utilizing these methods of information, money will not be wasted and will be put towards the most desired and effective ways of improvement.
Once a purpose has been achieved and you are running a business with competent employees who have been fully trained to work for a purpose, you will want retain them and see them continue great service. The best way to keep your cast working to their fullest potential is to recognize your employee’s accomplishments and reward them. By letting them know they have succeeded and you are impressed with them, they will want to continue excelling, they will be happy with their jobs, and they will continue to treat your customers with the respect you have given to them.

After reading Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service, I have some ideas to include in my marketing plan of how to keep my customers coming back when they need more of my services. I think the most important part of serving customers is developing strong relationships with regular customers so they will remain doing business with you even when competitors develop. They will be sure to tell their friends that they are always pleased with the service they get from you and your customer base will slowly begin to grow through word of mouth. This technique can work for any business and is something that can be especially helpful in a business with such a wide market such as carpet and flooring.

Bell and Zemke’s pointers are very helpful to anyone managing a service business. Managing Knock Your Socks Off Service is a book I would recommend to anyone wanting to improve the quality of their business, employees, and customer service.

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Book: Marketing and Social Priorities

Author: George Fisk

Reviewer: Kyle Mead

One Step Ahead

I think I picked the driest, most boring book in the UNR library. I should have realized there was a problem since the book was put together in 1974 and has only been checked out thirty times. The book is edited by George Fisk and is titled Marketing and Social Priorities. The book starts off talking about values and social priorities.

Values drive behavior and are a key factor in marketing. Since values are peoples and businesses are determined in their minds marketers study traits or behavior of the consumer. Basically saying that the marketer needs to understand and be able to connect with his buyer. If you are selling diapers you don’t want Jenna Jamison as you spokes model, but Pony shoes on the other hand can use her to be edgy and sell to a younger crowd. Values and social priorities are different for each person causing a problem for marketers to sell their product to a wide variety of people. They have to target small groups with different strategies.

An interesting chapter in the book was the problems that man faces. As we move forward in time we consume more causing us to destroy the earth. The chapter talks of big cities having congestion, environmental pollution and assembly line production. We need to start looking at our consumption now instead of in the future and find better ways to consume the goods we need. There needs to be a difference in needs and wants. As the American consumer keeps buying bigger cars instead of economical small cars the earth is taking the pounding. Marketers have jumped all over the SUV because Americans always want the biggest and best and there needs to be a change for the future.

Even though this book was a really long read it made me realize that consumers actually shift the trends of the market and the marketing teams are just along for the ride. I think marketers just try to stay ahead of the consumer and barely try to shift the consumer’s minds. Marketers are always doing surveys and trying to stay just one step in front of the public. This book made me think of my own wants and needs and how commercials try to influence my buying needs and what is important to me. I think that maybe my consumption will change a little after reading this book.

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Book: The Marketing Path To Global Profits

Author: David J. Freiman

Reviewer: Daniel Adhiambo

Freiman has developed an organizational technique to guide market planning and decision making which he has called the marketing path It consists of five phases: market analysis, product planning, product development, merchandising and sales and distribution.

Market Analysis

The objective in market analysis is to conduct a preliminary market appraisal by first estimating the market potential and then selecting tentative market segment targets. Information is generated from the secondary data held by the government agencies, business publications or from actual survey through observation, interviews, focus grouping. The marketer would be interested in such variables as demography, economics, lifestyle, culture, and the market place, in deciding on which market to venture in. If the market is large and nation wide he might consider mass marketing as an option. However if this does not seem to be a viable option he might need to identify the market segment at this early stage.

The market segment should be easily accessible for effective reach and service, and large enough to be profitable.

Product Planning

The objective at this stage is to conduct a feasibility study on the proposed product line This involves defining targeted market segments, profiling consumers, clarifying the product concept and estimating profitability.

The product needs to be tested for function, shape, size, branding with consumers. Results of such consumer tests would be helpful in modifying and refining the product concept and developing prototypes.

Product prototypes will need to be evaluated against competitive products and their perceived value by customers need to be ascertained at this stage.

The product concept study would be undertaken through consumer interviews and focus group sessions.

The final activity in this phase is to develop a successful positioning of the planned product line in the market place. Positioning fills a void in demand. The new product should have unique functional benefits, favorable price/value relationship or a styling difference. A superior product is easier to price and merchandise.
A review of product sales, costs and profits projections is undertaken at this stage. If the costs seem to overrun the projected revenues, then the product concept is eliminated at this stage. When projected benefits are higher than the costs then move to product development.

Product Development.

The objective here is to develop a viable product mix that reflects the market needs. The tasks involved are to develop the final design and engineer the product, determine the cost of the product mix, establish a consumer acceptance, and conduct profitability analysis.

This product development phase turns abstract product benefit concepts, which came out of product planning, into tangibles. For products other than services, product development consists of product design and product engineering. Product design is concerned with visual attractiveness while product engineering involves actual manufacturing.

The manufactured product would then be test marketed in a small number of representative cities or regions, a few stores or a chosen group of consumers.

Good product development is expensive and complicated. Small companies might lack the necessary resources in terms of capital and skilled human resources. Therefore such companies would normally adapt to the targeted market products that are sold in another market. Such adaptations would involve minor revisions on the design of an existing product, redecoration, or a change in packaging. Other firms might decide to outsource manufacturing and concentrate on product promotion and selling.

Merchandising

Whether we chose to manufacture our product or outsource manufacturing to some other company, in this phase we need to develop a distribution strategy. To do this we must analyze the distribution system for the type of product we intend to position in the market.

Distribution is the process of moving the product from the place of manufacture to the consumer. Generally a distribution system can either be simple or complex. Simple /two-tiered distribution systems involve sale from the manufacturer to the retailers directly or from the manufacturer to the wholesaler to the retailer. On the other hand, complex/multi-tiered systems use many sub-wholesalers in the distribution chain.

The product needs to be packaged well to endure abuses encountered in shipment. The package needs to have graphics that effectively convey the purchasing proposition of the product. The package must convey a quality image of the product.

Sales and Distribution

Advertising, sales promotion and public relations are an important component of the marketing mix. They help in establishing product and brand awareness, product distribution. The major task in this final phase is to create and satisfy consumer demand and to position the product at point of sale.
The company at this stage establishes a marketing team who will receive and process orders and inventory, organize the transportation modes, ware housing and storage.

Conclusion
Freiman’s model captures the four P’s of marketing- product, place, promotion and price. He lays out how a product idea is conceived, researched, planned and finally developed into a marketable product. However it does not give price an in-depth consideration. The book does not give clues on how to price the product so developed.

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Title: Marketing on a Tight Budget

Author:Patrick Forsyth

Reviewer: Tina Laue

Marketing on a Tight Budget, An Action Guide to Low-Cost Business Growth by Patrick Forsyth is a straightforward, easy-to-use book that aims to help small to medium businesses plan for marketing on a limited budget. This is a new book at the UNR Library in the Marketing Section and I was the first person to check it out. I chose it because it seemed that the information would be useful and because it was published in 2000, hopefully meaning the information would be relevant and not outdated. I was correct in both these assumptions and because the author is British, I was also entertained since he uses phrases that seem “strange” to an American.

The author begins with an overview of Marketing and why it is important. He talks about the different elements in the Marketing Mix, focusing on the ones that are most appropriate for small businesses with limited financial resources. Then he finishes with “The One Hour Marketing Plan” which discusses how to write the business plan and implement it. Other key themes throughout the book are that the business owner must remain objective and customer-focused; that s/he must constantly evaluate the product or service and be willing to change; and that time must be made for marketing or there will probably not be a business to worry about. In all ways the businessperson must be persuasive and look at the details and the image that is being presented to the customer. In advertising the author gives the acronym, AIDA as an example of what to strive for. You want to get the customer’s Attention; You want to get their Interest; They should Desire your product; and they should be inspired to take Action!

The first chapter is a good review of ideas that we have been learning in this class. Mr. Forsyth is a fan of the Marketing Concept and is brief and understandable while discussing competition, defining the product or service, what is the market, who is the customer, how much should be spent, and how one should plan. The mix that Mr. Forsyth emphasizes is Public Relations, Advertising, Direct Mail, Sales Promotions, and Trade Shows. Within the office he focuses on salesmanship, giving formal presentations, setting up systems to keep track of customers and evaluate events, and setting up regular times to plan.

There is a lot of good information in this book that can be applied to my project. Public Relations includes all the details, including letterhead, business cards, and how to answer the phone. There needs to be a constant focus on the image that the business projects and it should be clear and consistent. The book outlines Press Relations and how to draft a press release and it stresses that any opportunity can be used to take advantage of this free publicity. He does caution that one cannot control the press and there is a potential for negative publicity. Advertising and the different types, such as radio, television, etc. are discussed and how, with some planning, different forms can be launched together to get the most benefit.

This chapter on public relations and advertising was especially helpful to me with my business plan for a healthy fast food restaurant called “Good to Go.” The author reminded me that I need to place an advertisement in the yellow pages, a simple idea I had overlooked, and he gave me some ideas about how to make it distinctive. I also got ideas about a press release for the Grand Opening of my restaurant and setting up a timetable to coordinate this press coverage with other ideas to have more impact. I plan to use radio spots and will figure out my budget and may use them only on Friday from 10:30 to 11:30 for a longer period of time to make more impact and keep the business in peoples minds, while still spending less.

The chapter on Direct Mail gave me several ideas. Direct Mail can have different purposes, so one has to decide what the intention is and what is the desired response. Time must be spent on getting it right and often things that seem trivial such as using a certain color print can make a difference. One of the ways to try different things is to think of a system for evaluating different mailings. An example the author gave is to have the return address go to “department x” or “department y” for two different printings. I plan to implement this form of advertising before the grand opening with a menu and map targeting businesses in the area that can be pinned up in the break room. I will address it to the receptionist with an eye-catching phrase on the envelope so that it doesn’t get thrown out with the junk mail.

The chapter on Sales Promotion made the point that a little creativity can be a low cost way to bring people to your store. Two small non-competing businesses can team up and give away something from the other store, thereby promoting each other. It is an area to think about and sales promotion has been done a lot in the fast food industry, such as Jack-in-the-Box antenna balls. I don’t have any really original ideas in this area, but will keep it in mind for the future.

Trade Shows are a great resource for certain types of product. This is also a good chapter about how to present these events and that if one doesn’t follow up on the leads gained there, then the money is wasted. I felt that this didn’t apply to my business and so I didn’t focus on this area as much.

I agreed with the ideas presented in these chapters. The mix seems fairly reasonable for a low budget. Billboards would also be an appropriate idea that he does not mention. He does talk a little about Web sites, but will probably want to go into greater detail if he puts out a new edition. He stresses common sense, being objective, evaluating, attending to detail, and having a company vision that all can strive to bring into being. I tend to be very customer oriented and think the world would be a better place if there was more common sense, and the cautions about serving the market all matched my own values.

The next few chapters went into how to be a good salesman in person, on the phone, or in formal presentations. Some of the ideas I got from these chapters were to ask open-ended or probing questions to learn what customers really need. Mr. Forsyth lists the stages a person goes through as:
1. I am important and want to be respected.
2. Consider my needs.
3. How will your ideas help me?
4. What are the facts?
5. What are the snags?
6. What shall I do?
7. I approve.

It was interesting to read this rephrased and think about it in a slightly different way. Selling is something many of us have negative stereotypes about and therefore have a hard time doing. In order to be successful in business, these mental blocks must be overcome. Listening to the customer and determining the stage they are at in this process can help to close sales. A lot of this information is very valuable but won’t be applicable to my written marketing plan. It may help with my PowerPoint presentation, since I can think about how I would sell this to investors. What are the benefits for them?

The book finishes up with how to set up a marketing plan. The author suggests taking an hour a week to look over how things are going and decide what actions to take. He suggests doing a SWOT analysis and has templates you can copy to help you get started. He says, “If time is money, then investing it more wisely than your competitors can give you an edge.” His idea that it is important to spend time planning and evaluating makes a lot of sense to me as well. This final chapter may be useful to me in actually doing the marketing plan.

This was an excellent book and I give it four stars (out of four). It was enjoyable to read and gave me lots of new ideas for my promotional plans. It had useful templates for how to track customers or submit press releases. It covered the ideas that could be used for the lowest cost and reminded me to not get too attached to “my product” or “my name” but to continue to be objective and get second opinions. For example, Is “Good to Go” a good name for my business? It also gave me suggestions for people I know who are starting their own businesses; and I will definitely suggest that they read it. I see some are jumping into business with little money and little planning. I am more aware from reading this book that this can be a possible recipe for disaster, which more planning and analysis can avert.

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Title: The Market Research Toolbox

Author: reviewer did not list

Reviewer: Jill Vereschagin

The Market Research Toolbox
Market research is a marketing activity philosophy. Market research is used in developing new products and putting them out in the world. It can be used to help develop the business strategy or formulate a new strategy. Some may argue that market research is not necessary, and they use the example of the Apple Computer. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did not call around and ask if people needed a personal computer. That just would have been silly and unproductive. Nevertheless, on the other hand there are many successful examples. There is exploratory research that helps in early stages of the decision cycle and confirmatory research that helps later on in the decision process. The four steps in the decision cycle are scan environment, generate options, select an option, and evaluate success. These four steps can be used in the six different research styles.

The first style is secondary research. This is research collected by one party for one purpose, and then it is put to a second use or made to serve the purpose of the second party. Libraries and databases are examined in this type of research. This form of research is fairly expensive according to research costs, it is up in the $10,000s, and effective.

The second style is customer visits. In this technique, a researcher interacts with the customers. Though vendors interact with customers everyday this is another person who interacts with their customers. The two types of this style is as hoc and programmatic. In ad hoc research, market research is not the primary agenda, but it is one of the driving forces. There are five steps to achieve benefits from this type of research. These five steps are resolve to change, articulate perennial questions, log customer profiles, review profiles, and database visits and profiles. In programmatic research, market research is the primary agenda. There are seven steps in achieving benefits from this type of research. They are set objectives, select a sample, select teams, devise a discussion guide, conduct the interview, debrief the teams, and analyze and report results. This is very cheap and only can cost in the low $1000.

The third style is focus groups. This group consists of the market research vendor, the facility, the moderator, and a group of customers. The group is then asked questions and gives feedback on all sorts of issues. This is more expensive than customer visits but it is definitely cheaper than secondary research.

The fourth style is survey research. This is when a fixed set of questions is asked to a sample set of respondents. Surveys can be conducted by mail, telephone, in person, and by e-mail. This type of research can be completed in six easy steps. Step one prepare a request for proposals, what you plan to do in the survey. Step two you and the vendor helps hammer out the questions. Step three you and the vendor decide on the size and source of the sample population. Step four is to pretest the questionnaire. Step five is to administer the survey. Step six is to analyze and report the findings. The larger the population surveyed the more expensive the survey is.

The fifth style is choice models. This is the analysis of different factors that combine to influence the choice of one product over another. There are two major kinds of choice modeling; they are conjoint analysis and direct weighting. This is moderately expensive style of market research.

The sixth style is experiments. These experiments are conducted in the field or in a laboratory. This can help from the adequate price to the product design. The experiments can be as expensive as you want to make them. The more experiments or more intense experiments you do the more expensive it will be.

Each one of these ideas combines into a whole to create a business strategy. These research methods can help to develop new products, assess customer satisfaction, segment a market, and expand into new markets. The best advice to take from this book is four steps: look around, explore deeply, make sure, and measure the results.

All of these ideas seem to be very useful and helpful. I think that the book on a whole was a little boring to read, but it does make some good points. These methods for doing market research can be applied to real life in many situations. On the other hand these methods are a little pricey. A mom and pop organization is not going to employ the secondary research method because they don’t have the money or the resources available to them. To a mom and pop organization the customer visit option or focus group may be more useful because it is much cheaper and there are all the resources necessary for a new company to complete it. Where on the other hand, the bigger corporations should employ the more costly options like secondary research and experimentation. These bigger corporations will have more money and resources available to them to complete market research. Market Research makes making a business strategy much more easy. With all the new information market research provides, like what is the correct price or what is the type of customer that will be most interested in the product, a business strategy is better formulated. A company will better know where there new product is going and how to get there with all of this information.

I think that these ideas can be used all over in my marketing plan. Experimentation research could help to develop the price description part of the marketing plan. Putting the product out there at a high price or supper low price could influence you to change the price to a more suitable price. Survey research could help to develop the price description part of the marketing plan, also. All the feedback you could get from a survey could help develop a better price. This method could also help in the market analysis section of the marketing plan. It could help better define what customers would be interested in my product. Although, I could never afford it, secondary research would be extremely helpful. This could help better define the market growth and market trends. All of these ideas would be very helpful but expensive.

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Title: Marketing Warfare

Author: Ries, Al and Jack Trout

Reviewer: John W. Ford Jr.

Marketing Warfare takes a classic work of military strategy, Carl Von Clausewitz’s On War, and applies these classic maxims and advisements to another form of war, the battles between products in the mind of the consumer. Given that the analogy between military war and the marketing one is a valid Darwinian one, I can quite easily understand how Ries and Trout would see fit to adapt Clausewitz’s stratagems to the marketplace.

Ries and Trout start out the book with a provocative statement, putting some of the classic ideas of marketing on its head. Marketing, according to the authors, started out as a customer-oriented philosophy when it should have been a more competitor-oriented philosophy, watching the actions of their competitors and altering their marketing plans accordingly. Ries and Trout (via Clausewitz) argue against many of the tactics of those in marketing who choose to make an ill-prepared assault on well-entrenched competitors, arguing instead that the competitor should gauge their attacks upon the weakness inherent in the competitors superiority. If a competitor is too large to compete with in a larger market, find a market in which you are on, at the very least, a more equal ground with the competitor, be it in a smaller market area or in a niche market in which the competitor is not as well established. Clausewitz’s principle of force applies to the world of marketing in that when it comes to competition in war and marketing, size matters. The second and third place companies should be the ones conducting offensive attacks upon the leading company, as they have the resources to take away small portions of the leading company’s market and to compete with one another.

Ries and Trout believe a company should tailor its marketing strategy based upon its position in a particular industry. The largest company should keep itself on the defensive, seeking only to protect its market share, even at the expense of attacking its own product. At the same time, the large company should stick to the product it knows best, giving the example of McDonald’s, a company known for its hamburgers, expanding into other less lucrative areas as chicken and fish sandwiches.

Smaller companies should realize that they are small companies and not attempt to mirror their marketing tactics upon those of the larger companies, an attempt that is doomed to failure as they don’t have the resources to compete in the same fashion. Ries and Trout suggest that the smaller companies adopt the strategies of guerrilla warfare, following the hit and run tactics of Che Guevara, and Ho Chi Minh rather than the grandiose schemes of a Napoleon. Smaller companies should take advantage if the inflexible nature of the larger companies and their inability to adapt to new situations as quickly as can the smaller companies.

Ries’s and Trout’s adaptation of Clausewitz’s ideas into their own ideas of market strategy and tactics make quite a bit of sense. It’s not exactly a new idea as I remember a vogue in the mid eighties among executives to read Musashi Miyamoto’s book about the samurai warrior ethic, The Book of Five Rings, in order to adapt it to their own business practices and give them a better understanding of Japanese business practices. The authors provide more than enough examples to back up Clausewitz’s principles—Coke vs. Pepsi, the marketing war among beer, McDonalds vs. Burger King vs. Wendy’s, and IBM vs. Apple. Their ideas on guerrilla marketing have quite a bit of relevance to the marketing plan for my own product. As my product will be competing with large companies against whom I do not have a chance to compete against on an equal basis, I need to look into markets the larger companies have overlooked. I’m thinking to tailoring my product specifically for immigrant groups, emphasizing how my product will allow them to watch movies from overseas.

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Title: MASTERING GUERRILLA MARKETING

Author: Jay Conrad Levinson

Reviewer: Derek D Haren

Mastering Guerrilla Marketing is about using common sense and staying simple with your approach to marketing, building relationships with your consumers, and being wise with your money. The book offers advice to the smaller business but fundamentals that are essential no matter the size of your company. The common theme throughout the book is keeping things simple in order to succeed and profit with your product. The author is trying to get the focus of marketers off of being flashy and onto being wise and methodical in their approach to have marketing that delivers the desired results.

These fundamentals start with first being able to visualize the target of where you want to be. You put that vision together in a simple stated brief plan in order to maintain an exceptionally clear focus on your goals. Ideally you should be able to stay with this plan forever and a truly good plan will require little adjustment over its lifespan.

In keeping with the theme of staying simple with your marketing plan you want to straight to the point and avoid overloading your plan with details that can be put in supporting documents. Be honest with yourself and your customers as to what your product can and can’t do. Create a standard to judge yourself by in the plan. Don’t be afraid to aim for lofty goals as you should be optimistic with your plan. As a marketer you want to have realistic expectations when setting a time table to reach your goals. Your marketing plan should create a competitive advantage. This advantage is always a positive benefit the customer receives. No one else offers it and it is simply stated. It can be communicated verbally and visually.

Knowing what marketing is not is also crucial. Marketing is not show business, or comedy central, or a stage for being clever, or for being overly complicated, and not a miracle worker. If people only remember the flashiness and jokes but not the product then you miss the boat. No matter how much money you spend marketing it won’t deliver the results if you do not invest wisely in your approach.

The Guerilla Marketer knows to make everything personal by building solid relationships with their customers by caring about the community. One way of doing this is to offer free workshops. You could sponsor youth activities like little league, and community activities such as holiday celebrations like 4th of July fireworks. To add a personal touch you or a representative of your company should attend public functions. If you sponsor a little league team, show up to some of the games. All of this creates a presence and a trust in your community.

A good marketer is not afraid to give. The more you give the more you get. Things such as shipping, technical support, installation, free products with the purchase of an initial product, are all good things that can be used to build a relationship and get separate your product from your competitors. By focusing on your customer’s needs you will keep them satisfied. The relationship does not end after the sale, it begins. Following up and making sure that your customer is satisfied beyond what they expected will draw repeat business. Once your current customers are satisfied they are more open to referring other non-customers to you which in turn will help you broaden your customer base. Being good with following up can also entice your competitor’s consumers to switch to your product. If you provide quality service you will create loyalty. You can know everything about what you specialize in but if you don’t know anything about your customer you will not succeed.

Your marketing is not going to produce if you do not stand out from all of the other options the consumer has. If your marketing focuses on the value and benefit to your customer and not on being flashy and entertaining your product will be remembered. The value in your offer must make the consumer wonder how you can afford to give them such a great deal. This starts with being informed about what is going on in your products genre and what your competition is doing. You have to be credible and establishing that credibility through the forms of media available conditions the consumer to accept you as they become familiar with you.

As consumers become more familiar with you they also become more willing to volunteer information about themselves. A good marketer solicits this information in order to be able to make their marketing directly and personally tailored to their customer’s needs. This information can also be used to find niches for new products and promotions down the road.

A good marketer is wise with their money. They utilize all of the free media out there before they send their own money. Some examples are bartering, public relations, co-op, funds and fusion marketing. In essence you are trading services for advertising rather than cash.

Other inexpensive ways to market is through web sites, classified ads online or in magazines. Magazines can have ads run in specific regions. This will save you money and target the customers you want to target. The dawn of cable TV has made commercial spots during prime time hours in major markets affordable to those who do not have deep pockets. Cable TV also allows a marketer to target a select audience even down to a zip code. With TV a marketer must remember to tell their story visually though as many people mute their TV’s during commercials. Radio is an effective medium for targeting specific age groups. It also is a more personal form of media. Something as simple as a display sign to be placed with your product is cost effective. Telemarketing offers an inexpensive way to market your product. The internet has made marketing through catalogs a great value. Posting in an online catalog will give you a world wide market with little cost.

All of the different media outlets you use should tie into one another. Advertise your product but also advertise all of the other outlets of information for your product. No matter what media you use it is important to keep things simple and deliver your message without being fancy or flashy.

This book underlines how to keep your plan simple and focused, create personal 1 on 1 relationships, be wise with your finances, and be patient with your plan giving it time to develop and take effect.

OPINION
Although my expertise in marketing is limited I have to agree with what the author is stating in this book. I reflect on my own experiences and reactions to different marketing techniques and find that most of what I respond to in the market has stayed along the principles outlined in the book.

The best example I have is Super Bowl ads. Every year I look forward to watching the ads during the game because they are flashy and entertaining. I can only recall one advertisement that ever motivated me to actually purchase the product. During Super Bowl XXX the ad for the movie Independence Day ran once. The ad itself was simple and revealed almost nothing about the movie. It started with a starship hovering over the Whitehouse. The ship then fired a laser destroying the Whitehouse and the release date of July 4, 1996 was then promptly displayed. Sure enough I was first in line to buy my tickets on that July 4th Thursday, forgoing any firework that evening. It seems that most trailers today show you all the good parts of the movie giving you no reason to actually go see it.

Another one of my favorite ads was the Budweiser Frogs and later the Budweiser Lizards. As funny and entertaining as the ads were I have still never purchased Budweiser beer.

I also have to agree with the author when it comes to developing a personal relationship with a consumer. No one has done it better for me than Gateway Computers. What won me over is that whenever I have had a problem they have been one step ahead of everyone else. If a component of my computer was malfunctioning or defective they replaced with no questions asked and even shipped a replacement the day the complaint was made without having received the defective unit back yet. This not only satisfied me and when above and beyond what I expected but I remember thinking “Wow!” about my treatment. That treatment was so good that I haven’t thought twice about who my future computer or peripheral purchases would be from. It’s always been Gateway.

The author also mentions doing things for your community. I agree that this creates good standing, credibility, and wins new customers. For a long time I was anti-Microsoft. They were a big monopoly that I just didn’t like. I couldn’t stand having to buy their products. Then every so often I would hear how the company built a library, school, park, or donated large amount of money for scholarships. This reflected well on them and I now purchase Microsoft software in circumstances other than those where their product is the only one available and don’t cringe at thought of it.

APPLICATION
There are areas in my own marketing plan that I will be able to apply the knowledge obtained from this book.

The Video Editing System by DreamVision is to be the best quality, most user friendly, and cost friendly software system of its kind on the market. Our customers will benefit by creating studio quality imagery supported with the best technical service in the world. Our target audience includes anyone who takes pictures, films home videos, produces films as an amateur or professional, as well as computer manufacturers. Our message will reach our customers through well placed ads in computer related magazines, catalogs, and other related publications, displays and exhibitions at trade shows, through inserts in the mail, as up sale items through telemarketers, through computer TV and radio shows like Kim Komando (using free samples for them to review on air), and through our web site that offers detailed product information as well as technical support in the form of online manuals and tutorials.

Our product for the most part will be retailed in technology based stores like Best Buy and CompUSA, computer retailers such as Gateway and Dell, as well as other venues like mwave.com.

In an effort to enrich the education of others in our national community our system will be given to lower institutions of learning for free and discounted to Colleges and Universities as well as their students. Our system services will be donated to venues such as PBS or other publicly funded programs for their productions and displays in return for publicity during the opening and closing credits.

Other discounts will be made available to customers who purchase new computer systems. With a photo copied receipt and product id code the customer will receive a rebate on the video system. The rebate form will be available to mail in or fill out on line in the form of a questionnaire that also helps us find out more information about our customer.

Much of our contact with the customer will be after the sale. Our focus will have to be on support for our product. This will be accomplished best with access to a live representative fully trained in the product through 1-800 numbers or live tech support chat room on our web page. Our online support will include step by step video tutorials that the customer can view for information on how to use their video system. They simply register their product to gain access. Another part of the technical support will be access to software patches and upgrades online as they become available.

Included in our system will be little extras such as a Guide to expert photo and film taking. A coupon for a free CD/DVD tutorial will be shipped to our customers after they graciously fill out a product registration/personal information card on line or through the mail. This will help us to get to know our customers and their areas of interest so that we can better serve them with offers that enrich their lives in the future.

Finally since our goal is to be associated with quality we will offer a no questions asked 30 day money back guarantee as well as a 2 year standard warranty instead of the industry standard 1 year warranty.

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Reviewer: Jeremy Rogenstengel

This book helps guide the entrepreneurs through the world of positioning and selling their products and services. The author leads the reader step by step through the process of developing a successful marketing campaign. Mr. Levinson offers detailed descriptions of more than a hundred marketing tools that when applied effectively and consistently are invaluable. I found that the issues discussed were pertinent and were very similar to the questions I now face while creating a marketing plan for my music studio.

Entrepreneurs don't have huge marketing staffs, or budgets. Entrepreneurs have to be more creative to get their message across. The major advantage of being what the book calls a "guerrilla" is that you can give your marketing efforts the personal touch in a way that big business simply can't match. This bit of humanity in the midst of capitalism can make all the difference in the world. Building lasting, beneficial relationships will allow me to compete on the same turf as the big boys. Mr. Levinson focuses on three key issues to consider when creating a guerrilla marketing strategy.

The first idea is “You don’t always have to spend money to make money”. Mr. Levinson's beliefs often contradict conventional marketing wisdom. If you were to seek advice from an ad agency or PR firm, the first suggestion would probably be to increase your marketing budget. However, small businesses don’t have tons of excess cash to spend on advertising. You have to think of less-expensive, but still just as effective, methods for spreading word about your business. Mr. Levinson offers a number of ingenious suggestions for getting the most bang out of your buck. He's a big fan of barter, and I plan to use barter when doing local marketing for my music studio. Mr. Levinson also talks about "testing" the advertising waters before throwing any big money at marketing. Try a simple one-page flyer before you invest in a fancy four-color brochure. Test your message in a classified ad before going with a full-page display. His message throughout the entire book is to spend your business marketing dollars as wisely as you would you're own personal money.

One idea that was given particular attention was the fact that the entrepreneur must be committed to the marketing plan. This means that I need to have patience when a new campaign is launched to ensure that I will see its fullest potential. Mr. Levinson suggests that you will be unable to tell the true effects of a new campaign the first sixty days. I took this idea to heart, because I have been involved in campaigns where the plug was pulled within weeks because “sufficient” results were not realized.

The second idea that Levinson focused upon in this book was the importance of relationships. As I am sure that you’ll agree, entrepreneurs, being small, are in a wonderful position to build personal relationships with their clients, vendors, and colleagues. A large firm that has hundreds of people on staff, is burdened by an overwhelming bureaucracy, and is simply interested in making sales can't begin to treat each client as an individual. However, I can. I plan to make building relationships one of the core competences of the music studio. My experiences in the retail and wholesale sectors, enforces this idea that positive customer relations is key a key ingredient for success. Mr. Levinson suggests that the entrepreneur treat every person who walks through my door (literally and figuratively!) as family. Ask about their kids, send birthday cards, keep track of what is going on in their lives. This small bit of attention doesn't take much effort, costs almost nothing, and will make me stand out above the crowd. Mr. Levinson offers some excellent suggestions of ways to check back in on your clients regularly, not just in an attempt to sell them anything, but just to stay in touch. I will do whatever I can to keep my name in front of people's faces, but I don't want to make them feel like they are always a customer.

The third idea that is woven into the book is the idea of having a large and varied marketing arsenal. The most useful portion of this entire book is the list of 100 marketing weapons used by small business. As Mr. Levinson runs through this list, he asks you to think of each weapon in one of three ways; either you are currently using the weapon and getting good results from it, you are currently using the weapon and could do a better job implementing it, or you are not using the weapon and should add it to your arsenal. He also offers detailed examples of ways entrepreneurs have put these weapons to work in the past.

One tool that is meant to help the small business organize and conduct an effective marketing campaign was the use of a marketing calendar. A marketing calendar will help the different aspects of a campaign mesh together. The calendar will help me budget and helps to avoid unforeseen expenditure, which could be catastrophic in a small business. It also prevents you from engaging in hit-or-miss marketing, protects you from marketing lapses, and aids enormously in planning, buying and staffing. My partner and I have already started to plan out our marketing activities for the next 52 weeks.

Not only is this book full of theory, it is also easily read and understood, and you can start putting his words into action in your business right from the first chapter. The most difficult issue I had to deal with was: "What took me so long to become a guerrilla marketer?" Mr. Levinson has taken many successful big business theories and demonstrates how they can be applied to small- and medium-businesses.

Every business markets itself every day; from the way the phone is answered, to the design of the business cards, to the responses to the clients, to the understanding of the competition. When it comes to successful marketing, especially for the small-business owner, it is essential that the entrepreneur capitalize on his/her opportunities and supplement or negate his/her weakness. If entrepreneurs are to succeed, we must have a total commitment to the organization and be willing to do what it takes. And that is where Levinson's Guerrilla Marketing will take anyone who uses the common sense tactics revealed in this book.

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Title: The New Positioning

Author: Jack Trout

Reviewer: Jean Kearney

"The New Positioning" by Jack Trout is divided into three sections. Positioning as used in this book is when a product or service has its own place in the mind of the potential purchaser over that of its competition. Jack Trout presents the theory that the key to marketing a product is not what is done to a product but what is done to a consumer's mind. The first section titled Understanding the Mind is about how the mind works when receiving marketing messages and how it responds to them. There are six chapters in this section; each deals with a different aspect of the mind.

The first is Minds Can't Cope which discusses the fact that we are exposed to an overwhelming amount of facts, figures and images which often leads to confusion. As consumers we are bombarded by so much information and so many marketing messages that it is hard for our minds to deal with them. Our minds will put a limit on the volume of information we absorb as a means of preventing the feeling of being overwhelmed. There must be something in the information that we are exposed to insure it gains a place in our mind. I know this is true for me. I tend to shut out commercials that do not have something that peaks my interest and become absorbed in ones I find interesting.

The second is Minds Are Limited. The brain can only deal with seven things at a time. If the information isn't interesting then we are not inclined to remember it. When we are emotionally involved it increases the chance we will remember the message. We take in new ideas by relating them to something we already know. I find that if the subject matter of a commercial reaches me at a gut level I will remember the message(s). If the commercial makes me uneasy I will shut it out.

In the chapter, Minds Hate Confusion so it is better to keep marketing concepts and messages simple and to focus on the strengths of the product or service. A simple, straightforward message with no confusing concepts is more likely to get through to the consumer. Use the obvious not a complicated analysis because it will also be obvious to the consumer. There must be some key idea in the message that keeps us interested. I personally believe in the KISS principle.

Minds are Insecure and most people are uncomfortable with being the first to buy a new product or service. If others have bought these then we feel it is acceptable for us to own them. Relating the product to something that we already know and understand will overcome reluctance and encourage the acceptance of the new product. An example of this reluctance to try a new product is that this consumer switched to Pepsi, when Coca-Cola introduced its "New Coke" rather than trying the new product. I also stuck with Arm and Hammer when they chose to change the formula of their laundry soap to make it ultra because I had been using this brand for years with no adverse effects.

Minds Don't Change and once we have developed an image of a product or service we are not inclined to accept a new image of that product or service. It's hard to change consumer's minds. When Coca-Cola introduced its New Coke consumer's were not ready to accept this new product. My husband tried one and was not pleased with the taste. He said there was nothing wrong with the original Coke. Why change the "Real Thing"? He quit drinking soda. In order to keep customers Coca-Cola was forced to reproduce their old formula as Classic Coke. My husband, like other consumers, was satisfied because he now had the choice to drink the New Coke or the "Real Thing".

Minds Can Lose Focus especially when a big brand like Budweiser brings out new products like light beer, cold brewed beer and dry brewed beer. Consumers lose focus and wonder, which Bud the statement "This Bud's for you" pertains to. The more variations of a brand, the less it means to the consumer. In other words I can't write Bud on my shopping list and expect someone to know which Budweiser product I am interested in buying. Where if there is only one product associated with the brand name there is no question as to which product I am interested in buying.

The middle part of the book, Dealing with Change, is a presentation of case studies of products, businesses and industries that lost their identity focus or had a weak one. Each has its own chapter that documents the background situation and how each was able to improve their marketing results by re-examining their strengths and re-positioning themselves. These include a software company, an ice cream company, an accounting firm, political candidates, a television show and an oil company. The case study on political candidates gave me a new perspective on campaigning. I never associated a political campaign with marketing. After reading this section I now realize the candidates have to develop a marketing plan with themselves as the product.

The last section, Tricks of the Trade, gives some pointers to keep in mind when designing a marketing or advertising campaign. Find a good name that is short, pleasant sounding and easy to remember. This is the first step in positioning the product. Don't use a complicated analysis of the product instead use the obvious because it will also be obvious to the market. Create and name a new product or service category. We sort and store information by category. If the category is confusing your chances of getting into a consumer's mind is slim. Positioning to build the proper image and identity takes time and is a long-term process so do not focus just on the short term. On the other side of the coin don't plan excessively for the future and lose sight of today's challenges and opportunities. Avoid tinkering with a strategy that is producing results. Don't make changes to a product or service just for the sake of change. Avoid the temptation to be cute or clever in messages and advertising. This may be entertaining but won't necessarily sell your product or service.

I found the entire book to be informative. It gave me a lot to consider while developing my marketing plan. I intend to use some of the pointers contained in the last section of the book. Specifically finding a short, pleasant sounding and easy to remember name since this is the first step in positioning your product. I also need to build the proper image and identity. Some of the other pointers would be useful once the product is established.

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Reviewer: Kris Stipech

The New Positioning, by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin, outlines and explains concepts of “positioning” and “repositioning” process. This is accomplished throughout three distinct sections: understanding the mind, dealing with change, and the tricks of the trade.

In the first portion of this book, Jack Trout discusses the human mind and how it relates to the positioning process. This includes the ideas that minds can’t cope, are limited and insecure, hate confusion and change, and can easily lose focus. Following is a brief summary of each of these sections as they lay a framework for the entire book.

Minds cannot cope with the information “overload” in today’s society. This vast amount of information is causing consumers to block out ever-increasing amounts of information as a self-defense mechanism. I find it interesting that Jack Trout wrote much of this book before the Internet explosion, which has drastically increased the amount of information available to consumers. Today, he would probably have much more commentary on the overabundance of information consumers are exposed to.

Minds are limited. This concept relates to the idea that the human brain can only process a limited amount of information. Because of this, people are highly selective in what they accept and even more so, in what they remember.

Minds are insecure. Consumers will many times buy a product because others are buying it. This insecurity is brought about by perceived risks, such as loss of money, physical harm, dissatisfaction, and what others will think. Techniques for marketing to the insecure mind are the testimonial, the bandwagon effect, and emphasizing a product’s heritage. In essence, eliminating as many of these perceived risks as possible is the most effective approach.

Minds hate confusion. This speaks to the idea that a simple position or message is much more effective than one that is complicated and difficult to understand. Simplicity also allows consumers to better remember product information and qualities associated with a specific company.

Minds are resistant to change. An effective strategy in working with this aspect is to reclaim old ideas or messages. In doing this, a company suggests “history and endurance for a product [and] gives a sense that a product has roots and that there is a collective cultural identity”. Reclaiming old ideas can bring about a sense of nostalgia and quality in many cases where companies have been around for a long period of time.

Minds can easily lose focus. This section speaks to keeping a brand focused in a specific market niche. Many times, companies will fall into the “line extension trap,” extending their brand to the extent that their name becomes meaningless and cannot be associated with a specific product, quality, or position.

I believe these ideas on the human mind to be very accurate. It seems that many times, companies are overcomplicating their products, their image, and their message in order to be everything to everyone. Taking into account the limited nature of the human mind is critical in developing an effective and successful marketing strategy.

In my marketing plan, I want to market my product in a way that is intuitive and convincing, focusing on the simplicity and benefits of my product. I may accomplish this with a brief testimonial, but with the relatively low price of my product, perceived should be minimal.

The second portion of this book presents “repositioning” as the solution for change. The author urges companies to stay connected with their market and maintain a narrow focus on a specific niche. Products and ideas should always stay consistent with the company’s market position.

Relating back to the concepts in the previous section, Jack Trout also says that companies need to keep it basic, or sometimes get back to basics. An example of this is the Xerox Corporation. This company was once viewed as the “plain-paper copier.” The company decided to pursue computers and was highly unsuccessful. Now, the company is repositioned as “the Document Company,” and is back on top.

In this section, the author also gives six examples of the repositioning process and how to pursue it. The most fascinating example was that of repositioning an oil company. In this example, an oil company out of Spain owned three of the country’s gasoline brands and about half of its gas stations. Jack Trout suggested that the company pursue a multi-brand approach, with each company focusing on a separate segment of the gasoline market. The oil company repositioned one of its companies as a brand for the car, one as a brand for service, and one as a brand for value. This allowed the company to dominate the market with all three major segments covered.

I agree with the ideas presented in this section about market focus and developing a strong niche in a particular market. In order for a company to be a strong competitor in any market, it must be strongly associated with specific products and attributes that are consistent with the company’s market strategy.

This section will be useful in developing my marketing plan by allowing me to deal with the focus of my product, the position of my product, and the most effective ways to market my product. I plan to maintain a narrow focus on value and convenience, and avoid overextending my product line.

The final portion of this book discusses the “tricks of the trade” that Jack Trout has learned over the years. A variety of topics are presented in this section including the idea that minds work by ear, the importance of a good name, naming a category, and the power of effective PR.

With the concept that the mind works by ear, the author emphasizes the power and effectiveness of the spoken word. Studies have found that words remain in the memory roughly five times longer than images do. Research has also found that focus and understanding is greater by ear than by sight. This lends credibility to the importance of a good name.

A good name is important in establishing a product or company in the minds of consumers. Names that express the products position, such as Taster’s Choice or Master Glue are very effective in developing market position. How the name itself sounds is also important because a bad sounding name can quickly dissuade customers and cause companies to lose market share.

Naming a category is also discussed in this section. Jack Trout used the example of Apple’s Newton, a pioneer in the field of personal digital assistants. Because this product was a pioneer, the category had not yet been established and Apple was unable to educate its consumers as to what a PDA was and why it was necessary. I found it interesting that Jack Trout saw the PDA as a bad category and one that probably wouldn’t catch on. Almost ten years later, this has become a very large and well established product category.

The power of PR is also mentioned in this final section. The author presented the idea that good publicity must precede advertising and in essence plant the seeds that advertising will harvest.

This portion of the book will be the most useful in developing my marketing plan. In creating a good name, I want to be sure that the it is pleasing to the ear. Also, as I am dealing with a food product, I want the name to sound appetizing and possibly embody the unique characteristics of my product. As my product category is already fairly developed, I want to constantly maintain a narrow focus. I am also going to employ the use of PR to spark interest in my product. For a food product, an effective way of doing this could be to offer free samples of my product and demonstrate how the product works in various grocery stores and convenience markets.

In conclusion, The New Positioning, emphasizes the importance of market position and awareness of consumer needs. Keeping sight of the consumer, the company and the market is crucial in developing and maintaining a dominant position in today’s consumer markets.

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Reviewer: Janet Siciliano

In The New Positioning by Jack Trout with Steve Rivkin, the authors state that positioning a product is not “what you do to the product, but what you do to the mind” (ix). The explosion of information technology has made most consumers feel overloaded on information, and the goal of a successful marketer is to cut through the clutter of information that consumers must face every day in order to get their message across. The minds of consumers are limited, hate confusion, and can lose focus. In a self-defense mechanism against the sheer volume of information being presented to their minds, consumers tend to choose only to perceive the things that relate to their preexisting interests and attitudes – whether to support or refute them (11). So a marketer has to not only cut through the overload of information, but also relate to the consumer in order to keep their attention.

How do the authors propose a marketer does this? They offer several rules. The first and foremost is to “keep it simple” (18). Complexity is overwhelming and can bore the consumer. Marketers tend to want to use statistics and numbers to support their product, but unless the numbers can be compared to something already understood by the consumer, they are useless. The authors used toothpaste usage as an example. Approximately 1.5 million miles of toothpaste is used in the United States each year. That number is meaningless to the average consumer, who cannot comprehend 1.5 million of anything. The number needs to be broken down into a “bite-sized” piece of information: Approximately 3,000 miles of toothpaste is used every single day in the United States: enough to stretch from coast to coast. That is a number that the consumer can visualize (22-23). Reading the statistic of 1.5 million miles, the mind dismisses the information that it cannot visualize. But when you state that a line of toothpaste could stretch from coast to coast across the United States, the mind sees that pasty blue line stretching from Los Angeles to New York City across a map in their head.

Ads and commercials that take advantage of testimonials and nostalgia have proven to be very effective. People are social creatures that determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct (27). If a consumer is shopping with a friend and sees a new product they are considering buying, they will ask the friend if they’ve tried it and base the decision to try it on the friend’s testimonial. Nostalgia is effective because it breaks through the clutter of new ideas and appeals to what the consumer already knows. The rule here is to never ignore the obvious. The simplest plan often times seems too easy to be taken seriously, but minds are emotional, not rational.

Another mistake marketers make is to try to tell their entire story, when in fact they should be focusing on the product’s most powerful attribute and driving that into the mind of the consumer (23). Companies should remain focused on their product at all times, taking care not to lose focus. Segmenting a brand into too many products can make the mind lose focus of the original product. The authors cited several real-world examples of this happening to big name corporations. One was Anheuser-Busch. Their Budweiser product was the industry leader, until the late 1980’s through early 1990’s when they introduced 15 new products. The market became flooded with regulars, lights, drafts, dry-brewed and ice-brewed beers and the company lost much of its following. A highly focused brand stands for a certain type of product or idea (42). A consumer expects a company to be a specialist in a certain narrow field and once they make their minds up about a particular product, it’s nearly impossible to change that mind no matter how many advertising dollars are put into it (33-34). Consumers know that products in different markets are rarely as good as the original. An example of this is Proctor & Gamble’s Crisco brand shortening. For years, Crisco was the leading shortening. When consumers began using vegetable oil instead of shortening, Proctor & Gamble came up with Crisco Oil. But the leading brand of vegetable oil is Wesson. When corn oil became popular, Wesson introduced a Wesson Corn Oil, but the leading brand of corn oil is Mazola. The success of the no-cholesterol corn oil lead to the introduction of no-cholesterol corn oil margarine. But the number one brand of corn-oil margarine is not Mazola Corn Oil Margarine; it’s Fleischmann’s (43). In each case, a well-focused brand outshined the less-focused competitor in the mind of the consumer.

The authors’ final suggestion was to remember the power of words. Confucius’s statement that “a picture is worth a thousand words” has been proven time and time again to be false. Watching a television commercial without sound is usually meaningless. Looking at a picture in a magazine without a caption can be misleading. Therefore the printed word, not the picture, should carry the bulk of the sales message. If reading words is important, hearing them is even more so. Words can be heard faster than they can be read and the memory lasts longer. Therefore the product name should be pleasing to the ear, and easy to remember.

My opinion of the authors’ message is that it is good advice. At first, I thought the authors seemed overly negative. They seemed to focus mostly on what not to do and on products and ideas that have failed, without providing advice on how not to make the same mistake, but towards the end of the book they pulled out of that mode an offered valuable advice on the right way to do things. Still, I would have preferred they summarized the goals at the end of each chapter. Overall, the information they presented was valuable and their usage of products and brands that the average consumer is familiar with made it interesting.

I could use their recommendations for positioning the Breathalyzer Phone by using radio or television advertising so my message would be heard, instead of a print ad in a newspaper or magazine that could be flipped past without being noticed. I would not cite statistics such as “last year alone, over 1.5 million embarrassing phone calls were made by people who had had too much to drink.” Instead I would have a testimonial from a person who used the product and awoke the next morning to find that they did not have any apologizing to do to people they had called and attempted to seduce or insult while in an alcohol-induced state. Also, I would concentrate solely on my product and not immediately start segmenting into other products at the first signs of success. Finally I must come up with a catchy, easy to remember name for the phone.

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Title: Nonverbal Selling Power

Author: Gerhard Gschwandtner, with Pat Garnett

Reviewer: Chris Yancy

This book shows you how to use nonverbal communication techniques along with professional selling skills for increased sales results. First it describes the three stages to increased nonverbal selling power. Stage one is called the “Awareness of Buyer” and describes how you should always be scanning your buyer for gestures that give clues about what they think of your sales pitch. Stage two is called “Awareness of Self” and has to do with your own nonverbal expressions and how they can make or break your sale. The Third stage is called “Management of self and buyer.” After mastering this stage you should be able to spot negative nonverbal signals early in the sale and be able to respond to those signals fast and accurately.

The author then breaks down the uses of body language for selling situations into eight categories. The first category is usually exhibited by someone with power, for example a company president. These types of signs are given off by people who like to feel as if they are in power and show it by simple gestures like steepling, or the touching of the finger tips, as they are sitting at their desk. These type of people want to stay in power so your you are advised to not get in a power struggle and not to use the examples in the book in any sales situation. Category two has to do with the nervous and submissive signals people may show and how you should try to put these people at ease. The third category has to with signs of disagreement, anger, and skepticism. These signs should be dealt with as soon as possible to avoid further agitating your client which is never good for sales. The signs in category four are boredom, and disinterest. In this situation your supposed to regain your clients attention before disinterest turns into dissatisfaction. The fifth category of nonverbal messages is suspicion, secretiveness, dishonesty, and how it’s helpful to know these signs so you don’t use them when in a sales situation. Category six deals with uncertainty, indecision, and time stalls. When clients show these signs its helpful to give your client a break from your presentation because the client may need time to think, or to prepare questions. Category seven deals with the signs of evaluation. These signs are shown when a client wants to know if your taking his comments seriously. The eighth and most important category has to do with confidence, honesty, and cooperation. Even though your client may not show these signs it’s important for the seller to use them as often as possible.

According to the book there are five major channels of nonverbal communication: body angle, face, arms, hands, and legs. Because there are only five channels of nonverbal communication it’s quick and easy to scan your client and get a general idea of what they are feeling. The body channel deals with body posture and how a client leaning forward means that the presentation is going well. But, if the client is leaning back and away from the salesperson then it means they are uncomfortable which means the salesperson is giving off an unfriendly vibe. The salesperson should always show that he is interested by directing his body forward and toward the client. When scanning the face, which is the second channel, the salesperson should look for more subtle gestures. It’s easy for the client to hide their disinterest behind a smile because of this the salesperson must look for things like eye contact, skin color, and skin tautness which will tell you if their smile is genuine. What a client does with his/her arms, channel three, will usually give an advanced warning of upcoming hand signals. For example if the client starts to move his arms back and close to his body he is probably going to give a “Whoa”, or “Stop” signal with his hands. When a client is interested in your presentation his arms will move forward into your work as he picks it up or is looking at it, which is always a good sign. Channel four deals with the hands. When a client uses his/her hands in a relaxed and open way, especially with palms toward you, they are giving you positive selling signals. On the other hand, when a client is touching their face or fidgeting with an object they are most likely experiencing tension which can usually be corrected by relaxing the pace of your presentation. The position of the legs, channel five, can also tell you if your presentation is going well. If the clients legs are open it usually means he/she is leaning forward and sends the message of cooperation, confidence, and a friendly interest in the you.

The author then teaches you how to use the signals given to classify the client like a traffic light. If the client is sending good signals than you classify him/her as a green light which means “GO” and proceed to close the sale. If your client is giving you yellow signals then that’s a sign to slow down and alleviate some of his/her concerns or he/she will start to emit red signals. Red signals mean you have a lot of work to do before this sale can be closed or even continued.

Overall I thought this book was very interesting. It taught me the obvious things we take for granted in communication. After reading this book I found myself more aware of other people’s signals and much more aware of my own signals and how to control them. Even though this book really can’t help me out in my product’s marketing plan it did show me how to use signals and how to read other peoples signals to make the selling of my product much more successful.

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Title: Off-The-Wall Marketing Ideas

Author: Nancy Michaels and Debbi J. Karpowiez

Reviewer: Craig Chandler

The world of marketing has become huge. The trouble is finding the right kind of information for your situation. It all comes down to where are you at in your business. There are so many different needs of a business like customer service, media exposure, product image, developing your niche, diversification, and etceteraso on. The book I chose is called “Off-The –Wall Marketing Ideas” written by Nancy Michaels and Debbi J. Karpowiez. This book deals with companies who already have that a product and are trying to attract more business. In my review I will summarize the book, analyze the material, and decided how this book can help me.

This book is divided into six sections. These six chapters are dedicated to helping someone jump-start their own business. The first part of the book is about “personal packaging.” In this act of personal packaging one needs to try and sell themselves to potential buyers and not just sell their product. It gives tips on how to make a successful first impression. It also emphasizes the importance of creating a good look on paperlooking good on paper. What the authors mean by this is by making creating an eye-catching logo, and every time you send something out with your name on it make sure it looks professional. The last thing part one talks about is making your business environment one that is professional and customer orientated. Make sure the customer always comes first and treat them how you would want to be treated.

The second section in the book is dedicated to “people who need people.” It begins by defeating the myth that giant corporations are built by one man. It then illustrates the point that everyone needs some help. When looking for help one must be logical. No Know exactly what kind of help you need and make sure to let whom ever it is you are thinking of hiring know exactly what will be in it for them. The other part of the chapter deals with people who help you advertise. The best and cheapest way to advertise is happy customers who refer your company by word of mouth. Other cheap ways to get your name out there is to try cross promotional adds with another company, join an association with other business like yours, and to barter and network with other small business in your area.

The third section in this book is titled “The power of prestige and expertise.” The section begins by talking about writing articles to get your name out to the people. The idea is to get people to want you and to do this they need to see your name in print. By writing articles it just gives people another way to get a hold of you. The authors then make a few suggestions on where one could publish an article to get to their target audience. They also suggest write to be read. Make sure that when you are writing it is not a big promotion. Instead, take a stand on an issue and make it interesting. Remember the more you write the more you look like an expert in your own field. The next part of the chapter is about public speaking. The authors emphasize that practice makes perfect when it comes to public speaking, so they offer tips on how to practice. When speaking to groups make sure that your voice is heard. Stand tall and speak with confidence. The most important thing to remember is that every time you speak it is an opportunity for you so take advantage of it. The chapter then moves into talking about making you stand out. Make yourself stand out among other businesses in your area. Try to proclaim your self as an expert or an authority in your field because this will also attract potential customers. The next step is to create products that will sell themselves. Make an infomercial or get connected to the web. This way your product will stay out on the marketplace at all times.

The fourth section is about “madcap marketing the power of pizzazz.” The book talks about how to be original with out any money. Try to find ways of getting your name out there as inexpensively as possible. Use humor if you can during advertising. When you can make some one laugh you have their attention. The section then moves to talking about getting a gimmick. Create a niche for your business. What they mean by this is find a small part of the market on witch which you are going to target. Your goal is to be the best at something specific, because when you are the best at something you will attract business. Another marketing stagy to use is to be provocative. Being out on the edge will attract a crowd because people want bold and different. Another key marking trick is that sex sells. The last part of the section talks about giving away your product to increase business. Remember the best advertising tool is word of mouth, so getting people to try your product is key. Be creative on why you are giving your product away. Make up some event or wacky reason just to get people’s attention.

The fifth section in the book is on “pro bono civic marketing.” The idea behind this is that when you help other people you help yourself. By getting out into the community and doing good, people see and respect that. It is also important to ask your customers where they want money to go. For example should it be children in the community, or the national wildlife organization. The best place to start donating is close to your business because that way people can get a first hand look at seeing how much you help them. The main goal of civic marketing is to be the solution not the problem. What the book means by this is always find a way to help people, not hurt them.

The final section in the book is called “press waltz: how to attract the media”. There’s an old adage that says that you pay for advertising but pray for publicity. This is what the first part of the section talks about. It is all about establishing credibility. People need to know that you have a good reputation. The next thing to do is find a way to set the stage for media attention. Find anyway to get any sort of public attention, and always be on the lookout for an opportunity to find a way to be in the public eye. When you do develop a new product make sure the press knows about it. The authors then give a lot of ideas on how to package your product and your story to the media. Being creative in how you present yourself and your product together is key. The next part of the section of the book deals with preparing for positive press. The steps the authors suggest are you first make a list of the medias that you want to be involved with. Next draft the perfect pitch letter and put together a press kit. Finally contact the top people on your media list and work your way down. When you get that interview make your presence felt. Give lots of useful information and catchy quotes for people to remember. Make sure to prepare a head of time so you don’t get trapped into a crisis situation. The last thing to do is higher hire a publicist if you can. Most importantly is to make sure you keep a good relationship with the media because they will be your best friends in business.

After completing the book I felt completely satisfied with my purchase. That should mean a lot because I am a poor collage student and this book cost $10.50. This book was very reader friendly. The authors did a good job of using affective effective quotes and making banners out of important information that they wanted to get a cross. The most effective tool they had is at the begging beginning of all twenty chapters they had researched a real life story of an event that illustrated their point. I really liked how the chapters in each section flowed together. This made for a quicker and easier read. My one complaint about the book is that they began to repeat things in later chapter. I don’t know if it is because they felt that material is more important or what ever else but, I became annoyed with reading the same stuff. Overall I enjoyed the book and if I knew someone who needed a way to get more business for his or her product I would recommend this book.

For my marketing project I feel that this book will help me a great deal in certain areas. It will not help in any of the product development, or finding out prices of how much things cost. Where it will help is when my group and I need to figure out how we are going to actually marking promote our products. It will help us develop our ideas and help us clearly state them better. It has already given me ideas like an AIDS benefit where all our sells on underwear with a condom pocket on certain day will be donated. I have been thinking of a few more you will just have to wait and see. “Off-the-Wall Marketing Ideas” will help all of my team to be inspired to think of not so ordinary ways of getting our product out to the people. If the book taught me one thing it is that would of mouth is the cheapest and best way to get you and your products name out there.

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Title: The One to One Future

Author: Don Peppers & Martha Rogers

Reviewer: Keri Russell

I chose “The One to One Future” because the title caught my attention. It sounded very modern and I hoped to find some useful information for my product. I was aware of several books written about marketing, which reiterate a lot of the same information. I went into this assignment, researching the list of books to the best of my knowledge through Neon and Amazon reading comments to lead me into the right direction.

“The One to One Future” written by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, is about a technology-generated time where business will compete in new ways and play by a different set of rules. It sounded as though it would be a bit into the future but as I read, I found that many of the concepts are currently applied in business today. The 1-1 Future is a handbook on how to successfully run your business and most important, how to handle your competition. 1-1 marketing is completely customer focused and individual based. The book gives several examples of different businesses, which have fallen victim to the old school, market-share approach.

“Awareness Advertising” is explained as, shouting by a marketer with the intent to be heard above all other competitors. The authors say that “awareness advertising” plays such a large part in today’s marketing because mass media isn’t good at much else.

I found this to be very true in advertising today. My husband and I recently purchased our first home. Ever since, we have been inundated with various types of marketing regarding refinance, equity loans, equity lines of credit, and double-up payment options. It has been completely overwhelming and annoying at times, as we will open a piece of mail thinking it is important due to the mortgage company name printed on the outside. In addition, we are constantly receiving phone calls regarding refinancing, discounted appraisals, equity loans and lines of credit. The phone seems to ring right as we sit down to dinner. This is the “awareness” approach, which the book is describing. It is an in-your-face awareness that causes the customer to become agitated and overwhelmed.

In Chapter 1 “Back from the Future”, changing the goal of market-share to share-of-customer, one customer at a time. This process is done in the form of products tailored to individual tastes and delivered to the home in less than eight hours. A whole new world of customer satisfaction delivered right to your door.

Much of this is true with the Internet today. I was approved for my home loan, planned a vacation, registered for school, applied for financial aid, and made several purchased for my home on line. These services offered via the phone and Internet are becoming easier and easier. However, I have yet to receive a product in less than eight hours to my home. These are all things that are to come in the very near future, which Peppers and Rogers describe.

Share-of-customer is defined as: businesses that must focus their efforts on the individual customer. Many businesses today, still take the market-share approach. This is when a company decides to group all of their customers into segments and focus on those groups. When doing so, overlooking the individual needs of each customer.

By applying this method the authors say that you will be, “ensuring that each individual customer who buys your product, buys only your brand of product, and is happy using your product instead of some other type of product as the solution to his problem.” (p18)

When applying this useful information to my product, “Cherished Memories”, it gave me a new focus. My product enables the customer to drop off their film and have the pictures returned in a completed, memorable, scrapbook. If I focus on the share-of-customer rather then market-share, I could end up selling more albums to the same customer. For example, a customer may want to purchase an album for themselves, their children, co-workers, a friend, or as a wedding gift. Having a single customer order numerous albums is much more beneficial than several customers ordering just one album. I can ensure to keep this customer happy with providing the best of service continually and use them as a reference.

The 1-1 Future discusses how to achieve greater share-of-customer, one person at a time by focusing specifically on the customer. Resulting in more permanent sales increases. Customers will continue to do business where they feel needed, respected, and appreciated. Many businesses are still focusing on how to increase market-share, not realizing that they are going about it in the wrong way. Increasing market-share will increase sales as well. However, the increase in sales is less likely to remain permanent.

One way to focus on the customer, when discussing my product, is to ask the customer, “What type of activity does he/she like to do?” This gives the customer the opportunity to express his/her interests, while giving me the insight needed to personalize an album. For example, if a customer tells me that she is a grandmother who loves taking her grandchildren to the park, then I am able to get an idea of how to design specific pages around outdoor activities. Whether it be, the purchase of specific stickers with tress and slides, or creating figures of swings, teeter-totters, and sandboxes. Asking the customer questions also shows interest. Making the customer feel as though he/she is your only customer is important. A key component in share-of-customer marketing, is making the
customers feel that their opinions are valued.

In Chapter 3 “Collaborate with Your Customers”, there is a story about a woman who cancelled her Visa card after fourteen years for receiving a nasty letter for making one late payment. A similar situation occurred with my daughter’s pediatrician. After calling to cancel a well visit because my daughter was sick, I received a nasty letter regarding a missed visit. It said that parents who care about their children get them immunized when scheduled and that there would be a $25.00 no-show fee accessed to my bill. Come to find out the person whom I called the morning of the appointment, never documented my situation in the computer. Therefore, a letter was automatically generated and mailed out, causing the customer to become very upset. I do not feel as though the doctor’s office made an effort to collaborate with me or view my chart to see that there had never been a missed visit in the past.

Peppers and Rogers say, “If your company is typical, it costs you five times as much to get a single new customer as it does to keep one you already have.” (p.52)

Why the need for such nasty letters then? These businesses are focusing on market-share rather than share-of-customer. These companies have the mind set, that if the customer receives a threatening letter they will respond immediately. Therefore, resulting is the company achieving the needed response or payment from the customer. Not taking into consideration, the risk and cost of losing an existing customer.

In terms of customer service, companies often have difficulty with getting feedback or comments from their customer for fear of rejection or lack of response. When talking about “differentiating customers not just products”, the authors explain that you cannot group customers together. You cannot assume that they will be unwilling to fill out a survey or want to express their opinions. Many customers may not take the time to answer your questions but the few who do, will pay off immensely.

This is useful knowledge for my business. The thought of sending out surveys or questionnaires to my customers hadn’t even crossed my mind. However, I could enclose flyers with the billing asking about new ideas. For example, introduce scrapbook albums with holiday covers. The flyer would should various examples of these covers for the customer to have a visual perspective.

There are various means of tracking your customer. Being able to track your customer through universal databases is key. Utilizing such databases can help companies obtain exact, accurate information about their customers. The examples are endless, ranging from the DMV records to bankruptcy files. Businesses can use this information for targeting prospective clients or simply discovering a need in a specific area.

When researching my product, I will attempt to find out if there is a database for people who develop film. Maybe a statistic on how many people develop film per year in relation to how many photo albums are sold? A figure such as this would enable me to narrow down the need for preserving photos. A name brand such as, Kodak or Fuji, comes to mind. I am sure that Kodak has some sort of record on film sold and film developed. Taking the time to narrow down the customer to an exact number would be beneficial.

“Like a piece of capital equipment, a factory or patent, individual customer information has the capacity to improve a firm’s productivity and reduce its unit’s costs. And, as is the case with any financial asset, this kind of information is not obtained without cost”, said Peppers and Rogers in Chapter 5. (p.139)

Individual information is so valuable because it is not based on segments, rather individuals. People have interesting thoughts and characteristics. Individuals are no comparison to product facilities and distribution networks. Many companies make the mistake of grouping their customers together as a whole segment because it is easier and has been done for so long. The main interest is to gain a new customer rather than retain current clientele. It is important that businesses organize their customer management appropriately to conduct proper customer service. Before placing marketing managers in charge of customers, the company must decide how customers will be grouped. What policy authority will the customer manager have? How will they be evaluated?

I believe that customer managers should be rewarded based on the number of retained customers and the ability to fulfill the customer’s needs. Being able to talk to your customers is very important. Of equal importance, how can the customers reach you? The 1-1 Future wants the reader to understand the importance of customer ideas, feelings and suggestions.

“Stop thinking in terms of audiences and faceless masses of eyes and ears. Think, instead, of human beings-individual human beings. Instead of reaching your target audience, think if having a conversation with these individuals.” (p.209)

The authors stress the importance of ‘dialogue’, a thought between two or more parties. Many companies provide a toll free number located on their product. However, this is not considered true dialogue according to The 1-1 Future, because they are not building this dialogue one customer at a time. All parties must want to be able to participate. In addition, dialogues can be controlled by anyone engaging in the exchange. Finally, dialogue will change the attitude of the marketer and the customer toward each other.

I did notice that there was not much mention of electronic email when discussing customer contact, probably because the book was written in 1993. Therefore, one must apply much of this useful information on faxes, fax responses, voicemail, personal mailboxes, interactive radio, and addressable video to our, modern day email. The concepts and ideas are the same.

In Chapter 8 “Take Products to Customers, Not Customers to Products”, the authors explain the importance of meeting the individual customer’s needs. One way to illustrate this is by delivering a product to the customer for convenience. Now the element of convenience comes to mind when the customer evaluates delivery of a product. Although this may sound minor, it can actually be a major decision factor when choosing a particular product.

For example, I recently ordered furniture from JC Penney on line. The shipping was going to cost $85-125.00 for delivery to my doorstep. My other choice was to have the furniture delivered to the nearest JC Penney department store for a considerably less amount for shipping. Although I would have saved money by having the items delivered to a department store, it wasn’t the most convenient for me. I would have to go pick up the items and figure out a way to get them home. I appreciated the options that I was given.

The 1-1 Future has described a whole new way to approach marketing from a business standpoint using clearly defined concepts. It is a vision, which is customer based, the Share-of-customer rather than the Market-share. This process focuses on the individual customer’s interests, wants, needs, opinions, voice and convenience. The mass marketing that many companies currently use is becoming outdated rapidly. Most of the information provided in this book will be useful when applying to the business aspects of my marketing product. I can view my customer during each step in the development process. The 1-1 future is a great reference guide for any business owner, as it touches on many marketing and advertising ideas, scenarios and solutions.

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Title: Permission Marketing

Author: Seth Goodin

Reviewer: Brandon Abernathy

Seth Godin has several good points and ideas that he illustrated throughout the book, all on the concept of Permission Marketing. Permission Marketing is a new way for companies to build revenue based more on maximizing your profits from the customers you already have than getting new ones. To do this, you build permission through dialog with the customer and insure that they will return with their business whenever they need the services you provide.

The basic idea of permission marketing is that each person has a limited amount of time and that time is valuable. So instead of interrupting a potential customer through normal means of advertisement (i.e. TV Commercials, and unannounced telephone calls) the marketer will try and get the potential consumer’s permission before any attempt at selling them something takes place. This can be done any number of ways, by providing information to the customer about products or services, or even just offering prizes or bribes for the customer to listen to you speak for a few minutes. The object is to get the consumer to want to listen to you, and anticipate any information that you will give them. This collaboration will build loyalty in the customer because once you have figured out what it is they want and are helping them get it, they won’t want to go through the effort of going through it all again to try and save a few bucks from a competitor.

With today’s technology, a company can actually step back and ask if a customer wants more information about a product, they can then reward those who take an interest and ignore the rest. With this form of marketing, a company can inform interested consumers about new products and services they are providing and most likely capitalize on it. The object then is to convince the people they want to participate. As I’ve said this is done by providing them with things or information that they dean deam as important to them.

Once this is done, you will have a loyal customer base that won’t want to go anywhere else for the service or product that you provide and that of course will supply you with a constant flow of money as the customer keeps coming back.

I think Mr. Godin hit the nail right on the head. The marketers of the future should try to rely more on repeat customers and the revenues they bring in than on getting more of them. Granted a company will always want more customers but the majority of the marketing can go to those who have already shown an interest in the product. I think the best part of Permission Marketing is the fact that resources aren’t wasted on people who don’t use the product. I throw away junk mail and I have my e-mail sort through what I receive so I don’t even see spam. But I do subscribe to certain e-publications and periodicals that I’ve agreed to receive and read, and these obviously get through my screening process. That is what marketers need to work on, once it’s done they should work on providing what I want.

Providing what I want is very easy in the world today, or at least offering me something I’ll use. An example in the book is savings clubs in grocery stores, they track what you buy and print up coupons based on what brand of products you’ve bought in the past. Imagine if Pizza Hut were to do that instead of just sending out junk mail to every household in America sent an e-mail that could be used as a coupon the next day for a size and type of pizza that that household usually orders? That house hold would probably be planning on pizza the next night. It’s that simple for a lot of companies already out there.

Using Permission marketing for my Folding Snowboard would be much the same as any other product. An ad in a paper or at a snowboarding forum on the web simply asking if people want a solution to getting up the mountain without buying a roof rack for their economy car, or hitching a ride with someone already going. This would generate e-mails or phone calls of people interested in a solution to the problem. When they called I could go through the steps of informing them of what I had to offer and work from there. Obviously I would want to make each person feel good about investing in a new snowboard so I could offer them free mountain info for their favorite resort, or perhaps get them some discount passes to resorts they’d like to try out but aren’t sure they want to spend the money on a full pass. After they buy the board I would keep them informed about new products and styles available if they were interested. To keep them interested there could be giveaways and promotions, perhaps snowboarding videos or gear. Again the object is to get them to like working with me, so that in a few years when they are in the market for a new board, they come back to me.

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Title: Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Author: Al Reis and Jack Trout

Reviwer: Ausra Bergin

This book is about Positioning, which is a term most commonly used in the advertising of products. Positioning is not something that is done to the product itself, but it is the way that the product is positioned within the mind of the people who buy the product. If a product is not selling well, then changing the price or packaging is not considered positioning. Since the amount of information that is being communicated to consumers has increased significantly, the way that a company “positions” their product in the mind of the consumer is how the product can sell. The company must choose a message that has the best chance of sinking into the minds of the consumer.

With so many products being sold in the world, any company that is just starting has to come up with a way to make their product stick in the minds of the consumer. Naturally, the best way to position a product into the mind of the consumer is to be the first brand that the consumer uses. This is similar to what scientist’s call “imprinting,” which is a term that describes the meeting of a new baby animal and its mother. Once the new baby sees what it believes to be its mother, its image of that mother is fixed into the memory of the newborn.

If a product is not a major brand name, then it will not be “positioned” as the number one choice of product in the consumer’s mind. If that is the case, then the only way to achieve the number one spot is to say something about the competitors product to try and change the consumers mind. The name of the product is the single most important decision that is made. Is the name appropriate for the product you are trying to sell? For example, United Airlines or Eastern Airlines, which one sounds more professional? United Airlines sounds like it travels throughout the United States, whereas Eastern Airlines sounds like it only flies on the East Coast.

There are many companies that use initials as the actual name of the company (i.e. AT&T, MCI, GE, RCA, etc), and are very successful. However, those companies that are using initials had established their reputation with their original name first. For a company to become well known, it must avoid using initials. There have been some companies that have tried changing their names to initials and failed miserably. One such company is General, Aniline & Film. This company decided to change their name to GAF and suddenly the sale of their products became “unknown” to the consumer.

Any business that is just starting has to ask; where in the minds of the consumer does their product currently sit? Although it is difficult for any product to compete against the leading brand, one way to increase sales is to work with what is already there. In other words, find a way to hook your product to what’s already in the mind of the consumer. Trying to go head to head with the leading product will only lead to a product that will fail. As the author states in this book, “In our over-communicated society, the name of the game today is positioning

Prior to reading this book I had never heard of the term Positioning. The ideas that are discussed in this book are very well presented. Overall, I tend to agree with what the author is trying to say about the difference between simply advertising a product and positioning that product in the mind of the consumer. Chapter 24, titled “Positioning your business,” is the section that was the most informative when it came to providing ideas on starting my new business. The six questions that are discussed in this chapter are very helpful to guiding the way I start my business. The idea of positioning may not be highly promoted in the business community, but it is one idea that I believe works if properly applied. This book is definitely one that I would recommend anyone who is going to be opening a business of their own to read thoroughly and to try to apply the concepts as best as they can. By using this book as a guide, a person can easily learn to “position” their product or service into the mind of the consumer.

Using the concept of positioning and the six questions in Chapter 24, I am going to try and market my product in a simple, yet aggressive manner. Even though the product I am selling is a European style baked good, there are other similar products being sold in this country, and the only way to compete with that is to use the concept of positioning that is discussed throughout this book. I am hoping that I will be able to compete by positioning my company in the minds of my consumers by not only offering a great tasting product, but by also providing great customer service, and free samples. Hopefully, this will be successful enough that “word of mouth” will help to push my bakery into the number one position of the consumer. I am also looking at setting long term goals that I will be sure to stick to. At the same time I am willing to be flexible enough so that I can change with the current demands of the consumer. I am confident that the many different ideas discussed in this book will be helpful to the success of my new bakery. It seems very likely that the ideas that the author offers in this book have helped many companies move up to be extremely successful.

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Reviewer: Allison Dunn

First and foremost, it is important to know what positioning is. Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect. It’s the challenge of securing a worthwhile position in the consumer’s mind. In a world that is thought of as being an over communicated society, advertising does very little. They believe that advertising is unwanted and not liked because many people look at it as though advertisers are selling their soul to corporate America. From this, positioning was created to find a way to communicate to prospects. Advertisers of a company now spend their time looking for holes, or positions, in the marketplace. Many people don’t understand just how much power positioning holds. Anyone can use this strategy, but it is believed that if you don’t use these positioning principles, your competition will.

Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout provides a clear understanding of just how important the positioning of a product in the consumers’ minds is in creating a successful product. Today, there are just, “too many products, too many companies, and too much marketing noise” (5) and the marketplace is no longer responsive to past strategies. According to the authors, the only way to score big and be successful in today’s marketplace is to segment and concentrate on narrow targets. Advertising no longer works because presenting facts about all these different products just confuses the consumer and they end up ignoring much of the information. Advertising attempts to change the prospect’s mind and that just doesn’t work. You have to simplify the message that is being sent to the prospect. The best way to simplify that message is with positioning. The major points that are illustrated in this book are the power of being first in the consumers' minds, the importance of the name of your product, and knowing what to position.

The point that is stressed the most is that the easiest way to get into a consumer’s mind is to be the first. Ries and Trout give great examples to support this theory. Question are asked such as, “ ‘What’s the name of the first person to walk on the moon?’” Most everyone knows that Neil Armstrong was the first, but how many people can name the second person to walk on the moon? However, if a competitor has already established the number one position, then it is advised to accept the number two position and to reposition the competition through advertising. Basically, move the competitor’s product out of the mind, and move the new idea in. Because of positioning, a company can advertise slogans such as “Seven-Up: the uncola” or “Avis is only No. 2 in rent-a-cars, so why go with us? We try harder.” Although being first and the best looks better in words, if a company accepts their number two position and finds a way to position their product or service in the prospect’s mind, they can very well be successful.

Another very important decision that must be made in marketing is what to name the product. A company can fall into the no-name trap, free-ride trap, or the line-extension trap. Some companies drop their names for initials. It is advised to stay away from doing so unless your company is widely known and it sounds better than the full name. Initials do no good if the consumer doesn’t know what they stand for and who the company is, which will ultimately result in no name at all in the marketplace. The free-ride trap involves companies who enhance their product and place a “Plus” on the end of the name. This causes business to be taken away from their already existing product. It is stressed that a new product needs a new name, because an “unknown company with an unknown product has much more to gain from publicity than a well-known company with an established product” (100). The line-extension trap is when a company takes the name of an already established product and uses it on a new one. A company feels that their product is well known and respected, so they assume that they can make a different kind of product and their name alone will carry it along. An example that is given is Life Savers. They hold a strong position in the candy market, but when they tried to get a piece of the bubble gum market using Life Savers as the name of the gum, they failed. Their problem was that they assumed because the package said Life Savers, consumers would welcome that product as they did their candy. This assumption proved to be terribly wrong. However, when they marketed their gum as Bubble Yum, it was much more successful, and continues to raise their sales.

The last major point that is illustrated in this book is the importance of knowing what to position. To make this point, the authors tell the story of the Sabena situation. Sabena Belgian World Airlines flies nonstop from North America to Brussels, and that is it. The problem was that not enough people were flying to Belgium, and they were gaining little ground. Their problem was that they were selling their service and food, which is what every airline does. The authors then make the point that in this kind of situation, Sabena should position the country, not their airline. Sabena should make the country seem like the ultimate vacation, and in turn their business will take-off when the people have a reason to go to Belgium.

I agree with all the points that were made in this book. They all made sense and brought things to my attention that many people overlook when marketing a product. It was a unique way to present all of these ideas. It was almost as if the authors went inside the minds of consumers and put in to words how they think. Giving examples of how companies failed or succeeded and why provided information on what not to do when positioning my product. They also made it extremely helpful to understand what strategy they were suggesting to fix a problem a company was having or just to help out the company to increase sales. I now know how important it is to position the product in the prospect’s mind, not just on the shelves.

This book is extremely helpful in developing my marketing plan. It really stressed the importance of positioning and developing a successful name of the potential product. By giving examples of companies that made huge mistakes that resulted in a loss of a ton of money, I know what not to do when developing my product. Considering that my product is a first of its kind, I can concentrate on positioning this product in the consumers’ minds and be the first to do so. I will use the strategies the authors gave in how to be that number one position in the mind of the prospect. Also, I didn’t realize how much effort I have to put in to the name of the product. I knew it had to be something to get the attention of prospects, but it is much more involved than that. The name can make or break the product. This book has and will help me tremendously while I attempt to create a successful product in todays over communicated society. I will use the strategies suggested and be aware of the rules of positioning the authors stressed in order to simplify my message and in turn, get the number one position in the consumers’ minds.

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Reviewer: Jennifer Ferrari

The New Game Of Marketing – Positioning
Traditional marketing techniques involved building a plan around the 4P’s – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. In a crowded marketplace, this produced too many companies and products producing too much “noise” in an effort to attract the consumer’s attention. The easiest way to attract the consumer’s attention is to be first in the market. If you cannot be first, you must find a way to position yourself against the product or person that got there first. To accomplish this, you must come to grips with the problems of communicating in an overcommunicated society. The role of communication in today’s market is misunderstood by many. To overcome this, a company must create a “position” in the consumer’s mind that takes into account not only the company’s strengths and weaknesses, but those of the competitor’s as well. To cope with overcommunication people have learned to rank products on mental ladders. Knowing where you are on a product ladder in the consumer’s mind is a must before a product can be “positioned”.

Positioning is a process that proceeds the 4P’s. Positioning starts with Research. Research reveals that customers can be classified into Segments. A company cannot service all segments of the market, so you must target a segment in which to provide superior service. Positioning transcends all of the 4P’s. It coordinates the 4P’s and adds consistency to them. If you are a leader in a field, and are first in the minds of the consumers, you must follow the strategies for staying there. However, if you are not the leader, then you must find a creneau, or a hole, in the consumer’s mental ladder that is not occupied by someone else. If there is no creneau, then one can be created by attempting to reposition the competition. However, positioning is not what you do to a product, but what you do to the mind of the prospect; that is, how you position the perception of the product in the consumer’s mind.

I believe positioning is a valid concept because it allows you to identify a niche that exists; and therefore, can be filled by the positioning of a product. It is a proactive way of approaching marketing. This concept allows the marketer to see the view of the prospect pre-empting risk. This is a great new concept that helps you to be heard in an overcommunicated society by fulfilling a specific niche and want. To apply this concept, ask what position you already own in the mind of the prospect; or in the case of the PDS, a position needs to be created so it can be perceived. Also, a very important component in understanding the game of positioning is knowing the competitor’s position in today’s marketplace.

A classic positioning maneuver is establishing the “against” position. A new product needs to be related to the old, since the mind has no room for what’s new and different. So if you have a new product, instead of telling the prospect what the product is, rather tell the prospect what the product is not. “The fist automobile, for example, was called a “horseless” carriage, a name which allowed the public to position the concept against the existing mode of transportation” (Positioning 32). However, if there is no new creneau to fill, a creneau must be created by repositioning the competitors that occupy the positions in the mind of the prospect.

Positioning can involve a conflict of products created by the undercutting or outflanking of an existing product’s positioning. You must say something not about your product but about the competitor’s product that would cause the prospect to change his mind about the competitors. The repositioning campaign of Tylenol was brilliant when it repositioned aspirin calling Tylenol the non-aspirin alternative. Whatever your positioning angle, a major key is consistency to carve out a specific niche in the market. “You can’t win by not making enemies, by being everything to everybody” (Positioning 60).

The positioning for the PDS must concentrate on enhancing the “image” of the company that employs it. The PDS will define customer service in such a manner that any competing company that fails to utilize the PDS will be seen as inferior in the eyes of the consumer. The PDS not only makes ordering of goods and services easier; it is designed to be a complete delivery system. Integrated into the PDS would be an advertising component, a debit card payment system, as well as the basic computerized ordering system. All of these services will result in a system that can be positioned as providing a superior level of customer service. The PDS is not only revolutionary for fast food industries, but can also be expanded into other delivery systems. The aspect of the PDS has the potential to expand the “drive-up” concept to businesses that currently do not have drive-ups, such as movie rental stores, florists, coffee shops, or ice cream shops.

Integral to the PDS concept is the potential of expanding markets and creating and strengthening customer loyalty. This is accomplished via the debit card feature. The debit card works like a credit card, except it will be accepted only at the store that issued the debit card and has the PDS. This feature, for example, would allow parents to purchase a debit card for their son or daughter that would allow them to purchase lunch at a fast food restaurant without the child having to carry cash. Also, this debit card would only be valid at the issuing store’s PDS.

The accounting integration possibilities of the PDS are also significant, since all of a company’s PDS can be linked to a central system. This centralization will aid in both accounting and inventory control.

The proceeding features of the PDS are significant, and will help sales, but the positioning of the product is paramount. The PDS must be positioned as the pinnacle of the drive-up concept. Its positioning must cut across all different varieties of drive-up franchises while providing them with a “mystique” that will provide them with an advantage over non-PDS competitors.

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Reviewer: Ben MacCarty

This is a great book for learning about marketing. The authors make clear the importance of selling something that appeals to the buyer, rather than the seller, creator, or manufacturer. The product is positioned in relation to the consumers, and their viewpoints of value. The basic theory is that you get into the mind of your consumer and position your product accordingly.

Ries and Trout begin by defining positioning in simple terms that anyone can understand. One does not need to be a marketing expert to understand what they are talking about. They then move into specific applications of positioning such as the naming of a product, the creating of a slogan, repositioning the product, positioning different types of products and services, line extensions, and so on.

Because this is such a large concept to grasp, Ries and Trout give numerous examples to back up their ideas, such as Tylenol, Xerox, 7-Up, RCA, Avis, and other well-known brand name products. This brings their sometimes abstract ideas and advice back down-to-earth, and makes the book more understandable to any type of reader. This also helps connect their general strategies to examples of more specific tactics, as a result illustrating more clearly how to apply their ideas to your situation.

The one downside to this book is the fact that it was written such a long time ago. The statistics and predictions in it are outdated. The concepts are still held and followed and applicable in the advertising and marketing worlds, and for those studying marketing communications, they are an integral part of becoming familiar with these worlds.

One won’t find the details in this book that one will need to execute a marketing plan, but the general theme is examined, as well as various positioning examples.

I was mainly disappointed over the amount of fairly broad rules that were lightly scattered throughout the book. There were six questions at the end that were helpful, but did not add up to a rigorous method, if any method to create a "position." If anything, I would have wished for a method that could be used to create positioning for a product, or to test a company’s current positioning, rather than have as many examples of positioning failures as this did.

Some of the author’s examples seemed contradictory, especially when the authors stated that brand extension amounts to a virtual see-saw: one product steals the brand identity from another such as Heinz Ketchup versus Heinz Pickles. From observation, it can be seen that some brand extensions have been extremely successful, while others are not. It should not be surprising to anyone that people do not want to use baking soda as an anti-perspirant, for instance, and thus completely explaining why we use Arm & Hammer to cook and deodorize the refrigerator, but do not think of it as a personal hygiene brand of product. I can’t think of anything that I would remove from the refrigerator and rub under my arms.

In any case, this remains a quick, easy, and good book with short chapters. The examples show the concepts, but you will need to follow this up with other positioning and marketing examples in order to position your product within your industry.

Positioning is a way to turn communication around by considering the audience rather than the sender ("focusing on the prospect rather than the product"). This can be seen, for example, in choosing a new slogan for a product based on what consumers feel and think about the product, rather than what the company is trying to accomplish. It's the difference between marketing objectives (increase sales of a product by 20%) and communication/advertising objectives (convince 20% of audience that the product is great tasting).
For the average reader and those don’t really have very much time to read, this isn’t a problem. This book is only 210 pages of conversational style writing and entertaining examples that can easily be read in less than a day. There are not any definitions to learn, or previous marketing or advertising experience needed.
Although the book was written over 20 years ago, the concepts in the book still apply to be true today. Our world is even more cluttered with messages now than when the authors set out to write this book. It is even more important today to cut through this clutter, and positioning. While not the end all answer to everything, it is certainly a good way to achieve advertising/communication objectives.

My product, Snap-Strap Snowboards (patent pending), can use many of the concepts in this book to help with the marketing plan. Getting people convinced that that it is easier as well as safer to ride in my brand of snowboard would be my first plan of action. I could use positioning strategies like having respected snowboarders demo the boards, or holding contests in sporting good stores, malls, and/or ski resorts to win a free snowboard package. I can also make the name of the product catchier by using a nickname such as “Triple S”. I just have to make sure that there is a distinction between the snowboard and the tire company. Maybe I should go with “S3”, or “????”, or something like that. This just shows that this book can help in learning about the multiple problems one faces in the marketing industry.

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Reviewer: Anthony Beehler

The concept of positioning as described by the authors really centers on the idea that the key to a successful advertising campaign is establishing a position in the prospects mind. The authors believe that so-called traditional marketing principles are no longer effective in today’s society. Simply having a better quality product at a better price no longer guarantees success.

The main reason positioning is important is because of the huge amount of information in today’s world. There are endless mediums through which people are subjected to information: books, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the internet are just a few. Instead of each new medium replacing the old, they are added, changing the way the old are used. With the volume of communication in today’s society, it is difficult to keep one’s message from being lost in the pile. The only way to penetrate a prospect’s mind is to oversimplify the message. The authors take this a step further in the theory of “owning a word in the mind.” An example of this might be Volvo owning the word “safety.” Because so little of one’s message is going to get through, it is vital to focus the search for the ideal message in the mind of the prospect.

With so many products and so many ads, the mind of the consumer has developed a defense mechanism that rejects anything that it cannot relate to past experience. Therefore, in order to successfully communicate a message, one must concentrate on the perceptions of the consumer, not the product. The old saying, “the customer is always right,” is very important, because the truth of these perceptions is irrelevant. You must use what the authors call “outside-in thinking.” “The essence of positioning is to accept the perceptions as reality and then restructure those perceptions to create the position you desire” (Ries and Trout 10).

So, the question becomes, how does one establish a position in the mind of the consumer? Unfortunately there is no simple answer to the question, as each product must be looked at individually. A number of factors must be considered when developing a strategy for a particular product, such as market share and competition. A market leader’s positioning strategy is, of course, going to be much different than that of a small local company.

The first step in the positioning process is deciding on a name for the product. As Ries and Trout put it, “The single most important marketing decision you can make is what to name the product” (89). Deciding on an appropriate name for a product has become progressively more important as the number of products increases. Along with these new products comes an increasing amount of communication. The name of a product today needs to cut into the mind of the prospect by describing a major benefit. A great example of this is the name DieHard, which is a long lasting car battery. When choosing a name, however, one must be careful not to choose a name that becomes a general name for all products of its class. One must also be aware of the language used because terms often become outdated.

Reis and Trout address the topic of positioning a market leader. As they explain, becoming a leader is simple. One must get there “the firstest with the mostest.” “History shows that the first brand into the mind gets twice the long term market share as the number two brand” (Ries and Trout 51). Once one is positioned as a leader, how is this position maintained? One must think long term. Leaders are invulnerable to short term ups and downs, so they must use this to secure their future.
The position of a follower seems to be a much tougher one. When positioning a follower, timing is critical. “It is not enough to be better than the competitor. You must launch your attack while the situation is fluid. Before the leader has a chance to establish leadership” (Ries and Trout 66). As a follower one must find the creneau, or hole, in the business structures of the leaders and position the product to fill the hole. An example of this include the ad for the classic VW Beetle. “Think Small” headlined the ad, which established the Beetle as the small, sensible car in a market where bigger was better. Although the Beetle was not the only compact car on the market, it was the first to position itself as such in the mind. Another strategy may include positioning a product as either high or low priced in the market. A product could target males in a market dominated by female consumers. It is important to not attempt to appeal to everyone. If one is trying to build a position from nowhere, he or she must first carve out a very specific niche in the market.

The authors expand greatly on the subject of positioning, applying it to everything from positioning a country to positioning yourself in the job place. However, I felt the discussion on positioning products was the most relevant to our class, and I tried to summarize only those parts. I do think the book does a great job of illustrating how the concept of positioning is truly universal, and can be applied to everyday life as well the marketplace.

In the case of our product, ThermalZip, I believe that if we placed our product on the same racks as some of the big names in snowboarding like Forum or Foursquare, we would not stand a chance. By offering thermal underwear and outerwear, we have already fallen into the line extension trap before we even have a line to extend. We really need to just focus on one or the other. Our message would be diluted from the beginning by trying to make ThermalZip mean both products.

The second problem I see emerging in our market plan is that we have not really evaluated our competitors to identify the soft spot in the market that we would be able to fill. We are trying to establish a position from nothing, and we have already found ourselves trying to appeal to everyone. We need to define a very specific niche in our market. One possibility may be to target young, first time snowboarders, who would suit our product well. The consumer doesn’t need to prevent snow from going down his pants if he’s not spending much time on the ground. And if we were to decide to enter this market, we also need to think about who we are trying to establish our position with. The parents of young snowboarders may be a more appropriate target for our message, as they may be making the decisions for their children.

Most of the concepts in the book are very logical and sometimes even seem to be stating the obvious (I realize it’s not as easy as it sounds). It’s hard to dispute any of their points because they give so many examples to support their views. The one point I do not agree with is the importance they place on the name of a product. To say that a good name is the best insurance for long term success implies that the name is more important than the product itself. The authors give the examples of “Pro Choice” and “Clean Air Act” which are highly controversial. They do not represent the average marketed product. While I do believe a good name can bring only good to a product, I do not think it warrants the two chapters given to it.

By far the most interesting section of the book was the chapter on positioning yourself and your career. I recently started a new career (that is why I have returned to school) and I found that I could apply many of the ideas to my current situation. I found that I suffered from the “disease” of trying to be everything to everyone. I was also afraid to make mistakes. And I had always believed that the way to succeed was to try harder. I had never given much thought to the reason why people I perceived as average were consistently being given the opportunities to advance. I had established the position of the hardest working, but that is rarely a ticket to the top. It has really made me think about the way I perceive my career and what position I hold in the minds of my co-workers.

Overall, I think this was a great book that was very entertaining and informative at the same time. The great thing about it was that it covered the topic in a way that you could relate to. The theories they presented were all backed up by numerous examples that were familiar to me which greatly helped in illustrating the points. I would recommend it to marketers and non-markers alike.

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Title: Power Public Relations

Author: Leonard Saffir

Reviewer: Emily Sebastian

In the book, Power Public Relations, the author, Leonard Saffir explores the growth and up and coming importance of public relations to corporations, politicians, and products. He presents the fact that we can no longer singly rely on marketing or advertising. Public relations must be incorporated, and all three practices must work together in order to be successful. Instead of separate agencies for each discipline he believes that we will have what he calls “sell shops,” a firm that incorporates marketing, advertising and PR.

Saffir defines his power public relations as, a researched-based matrix of sophisticated public relations techniques being used to influence thinking and shape public reaction.

The public relations industry began to grow in the late 1990’s. The practice now reaches from business relocation, to politicians being elected, to the sustaining of humbling reputations. Saffir recognizes that you can’t have a successful PR firm without the techniques incorporated from advertising and marketing. For example he discusses the effectiveness of using advertisement to create publicity. You can achieve this by creating an ad that is controversial, or news worthy. He states that creating controversy used to be a huge no, no, for a company, and then they got wise and began to use it as free publicity.
Saffir uses several examples of using ads that catch the audience’s attention to draw in publicity, including No Excuses jeans. This jeans company started several outrageous ads using celebrities, but it wasn’t until they used Marla Maples did they hit their gold mine. When the ad came out Marla Maples was in the headlines of the news, for her relationship with Donald Trump, and two networks refused to air the ads. Their position was that the ad was inappropriate. The clincher is that, No Excuses hadn’t bought any airtime from these networks; the whole point was to get the ads rejected. As soon as they were, it was all over the news, including the networks that had rejected the commercial. No Excuses gained free publicity, and probably more publicity than they would have received if they had aired the commercial. The point of the example is that the company used a well thought-out technique of public relations and advertising to shape the minds and grab the attention of their audience.

Saffir further discusses several other product examples that have used the “power PR” technique to sell, including: beanie babies, the Berlin Wall coming down, Cabbage Patch Kids, and even President Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He discusses the fact that none of these campaigns would have been such a success if the clever techniques of public relations hadn’t been incorporated with marketing and advertising.

Continuing with the idea of “power public relations” Saffir offers hands on advice in difficult PR moments. He gives a step- by- step analysis on how to implement crisis management, explaining how important it is not to direct blame towards someone else. He explains the importance of acting quickly in a crisis management situation, and discusses how many situations can even be prevented.

Saffir also continues with his teachings, by approaching how to handle interviews, television, and radio. He discusses what it takes to prepare for these media events by using press kits, opening statements, announcements, and how it can carve the way for the future of you product, figure, or company.

Saffir wraps up the book by reiterating the fact that PR will become more and more a primary component in companies and their viability. We will no longer be able to rely purely on advertising, or marketing, without integrating their campaigns with public relations. Public Relations has become a key component in the success of promoting anything from political figures, products, Hollywood stars, and enterprises.

I began to read Power Public Relations, because I had recently switched my major from marketing to public relations, and I was hoping that I had done the right thing. Saffir brought up several valuable points that set my mind at ease. I agree that without a well thought out public relations strategy, your marketing and advertising schemes will never work. I think that public relations is still shaping the minds of the public, yet we know can choose a target audience which can be much more effective, by doing extensive research. This book made me think of the Beneton clothing company campaign. They used outrageous ads that were band in many countries, and gained world- wide television coverage. None of their ads actually features their clothing line; they just used controversial issues to gain media attention. After reading Saffir it made me realize what a brilliant campaign that it was. Yes, it might have been controversial and started an up roar, but they could not have gotten more publicity if they had paid for it.

This also got me thinking that we could apply these concepts that Saffir discussed in our marketing project. Our product is a breathalyzer that attaches to the steering wheel, and you must pass the breathalyzer before your car will start. We had decided that we would target people who had been charged with DUI’s, that don’t want another one, and parents who want to make the teenagers get them. After reading this book I realize how easy it would be to get publicity on our product.

We would have to bring in a lobbyist who could help us get a law passed that would make it mandatory for people convicted of drinking and driving to install these in their car. We could bring in families who have had family members killed by dunk drivers, to back up our product. This would for sure bring in a lot of publicity, due to the huge attention that this issue normally gets. We would be getting free publicity, while having our company show an interest in community service. This would build a great reputation for the company, establishing a great report with the community service. We would be incorporating marketing, advertising, and public relations, just as Saffir states you must to have a successful company.

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Title: The Power of Simplicity

Author: Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin

Reviewer: Joung Hyun Park

Keep it Simple!
Early last year, I read The Power of Simplicity by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin in Korean translation and I liked it. At that time I thought that this book was a good guide not only for business but also for lifestyle. This time I read it again in original English version. Even though I am an international student, it was not very difficult to read this book because it was written according to the core concept of this book, “Simplicity”.

Since the 20 century, society is getting more complex in every way, such as culture and politics, than ever before. Complexity is one of the most influential characteristics of modern society. People think something complex is better and more powerful than simplicity. Besides, people tend to think that to be simple is to be stupid.

However, the authors say the other way. They say “Complexity is not to be admired; it’s to be avoided.” The authors cite an interview with Jack Welch, the very successful chairman of General Electric, to support his idea.

Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick, convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood. Real leaders don’t need clutter. People must have the self-confidence to be clear, precise, to be sure that every person in their organization--highest or lowest--understands what the business is trying to achieve. But it’s not easy. You can’t believe how hard it is for people to be simple, how much they fear being simple. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple-minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough-minded people are the most simple. (p.19)

Fear of simplicity is equal with admiration of complexity. Admiration of complexity comes from fear of thinking, they assume. Fear of thinking let people rely on others thinking and make their business difficult. They believe that the wisest solution to live in this complex business atmosphere is to be simple.

This book has a sub-title, “A Management guide to cutting through the nonsense and doing things right.” This book shows how to remove the nonsense and do things correctly. They show what we can experience after applying simplicity in three different issues--management, leadership and people. They insist to go back to the basics all over the whole text. They exemplify many cases to apply the principle of simplicity, such as Southwest Airline and Chupa-Chups. Southwest simplified all airplanes such as Boeing 737 to save mechanics trouble and to improve safety. This company is one of the most profitable airlines in the USA. The Spanish Company, Chupa-Chups, has focused on only lollypops since they cut all other 200 goods in 1957. Nowadays, Chupa-Chups monopolizes a worldwide lollypop market. They say that the only simple and clear strategy based on common sense can make a profit. They advise to trust common sense. Because common sense is wisdom that is shared by all, it will tell you what to do, he says.

In contrast, they are doubtful of the commercial value of 31 varieties of Head & Shoulders shampoo and 52 versions of Crest, a result of new marketing strategy-complexity. It was like when Xerox tried to make office machines that could work as copiers, computers, and phones. Xerox put a lot of money and time, but the result was not good. The authors consider that Xerox’s idea was nonsense and unnecessary. Something out of common sense gives customers troubles. In fact, when there are too many goods in same category, it makes people confused. When I was in Korea last year, there were three wireless phone service companies. They provided many kinds of service competitively, but none was that attractive. It was because all kinds of service were very similar and complicated. There was no big differentiation. It just gave me difficulty choosing, as the authors say. If marketers working at those companies knew this idea, they could try to make their service simple.

These days, there is a lot of information all around. It is essential to distinguish useful information from only data. They say we need to unclutter all the information. Grasping all the information causes us to be confused. To keep our thoughts simple first is very important.

In addition, they say many companies call consultants at a high cost to get an idea for their company. However, consultants use very complex and difficult language and their ideas are somewhat worse than the simple ideas of employees who notice company problems. They are unsure of the efficiency of growing the worldwide managing consulting business. They advise not to trust anyone whom we do not understand.

They also say growth can be harmful for companies. Frankly speaking, I definitely agree. I saw and experienced a very serious economic situation as the result of the aggressive over-growth management policy of major companies in Korea in 1998. They drove the whole country into terrible financial condition, as well as themselves. For example, Hyundai, Daewoo and Samsung wanted all kinds of business. Samsung wanted to be a manufacturer of car. However, Samsung had to sell their car factory to Renault after the economic crisis happened. When companies concentrate their ability, they can be more efficient and effective.

“Working harder is not as effective as working smarter”, say the authors. When I used to work in Korea, I saw the truth of this. I had two co-workers. One was always busy to visit customers and gathered some information. He looked like working hard, but he did not achieve a good result as much as his effort. Our boss wanted that he worked effectively but our boss did not find satisfaction. Anyhow, he had a difficult time with our boss. The other was a really smart worker. She always made everything clear. When she reported something, it was easy to understand, and she never worked overtime. Sometimes she even seemed to be relaxed. I think she knew how to work smarter. I definitely agree that it is important to motivate people to work effectively.

In this book, the most impressive thing was that it is important not that I know about my customers but that my customer know about me to succeed in marketing. How many companies waste their money and time to know their customers? As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to know about customers. It is much simpler and easier to make customers know about companies. I had forgotten this before I read it again. I tried to know what my customers want, but it was very difficult to find out. Actually, I had no idea. However, re-reading reminded this idea. Therefore, I should focus on how to let people know how my product, “Exchange service for Jewelry/Accessory”, differs from others.

In conclusion, Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin state the important of basics based on common sense. Simple is not stupid but smart. The remaining task is to get rid of nonsense and make simple to reach my goal that should be simple and clear. Keep it simple, stupid! This is an important statement for me and for complex modern society as well.

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Title: Raving Fans

Author: Tom Peters

Reviewer: Ayse Evrensel

Satisfied costumers are just not enough. If you truly want your costumers to be 100% satisfied and loyal, you must create Raving Fans. The one thing that all businesses and companies have in common is customers, yet many companies don’t seem to understand the importance and give their customers the kind of care and attention they deserve. In the end, the costumers are the ones that truly have the power to make –or - break your company.

Businessmen seem to understand the importance of the customer. They spend countless hours and a lot of money trying to understand customer behavior and buying power. While you must try to understand the customer, you cannot assume that all customers are the same and that they are simply a group of mindless buyers that do not think for themselves. Customers are so used to receiving less-than-perfect treatment that they have come to expect it. You must understand that customers will only be satisfied until they find something better, that is why you need to create Raving Fans. Managers stress the importance of customer service but Raving Fans goes beyond a simple smile. There are three simple rules to creating Raving Fans: (1) Decide what you want, (2) Discover what the customer wants, and (3) Discover what the customer wants-Deliver plus one.

Decide what you want. You must first have a vision of what and how you think your company should run its business. First start by closing your eyes, and pretending you are a costumer that uses your product. What and how do you see yourself being treated? Focus on why customers use your product, and start to imagine ways that you can completely fill that “need.” Your vision should be centered on the customer.

Discover what the customer want. Now you must start to understand and learn exactly what a customer expects from you. Learn to listen to your costumers, both to what they say and what they don’t say. Sometimes customers will come right out and tell you what they think, sometimes they will not mean exactly what they say, you must look beyond the just the words. Most often then not, however, customers will not say anything, and most of the time this is not a good sign. Once you have understood the customer’s vision, you can alter your own vision to encompass all that you can of the customers vision. You must understand that you cannot be and do everything all at the same time, pick a few things and master those, then you can expand your vision.

Discover what the customer wants-deliver plus one. In full context it means deliver the vision plus one percent. This “plus one percent” will be how you make sure that your business always improves and changes. Customers are not always the same; you must change as their needs change. Consistency creates credibility. You must always deliver your promises. You must meet the expectations of your customers first, and then you can exceed their expectation. You must be flexible in what you offer, but consistent in how you offer it.

You must value your customers, not only listen to them, but also respond to them. You must differentiate yourself from your competition, to do this; you must find a way into the hearts of your customers. Don’t forget that your customers are anyone that comes in to contact with your product, not only the end user. Never underestimate the power of a smile.

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Title: Ready, Blame, Fire!

Author: Ira Blumenthal

Reviewer: Brad Ochs

What drew me to this book was, quite simply, the title. Most other marketing books with call numbers between HF5410 through HF5450 had titles like Economic Opportunities in Japan or Marketing Principles for the Modern Business. This book by Ira Blumenthal seemed a bit more down to earth, a bit more personable, and full of common sense to dispel common-day myths.

Ready, Blame, Fire!’s chapter titles all deal with myths, such as “Follow the Leader” or “Bigger is Better,” and each quickly go in to dispel each of the myths Mr. Blumenthal recognizes in today’s business world. The first myth, “It Won’t Happen Here,” showcases how everything changes – nothing is forever. If you don’t adapt to these changes, your business will fail. Titanic was unsinkable. It was impossible for her to sink. However, she was so heavy that the Titanic could not maneuver away from the very iceberg that sank her. She was unable to adapt, and businesses have followed the same way.

The second myth is “The Future is Out of Our Control.” We control our own destinies; whatever will be does not have to be. Take your knowledge and apply it, focus your efforts on where you are going instead of where you have been. Next comes “Follow the Leader” – the game that most Americans played as children. Robert Frost challenges us to take “the road less traveled” and most innovations, in fact most items that make our lives livable in today’s society, were created by people who bucked the standard, accepted ways of living, working, and recreation. Leadership is necessary inside a company – without it there will be no performance, merely just ‘getting by’ instead of excelling.

Fourth, “Bigger is Better” is not true! The bigger companies become, the more bureaucratic and resistant to change they become. However, better companies may become bigger. McDonald’s, for instance, started off as a small chain, and is now the world’s largest quick-serve restaurant. Starbuck’s started as a one-room coffee shop in Seattle’s harbor area. The bigger competitors will fall to the better business building of smaller companies. However, when those smaller companies become bigger, they must remember to continue to innovate and be better rather than focus on becoming bigger.

Chapter five is “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors” – alliances are absolutely essential in business. Coca-Cola has a partnership with McDonald’s, for instance. Partnerships help both companies prosper. After that comes “The First One ‘in’ Wins.” Namely, just because a business is the first to do something or start a market doesn’t mean that they will be the best. Usually that is reserved for companies that come after and become the market leaders. For instance, what ever happened to all those brands before Ford Motors? Again, it’s better to be the best instead of first.

Myth seven is “Back to Basics.” It is important to go back to the basic principles of what a company does, however there must be a distinction between what and how – how a business operates should be able to change.

The book continues on in the same vein, dispelling seven other myths – “Business is Complex,” “Close Enough is Good Enough,” “Value Means ‘Cheap’,” “The Best Offense is a Good Defense,” “Watch the Competition Closely,” “Play it Safe,” and “Time is on Our Side.” To summarize these, as I feel I’m being fairly long winded as it is: Business isn’t complex – it’s focused on selling and supporting those sales; if you get close enough to something, you still haven’t reached it yet; value is meeting or exceeding expectations, which change from situation to situation and from customer to customer; the best offense is offense itself, so work hard and be aggressive; don’t be so worried about the competition that you fall behind; if we always played it safe, we wouldn’t get anywhere; and time is never on our side, it works against us and continues on regardless of what we do.

Now for applying this knowledge toward my product, a lot of this is common sense, or what we have learned in class already. Therefore, I shall present this in a bulleted list so I can go one myth at a time and link the lesson to practical use.

It Won’t Happen Here
As my product will be made of plastic, thought should be put towards suppliers or manufacturing. New materials may come around that would be more useful or profitable.

The Future is Out of Our Control
My company should perform research and apply it – research new materials discussed above, or research the market and tailor the marketing pitch to match.

Follow the Leader
Leadership should be developed within the company as well as in the marketplace. We should focus on being a leader for the industry and show how our values and product are the best. Learn from the mistakes that the competition has made.

Bigger is Better
As the company pushing the product will likely be a small business, we should focus on quality, customer service, and follow a quantity-manufacturing plan.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
Establish a business partnership with our suppliers and manufacturers. Perhaps look into relationships with Bed and Body works or small tourist stores.

The First One ‘In’ Wins
We already are not the first company to put out shelves for showers, we are just combining the ideas and refining them into a new product.

Back to Basics
Be ready to change how we do things if it turns out our processes are ineffectual – for example, customer service, sales, etc.

Business is Complex
Focus on pushing our product. If we don’t sell, we don’t get paid.

Close Enough is Good Enough
If we don’t get results, we might as well shut down our doors. We should reward our sales staff for large orders, or continuing orders.

Value Means ‘Cheap’
Perform surveys and research to find out what customers want and what they would like to see from our product, and then apply those ideas.

The Best Offense is a Good Defense
Push our product as hard as we can. Aggressively market and promote the ShowerShelf, sell it to high volume or specialty markets, and keep our suppliers and manufacturers close at hand.

Watch the Competition Closely
Focus on getting our feet on the ground. If we take off running, we’ll be able to do well and then keep tabs on the market. Focus on the customer and not our competitor, or they will and take our business from us.

Play it Safe
We have nothing to lose – we’re a start up, so we can afford to take risks that the larger companies wouldn’t. In fact, many times we need to take those risks or else we cannot perform in the market.

Time is on Our Side
Do not hesitate – he who hesitates is last. Our idea is innovative, but could easily be duplicated. Get our product out there and raise sales before we are imitated!

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Title: The Regis Touch