Business Book Summaries

There is a saying famous in American business: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Famous and true, as it turns out.

Attributed to John Wanamaker, an American retail businessman, it has been paraphrased by any number in the decades since he first defined the primary problem every CEO faces in marketing. We all know our company must market. You only have to watch what happens when a company stops, to get the message.

Failure to market means becoming invisible, first in the eyes of your customers, then in reality. Yet, from the traditional print campaigns of the last century to contemporary Internet Pay-Per-Click, and Web 2.0 social media applications, CEOs of every size company still have no idea which part of their advertising/marketing budget works, and which part doesn’t.

What continues to remain elusive is knowing exactly which of their expenditures is getting the job done. And because of that, they spend more than necessary, squandering resources they could use elsewhere.

This is an issue that has never been more important. Significant changes have taken place in American companies in recent years, and these are certain to continue at a pace never previously experienced.

We are in an age of global markets with a digital presence that is increasingly becoming overarching. No one really knows the path ahead; it remains as murky as ever.

What worked just a year or two ago can already be obsolete, and what is successful today could be on the way out without our knowing it. Something new is always on the horizon, but which something new will make a positive difference is no clearer now than it has ever been.

This presents new challenges for marketing in ways that have never previously existed. But along with challenges are also opportunities — new Web 2.0 marketing communications tools such as corporate blogs, Wikis, and the increased specificity of marketing discussions through vertical channels as opposed to “talking to an invisible community.” All these are challenging every CEO to reexamine conventional practices.

For all the innovations of this brave new century, old issues remain. There exists, and has always existed, a fundamental disconnect between the CEO, sales, and marketing. Their personalities and objectives are quite different, and they profoundly affect the CEO’s functions.

This disconnect, about which I have much to say, is a result of our current economic corporate structure and culture, which were inadvertently fashioned to encompass it. The consequence is that it has an appearance of normalcy and a sense of permanence that are illusionary, but make it difficult to properly perceive, effectively manage and alter for the better.

In my experience, the CEO who follows the conventional and takes the commonly accepted management approach to the significant issues created by this disconnect, will never come to terms with the real issues. In most cases, in fact, the CEO will never even understand that the divide in these areas has been the fundamental cause of many, if not most, of his or her problems.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service.Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States.For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

THERE’S NO FREE LUNCH ON WALL STREET (OH YEAH, WHO SAYS?) BUT THERE’S ALWAYS A BULL MARKET SOMEPLACE

When Tech goes up, what goes down? By diversifying among sectors that zig when others zag, some investors have historically been able to get both a higher return as well as lower risk. Why shouldn’t you?

If Sir Isaac Newton had a law of motion related to the stock market, it probably would have sounded like “for every level of return, there’s an equivalent level of risk,” meaning that the higher the returns you hope to achieve, the greater the amount of risk you should be willing to accept.

It’s just like what Mom always said: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” And the same goes for sticks – generally. If you expect a high-price return, then you have to expect to experience an elevated level of risk, either in the form of price volatility or the potential loss of your original investment. And the logic for this is fairly straightforward. If you could get something for nothing, it wouldn’t take long before many others joined you in this investment.

And as more people would learn about it and buy into it, the potential to exploit any price inefficiency would evaporate. It’s the simple principal of arbitrage.

Sometimes, however, one can find an investment strategy that delivers a free lunch: an investment that offers an improved return with lower risk. Investing in sectors with low correlations to one another has actually provided investors with above-average returns – even when factoring in risk or volatility.

Sectors are said to have low correlation when the price of one zigs, while the other zags. Over the long term, sectors with low correlations have recorded advances and declines at a different rate of pace, as if they each marched to the beat of a different drummer. Highly correlated sectors, on the other hand, ascended the staircase of price changes as if marching to the same beat.

Not all investors are Fred Astaire on the dance floor. For some, it may be best to let the market take the lead. This rear-view mirror approach to investing has a time-tested track record for picking near-term winners. Ready to take a spin?

In its simplest form, the There’s Always a Bull Market Someplace portfolio for industries is merely a monthly update of the Let Your Winners Ride portfolio for industries. The intent is to maintain an ownership of all industries that have had the highest trailing 12-month price performance.

Your goal is to buy high but sell higher. In addition, the number of holdings never changes. This makes the management of the portfolio fairly straightforward. A drawback to this rule for industries is turnover. The portfolio requires monthly fine-tuning.

What this rule endorses is that instead of picking sectors, industries, or stocks by trying to forecast where we are in the economic cycle, projecting which company will win a government contract, or guessing which way the dollar will fluctuate, let the market tell you where to invest your money.

Miami, Florida, May 28, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com releases its brand new business book discussion forum, where book readers can chat, share news, and discuss ideas on favourite business book titles.

BusinessSummaries.com launched an important new feature to its website – a business book discussion forum. It provides a neutral venue for business book readers to freely discuss their favourite business book titles, authors and concepts.

Areas covered in the discussion forum include a general discussion on any topic of interest, authors, business book titles, business ideas, trends and concepts.

The team members of BusinessSummaries.com hope that this discussion forum will be a place to share information, express opinions, develop ideas, ask questions and make recommendations to other business book readers.

The business book discussion forum is found on http://www.bizsum.com/forum/.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summary service. Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.

Miami, Florida, April 2, 2009—BusinessSummaries.com, one of the leading e-commerce sites for business book summaries, announces that Al Betz, acclaimed author of Outfluence (published by Silverbear Graphics, 2008), is the Author of the Month for April 2009.

Al Betz is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Outfluence, LLC. He has a nationwide reputation as a realtime reporter, an author, and a leader in the court reporting world. Major legal matters he and his company participated in include the grand jury investigation of the Clinton Administration, and the recent litigation involving alleged accounting fraud of Ernst & Young, WorldCom and Enron.

As an author, Betz has interviewed and transcribed the stories of numerous subjects, including families of 9/11 victims in an effort to preserve their loved ones’ life stories. He credits his Outfluence approach to life and to business for enabling him to attract positive people to his life and to his business.

Outfluence is defined by Betz as a way to effect real, positive change – even if one doesn’t have all the authority, money, or clout that is usually required to effect such change. Applied consciously, outfluence creates a powerful, irresistible message that promotes growth in personal lives, relationships and businesses.

Outfluence turns conventional thinking about influence upside down – making a powerful force available to anyone who chooses to use it. Betz’s book on the topic, Outfluence, introduces the power of silent communication and teaches principles and behaviors to help people become more effective in their day-to-day interactions. It will also teach them that the effort extended to show others that we care makes an impression – whether our approach is in the form of speaking, writing, listening, or practicing patience and respect. Read more about Betz and his groundbreaking book at http://www.outfluenceonline.com/Al-Betz.html

The BusinessSummaries.com editorial staff interviewed Betz about his book and the story behind it. Key excerpts from the interview are posted at http://www.bizsum.com/author-of-the-month-april2009.php. The summary of Outfluence  was released to BusinessSummaries.com’s subscribers on February 9, 2009.

Every week, subscribers enjoy business book summaries of today’s business bestsellers in PDF, PDA, Powerpoint, audio, video and mindmap formats. The latest versions of the book summaries are all available online upon subscription to BusinessSummaries.com.

The Big Idea
Barack Obama has brought the power of oration back to American politics. In speech after speech, Barack Obama has “fired up” millions of enthusiastic supporters with his inspiring vision, rousing rhetoric, and charismatic presence.

Creating Strong First Impressions – Image and Body Language
The strong first impression that Barack Obama makes reminds us that body movement and image speak a language to the audience as potent as anything said out loud.

Barack Obama is adept at establishing excellent first impressions. Good eye contact has also been valuable to Obama.

Effective Use of Body Language and Voice
In the delivery of his 2004 keynote address, Barack Obama demonstrated outstanding use of body language. In short, Obama created a very strong first impression.

Obama came across as authentic. Like Bill Clinton’s story, Ronald Reagan’s story, Harry Truman’s story…” This has helped him connect with audiences; his life story is viewed as a classic story and it has endeared Obama to millions of Americans.

Practices for Earning Trust and Confidence
Given Obama’s tremendous success, leaders have much to learn from the way he uses excellent communication practices to earn the trust and confidence of others.

Charisma helps leaders energize and motivate others.

Image and body language are also important for forming strong first impressions. Notable second impressions can reinforce strong first impressions.

Strong communicators remember the importance of props and staging in sending sub-messages that reinforce key themes. Obama’s success demonstrates many best practices with regard to winning hearts and minds.

Excellent communicators use details skillfully to demonstrate that they understand the experiences and perspectives of audience members. Empathy and action – these are things the audience seeks.

Driving Points Home
Leaders have much to garner and apply from Obama’s successes. Rhetorical questions help crystallize attention on key ideas.

When leveraging the “power of three,” skilled communicators underscore key points, building momentum or enhancing a sense of logic.

Conveying Vision
Leaders also have much to learn from the way Barack Obama conveys vision so effectively to audiences. Use of dynamic imagery represents another useful communication technique.

Finally, effective communicators often offer anecdotes, providing brief narration and short tales to breathe life into key themes. A speaker can inspire others to great achievements by employing words that resonate, including words that evoke shared values, patriotic values, and cherished principles.

Outstanding orators will build to a high point and end on that high, leaving listeners stirred, inspired, motivated, and focused on key themes.

This helps to keep those themes and ideas dominant in the minds of audience members.

BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service.  Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States.  For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com

Workplace conflict need not be a problem. There are steps that can be taken by management to ensure that conflicts can be resolved as soon as possible and without harm. Moreover, if and when properly managed, conflicts have the potential to generate positive outcomes for all concerned.

If conflict is to be handled in a gainful manner, it is vitally important that individuals and organizations develop robust strategies for coping with conflict in the workplace. Not surprisingly, managers will often intuitively seek to resolve these disagreements by means that are primarily unilateral in nature.

Without a culprit, ideally one that can be proven to be at fault beyond reasonable doubt, the unilateral approach to conflict resolution simply does not work. In acknowledgment of these facts, when confronting conflicts within the workplace, alternative methods should always take precedence.

When taking a consultative approach to conflict resolution, disputants attempt to take responsibility for, and ownership of, their own disputes. Of course, unless a manager is actually one of the disputing parties, they will typically not be involved in the consultative resolution of conflict, nor perhaps even aware that there is a problem, or that an attempt at resolution is taking place at all. If one is to capitalize on the potential gains of consultative conflict resolution it is crucial that managers can take a step back and allow employees to attempt to work out their differences. It is an unfortunate reality of the workplace that some matters simply cannot be resolved by the parties involved, and that these conflicts, if left unresolved, can tend to fester.

Often known as the ‘softly-softly’ approach, facilitation is a relatively informal approach in which a third party, preferably one respected by and familiar with the disputing parties, brings the complainants together for discussions in the hope of establishing mutually satisfactory resolutions. Facilitation is a strategy for conflict resolution that is most potent in the early-stages of conflicts. Employed typically for fairly minor or mild conflicts, facilitation can be an extremely useful approach for a manager, whom sometimes might have to do as little as get the parties together and lend his/her presence to proceedings. Certainly, early informal interventions into conflicts, such as facilitation, should always be the first response to the identification of a potentially serious workplace conflict.

On the other hand, as with all approaches, there are issues revolving around facilitation that should concern a manager. Having established that third party conflict interventions are an unfortunate reality of the modern workplace, there are times when the subtlety of facilitation simply isn’t enough. Mediation is defined as a formal process of negotiation conducted in a controlled environment through which an impartial third party, ideally someone with no inherent decision-making power in regards to the matter, takes an active role in guiding disputing parties towards voluntarily settlement of a dispute. Needless to say, properly conducted mediation, executed from a position of neutrality by suitably skilled and experienced mediators, exists as a powerful tool for resolving conflict in the workplace.

Evidence suggests that, when mediation does work, it tends to produce enduring resolutions that involve minimal damage to the ego or interests of those involved and minimum potential for negative ‘spill-over’ in the workplace. Mediation is therefore widely regarded as an excellent means for resolving serious and pressing workplace conflicts. Arbitration is a formal process in which a third party, or occasionally parties, mutually agreed upon by the disputants or appointed by a suitable authority, renders a rational, legally-binding decision based upon the interpretation of the available evidence. While relatively few workplace conflicts find their way into a court, or board of arbitration, in the most serious of disputes, lawyers or similar agents of representation will often be solicited by the disputing parties.

In the final analysis, the implication for managers is that conflict is not necessarily counterproductive, but the inability to resolve conflict definitely is.

Cut down on reading time and still stay on top of the latest business trends and ideas from the business gurus. Visit us at http://www.bizsum.com

Every client, every situation is, of course, different, but regardless of the details of the situation, if you aren’t getting the response you want, or expect, you need to look at your message and – just as important – at how you are expressing that message.

Often, with just a few adjustments, you can go from a near miss to a slam dunk, from a “that was nice” presentation to one that knocks their socks off, from a mediocre meeting to one that fires up each and every participant.

The thing is, when you want to make a good impression no detail is too small. No amount of advance preparation is too much. No word choice is unimportant.

The shirt you wear, the chair you sit in, the thank-you note you write afterward should all be carefully considered, and ultimately compound the impression of someone who’s calm, confident, and in-command.

 The strategies offered in How to WOW, Frances Cole Jones’s new book, come from a spectrum of modalities and, aside from the general principles; the information offered is yours to pick and choose from.

There are no “rules” because each comes to the table with a unique set of attributes and circumstances.

And more important, each is smart enough to know what will work for them and their circumstances: what will help give you the confidence to speak your mind in a meeting, motivate your team under deadline, or negotiate your business deal over pasta puttanesca.

Cut down on reading time and still stay on top of the latest business trends and ideas from the business gurus. Visit us at http://www.bizsum.com