In his book Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites, Kevin Potts, an Internet veteran and blogger, offers a great guide to help you improve your current site or build the next one from scratch.

Throughout the book, the author clearly demonstrates his understanding of web users and provides solutions that best help turn them into customers.

Clear Examples

The strength of this book lies in its clear examples. Potts provides both screen shots and detailed analysis that will help you apply the principles to your individual situation. He covers everything from accessibility to navigation to corporate blogging and ecommerce.

This book compiles numerous best practices and usable designs that you will be able to leverage as you work on your website.

How-To Pointers

For the technically inclined, Potts offers some quick “how-to” pieces with examples of HTML, Javascript, or CSS. Additionally, he includes website references if you want to learn more about implementing some of his recommendations. This book isn’t a technical book as it mostly demonstrates best practices and then points you in the right direction for the implementation.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – Web Design and Marketing Solutions for Business Websites is a great reference to have on your shelf. When it comes time to work on a section of your site, you can review the recommendations in the corresponding chapter. You probably won’t read this entire book in one sitting. Weighing in at over 350 pages, it is best to pick and choose the sections that are applicable to you.

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Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Green Book of Getting Your Way follows in the tradition of his other “little books” and delivers some solid advice on how to persuade others.

Gitomer knows that you have many different venues for convincing others to do what you want. These may be via speeches, presentations, writing, emails, phone calls, and more.

Getting Your Way starts by talking generally about persuading others to your way of thinking. A lot of Gitomer’s writing focuses on building your self confidence so that you can actually visualize and believe in what you want to achieve. Building on that, he introduces you to the concept that a key to getting your way is to understand those you are trying to convince. Once you understand their motivations and needs, you can tailor your message to be more effective.

Gitomer gives hundreds of speeches a year. He shares his secrets for success from his public speaking experience throughout the book.

He touts that he is never nervous when giving a speech. How does he do that? He “owns” his presentation. It isn’t memorized, but rather he knows it inside and out. Being fully prepared is a powerful foundation that gives you not only confidence but flexibility in presenting.

Another key point he makes about presentations is getting your audience to laugh. Now, you can’t just tell a cheesy joke and call it humor. If you get people laughing, they are more likely to not only pay attention but also believe you and take action in your favor.

Since Gitomer is a salesman by trade, most of his examples have to do with sales presentations and following up with prospects. The principles he teaches are sound and apply not only to that arena but also to your marketing materials and online copy writing.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – I found some gems in this book and am sure you will too. The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, although a quick read, delivers great tips that can improve your persuasion techniques.

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We all say that we love our customers and always do the best we can for them. Of course we do! Our “customer satisfaction” scores are high!

Jeffrey Gitomer’s customer service manifesto Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless teaches exactly why the “satisfaction” mindset is a lie and why customer loyalty is what matters to your long-term business success.

Loyalty is What Counts

Anyone can be satisfied with your business or product. That doesn’t guarantee that they will become repeat customers. Nor does that mean they will refer their friends and family to you.

Satisfaction is truly worthless as this book’s title boldly proclaims. Your business needs loyal, faithful, and referral-generating customers.

Story Telling

This book is written in Gitomer’s usual style with untraditional font styles and sizes scattered around for emphasis. He shares numerous stories of his customer service experiences and then extracts the best practices and ideas for improving your interactions with customers.

“Wow” Experience

Gitomer, as a customer, is always on the hunt for a “wow” experience. Does your business simply process customers as just another number? Or do you make each interaction a personal and memorable one?

Self Evaluation

Customer Satisfaction is Worthless has multiple self-tests and checklists where you can measure your current level of customer service. These offer great opportunities to identify areas of improvement. Most of the author’s suggestions are things you, as an individual, can do and they don’t require a big bureaucratic change to implement.

Company Policy

One point Gitomer makes that really resonated with me concerned company policies. Do you hide behind company policies so you can avoid doing something for a customer? Your company will always have policies but you don’t have to simply state “sorry, that is against company policy.” Instead, use: “in order to be fair to every one…” The latter is a much gentler approach that may very well diffuse a heated customer exchange.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless is a must-read for your business. If you interact with customers in any way (which odds are you do), you need to read this book.

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Andy Sernovitz, founder of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, delivers an amazing step-by-step guide to building word of mouth buzz around your company and products in his Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking,

In keeping with the principles Sernovitz outlines in his book, the companion website wordofmouthbook.com has a plethora of information to peak your interest.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Manifesto

1. Happy customers are your best advertising. Make people happy.
2. Marketing is easy: Earn the respect and recommendation of your
   customers. They will do your marketing for you, for free.
3. Ethics and good service come first.
4. UR the UE: You are the user experience (not what your ads say you are).
5. Negative word of mouth is an opportunity. Listen and learn.
6. People are already talking. Your only option is to join the conversation.
7. Be interesting or be invisible.
8. If it’s not worth talking about, it’s not worth doing.
9. Make the story of your company a good one.
10. It is more fun to work at a company that people want to talk about.
11. Use the power of word of mouth to make business treat people better.
12. Honest marketing makes more money.

The book takes you through the basics of word of mouth marketing and then jumps right into practical tips you can start implementing today. In fact, the author guarantees that after reading his book, you can pick one of his techniques and start seeing an immediate increase in attention to your company.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – Word of Mouth Marketing is a short-yet-solid manual on leveraging the power of your customers and others to do your marketing for you. You can foster these marketing efforts and see your business bloom significantly more than if you try to do everything yourself.

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John Naisbitt’s Mind Set! is divided into two main parts tied together by his common theme of seeing the future. The first half of the book outlines eleven “mindsets that the author has identified to help him better forecast the future and identify opportunities.

Mindset #1

While many things change, most things remain constant

The news and media would have us believe that everything is changing. The biggest, brightest, most compelling stories make it to the forefront. However, life goes on for the majority of people and things are pretty constant.

Naisbitt counsels us to “distinguish between real and apparent change, basic shifts and fads, remembering that in the history of the world, most things remain constant.

Mindset #2

The future is embedded in the present

Looking back it is easy to see how historical events shaped the future. For us today, we need to keep our eyes open and filter out the constant noise to identify what current events will really indicate future direction.

Mindset #3

Focus on the score of the game

Use sports as the model for determining the outcome of business and politician decisions. Once a game is over, you know the score. It is final and the winner is identified. In politics and even business, people will try to distort the outcome to make them look favorable. Don’t get distracted by rhetoric.

Mindset #4

Understand how powerful it is not to have to be right

Imagine how much more open you’ll be to new ideas and opportunities when you stop being so proud and stubborn!

Mindset #5

See the future as a picture puzzle

Piecing together these mindset ideas will help you better identify future trends.

Mindset #6

Don’t get so far ahead of the parade that people don’t know you’re in it

If your great idea is so far out there that it is impossible for people to understand, you’ll have a very slow adoption. By leading efforts of innovation, you need to keep your ideas close enough to the present that people can easily make the jump.

Mindset #7

Resistance to change falls if benefits are real

Your job as the leader is to clearly communicate the benefits of change. Once your audience internalizes these concepts, they’ll drop their defenses and accept your ideas.

Mindset #8

Things that we expect to happen always happen more slowly

Our expectations always seem to outpace the implementation timeline of those great ideas. Naisbitt states: “almost all change is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

Mindset #9

You don’t get results by solving problems but by exploiting opportunities

Trying to solve the problem restricts your ability to think in the bigger picture. You’re stuck fixing the problems of the past instead of seeking the opportunities of tomorrow.

Mindset #10

Don’t add unless you can subtract

Determine what is really important and if new issues arise, drop other things on your plate. Failure to keep the proper load will lead to under-performance in all areas.

Mindset #11

Don’t forget the ecology of technology

New technologies should enable us. When something new is introduced, we should ask ourselves how things will improve or get worse. “What new opportunities does it present?

Part Two

The second half of the book uses these mindsets to look at the future direction of our society as a whole, and specific regions like China and Europe.

Niasbitt forecasts the continued rise of China and the “mutually assured decline in Europe. Throughout the book, the author includes both historical and current events to help define and prove his points.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – I particularly enjoyed the first half of Mind Set! where Naisbitt outlines his eleven mindsets. He artfully weaves personal stories and history together in discussing his points. I’d buy the book for his mindsets alone but if you like history and current events, the entire book is a relevant read as you look to the future.

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Robin Sharma’s latest book The Greatness Guide offers 101 tips on making yourself great.

Sharma pulls together his own experiences and combines them with succinct quotes from others to illustrate numerous ways that you can better yourself or your company.

You may have heard a lot of his advice before. Some points will be new. Either way I found this book a great kick in the pants on some things I know I should be doing but haven’t been.

This book is a very quick read with short one or two page chapters. You may even want to read one a day to get your daily dose of inspiration.

Sharma touches on a little of everything: time management, family life, goal setting, determining what is really important, and more.

Some of my favorite quotes include the following:

Success isn’t sexy. It’s all about working the basics of excellence with a passionate consistency.

The urge to chase after “get rich quick” schemes must be tempered by reality. Most success doesn’t come from winning the lottery, it comes from consistently working at something over time.

Your schedule is the best barometer for what you truly value and believe to be important.

I caught myself thinking about my schedule. Are the things I claim to be important really taking up the majority of my time? While reading this book, I often was compelled to think about my situation and how I could make some positive changes.

Every time you say yes to something that is unimportant, you say no to something that is important.

Too often I let little things distract me from my bigger goals. Just because I’m busy doesn’t mean I’m making forward progress.

It’s never too late to become the person you have always dreamed of being.

We don’t have to procrastinate any longer. Make a simple change today and you’ll see the difference it can make.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – I truly felt uplifted and inspired by Robin Sharma’s The Greatness Guide. You’ll find at least one point that will help change your life or business for the better. After reading this book, you’ll just have to take that enthusiasm for change and act!

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Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, the authors behind Call to Action, deliver another insightful read with their latest book Waiting for Your Cat to Bark: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing.

Their previous work, Call to Action, talked mostly about online conversions and optimizations. The Eisenberg brothers’ latest book, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, takes a broader look at marketing in general and how you can specifically increase your conversion rates across media channels.

The Eisenbergs start by describing the current marketing environment through several examples that did or didn’t turn out like the vendor wanted. These stories are told from the customer perspective, which you should always be seeking.

Where Call to Action mentions a few persuasion techniques, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark outlines the full “Persuasion Architecture system. Their system is composed of six phases:

1. Uncovery – “The goals of uncovery are to identify the value of the business and articulate it in a way that matters to the customer.
2. Wireframing – “Defines the “what of the creative process, providing the structure that will deliver the persuasive experience.
3. Storyboarding – “iteratively creates the mock-ups in which you flesh out the structure of the wireframe
4. Prototyping – “… the prototype is virtually indistinguishable from the final product.
5. Development – “produce everything that was specified in the prototype
6. Optimization – “Testing and measuring in order to optimize is … the only way you can determine how closely you are meeting your objectives and how you can improve results.

Cross Channel Unity

Your customers view your company as a single entity. They don’t know or care that you have five divisions and that your website department doesn’t talk to your retail locations. Customers need a unified experience from beginning to end. As you define your “persuasion architecture, you’ll need to follow the customer from first contact through the buying process all the way to post-sales support. If the customer gets lost as they move from one media channel to another, even within your same company, they may be lost forever.

Measure Results

You must measure your system once it is in place. In order to do this you’ll need to have metrics and reports that provide the pulse of what is happening. These measurements should allow you to tweak your system and react to customer needs quickly. A truly efficient system will allow adjustments that continually improve results.

Understanding Customers

You’ll make the sale when your message directly speaks to the customers’ needs. You can tailor your copy writing and marketing by creating “personas for the different types of customers you have.

My favorite part of this book was the chapter titled “The Human Operating System which dives into the details of four customer temperaments. The Eisenbergs teach you how to sell to each of these types of people by understanding their individual triggers. I thought the book was worth it just for this chapter.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – This book contains solid principles that will reform your marketing efforts. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark will make a great first-time read and a ready reference on your shelf as you continue to optimize and improve your business processes.

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Kate Newlin’s book Shopportunity!: How to Be a Retail Revolutionary is a slap in the face of big box and impersonal retail stores. The cover boldly proclaims the premise of the book: “Why discounts have destroyed the thrill of shopping.”

If you long for the days of the small grocer or local hardware store, this book’s tales will resonate with you. The dilemma of the current retail market is that people have given up so much in service and product quality just to save a few dollars.

Shopportunity outlines twenty-one steps that you, as the shopper, can do to better the retail situation. While they are directed at the buyer, the seller (your business) should take note and treat your customers the way they deserve. Some of my favorite points included:

• Let Brands Transform You – Brands display an image or status, embrace it and show the world what you want to be.
• Kick Your Addiction to Price – “No more discussions of price… Do you really want that jar of pickles enough to shop at a place that won’t give health care or a living wage to its workers?”
• Don’t compromise on the everyday – “Buy the best in class of every single thing you buy. This doesn’t necessarily mean the most expensive: It means the best… Buy better and you’ll buy less is my guess, and you’ll enjoy each purchase more.”
• Shop where the staff knows more than you – “if they can’t or won’t help you because they simply don’t know anything about what they’re selling, move on.”
• Follow the Passion – “Shop where the retailer’s passion meets your own.”
• Seek the Ethic – “Go behind the scrim and figure out what these firms stand for and shop the ones with which you agree.”
• Calculate Value Beyond Price – “Who is going to be there for you when you need them — and what is that worth?”
• Invest in Relationships, Not Cheap Transactions – “Probe the salesperson about their follow-up to the sale — and if you don’t like what you hear, move on.”
• Reward the Personal – “When you find a salesperson who ‘gets you,’ … stick with that person. Go back to them.”
• Make the Seller Pay for Dissing You – “Make sure you follow up every time that you receive unsatisfactory service.”

If all consumers followed Newlin’s guidelines, big box retailing as we know it would fail. Unfortunately, this process would require that the majority of people actually change their habits in mass which doesn’t seem realistic. Nevertheless, if customers did follow these principles when shopping, their money will speak for itself.

If you as a business or retailer can tailor your company’s service to match these characteristics of a consciencious shopper, you’ll gain even more business and profits. Even if customers aren’t looking for these specifics, they’ll notice the positive difference in doing business with you. That difference will help close the sale and drive repeat business.

Joe’s Recommendation

Check it out at the library – Since I’m not a big shopper I did find myself skimming through some of this book for the little golden nuggets of wisdom. Nevertheless, the points Newlin makes are powerful and deserve your attention when dealing with customers.

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Have you ever wished you could leave the drudgery of your day job and really make a difference in this big crazy world of ours?

Maybe you’d love to help those less fortunate than yourself but can’t seem to find the time to make it happen. If you answered ‘yes’ you’ll empathize with John Wood’s story in his book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World: An Entrepreneur’s Odyssey to Educate the World’s Children.

The Story

John recounts his transition from a super busy Microsoft executive in the late 1990′s to the founder of Room to Read, a non-profit organization that helps educate children around the world. Realizing that his career was consuming his entire life, John took a vacation to the mountains of Nepal to get away from it all. While hiking in the peaks of the Himalayas, the author had an encounter with a local educator. He visited a school that had only a handful of books in its non-existent library.

That eye-opening visit prompted John to rally friends and family to gather books to donate to this school. This first successful book collection lead to others and the eventual formation of Room to Read. John’s non-profit then expanded to several other countries, including Vietnam, India, and Cambodia. He focused on building schools, computer labs, libraries, and funding scholarships for children.

The author reviews the inspiration for his non-profit’s formation and the amazing sequence of events that marked its initial growth and success.

Lessons from Microsoft

Wood takes a chapter to outline the guiding principles he learned during his time at Microsoft that he wanted to emulate in his ventures. He jumps into the details of how he came to understand these principles and why they really mattered. His list included:

• Maintain an intense focus on results.
• Treat others with respect and tact: “You cannot attack a person, but you can attack an idea.”
• Be data driven. Everything can be measured and should be metered against past performance or relative benchmarks.
• How much you know about the business will show how much you really care.
• Be loyal to your people.

The Business

Throughout this book, the author shares his organization’s successes and failures that provide very valuable business insights. The overarching message I got was that you have to be passionate about your work. It may be thought that heading a non-profit organization would be an easy job after the rigors of a high pressure Microsoft position. However, John Wood still worked insane hours and traveled all over the world to make his Room to Read organization a well-respected and successful non-profit.

The principles and concepts taught through his narrative can be applied to your business.

Inspirational Read

You need to be passionate about your work. If you’re not, maybe it is time for a change. You’d be amazed just how much you can do when your heart is into something. This book is a stimulating read that will inspire you to take action. You’ll probably visit Room to Read’s website. You may even make a donation to them or your favorite charity. You could even give of your time in doing some service locally.

No matter what service you are inspired to perform, the lessons learned and the principles discussed in this book will make you want to be a better person both in society and business.

Joe’s Recommendation

Buy a Copy – This book is inspirational and definitely worth the read. I don’t think it makes a good reference book to put on the shelf but you’ll get some value out of just one reading.

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After a recent promotion to the ranks of management, I had a chance to read the classic business book First, Break All the Rules. It was an eye-opening education into best management practices.

The book is the result of years of surveys and interviews with managers across the world. The authors then distilled the vast amounts of data down to key principles that really distinguish a quality manager.

Employees = Profits

No matter the business, the only way to generate enduring profits is to begin by building the kind of work environment that attracts, focuses and keeps talented employees.

As you are well aware, acquiring and training new people is very costly. It is therefore in your financial best interest to hire the right people, with the right talents, and then keep them happy over the long term.

Good Manager = Increased Productivity

The talented employee may join a company because of its charismatic leaders, its generous benefits and its world-class training programs, but how long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his supervisor.

A manager’s role is vital to the success of the company because they directly affect employee satisfaction. As the book highlights, “employees leave managers, not companies.”

Some Rules to Break

The book discusses the conventional wisdom that is broken by the most successful managers. Great managers:

• Treat each employee differently. They are, after all, each individuals.
• Hire talent and not experience. Forget the long resume of positions and projects. If the employee doesn’t have the talent for the job, past experience doesn’t really matter.
• Don’t try to fix weaknesses. Focus on strengths and manage around weaknesses.
• Focus on results and not the “process.” Don’t get hung up on official process or procedures.
• Don’t promote the best performers out of their role and throw them into management. Not everyone that is really good at what they do will make a good manager of their peers. Don’t make management the only career path. Recognize and honor your senior and talented role players.

Evaluation Questions

According to the authors’ research, if your employees can answer these 12 questions positively, you’re doing a great job:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?
4. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
5. Does my supervisor or someone at work seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
12. This last year, have I had the opportunity at work to learn and grow?

Copyright (c) 1993 – 1998 The Gallup Organization, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved.

The companies where employees can positively answer these questions have lower turnover rates, higher customer satisfaction, and more productive businesses.

Recommended

First, Break All the Rules should be mandatory reading for all managers in your company. Pick up a copy today.

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