Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Creating new customers is not so difficult in business, but keeping them is and getting them to send you endless referrals very much depends on your ability to deliver great customer service. In Carl Sewell’s book; Customers For Life; How to Turn That One Time Buyer Into A Lifelong Customer; you learn the reality of customer service from the all-time pro.

As an entrepreneur and franchisor, I recommended this book to each of our franchisees in a Corporate Memo; Letters From Lance. I felt that what Carl had to say was the key to increasing Word-of-Mouth Advertising and retaining your best customers.
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The fascination over The Prince has for hundreds of years been a widely read book and the author of; What Would Machiavelli Do? The Ends Justify the Meanness; Stanley Bings, sheds some light on the subject using comical comments to show it correlation to business and indeed there are many interesting correlations.

Business in many ways is like war and the internal ladder climbing of Primate Politics in modern day corporations somewhat resembles The Prince. The Satire used in the book is funny and serious; Bing did an awesome on this book. The book is very much worth reading and very interesting as well. Some people may not be able to handle what is in the book but the way I see it is that if someone cannot handle what is written in the book then they are not reality based or somewhat of a wimp.
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We all know a Weasel. You know, that person that threatens to take down your organization by using every sleazy tactic in the book to advance their careers regardless of how it effects others. Warriors, Workers, Whiners, and Weasels: The 4 Personality Types in Business and How to Manage Them to Your Advantage by entrepreneur Tim O’Leary takes a refreshing look at the different personalities we encounter and how to handle them.

The premise of the book is that essentially everyone fits into one of four personality groups – Warrior, Worker, Whiner, or Weasel. O’Leary defines each as the following:

Warriors, who confront change, see possibilities, innovate and manage to win!

Workers, who deal with the ups, downs and challenges of everyday corporate life dependably, and who can reliably implement the change and direction established by the Warriors.
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Does your business know how to meet the particular needs of baby boomers, retirees, and the very mature? Do you even know the difference between all three? This Entrepreneur Startup Guide by Jacquelyn Lynn and Charlene Davis provides an eye-opening look at how to start your own senior services business specializing in adult day care, home health care, and relocation, concierge, travel, and transportation services.

Although there is a large amount of overlapping between the needs of most senior adults – especially in physically or mentally disabled clients – the authors’ research reveals that in areas such as travel, baby boomers (55 to 64), retirees (65 to 75) and the very mature (75-plus) have different needs. For example, “grandtravel” (healthy, active grandparents usually in the baby boomer range taking their grandchildren on trips) has become one of the fastest growing travel trends. A variety of seniors’ needs in different categories (and businesses designed to help meet these needs) are described throughout the book.
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Financial freedom is the most important thing a person can have, but it can also be very difficult to achieve. Most people will need assistance from an outside source. For those of you who cannot afford to hire a financial expert to manage your finances, there are many books available that will teach you how you can use your money wisely and eventually achieve financial freedom.

There are many financial experts, as well as people who have already achieved financial freedom, writing self-help books for people wanting to free themselves from the clutches of living in debt. The hardest part is choosing the right one. You will need to make sure that the advice you follow is the right one; you do not want to follow the wrong advice and go further in debt.

These books are not very expensive, and they are very helpful. They will be able to give you very valuable advice. There are also books available on the Internet that contain the same material.

If you are able to access the Internet, you should first look for online books on financial advice. This will save you money, considering these are usually free. If you have the need to have a paper copy of the book, there are many places from which you would be able to obtain one. Obviously, bookstores carry books of this nature. You will also be able to buy financial books on the Internet, since most major bookstores have a website where you can place orders. There are many websites available from which you can purchase your book. In fact, some of these websites will offer these books at a lesser price than if you buy them at a bookstore.

Debt is the number one cause of many problems in people’s lives. Getting out of debt is the first and most important step a person needs to take in the process of achieving financial freedom. If you think this task is too difficult to achieve without assistance, then it is best that you buy a book that will aid in your struggle to achieve financial freedom.

One of the greatest books in the present period to read on capitalism has to be Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s book; How Capitalism Saved America. Thomas points out the differences between political entrepreneurs and market entrepreneurs or genuine capitalists. And there is a big difference to.

Political entrepreneurs make money by using the government, getting government contracts and manipulating the laws to crush their competitors. We have seen much of this in the last decade, but it has been going on for over a hundred years.

We know that in Washington, DC any lobbyist with the right amount of money behind them can secure any corporate interests they wish to propel themselves in the marketplace by change the rules and regulations, which benefit their company and or hurt a competing corporation.

How capitalism saved America illustrates this point through this many examples. It also explains how many agencies have heard capitalism and thus hurt American consumers. The demonstrations and examples in the book show how our antitrust laws have hurt America and hurt free enterprise, not helped it.

It is amazing how many people do not understand these facts and believe that our antitrust laws are actually made to help the American people. I recommend everyone to read this book although realize that liberals will not finish the book because it does not jive with their previous selective reading. Please consider all this in 2006.

What makes a company Great? Jim Collins set out to answer this exact question when he and a group of researchers started writing the #1 Best Seller Good to Great. Good to Great is a terrific read for anyone interested in creating a great organization.

Good is the enemy of great! Why is Good to Great so Great? Well, Good to Great answers the search for enduring excellence. It is not just a business problem; it’s a human problem. The principles within this book can be applied to other organizations, not just business enterprises. Good schools can learn to become great schools. Good government agencies can learn to be great government agencies.

So, just what does make a company great? Collins identifies 6 key attributes:

1. A Great Company Has Level 5 Leadership

Level 5 leaders have goals of building a great company in the next generation, comfortable with the idea that most people won’t even know that the roots of that success trace back to their efforts. As one Level 5 leader said, “I want to look out from my porch at one of the great companies in the world someday and be able to say, ‘I used to work there.’ ”

In contrast, the comparison leaders are concerned more with their own reputation for personal greatness, often failed to set the company up for success in the next generation. After all, what better testament to your own personal greatness than that the place falls apart after you leave?

2. First Who, Then What

The main point of this chapter is to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus before you figure out where to drive it. Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to the right people. The right people will do the right things and deliver the best results regardless of the incentive system. The second key point is the degree of sheer rigor needed with regard to people decisions in order to take the company from good to great. Good-to-great companies know people aren’t your most important asset, the right people are.

Good-to-great companies placed greater weight on character than education, skills, or experience when hiring. The reason: you can teach skills, but character, basic intelligence, work ethic, and dedication to fulfilling commitments are values that are ingrained in a person.

Good-to-great companies were rigorous, but not ruthless. People who did not fit the mold eventually quit or were told to find opportunities elsewhere. The most rigorous discipline was found at the top, where the largest burden of responsibility lies.

Other attributes of great companies include:

3. Confront the Brutal Facts (Yet Never Lose Faith)

4. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity Within the Three Circles)

5. A Culture of Discipline

6. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

Positioning is both the name of a book and a crucial marketing idea first articulated over 30 years ago by Al Ries and Jack Trout. Since then the book has been revised and slightly updated, and both authors have gone on to write other successful marketing books, both as a team and separately.

Positioning is not the same as brand. In the book’s preface, Jack Trout defines Positioning this way: “It’s how you differentiate your brand in the minds of your customers and prospects.”

Any of you familiar with the work of Michael Porter on competitive strategy and advantage know that engaging in a differentiation strategy is one successful way for a business to succeed. Then you also know that if your company pursues a differentiation strategy instead of a cost leadership strategy, there can be–and often are–multiple competitors enjoying healthy products. This is especially good news for small business.

Why? Because most small businesses won’t be thecost leader in their industry, but can still enjoy healthy profits by pursuing a differentiation strategy.

The carefully considered use of the ideas in Positioning can lead to small business marketing success but only if the marketer pays attention to the lessons Ries and Trout are attempting to teach.

So, why should your small business be concerned with this whole concept of positioning, anyway? If Ries and Trout’s theory is correct, then your business is already positioned in your customer’s mind whether you want it to be or not. So, the secret to successful marketing here is to use your current position to your small business marketing advantage.

One of the book’s key insights is that it is extremely difficult to change your position with any type of head-on assault. Ries and Trout use numerous examples of giant corporations that have spent millions and millions of dollars trying to radically adjust their position in the mind of their prospects. Most failed. Throwing advertising money at a target audience just typically isn’t sufficient to change a position in the consumer mind.

Well, if it doesn’t work for a big business with millions, how is it going to work for you and your small business?

For most of us in small business, the reality is that we aren’t market leaders. We’re followers. We compete in a market where the competition looks a little too much like us. Our products or services are pretty much the same as the competitors. We might gain a slight technological edge with some new machine or method, but sooner or later some well-financed competitor steps into our market and our technological advantage oh-so-quickly slips away. How many of you have invested heavily on a production solution, and discovered that the competition found a way to match your move quicker than you would have ever thought they could?

Chapter Seven is only a scant eight pages, but its focus is completely on the “follower” business. This is the chapter with the first-rate advice to “look for the hole” in your competitive market. For the small business owner, who must skinny through on a very limited marketing budget, this is good news because it’s often the breakthrough strategic campaign that beats the massive advertising campaign.

The book is chock-full of other great marketing ideas, too. There are tips on naming your company or product, how far you can extend your brand, and several interesting case studies. Positioning really is a classic, and that’s one reason it has stood the ultimate test of time—it’s still stocked in the marketing sections of bookstores more than thirty years since its initial release.

This is part one of our three-part book review of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point. We especially like Gladwell because he’s a journalist, not a marketer. He brings an investigative perspective to his work. Gladwell presents his material in a way that blends practical example with interview and it’s not based on his own experience as a corporate marketer. Very refreshing.

Wonder why some products or social behaviors catch on and others don’t? Gladwell would tell us that some never reach a “tipping point”; they never reach a kind of critical mass where they suddenly take off and become popular.

Gladwell draws parallels between how epidemics behave in organisms and how human societies work. This may sound a bit far out for the small business owner, but his insights have extreme practical value for the small business marketer who wants to influence customer and prospect behavior. Gladwell identifies three elements that cause a dramatic tipping point in the life of an epidemic: The Law of the Few, The Stickiness Factor and The Power of Context.

The Law of the Few outlines three types of people that have an inordinate amount of influence in the creation of a trend. For us as small business owners, the lesson is clear:

Focus attention on the groups that will give us the greatest benefits. The three types are:

Connectors
Mavens
Salespeople

Connectors are people who know a great many people. They may be ten times or more influential than the average person because of the number of people they contact and pass information to.

Unlike Connectors, Mavens may not have as many contacts, but their friends listen closely to the maven because the maven is a known source of beneficial information. Pages 59 to 69 are required reading if you wish to learn how this small but extraordinarily influential group thinks. These ten pages are well worth a marketer’s time.

Salesmen are important in carrying a message, but for most small businessmen unless they work for you there isn’t much you can do with this group. However, since most small business owners are part salespeople, you might want to read what he says about this group and how the master salesperson interacts with people.

A great companion book for this section of Gladwell is Emanuel Rosen’s The Anatomy of Buzz.

We suggest keeping a copy of The Tipping Point on your “ready-reference” shelf where you can easily grab it for a quick review. Gladwell really can be a valuable aid when you plan your small business marketing campaigns.

In part two of our review we’ll explore some fascinating ways marketers can boost their messages’ staying power as we review what Gladwell says about Stickiness.

Rich Dad Poor Dad” is the first book I have read about money. I have enjoyed reading it as the content is delivered in a clear, simple and coherent manner. The author, Robert Kiyosaki, wrote about the various financial tools that are available. It gives me a general idea of the different financial tools that are available. However, I feel that the book is not detailed enough. It is not recommended to those who want a more comprehensive read about the various money making tools that are available. Nonetheless, this book is a good summary of the various financial tools. I also like the way the author differentiate between assets and liabilities.

Although this book claims to teach readers about money, I feel that this book inspires me more than it teaches me about money. Robert Kiyosaki emphasizes on the importance of getting out of the rat race. I am totally convinced by him that workers are being exploited by employers and governments. This makes me determined to find ways to gain financial freedom and let money work for me. It really inspires me to avoid the convention way of working for employers.

This book also highlights the importance of gaining financial knowledge in order to make money work for you. It emphasizes on the importance of financial education. The author does not claim that “Rich Dad Poor Dad” teach readers to get rich instantly. After reading this book, I am inspired to find out more information about the various financial tools that are available.

I do not like the way the author tries to promote his other books and products like “CASHFLOW” in between pages. Such promotions make reading the book less enjoyable.

I am glad that I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki. It changes my perspectives on how money should be made and inspires me to learn more about money, business, accounting, investing, business laws and financial tools.