Good Storytellers Create Good Business

As a writer and speaker, I love stories. I love to tell them, to write them, and I love to read them. I also like to read about stories, what makes them work, how they excite our imagination, how we use them to enrich our communications. Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive And Others Die is about all that and more.

Good salespeople, advertisers, marketers, PR professionals, even managers wanting to motivate their employees and entrepreneurs needing to excite their investors can make good use of the techniques described in this book. The authors achieved their goal, "...to help you make your ideas...understood and remembered, and have a lasting impact...." In other words, they help you make your ideas "stick."

As the author of several books about persuasion in business, I took away several great points:

"Belief counts for a lot, but belief isn't enough. For people to take action, they have to care."

"We appeal to their self-interest, but we also appeal to their identities--not only to the people they are right now but also to the people they would like to be."

"One of the worst things about knowing a lot, or having access to a lot of information, is that we're tempted to share it all."

Chip and Dan Heath dissect everything from urban legends to ad campaigns to explain what makes a message resonate in the audience's mind. In the process, they not only show the reader how to use successful strategies, they do it in an entertaining fashion that makes the book a pleasure to read.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Excluding The Public In Public Relations

Putting The Public Back In Public Relations

There is a lot of "why" but very little "how" in this book that bills itself as being about the transformation of the public relations industry brought about by Web 2.0. Page after page describes how social media are supposedly dictating new priorities and practices for PR professionals and their clients. While there is certainly much validity to the author's claims for the growing influence of social media, there is a distinct shortage of practical advice on how the reader is supposed to use it.

Unfortunately, the few recommendations the authors do make sound like they were written by PR practitioners (which, of course, they were). "Engage the bloggers" and "have conversations" are about as specific as the advice gets, with few examples of exactly what those bromides mean. Much is made of the need for one-on-one communication rather than scatter-shot distribution of press releases, but there is absolutely no explanation of how this is supposed to be done in a time-efficient manner.

What's really missing is a hint of how PR campaigns built on social media platforms are supposed to reach the great unwashed--the non-techie consumer (millions and millions of them) who never blog, tweet, or even look at the Facebook page their kids set up for them. Publicizing the latest chipset for tablets via Gizmodo may well be the way to go, but how do you sell Buicks online?

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Engagement Helps Both Companies And Employees Grow

As a consultant and entrepreneur who has worked with thousands of business owners, managers, and their employees to help them achieve corporate and personal growth, I was captivated by the opening exercise in the engaging book. By asking a simple question, the authors demonstrate the book's premise, that nothing is more important to the organization or the individual than engagement with their work.

It's easy for the business owner to accept this concept. They know that productivity increases and profits grow in direct relationship to the devotion of the workforce to performance. Given the demise of job security in today's economy,however, it's a lot more difficult for the employee to recognize the value of engagement to them. Karsan and Kruse spend most of the book making that case to employees and showing employers how to change their organizations so that they can reinforce it in daily operations.

Their premise is based on findings from millions of worker surveys done on behalf of their clients. Most of the case studies and anecdotal material comes from the same source. While this could have turned the book into a thinly-veiled ad for their businesses, it doesn't read that way at all. The concepts and research are presented openly, as are actionable items that could easily have been hidden behind "hire me and I'll tell you."

I was particularly intrigued by the way the book is integrated into a website full of bonus material like videos, activities, exercises, and other value-added features. Each chapter ends with a one-page summary of key takeaways for both managers and employees that can be printed as a pdf from the website for future reference. Bonus material includes videos by the authors and others that expand on the concepts presented in each chapter. The website provides a great deal of extra value for the reader.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Predictably Irrational Explains Business Behavior

Despite what the economists would have us believe, there is little about human behavior that is rational. Dan Ariely's fascinating experiments prove that time and time again and, as a consultant, I can attest to the veracity of his conclusions. I've seen dozens of compensation plans for employees, for example, and many of them--especially those aimed at salepeople--are designed to give the employee incentives to work more, harder, more productively, etc. Most of these plans fail to produce the desired results completely, or at best, achieve some of the goals while creating some completely unexpected outcomes, usually much to the chagrin of management. Ariely understands why that happens, and explains it in an entertaining, accessible style that makes this book a winner.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Have Social Media Changed The Rules of Marketing?

I'm not so sure there are actually new rules for marketing and public relations as much as there is new technology to use to apply the old ones, but David Meerman Scott does an excellent job of telling you how to do it.  His advice to "target a specific audience," for example, is certainly not a new concept to marketing professionals. In fact, I spend a great deal of time on that subject in The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing and Advertising. The way he applies the rule to social networking sites like LinkedIn, however, is definitely worth exploring.  The book is particularly useful when it comes to helping the technical novice understand such basic tools as RSS feeds and YouTube videos.  The author's insistence that the marketer build an online presence around useful, unobtrusive content is particularly appealing.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Marketing Through The Psychology Of Persuasion

To understand why your marketing plans work or don't work, you need to look deep into what goes on in your customer's head. That's where this book takes you. It's a classic work on persuasion that will show you not only why behavior can be altered, but how to do it. The author, Robert Cialdini, is a professor of marketing at Arizona State as well as president of a consulting company specializing in ethical persuasion. Unlike my book on the subject, The Dynamic Manager's Guide to Marketing and Advertising (which draws heavily from the stories of business owners), some of the material here might be a little technical for the casual reader, but the serious business reader will find it worth the effort. Marketers, sales people, and managers of all stripes should take the time to understand the concepts in this substantive work.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

A Management Autobiography - Delivering Happiness

An autobiography can indeed be a how-to book, especially if you're looking for more inspriation than nuts-and-bolts about how to run a company. Tony Hsieh's story about how he succeeded in the online world, building Zappos into a company that Amazon was willing to pay more than a billion dollars for, is certainly inspring. Unlike my book, The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing and Advertising, however, Delivering Happiness is not a particularly instructive book about how to deliver customer satisfaction. I took it more as a print version of a corporate culture manual designed to let people know what it's like to work for the company. The writing is delightful, though, and the book makes for an entertaining read.

Dave Donelson distills the experiences of hundreds of entrepreneurs into practical advice for small business owners and managers in the Dynamic Manager's Guides, a series of how-to books about marketing and advertising, sales techniques, hiring, firing, and motivating personnel, financial management, and business strategy.

Marketing Pros Praise The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing & Advertising

Another marketing professional offered a positive Amazon review of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing & Advertising this week.

GraceW wrote:

I worked in financial services and marketing for 30 years. I wish I had a book like this when I first embarked on my marketing career. Mr. Donelson offers some clear and concise practices to encourage success in a sales/marketing position regardless of the industry. His writing style is crisp, yet full of energy.

Click here to read the entire review.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing & Advertising: How To Grow Sales And Boost Your Profits a how-to book for entrepreneurs and business managers.

Another Guide To Marketing & Advertising Amazon Review

From an Amazon reviewer on November 6:

Dave Donelson spent many years in the small business trenches and it shows in this book. He understands what makes a small business work and knows how to make it work better. His advice is practical, his approach realistic, and he keeps the preaching to a minimum.

As a small business owner myself, I identified with many of the entrepreneurs the author interviewed. They include a wide range of businesses in retailing, service, and manufacturing. The book is basically a collection of articles Donelson wrote for various trade publications (there's a list in the front of the book) covering auto service, nurseries, pizza parlors, health clubs, home building, art galleries, and many more. He does a good job of showing how the problems and solutions in one type of business apply to another.

The advice the author gives is very down to earth. When he talks about competing with Big Box stores, for example, he points out, "You can be very successful selling add-ons to your customers whereas the clerk in the megastore (if you can find one) is charged with doing little more than ringing up the sale and processing your credit card." Later in the same chapter he advises the small retailer to target their advertising: "When the only people who see your ads are those in the market for your product, the return on your investment skyrockets. Ads in home show programs, signage at the shows, your logo on a builder's dream home, post cards sent to the local garden club's members--these are ways you can promote your business without breaking the bank."

I'm not sure any of the ad campaigns and promotions he explains in the last section of the book are ones I can use because of the type of business I run, but they did start me thinking about some possibilities. To me, that's the measure of a good business book--it gets my creative juices flowing.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing & Advertising: How To Grow Sales And Boost Your Profits a how-to book for business owners and managers.

The First Amazon Review For Guide To Marketing & Advertising

A business owner posted the following review on November 5:

Having owned and operated a business for many years, I found this book quite valuable and realistic. Unlike most business how-to books, this one is more than just the author giving advice. Donelson cites numerous business owners who talk about the issues they faced and how they dealt with them. That real-life approach is not only informative but more readable than the usual platitudes and pontifications from business consultants.

The book is divided into three sections. The first covers marketing; figuring out who your best customer is and how to serve them. Donelson covers everything from employee conduct to pricing, with an emphasis on taking your cues from, and the importance of, the customers. The second section is about advertising, which is a vital function of marketing, elements of effective advertising and the nuts and bolts of how to do it are explained. The final section contains 23 sales promotions and ad campaigns that the reader can use.

Sprinkled throughout the book are case studies of several businesses that illustrate the principles contained in each section. These, combined with the interviews Donelson conducted with various entrepreneurs and managers, gave the book an extra dimension and added value.

Dave Donelson, author of The Dynamic Manager's Guide To Marketing & Advertising: How To Grow Sales And Boost Your Profits a how-to book for business owners and managers.