Knowledge

Every organization wants to go from good to great. Yet, despite knowing where they want to go, many companies can't find their way there. They struggle to find the one thing that matters in today's competitive marketplace. Price? . . . Quality? . . . Innovative product features? While all of these certainly influence a customer's buying decision, none of them is the most influential factor. What is? It's the salesperson. Achieve Sales Excellence examines the new paradigm of business-to-business sales. Based on the results of an innovative, fourteen-year study, this book offers unmatched insight on sales performance issues and the practices sales professionals and organizations must embrace to be a world-class sales force. ... [ read more ]

Free your workplace from drama dysfunction with these proven tools for increased office efficiency, harmony, and productivity. In The Drama-Free Office, authors Jim Warner and Kaley Klemp interweave humorous and relatable case studies with the key skills you'll need for managing office saboteurs--be they subordinates, coworkers, or the boss. You will see your coworkers (and yourself) in this entertaining and practical blueprint for addressing the dramatic behaviors that cripple so many teams.... [ read more ]

Is it possible to be at your best even when you are underqualified or doing something for the first time? Is it still possible, even after decades of experience, to recapture the enthusiasm, curiosity, and fearlessness of youth to take on new challenges? With the right mindset—with Rookie Smarts—you can. In a rapidly changing world, experience can be a curse. Careers stall, innovation stops, and strategies grow stale. Being new, naïve, and even clueless can be an asset. For today’s knowledge workers, constant learning is more valuable than mastery. In this essential guide, leadership expert Liz Wiseman explains how to reclaim and cultivate this curious, flexible, youthful mindset called Rookie Smarts. ... [ read more ]

Why is a great company culture so rare? How can you make sure your organization has one? The good news is that creating an inspiring and sustainable culture is not as hard as you might think. Dr. David ''Doc'' Vik reveals the keys to success in The Culture Secret.... [ read more ]

Almost one in four American working adults has a job that pays less than a living wage. Conven­tional wisdom says that’s how the world has to work. Bad jobs with low wages, minimal benefits, little training, and chaotic schedules are the only way companies can keep costs down and prices low. If companies were to offer better jobs, cus­tomers would have to pay more or companies would have to make less. But in The Good Jobs Strategy, Zeynep Ton, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, makes the compelling case that even in low-cost settings, leaving employees behind—with bad jobs—is a choice, not a necessity. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Ton shows how operational excellence enables companies to of­fer the lowest prices to customers while ensuring good jobs for their employees and superior results for their investors.... [ read more ]

A crash course on the most dynamic marketing platform today! Online marketing has evolved far beyond flashy websites and banner ads shouting at customers about your product. It's about using an array of Internet tools to build credibility and visibility, spread your message, and form meaningful customer relationships. The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Online Marketing puts you on the fast track to harnessing the power of the Web for your marketing goals.... [ read more ]

Today, the really successful companies are using innovative and low cost ways to strengthen the most critical aspect of their business, the employee-customer relationship. The results are greater customer satisfaction and higher profits. Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most shows you how they are doing it. Sybil Stershic, an internal marketing expert with over 30 years experience, has written this book for employers, managers, and HR professionals who want to create a working environment that motivates employees to take the best possible care of their customers -- and each other. This book will show you, from the inside-out, how to build company loyalty, increase employee satisfaction, and create a winning team of motivated workers and customers.... [ read more ]

This book describes how to make customer service available online and recommends what types of information a company should provide over the Internet.... [ read more ]

Capturing Customers.com calls itself the first post-dot-com book about sales and marketing. It describes the impact that businesses can create when they combine their "online" sales and marketing efforts with more traditional offline activities.... [ read more ]

The book encapsulates Oracle's vision for succeeding on the Internet. However, it was written before the meltdown, so it will be interesting to see how the vision measures up to current reality.... [ read more ]

Describing the latest tracking and analysis tools, this book tells marketers how to use the Web to develop profitable long-term, one-to-one relationships with their most valued customers.... [ read more ]

Little Red Book of Selling gives a step by step explanation on how to become a top salesperson. Full of wit and cartoons, this book has everything you need to kick start or increase your sales.... [ read more ]

“Why is customer loyalty and engagement important? The biggest reason is that customer engagement is the only metric that impacts other metrics typically measured by a company. As one industry expert noted, When customer engagement slides, so do a great many other outcomes, including future sales, growth and profit. Obviously, engaged customers are the best customers for a company to have. Eight of ten executives believe their company loses sales each year because of failure to create engaged customers, and 80% say that engaged customers are critical because they recommend products or services.” Excerpted from ‘Capitalizing on Voice of Customer,’ Published by Allegiance (www.allegiance.com) ... [ read more ]

Provides an in-depth study of managing information in call centers.... [ read more ]

Power Selling is a book for both the beginners and corporate sales manages to even entrepeneurs. This book contains practical tools to succeed with helpful online tools as well as explains how to overcome buyer skepticism and suspicion, establish trust that promotes buyer action, transfer setbacks into sales combacks and much more.... [ read more ]

Every year numerous business books and magazine articles are written about collaboration in the workplace. It’s hard not to be in favor of collaboration, but why do some organizations do it so well and other fail at it? Is it the company culture that makes a difference or perhaps the skills of those who endeavor to collaborate? Could it be the tools used to collaborate? Take a moment and make a list of the tools that your organization currently uses to foster collaboration among coworkers. It’s a bit challenging for many businesses because collaboration is viewed as a pathway to a result rather than a result itself. Many people think of collaboration in terms of a process to be managed rather than a set of tools to be engaged. Thus, you might say that brainstorming sessions, conference calls and company strategy retreats are among your current methods of collaboration. You might even argue that the telephone and the office copy machine facilitate collaboration. Indeed, these may be effective methods for your company, and they may lead to desirable results, but what if the process of collaboration itself became a highly valued product? Is it possible or even advisable to get your customers and prospective customers to engage in some form of collaboration that will benefit your company? The answer is yes, but the concept can be a bit counterintuitive. After all, imagine what kinds of things your customers could say about you if you were to enable that conversation through one or more social media tools that allow them to interact with and influence one another. Talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. Ask yourself this, however: Do you gain more by sponsoring or at least endorsing this kind of conversation than you do by running from it? Excerpted from The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools & Strategies for Business Success, by Lon Safko and David K. Brake. John Wiley & Sons. 2009. ... [ read more ]

The authors' plan provides the management tools needed for establishing a company's place on the Internet.... [ read more ]

ROI Selling discusses the three true returns on investment and how to apply them to any sales initiative: an increase in revenue, a reduction in cost, and an avoidance of cost. This book has a step-by-step process for colletcting and organizing vital information that can be used to build your own ROI model, how to incorporate a 360 Degree Roi Selling into any sales preceses and much more.... [ read more ]

Measuring the success of a business is not as simple as saying: ‘happy employees equal happy customers.’ Happy employees can also be lazy employees. A person taking tickets at a movie theater may be happy, but it may be because he or she gets to sit around on a comfortable chair while drinking free soft drinks and eating free popcorn. Many people might be happy if their employers paid them for what is merely time spent drinking soda, eating popcorn and collecting ticket stubs. For the above saying to be true, companies should be looking at levels of engagement as the measuring stick. We know that emotionally engaged employees feel like they are doing something valuable for their organizations and that their efforts will make a difference. Customers know when they are talking to emotionally engaged employees. The positive feelings that the employees have about their jobs and employers influence the level of service they give to customers. When these positive experiences continue to happen, then customers become engaged, and they become advocates for the company’s products and services. While movie theaters may be an easy target when it comes to pointing out the signs of disengaged employees, it’s certainly not exclusive to this business. Employees across all industries have a major impact on customer loyalty and engagement. The mantra of ‘happy employees equal happy customers’ is real, and companies should seek emotionally engaged employees because it will be these employees who help create emotionally engaged customers. This is the spillover effect. ... [ read more ]

This book covers "digital cash" technology and how it will change the way companies will do business online.... [ read more ]

Net Worth deals with the idea that Buyers are losing their patience and trust in sellers. By playing with the relationship between buisnesses and their customers, Hagel and Singer suggest readers to challenge their fundamental beliefs about marketing, brands, and value. ... [ read more ]

This book covers the latest in security technology, techniques, and tools.... [ read more ]

Brandscendence explores what makes certain brands prevail over others. According to author, Clark, there are three elements that are essential for brand endurence: revelence, context, and mutual benefit.Clark also outlines his formula for branding success and illustrates how it's applied by the world's most prominent brands. ... [ read more ]

This book deals with an important portion of the fulfillment process: what to do when things go awry. Short, breezy, readable.... [ read more ]

Let Them Eat Cake discusses author Danziger's strategy to go beyond the normal discounting system and offers an easy and doable system for any company or retailer in any economic or pricing spectrum. ... [ read more ]