Book picks similar to
Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms by Ronald J. Baker
business
non-fiction
pricing
economics
The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
Robert I. Sutton - 2007
Sutton addressed a taboo topic that affects every workplace: employees who are insensitive to their colleagues, corporate bullies, bosses who just don't get it, the kind of people who make you exclaim in exasperation, "What an asshole!"Now, in a definitive book that addresses this growing problem, Sutton shows you how you can work with unsavory people without becoming one of them yourself.
Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis
Harold L. Vogel - 1986
Vogel examines the business economics of the major entertainment enterprises: movies, music, television programming, broadcasting, cable, casino gambling and wagering, publishing, performing arts, sports, theme parks, and toys and games. The seventh edition has been further revised and broadened and differs from its predecessors by restructuring and repositioning the previous Internet chapter, including new material on the economics of networks and advertising, adding a new section on policy implications, and further expanding the section on recent theoretical work pertaining to box-office behaviour. The result is a comprehensive up-to-date reference guide on the economics, financing, production, and marketing of entertainment in the United States and overseas. Investors, business executives, accountants, lawyers, arts administrators, and general readers will find that the book offers an invaluable guide to how entertainment industries operate.
The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture
John Battelle - 2005
In its sweeping survey of the history of Internet search technologies, its gossip about and analysis of Google, and its speculation on the larger cultural implications of a Web-connected world, it will likely receive attention from a variety of businesspeople, technology futurists, journalists, and interested observers of mid-2000s zeitgeist. This ambitious book comes with a strong pedigree. Author John Battelle was a founder of The Industry Standard and then one of the original editors of Wired, two magazines which helped shape our early perceptions of the wild world of the Internet. Battelle clearly drew from his experience and contacts in writing The Search. In addition to the sure-handed historical perspective and easy familiarity with such dot-com stalwarts as AltaVista, Lycos, and Excite, he speckles his narrative with conversational asides from a cast of fascinating characters, such Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Yahoo's, Jerry Yang and David Filo; key executives at Microsoft and different VC firms on the famed Sandhill road; and numerous other insiders, particularly at the company which currently sits atop the search world, Google. The Search is not exactly the corporate history of Google. At the book's outset, Battelle specifically indicates his desire to understand what he calls the cultural anthropology of search, and to analyze search engines' current role as the "database of our intentions"--the repository of humanity's curiosity, exploration, and expressed desires. Interesting though that beginning is, though, Battelle's story really picks up speed when he starts dishing inside scoop on the darling business story of the decade, Google. To Battelle's credit, though, he doesn't stop just with historical retrospective: the final part of his book focuses on the potential future directions of Google and its products' development. In what Battelle himself acknowledges might just be a "digital fantasy train", he describes the possibility that Google will become the centralizing platform for our entire lives and quotes one early employee on the weightiness of Google's potential impact: "Sometimes I feel like I am on a bridge, twenty thousand feet up in the air. If I look down I'm afraid I'll fall. I don't feel like I can think about all the implications." Some will shrug at such words; after all, similar hype has accompanied other technologies and other companies before. Many others, though, will search Battelle's story for meaning--and fast. --Peter Han
The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media
Paul Gillin - 2007
Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers explores these forces at work, identifying the new influencers, their goals and motivations, and offers strategies for both large and small organizations on how to influence the influencers.
Startupland: How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business
Mikkel Svane - 2014
Conventional wisdom says most startups need to be in Silicon Valley, started by young engineers around a sexy new idea, and backed by VC funding. But as Mikkel Svane reveals in Startupland, the story of founding Zendesk was anything but conventional.Founded in a Copenhagen loft by three thirty-something friends looking to break free from corporate doldrums, Zendesk Inc. is now one of the hottest enterprise software companies, still rapidly growing with customers in 150 countries. But its success was anything but predestined. With revealing stories both funny and frank, Mikkel shares how he and his friends bravely left secure jobs to start something on their own, how he almost went broke several times, how they picked up themselves and their families to travel across the world to California and the unknown, and how the three friends were miraculously still together for Zendesk's IPO and (still growing) success.Much like Zendesk's mission itself--to remove friction, barriers, and mystery in order to make customer service easier and more approachable--Startupland removes some of the myths about startups and startup founders. Mikkel's advice, hard-won through experience, often bucks conventional wisdom and entrepreneurial tropes. He shares why failure (whether fast or slow) is awful, why a seemingly boring product or idea can be the most exciting, why giving back to the community is as important as the bottom line. From how to hire right (look for people who are not offended by swearing) to which personas generate the highest response rates, Mikkel answers the most pressing questions from the perspective of someone still in the trenches and willing to share the hard truth, warts and all.While there are books by consultants who tell you how to build businesses, or by entrepreneurs now running billion-dollar businesses, there are few books from people still in the trenches who acutely remember the difficult daily decisions, the thrill (and fears) of the early days, the problems that scale with growing a business, and the reason why they all went on the adventure in the first place. Startupland is indispensable reading for all entrepreneurs who want to make their ideas the next big thing. The book will inspire and empower you to follow your own dream and create your own story.
Pricing with Confidence
Reed K. Holden - 2008
With ten simple rules, this book shows you how to deliver both healthy profit margins and robust revenue growth while kicking the dreaded discounting habit. The authors destroy the conventional wisdom that you have to trade margins for revenues and show you how to fully exploit the value your company offers customers. This is a proven plan for increasing sales without sacrificing profits.
Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
Steve Krug - 2009
But with a typical price tag of $5,000 to $10,000 for a usability consultant to conduct each round of tests, it rarely happens. In this how-to companion to Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug spells out an approach to usability testing that anyone can easily apply to their own web site, application, or other product. (As he said in Don't Make Me Think, "It's not rocket surgery".)In this new book, Steve explains how to: -Test any design, from a sketch on a napkin to a fully-functioning web site or application-Keep your focus on finding the most important problems (because no one has the time or resources to fix them all)-Fix the problems that you find, using his "The least you can do" approachBy pairing the process of testing and fixing products down to its essentials (A morning a month, that's all we ask ), Rocket Surgery makes it realistic for teams to test early and often, catching problems while it's still easy to fix them. Rocket Surgery Made Easy adds demonstration videos to the proven mix of clear writing, before-and-after examples, witty illustrations, and practical advice that made Don't Make Me Think so popular.
The Rules of Work: The Unspoken Truth about Getting Ahead in Business
Richard Templar - 2002
Arm yourself with these 50 secret rules, and get to the top without breaking a sweat. * Hot book -- 55,000 copies sold in the UK, and 20,000 copies in Canada. * The complete success primer for today's manager: fun, irreverent, and real. * Why some people glide effortlessly past office politics, backstabbing, and unpleasant bosses...and how you can, too.
Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success
Ken Segall - 2012
It was also a weapon.Simplicity isn’t just a design principle at Apple—it’s a value that permeates every level of the organization. The obsession with Simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. It’s what helped Apple recover from near death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011.Thanks to Steve Jobs’s uncompromising ways, you can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it’s structured, the way it innovates, and the way it speaks to its customers.It’s by crushing the forces of Complexity that the company remains on its stellar trajectory.As ad agency creative director, Ken Segall played a key role in Apple’s resurrection, helping to create such critical marketing campaigns as Think different. By naming the iMac, he also laid the foundation for naming waves of i-products to come.Segall has a unique perspective, given his years of experience creating campaigns for other iconic tech companies, including IBM, Intel, and Dell. It was the stark contrast of Apple’s ways that made Segall appreciate the power of Simplicity—and inspired him to help others benefit from it.In Insanely Simple, you’ll be a fly on the wall inside a conference room with Steve Jobs, and on the receiving end of his midnight phone calls. You’ll understand how his obsession with Simplicity helped Apple perform better and faster, sometimes saving millions in the process. You’ll also learn, for example, how to:• Think Minimal: Distilling choices to a minimum brings clarity to a company and its customers—as Jobs proved when he replaced over twenty product models with a lineup of four.• Think Small: Swearing allegiance to the concept of “small groups of smart people” raises both morale and productivity.• Think Motion: Keeping project teams in constant motion focuses creative thinking on well-defined goals and minimizes distractions.• Think Iconic: Using a simple, powerful image to symbolize the benefit of a product or idea creates a deeper impression in the minds of customers.• Think War: Giving yourself an unfair advantage—using every weapon at your disposal—is the best way to ensure that your ideas survive unscathed.Segall brings Apple’s quest for Simplicity to life using fascinating (and previously untold) stories from behind the scenes. Through his insight and wit, you’ll discover how companies that leverage this power can stand out from competitors—and individuals who master it can become critical assets to their organizations.
The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage
B. Joseph Pine II - 1999
We are on the threshold, say authors Pine and Gilmore, of the Experience Economy, a new economic era in which all businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers. The Experience Economy offers a creative, highly original, and yet eminently practical strategy for companies to script and stage the experiences that will transform the value of what they produce. From America Online to Walt Disney, the authors draw from a rich and varied mix of examples that showcase businesses in the midst of creating personal experiences for both consumers and businesses. The authors urge managers to look beyond traditional pricing factors like time and cost, and consider charging for the value of the transformation that an experience offers. Goods and services, say Pine and Gilmore, are no longer enough. Experiences and transformations are the basis for future economic growth, and The Experience Economy is the script from which managers can begin to direct their own transformations.
Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success
Adam M. Grant - 2013
But today, success is increasingly dependent on how we interact with others. It turns out that at work, most people operate as either takers, matchers, or givers. Whereas takers strive to get as much as possible from others and matchers aim to trade evenly, givers are the rare breed of people who contribute to others without expecting anything in return. Using his own pioneering research as Wharton's youngest tenured professor, Grant shows that these styles have a surprising impact on success. Although some givers get exploited and burn out, the rest achieve extraordinary results across a wide range of industries. Combining cutting-edge evidence with captivating stories, this landmark book shows how one of America's best networkers developed his connections, why the creative genius behind one of the most popular shows in television history toiled for years in anonymity, how a basketball executive responsible for multiple draft busts transformed his franchise into a winner, and how we could have anticipated Enron's demise four years before the company collapsed - without ever looking at a single number. Praised by bestselling authors such as Dan Pink, Tony Hsieh, Dan Ariely, Susan Cain, Dan Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin, Bob Sutton, David Allen, Robert Cialdini, and Seth Godin-as well as senior leaders from Google, McKinsey, Merck, Estee Lauder, Nike, and NASA - Give and Take highlights what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common. This landmark book opens up an approach to success that has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organizations and communities.
The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap: How to Build a Million Dollar Digital Marketing Agency
Josh Nelson - 2021
Increase your income, work when and how you want, get your clients get incredible results...... and live your desired lifestyle. The Seven Figure Agency is designed to solve these issues you may be experiencing such as: • Too many agencies hit an income ceiling, and never make the kind of money (or the kind of impact) that they are capable of. They get stuck at one of the 3 plateaus: Startup, Struggle or even Success • Most agencies blame themselves, and try to work on their MINDSET — But nothing changes because it’s not your mindset that’s the problem. It’s the MODEL that needs to change. • The model that you bought into when you started your agency business is completely unscalable (Manual prospecting to get a few leads, chasing prospects down rather than getting them to come to you... and living off of project revenue so there’s never consistent income or time for you). • For the last 5 years, the author has been working with a select group of agencies, taking them from Struggle to Success, Scale and Significance. Josh Nelson has a very new approach and he shares the very best of what is working in his business & for the agencies he works with to build million dollar agencies. This book is essential reading for agencies of all types and experience-levels and is of particular value for anyone looking to start a digital marketing agency to short cut growing pains and accelerate their growth to Seven Figures & Beyond. Forget the old concept of a general, digital marketing agency that takes years to establish - there’s no need to wait when you have The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap. Whether your dream is to control your schedule or earn six figures in a month, The Seven Figure Agency Roadmap is your manual. This set of turn-by-turn directions to building a digital agency teaches: • How Josh went from virtually bankrupt to running a hypergrowth agency that made the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing companies in the Untied States 4 years in a row • How to build the team that will manage the day-to-day operations • How top agency owners grow to seven figures within a year • How to add $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue to your agency every single month • How to rapidly establish authority in any niche, so clients ask to work with you When you purchase the book you get access to a workbook that help you put the ideas into action: • Multiple case studies & long form interviews with members of Seven Figure Agency Coaching who have grown their revenue to seven figures, hired teams to replace themselves, or sold their agencies for a nice profit • Josh’s templates you can copy for setting goals, designing your marketing, and tracking performance • How the Seven Figure Agency principles create a life shaped to your goals
The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You
Jack Covert - 2009
Now they have chosen and reviewed the one hundred best business titles of all time—the ones that deliver the biggest payoff for today’s busy readers.The 100 Best Business Books of All Time puts each book in context so that readers can quickly find solutions to the problems they face, such as how best to spend The First 90 Days in a new job or how to take their company from Good to Great. Many of the choices are surprising—you’ll find reviews of Moneyball and Orbiting the Giant Hairball, but not Jack Welch’s memoir. At the end of each review, Jack and Todd direct readers to other books both inside and outside The 100 Best. And sprinkled throughout are sidebars taking the reader beyond business books, suggesting movies, novels, and even children’s books that offer equally relevant insights. This guide will appeal to anyone, from entry-level to CEO, who wants to cut through the clutter and discover the brilliant books that are truly worth their investment of time and money.
Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen
Donald Miller - 2017
This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching readers the seven universal story points all humans respond to; the real reason customers make purchases; how to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.
Overdeliver: Build a Business for a Lifetime Playing the Long Game in Direct Response Marketing
Brian Kurtz - 2019
In this book, "titan" of direct marketing Brian Kurtz teaches you how to find and sell to your audience without ever losing sight of the people you are selling to, and without compromising on the respect and care they deserve.This book is about direct marketing, or "measurable marketing," in any medium. Direct marketing is the only way to get a specific return on your investment--every time you run a campaign, there has to be some way to measure it. Brian shows you how to track what is effective in marketing to the people in your target audience and how to diversify your marketing to ensure you can provide for them over the long haul.Brian explains the 4 Pillars of Being Extraordinary, the 5 Principles of Original Source, how to track the metrics that matter, strategies and tactics to build a responsive database (list building), how to tailor offers to your list, the 7 Characteristics of World-Class Copy-Writers, multichannel marketing, the importance of customer service, how to overdeliver, and so much more!