A good idea can inspire one commercial. But a good insight can fuel a thousand ideas, a thousand commercials. An insight gives you an entirely new way of thinking about your business. Consider just a few of the breakthrough insights that Dusenberry's agency, BBDO, has offered their clients over the years: That General Electric's unifying tagline should be ?We bring good things to life.? That Pepsi should be targeting the ?Pepsi Generation.? That Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection theme should be ?Morning in America.? That Visa should compare itself with American Express, not MasterCard. Talk about moving the needle!Dusenberry argues that these brainstorms don?t come out of thin air, even at a world class organization like BBDO. They are actually the result of a rigorous and disciplined process of insight generation, one that any manager in any type of business can adopt. Dusenberry explains this process?Research, Analysis, Insight, Strategy, and Execution (RAISE)?in plain English. And he offers examples of some of the greatest business insights of our time, from the birth of Federal Express to the positioning of HBO."Moving the Needle" will help businesspeople get to the heart of their toughest problems.

    Successfully connecting your product with consumers isn’t a matter of following trends, comparing yourself to the competition or trying to attract the widest customer base.So what is it? April Dunford, positioning guru and tech exec, will enlighten you.Her new book, Obviously Awesome, shows you how to find your product’s “secret sauce”—and then sell that sauce to those who crave it. Having spent years as a startup executive (with 16 product launches under her belt) and a consultant (who’s worked on dozens more), Dunford speaks with authority about breaking through the noise of a crowded market.Punctuated with witty anecdotes and compelling case studies, Dunford’s book is at once entertaining and illuminating. Among the invaluable lessons you’ll learn are:- The Five Components of Effective Positioning- How to instantly connect an audience to your offering’s value- How to choose the best market for your products- How to use three distinct styles of positioning to your advantage- How to leverage market trends to help buyers understand why making a purchase is important right nowWhether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer or salesperson struggling to bring inventive products to market, Dunford’s insights will help you find your awesome, so that your customers can too.

    We believe the concepts are core to engaging in customer conversations that are focused on their outcomes and what they want to achieve."-Karen Quintos, CMO and SVP, Dell Inc."The concepts outlined in this book are critical skills to building a world-class presales organization."-Ken Hamel, Senior Vice President, Global Solutions and Presales, SAP"Our new messaging, using the approaches presented in this book, is great and is being widely used by our sales team. We've never had a year end sales meeting with content that was met with such widespread acceptance and enthusiasm."-Jerry D. Cline, Senior Vice President, Retail Sales and Marketing, AmerisourceBergen Drug Company"The best salespeople sit across the table and make change easy for their customer by creating a succinct story and vision for what to change, how to change it, and how it will impact customer results. An enterprise focus on sales messaging, using the concepts in this book, is the hidden secret to driving incremental sales productivity and overwhelming customer success!"-Ken Powell, Vice President, Worldwide Sales Enablement, ADP"The Power Messaging techniques in this book are the foundation of how our marketing team creates our sales messages, as well as the process our field sales teams use for delivering that message in a unique and compelling way. At Kronos our results are a reflection of the power of the tool."-Aron Ain, CEO, KronosAbout the Book: In today's highly competitive world of complex sales, commoditization of your brand is one of the greatest dangers. You must differentiate yourself from the competition-or you will lose out. And the way to do that is through customer engagement. Rather than sell your own corporate story and brand message, you need to tell customers their story-the one in which they are the heroes and they achieve success.Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer have been developing and honing their Power Messaging sales technique for more than 20 years, and now they reveal all their secrets in Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.Presenting a catalog of facts or playing 20 questions with prospective customers is the surest way to lose the sale. Peterson and Riesterer provide the tools you need to recraft your message into a compelling story that wins more deals.With Conversations That Win the Complex Sale, you'll learn how to:Differentiate yourself from the competition by finding your "Value Wedge" Avoid parity in your value propositions by creating "Power Positions" Create a message that can literally double the number of deals you close Spike customer attention and create "Wow" in your conversations Prove all your claims without resorting to lists of boring facts and statistics Your competitors are out there telling their own corporate story-a story customers don't want to hear. Now is the time to seize the moment. This book is the one and only source you need to reframe your sales story and turn the tables on the competition by fully engaging their would-be customers.Conversations That Win the Complex Sale helps you create and deliver messages that customers care about, giving your brand the clear edge in today's crowded markets.

    It draws upon the experiences of thousands of demonstrations, both delivered and received from vendors and customers. The distinctive "Do the Last Thing First" concept generates a "Wow!" response from customers. The Great Demo! method is presented simply and clearly, and is elaborated more fully in each successive chapter, providing a rich toolkit for software sales teams. Real-life anecdotes, examples, and axioms offer humorous and effective punctuation. Updated with new best practices, tips and techniques, this second edition now includes a complete chapter on remote demonstrations--an area of increased activity and unique challenges. An additional chapter on managing evaluations (for fun and profit) extends the utility of the book to those in sales and management. Great Demo! is a terrific read on an airplane or between customer visits. It offers a straightforward process for creating and delivering highly compelling software demonstrations, excellent advice, tips, and the occasional epiphany.

    So what separates the startups that get disrupted and disappear from the ones who grow to become global giants?The secret is blitzscaling: a set of techniques for scaling up at a dizzying pace that blows competitors out of the water. The objective of Blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but from one to one billion -as quickly as possible.When growing at a breakneck pace, getting to next level requires very different strategies from those that got you to where you are today. In a book inspired by their popular class at Stanford Business School, Hoffman and Yeh reveal how to navigate the necessary shifts and weather the unique challenges that arise at each stage of a company's life cycle, such as: how to design business models for igniting and sustaining relentless growth; strategies for hiring and managing; how the role of the founder and company culture must evolve as the business matures, and more.Whether your business has ten employees or ten thousand, Blitzscaling is the essential playbook for winning in a world where speed is the only competitive advantage that matters.

    But the real advantage these companies have is not so much who they hire, but rather how they enable their people to work together to solve hard problems and create extraordinary products.As legendary Silicon Valley coach--and coach to the founders of several of today's leading tech companies--Bill Campbell said, "Leadership is about recognizing that there's a greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge."The goal of EMPOWERED is to provide you, as a leader of product management, product design, or engineering, with everything you'll need to create just such an environment.As partners at The Silicon Valley Product Group, Marty Cagan and Chris Jones have long worked to reveal the best practices of the most consistently innovative companies in the world. A natural companion to the bestseller INSPIRED, EMPOWERED tackles head-on the reason why most companies fail to truly leverage the potential of their people to innovate: product leadership.The book covers:what it means to be an empowered product team, and how this is different from the "feature teams" used by most companies to build technology products recruiting and coaching the members of product teams, first to competence, and then to reach their potential creating an inspiring product vision along with an insights-driven product strategy translating that strategy into action by empowering teams with specific objectives--problems to solve--rather than features to build redefining the relationship of the product teams to the rest of the company detailing the changes necessary to effectively and successfully transform your organization to truly empowered product teams EMPOWERED puts decades of lessons learned from the best leaders of the top technology companies in your hand as a guide. It shows you how to become the leader your team and company needs to not only survive but thrive.

    And now there’s a sure-fire way to solve their problems and test solutions: the sprint.While working at Google, designer Jake Knapp created a unique problem-solving method that he coined a “design sprint”—a five-day process to help companies answer crucial questions. His ‘sprints’ were used on everything from Google Search to Chrome to Google X. When he moved to Google Ventures, he joined Braden Kowitz and John Zeratsky, both designers and partners there who worked on products like YouTube and Gmail. Together Knapp, Zeratsky, and Kowitz have run over 100 sprints with their portfolio companies. They’ve seen firsthand how sprints can overcome challenges in all kinds of companies: healthcare, fitness, finance, retailers, and more.A practical guide to answering business questions, Sprint is a book for groups of any size, from small startups to Fortune 100s, from teachers to non-profits. It’s for anyone with a big opportunity, problem, or idea who needs to get answers today.

    We have launched two successful Kickstarter projects, in turn paving the way for a new era of independent hardware manufacturing, and recently entered the software world with our first iPhone app. We have learned a lot in a short period of time, and wanted to share this information with the world. So we wrote a book. This book was written to offer guidance and inspiration for those charting a similar path, and covers topics such as running a small business, creating hardware products independently, launching a Kickstarter project, and tips for promoting your products. Everything is told through the lens of our own experience.It Will Be Exhilarating is a short read that will provide the needed kick to start making stuff. There isn't a better time than now.“There is no recipe for passion, no 5-step guide to making your idea real, but there is good, solid advice, and this book is filled with it.” – Clay Shirky, author, Here Comes Everybody“It Will Be Exhilarating is both fun and informative. I was shocked at how transparent and thorough Studio Neat are at sharing the details of their journey. Moreover, the book reads quick so you can get back to building your next great idea, but now with a bit of extra inspiration and insight.” – Shawn Blanc, shawnblanc.net"Dan and Tom had a wild ride through the early days of this alternative to make stuff by finding an interested audience that funds the costs of bringing a dream to fruition. This book tells those lessons learned from two successive and successful Kickstarter projects and the first two years of bootstrapping their company. Studio Neat has a practical roadmap for taking something you love and potentially making it your livelihood." – Glenn Fleishman, a freelance technology reporter who contributes to The Economist, Macworld, and BoingBoing“Tom and Dan have created a hitchhikers guide to the black art that is successfully funding a Kickstarter project.” – Ben Brooks, brooksreview.net

    At many companies, being first with a concept and first to market are critical just to survive. In The Art of Innovation, Tom Kelley, general manager of the Silicon Valley based design firm IDEO, takes readers behind the scenes of this wildly imaginative and energized company to reveal the strategies and secrets it uses to turn out hit after hit.IDEO doesn't buy into the myth of the lone genius working away in isolation, waiting for great ideas to strike. Kelley believes everyone can be creative, and the goal at his firm is to tap into that wellspring of creativity in order to make innovation a way of life. How does it do that? IDEO fosters an atmosphere conducive to freely expressing ideas, breaking the rules, and freeing people to design their own work environments. IDEO's focus on teamwork generates countless breakthroughs, fueled by the constant give-and-take among people ready to share ideas and reap the benefits of the group process. IDEO has created an intense, quick-turnaround, brainstorm-and-build process dubbed "the Deep Dive."In entertaining anecdotes, Kelley illustrates some of his firm's own successes (and joyful failures), as well as pioneering efforts at other leading companies. The book reveals how teams research and immerse themselves in every possible aspect of a new product or service, examining it from the perspective of clients, consumers, and other critical audiences.Kelley takes the reader through the IDEO problem-solving method:> Carefully observing the behavior or "anthropology" of the people who will be using a product or service> Brainstorming with high-energy sessions focused on tangible results> Quickly prototyping ideas and designs at every step of the way> Cross-pollinating to find solutions from other fields> Taking risks, and failing your way to success> Building a "Greenhouse" for innovationIDEO has won more awards in the last ten years than any other firm of its kind, and a full half-hour Nightline presentation of its creative process received one of the show's highest ratings. The Art of Innovation will provide business leaders with the insights and tools they need to make their companies the leading-edge, top-rated stars of their industries.From the Hardcover edition.

    

    In Working Backwards, these two long-serving Amazon executives reveal and codify the principles and practices that drive the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known. With twenty-seven years of Amazon experience between them, much of it in the early aughts—a period of unmatched innovation that brought products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services to life—Bryar and Carr offer unprecedented access to the Amazon way as it was refined, articulated, and proven to be repeatable, scalable, and adaptable.With keen analysis and practical steps for applying it at your own company—no matter the size—the authors illuminate how Amazon’s fourteen leadership principles inform decision-making at all levels and reveal how the company’s culture has been defined by four characteristics: customer obsession, long-term thinking, eagerness to invent, and operational excellence. Bryar and Carr explain the set of ground-level practices that ensure these are translated into action and flow through all aspects of the business.Working Backwards is a practical guidebook and a corporate narrative, filled with the authors’ in-the-room recollections of what “Being Amazonian” is like and how it has affected their personal and professional lives. They demonstrate that success on Amazon’s scale is not achieved by the genius of any single leader, but rather through commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices—shared here for the very first time. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

    It features a wealth of new material, including how to make the most of Web casts and remote demonstrations, how to give impressive snap demonstrations, and how to use CRM/SFA systems effectively.

    It holds nothing back while detailing the highest highs and lowest lows of what it's really like to run a startup.  Cliff Lerner's online dating startup, Snap Interactive, was running out of money when he bet the company's fortunes on a then-unknown platform called Facebook. The app suddenly began to acquire 100,000 new users daily for free, and soon after the stock price skyrocketed 2,000 percent, setting off an extraordinary chain of events filled with sudden success and painful lessons.You will learn how to:    * IGNITE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH by creating a remarkable product    * Identify the ONLY 3 METRICS THAT MATTER    * Explore valuable VIRAL GROWTH strategies to grow rapidly    * Execute the GENIUS MEDIA HACKS that helped us acquire 100 million users    * Create a thriving culture of PASSIONATE EMPLOYEES and CONSTANT INNOVATIONPRAISE:"A must read for founders and CEOs who want to achieve rapid growth while also building a great product and company." -Payal Kadakia, Founder & Executive Chairman of ClassPass"Explosive Growth is without question one of the most useful and entertaining business books I have ever read. Cliff gives you a roadmap to massively grow your startup with specific tactical lessons made memorable through engaging stories. This book is a must-read." -David Perry, Digital Sales & Business Development Expert at Google, Adobe, Amazon, Startup Advisor"Want to know how to grow your startup to 100 million users? Then this is the book for you. Explosive Growth gives step-by-step instructions, case studies and proven tactics on how to explode your growth." -Entrepreneur Magazine by Syed Balkhi"Lessons for startups and CEOs on growth hacking, marketing, and innovation from one of the smartest founders I know." -Andrew Weinreich, Inventor of Social Networking

    A new generation of multibillion dollar brands have been built without spending a dime on traditional marketing techniques. No press releases, no PR firm, and no billboards in Times Square.It wasn’t luck that took them from tiny start-ups to massive success. They have a new strategy, called Growth Hacking. And it works.In this e-special, bestselling author Ryan Holiday shows how the marketing game has changed forever. He explains the growth hacker mindset and provides a new set of rules—critical information whether you’re an aspiring marketer, an entrepreneur, or a Fortune 500 senior executive.

    These insights may shake your assumptions, but they'll help you reach the "ah-ha!" moments that inspire truly great products.Validate or invalidate your hypothesis by talking to the right peopleLearn how to conduct successful customer interviews play-by-playDetect a customer's behaviors, pain points, and constraintsTurn interview insights into Minimum Viable Products to validate what customers will use and buyAdapt customer development strategies for large companies, conservative industries, and existing products