It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be<br /><br />This follows in the steps of Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite, also by Paul Arden, which I had found and still find inspiring. <br /><br />My initial reaction to this book was that it was written very much from the point of a creative agency director wanting to inspire his troops to 'go over the wall'. I now appreciate that we are all challenged by the concept of excellence and the need to make more of an effort to distinguish ourselves from other people pursuing the same career or at the same stage in their life endeavours as us.<br /><br />We are not necessarily creating ads for cars or washing-machines or whatever but we need to adopt an original approach to everyday problems and the sky is the limit to our ambition. <br /><br />My conclusion after reading this book is that we determine what we want to achieve in life and that we are the masters and judges of our own performance. I still need to go back and glean a few tips from the Master! <br /><br /><br />

Easy and interesting read

I am a marketing student in my final year and bought this due to our syllabus changing slightly to incorporate the changes that are occurring within the marketing communications world. It was very easy to read in comparison to other books similar to this one. Furthermore, it was actually interesting. It has not only been referenced in nearly all my assignments, but dissertation and exams as well. Definitely worth while reading as a student, business owner or just out of interest to see the impact social media and the internet is having on the business industry!

Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods and Techniques Used by Top Salespeople Everywhere

Awesome book for all levels - I am a proven experienced sales professional and this book is more about the mindset and motivating internal factors rather than rebuttals, scripts etc. very pleased and has shown results already.

A practical guide

I find this book very good. It's a small one but very dense, loaded with info and I had to read it slowly (especially for me, as I am french). Maybe I would wish to have more samples on some chapter, for instance on "pattern interrupt" and on"rapport building". Anyway it was a mind opener for me and I would recommend it.

Smart, sassy and sharp - the essence of advertising

This book was written to illuminate the advertising world of the 1960's for the lay reader. It's been revived as a companion piece to the HBO series Mad Men , which claims the text as an inspiration. In brief, the text examines the world of 60's advertising through the eyes of the author, his agency, and his experiences at agencies he has worked for in the past. While this ground level view is (perhaps) limited in the perspective it gives us on the entire oeuvre of advertising, it balances this by being a very intimate piece of writing - the comparison to front-line war reporting is accurate, at least in style. The reader is given an immediacy of understanding with each anecdote. While this is not a broad portrayal, it is quite a detailed one, within the small scale in which it operates.<br /><br />The book is written in a very folksy, pleasant style, which is very enjoyable to read. Rather than feeling like an academic text, it seems more as if the author is expounding to the reader over lunch (quite probably with several martinis). This friendly tone makes the book very accessible, and a very easy read. This is backed by the pure humour lining the book, which has been very sharply observed, from copywriters sitting on the fire-escape and eyeing the inhabitants of the building opposite, to Della Femina and a colleague fleeing a client's building after a pitch gone horribly wrong. This may not be `academic' advertising, but it does expose the underbelly, the `warts and all' face of the industry.<br /><br />Some of the content is dated, particularly in reference to the clients and agencies mentioned. However, the largest part of the book is concerned with individuals, actions, reactions, and the behaviours of individuals within the industry, which were, and are, still recognisable to readers in and out of the industry. This book reads mostly like several amusing anecdotes about the author's friends (and enemies) in the advertising world, and so while the modern reader may not identify all of the specific clients involved, the stories themselves will remain entertaining.<br /><br />This text is intelligently written, easy to read, and renders the world of New York advertising well, and intriguingly. If you're already a Mad Men aficionado, it will be worth the read. If not, it's still several hours of wittily amusing, interesting reading.<br />

This chicken is warmed up!

Having never been a fan of cold calling I thought I'd read this book to see if there were any tips that I could put into place. Thank goodness I did - Bob has made it an interesting read and an extremely useful book with tools and techniques that are easy to understand and simple to adopt. A must for anyone who needs to sell.

Great, quick and easy read

Full of sensible marketing advice and tips to use on your business straight away. A refreshingly small and light book packed full of useful information.

Excellent reading and right to the point

I'm very satisfied with Amazon Prime, receiving the book the next day after ordering. Excellent service! <br /><br />About the book:<br /><br />Its a 1947 year classics, recommended by Dale Carnegie himself. I truly respect him and read all his books. This books"How I raised myself from failure to success in selling" by Frank Bettger is a great additional to my library. Its filled with gems of wisdom, that can rarely be found in such a precise form in nowadays literature. The author shows you exact steps that led him to being successful in selling. His experience applies mostly to his time, when you had to go from door to door to sell something in America, however I consider it being a valuable advice and knowledge that can improve your day-to-day performance as a seller or simply someone who has to deal with people in his/her every day job.

Thank You Avanish by Lenjerie Intima LadyShop.ro

Avinash Thanks for clarifying my work and to better understand the data. is very difficult to be able to process the multitude of reports that provides analytics, but more difficult is to get not necessarily a good decision based on these data, but a profitable decision:)!

The Noble Art Of The Consigliere

This is a most useful book on how the professional adviser must act if they are to secure and retain the trust of their clients. It avoids the Dale Carnegie"Just Be Nice" approach by analysing why one wants to generate trust and how it is done. There is no argument that if you find you do not like a potential client you should walk away (and, speaking from personal experience what a joy that is); there are also some handy suggestions of how to do this if you are not a free agent in such a case but working within an organisation.<br /><br />The proposed responses are, of course, written by and for Americans and come over as deeply insincere in the mouths of the British, but they are not scripts but proposals. You can easily adapt them to different cultures because, however it is expressed, the basis of trust is the basically same in most cultures. <br /><br />The book acts as a valuable specific to those that suggest various up-selling strategies or ones in which the advisor portrays himself as The Top Man. By shifting one's vision to how this is perceived by the recipient we can see that up-selling can work, but only if the client leads you to it. The book's key is in constantly restating our approaches in terms of how they are perceived by the potential client, not how they address our internal needs and aims. It is a policy that I've found pays dividends.<br /><br />Recommended.

Crush it!

This book has been a phenomenal success, and understandably so. Its about living your passion. The author just about hands you a blueprint for branding yourself in order to brand your company. His insights into social media alone are well worth the day's investment it takes to read this book.

Like having a personal tutor in your bookshelf! All Q's Answered!

This is a must have for anyone who is starting out in the design world (or if you need to brush up your skills!). <br /><br />Being a design student and new on the design scene, I can see I will be referring to this book a lot to avoid common mistakes. This book answers many of my questions on topics like; working hourly vs set price and how to deal with awkward clients.<br /><br />This book is also packed with inspiring, modern examples of logo design and explains what they reflect. I also found the images of logo development and mind mapping very useful to see how other people come up with ideas.<br /><br />JUST GET THIS BOOK.

Brilliant Marketing

Brilliant Marketing: What the Best Marketers Know, Do and SayBrilliant Presentation: What the Best Presenters Know, Do and Say (Brilliant Business)<br /><br />How does he do it? In the crusty, crowded, bullet point world of business manuals, Richard Hall makes his books race along like ripping yarns. Brilliant Marketing is a worthy addition to his fast expanding stable. By the way, if you're ever called to get to your feet to present, don't think about it until you've read (and enjoyed) Brilliant Presentation.

Still resonates

In many ways this book is hopelessly out-of-date but most of the principles espoused by Ogilvy in this hugely-entertaining and superbly-written book still hold true.<br /><br />Recommended for anyone with a passing interest in 20th century popular culture and post-war business. Essential for anyone trying to break into advertising.

Practical and digestable psychology!

Easy to read. Full of helpful stuff, almost no junk. Clearly communicated well supported through various psychological research as well as very recent studies. Contentrated on human behaviour rather than web design - which is the best part, yet established connection over real life examples. Perhaps, if you want to be directed on certain way and looking for an easy fix this book might not fit you well, however if you are into understanding the Human being - including you - this book will simply guide you though.

Buyology - what an incredible journey!

It has now been a couple of weeks since I finished Buylogy and I must admit, that the last few weeks after my reading has been a very educational experience for me. It's always fantastic to become wiser especially in areas where you are being duped. <br /><br />Reading Buyology was an absolutely magnificent guided tour in my brain. The language is kept very simple which to me makes it very easy to understand and transform it into an enormous exciting learning about how my brain dupes me to believe. <br /><br />From my point of view whether you are marketing related or not I thing Buyology is very interesting and valuable knowledge and I'll give my best recommendation. <br /><br />

A technique for producing ideas

<br />Excellent little book. My only reservation is that the writer did not seem aware that this is how our brains work with rgards to ALL issues of analysis and, thereby, creation. Having said that, whatever brings this information to people's attention is an opportunity to grasp.

Full of nice insights!

For people who have stuck with traditional marketing for to long, this is truly mind-opening. Easy to grasp the concepts of the field presented in this book. <br /><br />For people already in the business of SMM, there is probably not much to gain by reading this book.<br /><br />I enjoyed reading it.

Food for thought

Paco Underhill's book about shopping is a really entertaining read and full of interesting nuggets. I was reading it from the perspective of someone who is professionally involved in"shopper marketing" (to use the latest buzzword) but I honestly think even if you were not but had any interest in the psychology of shopping, it would still have much to recommend itself. <br />For a start, it is very engagingly written and easy to digest which is not always the case with texts based on market research, and lacks the pomposity of some of the other authors on this subject.<br />The topics covered range from the difference between the way men and women shop, to the way people navigate round stores, to the placement of products on shelf - all pretty fundamental stuff if you are involved in retail in any way, but fascinating even if you are not. Most of the chapters are peppered with anecdotes sourced from Underhill's long experience carrying out in store"tracking" of customers, which really bring the subject to life.<br />I nearly gave this five stars but docked one, perhaps a little meanly, on the basis of two things.<br />One is the underlying, though understandable and forgivable, sell that Underhill is making for his company Envirosell (there I've given it a plug!) and his company's approach to measuring shopper behaviour. Which is laudable but impractical for much of the market research world, dependent as it is on highly skilled and highly trained observers.<br />The other is the fact, as other reviewers mention, that the last couple of chapters are definitely weaker than the rest of the book. In my view, this is because the bulk of the book does draw heavily on actual observations and experience, whereas the latter chapters are largely based on Paco Underhill's point of view. Obviously that's a point of view that has more than a little substance and merit, but still compared with the rest of the book, it's a little soft.<br />Still on balance this book is a well justified best seller, heavy on substance but written with a light and easy touch.

Highly Recommended

I bought this in preparation for my first job interview in five years. It's a great book with very useful tip and theorys on how to be a great salesperson. What clinched it for me though was being able to name drop the author and the title of the book when asked as the final question of my interview, 'So what self-study or books have read on sales'?
Worth every penny.