Customer Marketing

Most startups don't fail because they can't build a product. Most startups fail because they can't get traction. Startup advice tends to be a lot of platitudes repackaged with new buzzwords, but Traction is something else entirely. As Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares learned from their own experiences, building a successful company is hard. For every startup that grows to the point where it can go public or be profitably acquired, hundreds of others sputter and die.

Still struggling through the financial crisis that began in 2008, consumers aren't buying traditional sales approaches anymore. So how do salespeople, corporate communicators, managers, and marketers sell their ideas, products, and services to a generation of customers who are more skeptical and less influenced by conventional marketing than ever before?

Companies have invested thousands and even millions of dollars in CRM technology over the past decade, but frontline salespeople and sales executives alike are still groping for solutions. The problem of drift - a common phenomenon in which a prospect simply forgets about the product offering and goes dark - is persistent and rampant. Technology doesn't change behavior on its own. Behavior is changed by adopting better habits. The fact is, 44 percent of salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt. That sad reality presents a genuine opportunity.

If all the practice consultants and marketing experts have such great ideas to share, why aren't they using them to run their own successful practices? Finally, a book that offers not just ideas but proven strategies for transforming any financial practice into a highly effective value-delivering machine. Practicing financial advisor Matthew Jarvis uses these exact strategies to run his own wildly successful investment firm.

Another extraordinary business fable from the New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni. This new book in the popular Lencioni series shows what it takes to gain a real and lasting competitive edge.

Ever notice that there are people you work with who just make business happen? Listen to How to Become a Rainmaker to figure out the secret of being a storm front in your company. Let it pour!

In the age of email and instant communication, great sales copy is indispensable to closing a deal. But too many sales letters end up in the junk file or the wastebasket. In this new edition of his top-selling work, author Dan Kennedy explains why some sales letters work and most don't. And he shows how to write copy that any business can use.

CEOs. Leaders without titles. Startups. Corporations. For-profits. Nonprofits. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do - you want to become the best. You want to win, every time. Horst Schulze knows how to win. In Excellence Wins, Schulze, in his absolute no-nonsense approach, shares the visionary and disruptive principles that have produced immense global successes over the course of his still-prolific 50-year career.

If this sounds familiar, the problem isn’t you or your ideas; it’s that you’re guessing at what resonates with your target customers. In Forget the Funnel, Georgiana Laudi and Claire Suellentrop share the customer-led growth framework they've developed to help companies of all sizes solve their product marketing struggles and hit ambitious targets. This framework helps you get inside your customers’ heads, map and measure your customers’ experience, and uncover which tactics will actually move the needle for your company.

The power of glitzy advertising and elaborate marketing campaigns is on the wane; word- of-mouth referrals are what drive business today. People trust the recommendation of a friend, family member, colleague, or even stranger with similar tastes over anything thrust at them by a faceless company. Most business owners believe that whether customers refer them is entirely out of their hands. But science shows that people can't help recommending products and services to their friends....

The best financial advisors are well equipped to succeed regardless of market conditions. Based on interviews with 15 top advisors, each doing several million dollars worth of business every year, The Million-Dollar Financial Advisor distills their universal success principles into 13 distinct lessons. Each is explained step-by-step for immediate application by veteran and new financial professionals alike.

Packed with behind-the-peel stories, hard-earned lessons, and a few other surprises, Fans First teaches you how to stand out in your marketplace, drive explosive growth, and inspire fanatical loyalty.

We all say things we shouldn't. What is important is how we deal with the gaffe. If a slip-of-the-tongue at a family gathering, office meeting, or social setting causes you to inadvertently embarrass or offend someone, the strategy presented here, will help you to smooth things over as quickly as possible. But what about when you really mess up?

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

Whether you're in the trenches or the boardroom, you're going to encounter demanding, dissatisfied, and disagreeable customers. Are your people (and you) prepared to deal with them? Ignore a valid complaint and you could be the next viral sensation for all the wrong reasons. But give in to every demand and you may be consumed with the often petty complaints of your worst customers and wind up pandering to them with freebies, discounts, and special attention.

Keep Your Customers shares why loyalty in the business world matters and walks companies through the strategies and tactics that boost long-term customer value. It costs five to 25 times more for companies to acquire a new customer versus retaining an existing one. That means a company’s process to keep their customers is tied directly to their revenue and profitability.

In this, his first audiobook, Tony Hsieh - the widely admired CEO of Zappos, the online shoe retailer -explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of its employees, customers, vendors, and backers. Using anecdotes and stories from his own life experiences, and from other companies, Hsieh provides concrete ways that companies can achieve unprecedented success.

In Pick Up the Phone and Sell: How Proactive Calls to Customers and Prospects Can Double Your Sales, sales expert, consultant, and Wall Street Journal best-selling author Alex Goldfayn delivers a comprehensive road map to one of the most important weapons in any salesperson's arsenal: the phone. From the author of Selling Boldly and 5-Minute Selling, the book teaches you techniques to supercharge your sales by making the proactive call the tip of your selling spear.

The foremost authority on innovation and growth presents a path-breaking book every company needs to transform innovation from a game of chance to one in which they develop products and services customers not only want to buy but are willing to pay premium prices for. How do companies know how to grow? How can they create products that they are sure customers want to buy? Can innovation be more than a game of hit and miss? Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has the answer.

In their acclaimed best seller The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon and his colleagues at CEB busted many longstanding myths about sales. Now they've turned their research and analysis to a new vital business subject - customer loyalty - with a new book that turns the conventional wisdom on its head. The idea that companies must delight customers by exceeding service expectations is so entrenched that managers rarely even question it. They devote untold time, energy, and resources to trying to dazzle people and inspire their undying loyalty.