Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing and Selling


Michael Port - 2006
    It gives you simple, yet effective techniques for creating relentless demand and endless leads. It includes more than 200 proven marketing strategies for attracting new clients, earning more referrals, and building profitable, long-lasting professional relationships. If you want to take your service business to the next level, start here and "Book Yourself Solid.

SPIN Selling: Situation Problem Implication Need-payoff


Neil Rackham - 1988
    Unquestionably the best-documented account of sales success ever collected and the result of the Huthwaite corporation's massive 12-year, $1-million dollar research into effective sales performance, this groundbreaking resource details the revolutionary SPIN (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff) strategy.In SPIN Selling, Rackham, who has advised leading companies such as IBM and Honeywell delivers the first book to specifically examine selling high-value product and services. By following the simple, practical, and easy-to-apply techniques of SPIN, readers will be able to dramatically increase their sales volume from major accounts. Rackham answers key questions such as "What makes success in major sales" and "Why do techniques like closing work in small sales but fail in larger ones?"You will learn why traditional sales methods which were developed for small consumer sales, just won't work for large sales and why conventional selling methods are doomed to fail in major sales. Packed with real-world examples, illuminating graphics, and informative case studies - and backed by hard research data - SPIN Selling is the million-dollar key to understanding and producing record-breaking high-end sales performance.

Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing


Harry Beckwith - 1997
    A comprehensive guide to service marketing furnishes tips and advice on how one can apply one's business knowledge to any area of sales and marketing, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage firm.

Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising


Ryan Holiday - 2013
    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.

Everybody Writes: Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content


Ann Handley - 2014
    If you are on social media, you are in marketing. And that means that we are all relying on our words to carry our marketing messages. We are all writers.Yeah, but who cares about writing anymore? In a time-challenged world dominated by short and snappy, by click-bait headlines and Twitter streams and Instagram feeds and gifs and video and Snapchat and YOLO and LOL and #tbt. . . does the idea of focusing on writing seem pedantic and ordinary?Actually, writing matters more now, not less. Our online words are our currency; they tell our customers who we are.Our writing can make us look smart or it can make us look stupid. It can make us seem fun, or warm, or competent, or trustworthy. But it can also make us seem humdrum or discombobulated or flat-out boring.That means you've got to choose words well, and write with economy and the style and honest empathy for your customers. And it means you put a new value on an often-overlooked skill in content marketing: How to write, and how to tell a true story really, really well. That's true whether you're writing a listicle or the words on a Slideshare deck or the words you're reading right here, right now...And so being able to communicate well in writing isn't just nice; it's necessity. And it's also the oft-overlooked cornerstone of nearly all our content marketing.In Everybody Writes, top marketing veteran Ann Handley gives expert guidance and insight into the process and strategy of content creation, production and publishing, with actionable how-to advice designed to get results.These lessons and rules apply across all of your online assets — like web pages, home page, landing pages, blogs, email, marketing offers, and on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media. Ann deconstructs the strategy and delivers a practical approach to create ridiculously compelling and competent content. It's designed to be the go-to guide for anyone creating or publishing any kind of online content — whether you're a big brand or you're small and solo.Sections include: How to write better. (Or, for "adult-onset writers": How to hate writing less.) Easy grammar and usage rules tailored for business in a fun, memorable way. (Enough to keep you looking sharp, but not too much to overwhelm you.) Giving your audience the gift of your true story, told well. Empathy and humanity and inspiration are key here, so the book covers that, too. Best practices for creating credible, trustworthy content steeped in some time-honored rules of solid journalism. Because publishing content and talking directly to your customers is, at its heart, a privilege. "Things Marketers Write": The fundamentals of 17 specific kinds of content that marketers are often tasked with crafting. Content Tools: The sharpest tools you need to get the job done. Traditional marketing techniques are no longer enough. Everybody Writes is a field guide for the smartest businesses who know that great content is the key to thriving in this digital world.

Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break Through the Clutter, and Win More Customers by Marketing Less


Joe Pulizzi - 2013
    No longer can we interrupt our customers with mediocre content and sales messages they don't care about.Epic Content Marketing takes you step-by-step through the process of developing stories that inform and entertain and compel customers to act--without actually telling them to. Epic content, distributed to the right person at the right time, is the way to truly capture the hearts and minds of customers. It's how to position your business as a trusted expert in its industry. It's what customers share and talk about.Once we hook customers with epic content, they reward us by sending our sales through the roof.Epic Content Marketing provides everything you need to:Determine what your content niche should be to attract and retain customersDiscover and develop your content marketing mission statementSet up a process for creating and curating epic contentLearn how to leverage social and e-mail channels to create--and grow--your audienceMeasure the performance of your content--and increase your content marketing budgetWith in-depth case studies of how John Deere, LEGO, Coca-Cola, and other leading corporations are using content to drive epic sales, this groundbreaking guide gives you all the tools to start creating and disseminating content that leads directly to greater profits and growth.Whether you're the CMO of a Fortune 500, a digital marketer, or an entrepreneur, Epic Content Marketing gives you the tools you need to vanquish the competition. Start your epic journey now!PRAISE FOR EPIC CONTENT MARKETINGFrom the man who invented content marketing. Listen to this guy. He really understands the new world of marketing. The concepts in Epic Content Marketing are usable all over the world--instantly usable and useful for any business. -- Don Schultz, the father of integrated marketing, Professor Emeritus at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and author of 13 booksJoe Pulizzi's ideas are so consistently . . . well, epic (!) that they really don't need any endorsement by anyone. But here's mine anyway: You don't need MORE content. You need the right kind of content, strategically applied. For those organizations struggling to create a content marketing program that drives results, Joe delivers. Again. -- Ann Handley, coauthor of Content Rules and Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfsAs Joe shows us in his wonderful Epic Content Marketing, you must unlearn interrupting people with your nonsense. Instead, publish the valuable content they want to consume and are eager to share. -- David Meerman Scott, marketing strategist and bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PRThis is a brilliant canter through the rapid and ever-changing world of content marketing. Joe has managed to capture the right blend of art and science as he plots the major trends impacting all marketers right now. -- Jonathan Mildenhall, VP, Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence, Coca-Cola CompanyYou could say that Joe Pulizzi wrote the book on content marketing, but now it's more than just a saying. It's what you're holding in your hands. If you truly want to be successful at content marketing, Pulizzi is one of the few who can show you the way. -- Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image, and author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete"Joe Pulizzi may know more about content marketing than any person alive. He proves it in these pages. -- Jay Baer, New York Times bestselling author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help Not Hype"The future of successful brand building, and especially the art of solidifying the emotional connection between people and brands, will require expertise in Content Marketing. Epic Content Marketing gives all the details practitioners need without overcomplicating." -- Professor JoAnn Sciarrino, Knight Chair, Digital Advertising and Marketing, UNC Chapel Hill Joe Pulizzi is the godfather of our burgeoning profession of Content Marketing. He lays out the objectives, principles, and core strategies of our field in a way that's easy-to-understand, inspiring, and entertaining. If your company doesn't yet realize that it's a media company, with all the challenges and advantages that implies, you're missing the most powerful way to connect with your customers. -- Julie Fleischer, Director, Media & Consumer Engagement, Kraft Foods

Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal


Oren Klaff - 2011
    Over the past 13 years, he has used his one-of-a- kind method to raise more than $400 million--and now, for the first time, he describes his formula to help you deliver a winning pitch in any business situation.Whether you're selling ideas to investors, pitching a client for new business, or even negotiating for a higher salary, "Pitch Anything "will transform the way you position your ideas.According to Klaff, creating and presenting a great pitch isn't an art--it's a simple science. Applying the latest findings in the field of neuroeconomics, while sharing eye-opening stories of his method in action, Klaff describes how the brain makes decisions and responds to pitches. With this information, you'll remain in complete control of every stage of the pitch process."Pitch Anything" introduces the exclusive STRONG method of pitching, which can be put to use immediately: Setting the Frame Telling the Story Revealing the Intrigue Offering the Prize Nailing the Hookpoint Getting a DecisionOne truly great pitch can improve your career, make you a lot of money--and even change your life. Success is dependent on the method you use, not how hard you try. "Better method, more money," Klaff says. "Much better method, much more money." Klaff is the best in the business because his method is much better than anyone else's. And now it's yours.Apply the tactics and strategies outlined in "Pitch Anything" to engage and persuade your audience--and you'll have more funding and support than you ever thought possible.

Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity


Hugh MacLeod - 2009
    Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog-gapingvoid.com-and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?Ignore Everybody expands on MacLeod's sharpest insights, wittiest cartoons, and most useful advice. For example:-Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.-If your plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.-Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.-The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.After learning MacLeod's forty keys to creativity, you will be ready to unlock your own brilliance and unleash it on the world.

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences


Nancy Duarte - 2010
    So why then do so many audiences leave feeling like they've wasted their time? All too often, presentations don't resonate with the audience and move them to transformative action.Just as the author's first book helped presenters become visual communicators, Resonate helps you make a strong connection with your audience and lead them to purposeful action. The author's approach is simple: building a presentation today is a bit like writing a documentary. Using this approach, you'll convey your content with passion, persuasion, and impact.Author has a proven track record, including having created the slides in Al Gore's Oscar-winning An Inconvenient TruthFocuses on content development methodologies that are not only fundamental but will move people to action Upends the usual paradigm by making the audience the hero and the presenter the mentor Shows how to use story techniques of conflict and resolution Presentations don't have to be boring ordeals. You can make them fun, exciting, and full of meaning. Leave your audiences energized and ready to take action with Resonate.

Emotional Branding: The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People


Marc Gobé - 2001
    The “10 Commandments of Emotional Branding” have become a new benchmark for marketing and creative professionals, emotional branding has become a coined term by many top industry experts to express the new dynamic that exists now between brands and people. The emergence of social media, consumer empowerment and interaction were all clearly predicted in this book 10 years ago around the new concept of a consumer democracy. In this updated edition, Marc Gobé covers how social media helped elect Barack Obama to the White House, how the idea behind Twitter is transforming our civilization, and why new generations are re-inventing business, commerce, and management as we know it by leveraging the power of the web. In studying the role of women as "shoppers in chief, "and defining the need to look at the marketplace by recognizing differences in origins, cultures, and choices, Emotional Branding foresaw the break up of mass media to more targeted and culturally sensitive modes of communications. As the first marketing book ever to study the role of the LGBTQ community as powerful influencers for many brands, Emotional Branding opened the door to a renewed sensitivity toward traditional research that privilege individuality and the power of the margins to be at the center of any marketing strategy. A whole segment in the book looks at the role of the senses in branding and design. The opportunity that exists in understanding how we feel about a brand determines how much we want to buy. By exploring the 5 senses, Emotional Branding shows how some brands have built up their businesses by engaging in a sensory interaction with their consumers. Emotional Branding explores how effective consumer interaction needs to be about senses and feelings, emotions and sentiments. Not unlike the Greek culture that used philosophy, poetry, music, and the art of discussion and debate to stimulate the imagination, the concept of emotional branding establishes the forum in which people can convene and push the limits of their creativity. Through poetry the Greeks invented mathematics, the basis of science, sculpture, and drama. Unless we focus on humanizing the branding process we will lose the powerful emotional connection people have with brands. Critics hailed Emotional Branding as a breakthrough and a fresh approach to building brands. Design in this book is considered a new media, the web a place where people will share information and communicate, architecture a part of the brand building process, and people as the most powerful element of any branding strategy. Most importantly, it emphasizes the need to transcend the traditional language of marketing--from one based on statistics and data to a visually compelling new form of communication that fosters creativity and innovation.

Storyscaping: Stop Creating Ads, Start Creating Worlds


Gaston Legorburu - 2014
    Storyscapes introduces "storyscaping" as a way to create immersive experiences that solve the challenge of connecting brands and consumers. This book describes a powerful new approach to advertising and marketing for the digital age that involves using stories to design emotional and transactional experiences for customers, both online and offline. Each connection inspires engagement with another, so the brand becomes part of the customer's story. Authors Gaston Legorburu and Darren McColl explain how marketers can identify and define the core target audience segment, define your brand's purpose, understand the emotional desires of your consumers, and more.•Shows how to map how the consumer engages with the category and product/service•Explains how to develop an organizing idea and creative plan for an immersive storyscape experience•Defines the role of marketing channels around the organizing idea•Establishes how technology can be applied to the experienceLearn how to measure, optimize, and evolve the customer experience through the use of strong narratives that compel consumers to buy into your brand.

Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy and the New Science of Desire


Martin Lindstrom - 2008
    His startling results shatter much of what we have long believed about what seduces our interest and drives us to buy. Among his finding:Gruesome health warnings on cigarette packages not only fail to discourage smoking, they actually make smokers want to light up. Despite government bans, subliminal advertising still surrounds us – from bars to highway billboards to supermarket shelves. "Cool” brands, like iPods trigger our mating instincts. Other senses – smell, touch, and sound - are so powerful, they physically arouse us when we see a product. Sex doesn't sell. In many cases, people in skimpy clothing and suggestive poses not only fail to persuade us to buy products - they often turn us away .Companies routinetly copy from the world of religion and create rituals – like drinking a Corona with a lime – to capture our hard-earned dollars. Filled with entertaining inside stories about how we respond to such well-known brands as Marlboro, Nokia, Calvin Klein, Ford, and American Idol, BUYOLOGY is a fascinating and shocking journey into the mind of today’s consumer that will captivate anyone who’s been seduced – or turned off – by marketers’ relentless attempts to win our loyalty, our money, and our minds. Includes a foreword by Paco Underhill.

Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits


Debbie Millman - 2011
    The United States alone is home to over 45,000 shopping malls. And there are more than 19 million customized beverage choices a barista can whip up at your local Starbucks. Whether it’s good or bad, the real question is why we behave this way in the first place. Why do we telegraph our affiliations or our beliefs with symbols, signs, and codes?Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits contains twenty interviews with the world’s leading designers and thinkers in branding. The interviews contain spirited views on how and why humans have branded the world around us, and the ideas, inventions, and insight inherent in the search.

Marketing: A Love Story: How to Matter to Your Customers


Bernadette Jiwa - 2014
    This is her finest work, a book that ought to be read by everyone on your team, and somehow hidden from your competitors."—SETH GODIN One of the biggest challenges we face as entrepreneurs and innovators is understanding how to make our ideas resonate. We tend to have no shortage of ideas, but we struggle to tell the story of how they are going to be useful in the world and why they will matter to people. Marketing is the way we communicate how our ideas translate to value for people in a marketplace.Marketing has become a necessary evil for every business, but what if we adopted a different view of it? What if marketing was less about promotion or coercion and more about reaching out to people and helping them to solve problems? What if marketing was how we found more ways to do better work and to matter to our customers?What if marketing was where we began our journey towards understanding what people need and want?What if it was our vantage point for seeing the world through the eyes of our customers? How different would marketing be then?

To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others


Daniel H. Pink - 2012
    Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in nine Americans works in sales. Every day more than fifteen million people earn their keep by persuading someone else to make a purchase.But dig deeper and a startling truth emerges:Yes, one in nine Americans works in sales. But so do the other eight.Whether we’re employees pitching colleagues on a new idea, entrepreneurs enticing funders to invest, or parents and teachers cajoling children to study, we spend our days trying to move others. Like it or not, we’re all in sales now.To Sell Is Human offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. As he did in Drive and A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink draws on a rich trove of social science for his counterintuitive insights. He reveals the new ABCs of moving others (it's no longer "Always Be Closing"), explains why extraverts don't make the best salespeople, and shows how giving people an "off-ramp" for their actions can matter more than actually changing their minds.Along the way, Pink describes the six successors to the elevator pitch, the three rules for understanding another's perspective, the five frames that can make your message clearer and more persuasive, and much more. The result is a perceptive and practical book--one that will change how you see the world and transform what you do at work, at school, and at home.