Linda Ireland’s book Domino: How Customer Experience Can Tip Everything in Your Business toward Better Financial Performance dives into the step-by-step mechanics of how you can improve your customer experience and subsequently your bottom line.

Domino isn’t the typical business book with lots of stories and a few bullet points of distilled concepts. This book can be used as a manual as you dissect your customer’s path from pre-sale to post-sale and seek to improve your conversion rates.

Each chapter offers thought-provoking questions and exercises that will help you tailor your customer experience and strategy for dealing with customers.

Linda Ireland offers up a very insightful mental mode of how a customer progresses over time as they interact with you:

Triggering Need > Learn > Try > Buy > Solve > Evolve

Trigger

Every customer has some trigger that prompts them to need your product or service. Your company would do well to be there when your customer has this “ah-ha” moment.

Learn

Customers must learn who can meet their needs. Your company needs to earn a place on the customer’s short list. If you aren’t in their consideration set, you’ll never get the sale.

Try

Before customers buy, they want to try your product. Will it meet their needs? Will their boss approve the purchase? You need to demonstrate that your product so effectively that the customer can envision herself a month down the road with the problem solved. What will life be like for them with their problem solved by your product?

Buy

Once a customer commits to buy, you must protect the sale. Reassure customers and match their buying process to ensure you get the sale.

Solve

With your product in hand, the customer now must solve the problem for which it was purchased. You need to prove that yes, your product will work and that it will solve the problem.

Evolve

After time, your customers will evolve to another need. This cycle then starts anew. You need to anticipate the customer’s needs and be ready for the next triggering event.

Recommendation: Read and Use this Book

Domino: How Customer Experience Can Tip Everything in Your Business toward Better Financial Performance will make you think and compel you to action with mind-opening questions and exercises that will help you break free of your current status-quo and more accurately see what your customers are doing and how you can guide them along in the process.

You can buy Domino on Amazon.com.

The Heath brothers, Chip and Dan, offer up a compelling framework for effecting change in their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard.

If you have read the Heath Brothers’ previous book, Made to Stick, the format of Switch will be familiar. The authors share stories of several individuals’ efforts in creating change in their work or organizations and what principles enabled them to be successful.

The book relies heavily on the analogy of the Elephant and the Rider originally created by psychologist Jonathan Haidt in his book The Happiness Hypothesis. Our minds have an emotional side (the elephant) and a rational side (the rider).

In Switch, the authors explain how to control and persuade both sides of our minds, the emotional and rational pieces. This framework consists of three primary parts: direct the rider, motivate the elephant, and shape the path.

Direct the Rider

The rider is logical and needs to be persuaded rationally.

Bright Spots

When trying to change things, find out what is already working. Look for these “bright spots” and build on those successes. Replicate that success elsewhere. Sometimes the best solutions are small ones, even to big problems.

Script the Critical Moves

Establish checklists or rules that help people along to the change without having to make decisions. People will be paralyzed by indecision and will revert to their default behavior. With a script, they overcome the ambiguity and uncertainty and won’t get worn out by constantly having to think about what to do.

Point to the Destination

Paint a “destination postcard” of what life will be like once the change is completed. This will help people visualize what they are working towards. Establish clear black and white goals that leave no room for misinterpretation – either you are moving towards your goal or you aren’t.

Motivate the Elephant

The elephant is significantly larger than the rider. It is the emotional side of each person that needs to be motivated or change will never happen.

Find the Feeling

People don’t change because they think about it. People change because they feel the need for it. Feelings and emotions are more powerful for creating change than just a logical understanding. Instead of following a pattern of “analyze-think-change” try “see-feel-change”.

Shrink the Change

Help people feel closer to their goal than they already are. Give people a head start to help keep them motivated. Break down tasks into small components so that people can’t help but feel a sense of victory and accomplishment.

Grow Your People

Teach your people what they can be and what they can achieve. They may be stuck in a restrictive mindset that limits their ability to reach new heights and their full potential. Work on changing those mindsets and attitudes to enable the change you need.

Shape the Path

Make it obvious and easy for the rider to guide the elephant down the path you want them to travel.

Tweak the Environment

People often act a certain way because of their environment, not because of some inherent personality trait. Change the situation to help move your people towards your goal.

Build Habits

Once your changes are set in stone — as a habit — it will be easy for your people to continue doing them. Help people form habits by setting up triggers that remind them to do certain things or giving them scripts/checklists to guide them.

Rally the Herd

Social proof is a powerful psychological tool to persuade people to change. Get your people surrounded by others that are in favor of your change and the group will follow.

Recommendation: Read this Book

Switch contains a lot of anecdotes about people who were successful in effecting change. The authors then reference back to these stories throughout the book to help make further points. This makes it difficult to simply skim the book or use it as a reference unless you read the whole thing.

Nevertheless, the framework for change that the Heath Brothers outline is powerful and an effective one. It would benefit you to learn this process and then try it out when you need to effect some change in your business.

I’d recommend you check the book out from the library or borrow it from a friend. Then print the Switch framework out from the Heath Brothers’ website for future reference.

You can buy Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard on Amazon.com.

Prolific author Seth Godin’s book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? is a powerful wake-up call to everyone stuck in the status-quo our society has created.

The core of Linchpin revolves around how you can be indispensable and why this is so desperately needed. As an employee you don’t want to be easily replaced. As a business owner, you want your product or service to be essential to your customers.

Status Quo

Godin outlines how our modern day society is the product of the industrial revolution and an educational infrastructure that produces factory workers. Factory workers don’t just work on an assembly line, they are in almost every job you can imagine today, even “white collar” jobs. People are just cogs in a machine.

The old system where you did your time, worked for your company, and then were taken care of later in life are over. In order to survive in the new reality, you need to be indispensable.

Becoming Indispensable

How do you become indispensable? Godin argues that you need to be an artist. Create something meaningful and unique. Be someone that doesn’t follow the established rules. Connect the dots of ideas and concepts that others are missing. Work on something that matters rather than just for money.

Being indispensable is knowing what to work on next without having to be told what that is.

The first part of Linchpin focuses around the employee and how she is essentially trapped in a system that doesn’t have her best interest in mind. The rest of the book outlines how to break free of this system and evolve to someone that is indispensable as an employee, entrepreneur, business owner, or whatever you want to be.

Recommendation: Read this Book

Seth Godin’s Linchpin really resonated with me as it calls out what seems so wrong with our current society and educational system. For us and our kids to be truly successful and happy long-term, we can’t rely on the antiquated system of yesterday, we must become linchpins.

This book is inspiring and compelling in its calls to action. You will want to make changes to your life after reading this book.

You can buy Linchpin on Amazon.com

The founders of 37signals, a company that makes web-based applications for small businesses, have compiled their years of wisdom and lessons learned in their book Rework.

Authors Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson have very strong opinions about how businesses should be run. Their ideas run counter to the conventional wisdom and that is exactly why you need to pay attention.

37signals has previously put out two very good books, Defensive Design for the Web and Getting Real. These two previous works were more focused on building websites or web applications. However, Rework is broader in its appeal and relevance.

Rework is a collection of essays that are applicable to any business, business owner, and even those working as employees.

If you’re familiar with the 37signals blog or have seen either of the authors present at a conference, many of the concepts in the book will be familiar. However, Rework consolidates all these nuggets of wisdom in one place so you don’t have to dig through blog or video archives to extract the principles for your business.

In addition to the insightful and thought provoking essays, the book is full of great illustrations that help visually convey the powerful message each essay contains.

Some of my favorite essays in the book include:

Scratch your own itch – if you build a product or service for yourself, you’ll best know what it needs versus having to guess what your target market wants

Less mass – cut free from the long-term contracts, debt, and other commitments that reduce your ability to change and react quickly

Focus on what won’t change – don’t chase after the latest and greatest fade, stick to the customer care-abouts that don’t change over time

Sell your by-products – in the process of doing your job, you create something, even if it is knowledge that you can share with others

Good enough is fine – quit polishing your product endlessly before launching it to the public, the sooner it is out there the sooner you can sell it and learn from it

Don’t copy – copying your competition is a losing game, you are always playing catch-up

Put everyone on the front lines – when everyone at the company knows the needs, care-abouts, and frustrations of the customer, then you can best serve customers

Decisions are temporary – you can always change your mind later and that is fine

Recommendation: Read This Book

Rework will make you rethink a lot of what you assume is the standard way to do business and work. The essays are short, concise, and to the point. There is no fluff to bore you or distract you from finishing the book.

Read the book and see how you can take the principles you’ll learn and shake up how you work for the better.

You can buy Rework on Amazon.com

Testing is fundamental to improving your efficiency and business. Without trying new methods, formats, processes, or messages, you’ll never know if you can do better than you are today.

The book Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer by authors Bryan Eisenberg and John Quarto-vonTivadar focuses on how you can improve your website.

Website Optimizer?

While the book does have some step-by-step on how to use Google’s free tool, Website Optimizer, the majority of this book is focused on why it is important to test and what you should be testing.

Even if you decide to use Google’s tool, the principles in this book will help you refine your online efforts to better meet your customer and business needs.

Examples

Always Be Testing offers multiple examples of before and after websites and the results that came through testing different website elements.

If you’ve read the essential Call to Action book from the Eisenberg brothers, many of the concepts in this book will be familiar.

This book will help you better understand the mindset of online visitors to your website and how you can effectively persuade them to take the action you need.

What to Test

A large part of this book is dedicated to giving you ideas of what exactly you should test on your website. This includes exercises and questions you can go through in evaluating your own website. If you ever wondered what you should experiment with on your site, this book will give you plenty of ideas.

Recommendation: Use This Book

If you have a website and hope to get anything out of it, you need to read and apply the principles in this book. By continually testing your site, you can refine and optimize it to get the results you want.

This book will not only show you how to test your website but give you specific areas that you should evaluate. It is a great guide to improving your site and reaching your company’s goals.

You can buy the Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer on Amazon.com

If you aren’t familiar with Gary Vaynerchuck, his latest book Crush It! will introduce you to why he is such a sought-after speaker, consultant, and inspirational figure.

Gary’s enthusiasm is contagious and nothing short of inspiring.

Passion

Crush It! centers around pursuing your passion and how that can lead to financial success. Gary outlines his journey as an entrepreneur and discusses how you, too, can chase your personal interests and build your personal brand as a viable lifestyle.

Personal Brand

Granted, the slant of this book is to prepare you to do your own thing, leave your job, and live your passion. However, the author has very important points about building your personal brand. This brand can be transferred anywhere and used not just in your current job or company, but anywhere your expertise is relevant.

Gary outlines how he moved from running his family’s wine business to becoming an online star and entrepreneurial icon.

Tools

Crush It! steps you through some of the online tools you can use to build your personal brand and, in turn, your personal success. While this isn’t a step-by-step guide on how to use social media and online technologies, it does point you in the right direction on how to get started.

Hard Work

As the core of this book revolves around cashing in on your passion, it will help you identify what your passion even is. This isn’t a get-rich-quick book. To the contrary, Gary is very honest in how much hard work it took him to get where he is and how hard you’ll need to work to achieve your dreams.

Inspiration

If you have a day job, this book will inspire you to reach for greater heights. You can be an expert and go-to person for whatever you are passionate about. That may or may not be related to your job.

If you own your own business, this book will help you realize that you probably aren’t working hard enough to achieve the success and potential that is waiting for you.

At a minimum, Crush It! and Gary’s exuberance will inspire you to take action. After all, you have to take a first step sometime if you hope to get anywhere.

Recommendation: Listen to this Book!

Gary actually “wrote” this book by speaking it and then had a ghost writer put it together for print. By doing this, his voice and animated examples come to life in the written word.

I listened to the audiobook version of Crush It! and would recommend you do the same. Gary himself recorded the audio version and interjects “off script” commentary as he goes along.

Read or listen to Crush It! and you will be motivated and inspired.

You can find Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion on Amazon.com.

Wired magazine’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson tackles the changing landscape of pricing in his book
Free: The Future of a Radical Price.

Having read Anderson’s original article in Wired magazine, I was skeptical that a full-length book would be able to elaborate on his claims.

I was pleasantly surprised that the book kept my attention and was actually entertaining and informative.

What is in Free?

Anderson covers the history of “free” and how it has evolved in commerce to what it is today. As I enjoy history, this was an interesting component of the book.

The main premise of the book is that the cost of digital goods is decreasing so rapidly that the incremental cost of one more customer is essentially zero. Thus you see that companies are able to offer their products and services online for free to millions of users.

Anderson explains how many web-based services survive while appearing to charge their customers nothing.

Free pulls back the curtain of the business models of many companies that leverage the zero dollar price point to their profit. You’ll learn how companies defy common paradigms and essentially turn pricing models upside down.

Free is Free

I was intrigued by how this book was marketed. Since it is called Free and talks about making lots of things “free” the book should be, well, free. Right?

Well, the book is free. Really.

At its initial launch, the book was offered in many formats for free. I listened to a free audio book version of Free read by the author.

While many of the free versions have disappeared after the initial hype, you can still listen to the free audio version on audible.com.

Recommendation: Read it

If you are selling any product or service, this book will help you think through your options on what to charge customers. Don’t be scared by giving something away for free, just be sure you know how you will monetize that transaction with the customer. This book will show you how.

Prefer a tangible, physical copy of the book? Order a copy of Free: The Future of a Radical Price on Amazon.com.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood is not a book about customer service or business. However, this book is full of insights into what makes a great leader and how, just like Marines in battle, your business will encounter a lot of surprises.

Joker One is the account of a Marine platoon that patrolled the Iraqi city of Ramadi in 2004. The story is told by the platoon’s leader, then Lieutenant Donnovan Campbell. It is a story of the brotherhood that forms in war and the love that these soldiers share.

Like the book 1776, Joker One contains stories that provide great parallels to how your business can succeed.

The frustrations, pain, suffering, surprises, successes, sacrifice, and leadership in Joker One are truly inspiring.

Turning these principles to business, they bring up many self-searching, evaluating questions:

• What kind of leadership do you have running your organization?
• How dedicated are your employees to your company and its goals despite the trials thereof?
• Do you plan meticulously only to have those plans fall apart when the realities of business hit?
• How do you measure success?
• Where do you draw the line between meeting a goal and the sacrifice it takes to do so?
• Your competition takes on many different forms and is around every corner. Do you know how to identify them?
• Can you rapidly adapt to a changing environment to meet both the needs of your employees and your customers?
• Do you train, keep learning, and continue growing to be ready for upcoming changes?

Should you read Joker One?

Buy the book – If you enjoy military history, Joker One is a touching and inspirational story that will both give you insights into the realities of this modern conflict and a great appreciation for the sacrifice these Marines made for others.

Like a parable, you will have to extract the principles and practices that will apply to your business.

Buy Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood from Amazon.com.

The concepts and principles that Claude C. Hopkins teaches in his Scientific Advertising are so relevant and timeless that you’d think they were written this year. In fact, Hopkins penned his book at the beginning of the 20th century.

The only thing out of date in this book are the dollar amounts he mentions in his examples. Of course there was no Internet back in Hopkins’ day, so his advertising examples are based primarily on direct mailings.

Hopkins covers the vital importance of testing everything you do. What is working? What do customers prefer? You’ll never know until you test.

The author also reminds us that we need to track the results of our advertising and campaigns. Shotgun blast broad mass media isn’t effective. We need to target our specific customer by only serving our message up to them and writing the headline and ad such that it speaks to them alone.

His chapter on samples was very interesting to me. After I read his book, my eyes have been opened to all the companies around that are wasting money on ineffectual giveaways and promotions.

A lot of what Hopkins teaches may sound familiar. It should! His work is the basis for most modern advertising and marketing. If you take his book and apply the principles therein, you can save a lot of money by not having to buy the latest and greatest from marketing gurus.

Should You Read Scientific Advertising?

Buy the book – If you are involved in any way in crafting the copy writing of advertisements or anything that a customer will see, you need to read Claude Hopkins’ Scientific Advertising. It will establish a firm foundation and mindset for effectively using your ads and even business practices to get the best return on investment possible.

Want a compelling read that will change the way you think about the customer experience? Try Subject to Change, compiled by a handful of authors at product experience strategy and design firm Adaptive Path.

Focus: Customer Experience

The world in which we do business is changing rapidly and to be successful, we must focus on the customer experience.

This means you can’t really bet on the longest feature list or efficiency advantages to beat out the competition:

The processes for measuring and controlling efficiency are well-known and well-documented, and so in today’s world they no longer provide a significant competitive advantage.

Since you won’t be able to do everything, you have to be selective in your strategy. This involves deciding what to do and what not to do.

Design is a Keystone

The authors proudly proclaim that “design must become an organizational competency.” Everyone is a designer, not just the official design team your company may have. “Design is an activity” that involves empathy with the customer, problem solving, and prototyping of options.

Empathy

To the customers, the experience they have is the only thing that matters.

After all your product does (or doesn’t do), the experience a person has with you and your product is what will leave the biggest impression. To make this as smooth as possible, you need to understand where a customer is coming from:

An appreciation of customer’s motivations, behaviors, and context leads to the development of a product, service, or system that can satisfy them.

Too often we may rely on reports or surveys to gain insight into customer intent. Nevertheless, we have to go “beyond statistics or extrapolation from [our] own behaviors” if we want to truly empathize with customers.

You can’t shoehorn people into generic “users” or “customers.” Your customers aren’t all the same, they are different and will do things you didn’t foresee and in ways you didn’t imagine. Truly understanding a customer can come from effective research.

Customer Research

Design research needs to inspire and indicate a clear direction.

Research for research’s sake isn’t worth the effort. The output must be understandable and actionable.

One of the authors, Todd Wilkens, stated that “the effectiveness of a research report is inversely proportional to the thickness of its binding.”

When implementing a new product or feature, ask yourself these questions:

What do people want to accomplish?
How does this activity fit into their lives?
How can I deliver on those desires?

Corporate Structure vs. Customer View

Your company is made up of silos of groups and divisions. However, to your customer, you are just “the company.” How can you make that customer experience uniform and make you actually look like your right hand knows what your left is doing?

The book refers to this as a “coordinated symphony that addresses the whole customer experience.” Nice imagery.

Contingency Design

Not everything you make will work perfectly.

The true success of experience design isn’t how well it works when everything is operating as planned, but how well it works when things start going wrong.

The more you add or build into your product, the more likely that it will “fall apart and confuse customers.” Avoid the dreaded feature creep. By keeping things simple, your customers will be more likely to succeed.

Create the Long Wow

You can achieve long-term customer loyalty by systematically impressing your customers.

One of the authors, Brandon Schauer, explains “The Long Wow” and how to achieve it in his essay and this presentation:

Keep Going

Succeeding amidst uncertainty requires continuous improvement.

You can’t sit still or even just get by with what worked in the past. Continuous improvement, and its associated change, will help you meet the needs of customers and deliver great products and services.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy the book – Subject to Change is a very quick read that helps shake up the paradigms to which you or your business may be accustomed. This will foster some healthy self-evaluation and discussion of your business.