Download or read book The Customer Trap written by Andrew R. Thomas and published by Apress. This book was released on 2015-04-07 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American business is dysfunctional. Companies of all sizes follow the mistaken belief that their products and services are best sold through mega-customers with pervasive market reach, such as Amazon and Walmart. Far too many business leaders fail to realize—until it is too late—that the relentless pursuit of volume at all cost is not the key to long-term profits and success. The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business is Thomas and Wilkinson’s sequel to The Distribution Trap: Keeping Your Innovations from Becoming Commodities, which won the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the best marketing book of 2010. The Distribution Trap contended that cracking the big-box channel is not necessarily the Holy Grail that many marketers assume it is. The Customer Trap takes this thesis to the next level by arguing that all companies, regardless of the industry there are in, should maintain control over their sales and distribution channels. Volume forgone by avoiding the mass market is more than offset by higher margins and stronger brand equity. The Customer Trap shows that giving power to a customer who violates "the ten percent rule" sets a company up for ruin. Yet, when presented with the opportunity to push more sales through large customers, most decision-makers jump at the chance. As a result, marketing has come to resemble a relentless quest for efficiency and scale. Demands from mega-customers in the form of discounts, deals, and incentives erode the integrity of the brand and what it originally stood for. Lower margins become the norm and cost-saving compromises on quality take over. In time, the brand suffers and, in some cases, fails outright. Stark examples from Oreck Vacuum Cleaners, Rubbermaid, Goodyear, Levi’s, and others illustrate the perils of falling into the "customer trap." This book demonstrates in vivid detail how to thrive by controlling your sales and distribution. The authors show how many firms, such as STIHL Inc., etailz, Apple, Red Ant Pants, and Columbia Paints & Coatings, have prospered by avoiding the "customer trap"—and how your company can have similar success.
Download or read book Escaping the Build Trap written by Melissa Perri and published by O'Reilly Media. This book was released on 2018-11-01 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To stay competitive in today’s market, organizations need to adopt a culture of customer-centric practices that focus on outcomes rather than outputs. Companies that live and die by outputs often fall into the "build trap," cranking out features to meet their schedule rather than the customer’s needs. In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You’ll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small. In five parts, this book explores: Why organizations ship features rather than cultivate the value those features represent How to set up a product organization that scales How product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities How to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework How to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs
Download or read book Traps written by MacKenzie Bezos and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reclusive movie star Jessica Lessing is finally coming out of hiding—to confront her father, a con man who has been selling her out to the paparazzi for years. On her four-day road trip to Las Vegas, she encounters three unexpected allies—Vivian, a teenager with newborn twins; Lynn, a dog shelter owner living in isolation on a ranch in rural Nevada; and Dana, a fearless ex-military bodyguard wrestling with secrets of her own. As their fates collide, each woman will find a chance at redemption that she never would have thought possible. MacKenzie Bezos’s taut prose, tough characters, and nuanced insights give this novel a complexity that few thrillers can match. This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
Download or read book The Hero Trap written by Thomas Kolster and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-28 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most companies today are firmly on the social and environmental issues ‘bandwagon’, like bees around a honey pot, from plastic in oceans through to diversity. As a result, people are increasingly distrustful of these efforts which they view as cheap marketing stunts meant to wow people into buying more. "Try to fly like a superman, and you will come down like a tin of soup." Market economists have long told us that we’re driven only by money and status, but the inherent human truth that cuts across age, culture and gender uncovers a stronger force: we wish to be in charge of our own lives and our own happiness. Through extensive growth and affinity research, world-renowned purpose-pioneer, Thomas Kolster, uncovers a simple answer that is key to driving marketing growth in the 21st century: if you put people in control of the marketing mix, from products to promotion, they can grow and in turn grow your organisation. This book explains the meteoric rise of a company like AirBnB, how a 20-something Swede, Maria de la Croix, built a global coffee empire like Wheelys in just a few years, and how a group of friends hanging out in a bar in Melbourne created one of the largest global non-profits fighting for men’s health, Movember – and how you can empower people to do the same. Today’s power no longer rests in the hands of the privileged few, but in the talented many. It is time for you to unleash that power, in numbers. Drawing on top-line marketing case studies and in-depth interviews, Kolster demonstrates how people are truly motivated to act when they’re in charge of their own life and happiness. ‘Who can you help me become?’ is the one essential question you need to be asking and acting on to chart a new course for your organisation, changing behaviours at scale and unlocking sustainable growth that benefits all.
Download or read book Beating the Commodity Trap written by Richard Anthony D'Aveni and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2010-01-12 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Commoditization-a virulent form of hypercompetition-is destroying markets, disrupting industries, and shuttering long-successful firms. Conventional wisdom says the best way to combat commoditization is differentiation. But differentiation is difficult and expensive to implement, and keeps you ahead of the pack only temporarily. In Beating the Commodity Trap, Richard D'Aveni provides a radical new framework for fighting back. Drawing on an in-depth study of more than thirty industries, he recommends first identifying the commoditization trap you're facing: -Deterioration: Low-end firms enter with low-cost/low-benefit offerings that attract the mass market-as Zara did to high-end fashion companies. -Proliferation: Companies develop new combinations of price paired with several unique benefits that attack part of an incumbents' market-as Japanese motorcycle makers did to Harley-Davidson. -Escalation: Players offer more benefits for the same or lower price, squeezing everyone's margins-as the iPhone did in mobile devices. The author provides a tool for diagnosing your competitive position and shows how to strengthen it while also boosting your pricing power-by destroying the commoditization trap confronting you, escaping it, or turning it to your advantage. Illustrated with a wealth of examples, this concise, practical guide gives you the framework and tactics you need to battle commoditization.
Download or read book Escape the Improvement Trap written by Michael Bremer and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-08-09 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by two experts who have dedicated their careers to quality improvement, Escape the Improvement Trap: Five Ingredients Missing in Most Improvement Recipes separates itself from other improvement books by looking at why most companies rarely achieve anything more than an average level of improvement maturity. They identify five critical ingre
Download or read book Death Trap written by M. William Phelps and published by Pinnacle Books. This book was released on 2013-03-18 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true-crime story of a bitter divorcée and the murder of her ex and his new wife, by the New York Times bestselling author of Cruel Death. It started when Alan Bates and his new wife arrived at his ex's house to pick up his two daughters for a weekend visit. Then two charred bodies were found in a burned-out car on a lonely Georgia road . . . and investigators pieced together a shattering story of a vicious divorce, a spurned woman's bitter rage, and a thirst for revenge that led to cruel, unflinching murder. Updating this gripping true-life thriller with shocking new details, M. William Phelps uncovers the cold heart of an unthinkable crime. Praise for Death Trap “A chilling tale of a sociopathic wife and mother willing to sacrifice all those around her to satisfy her boundless narcissism . . . A compelling journey . . . . Fair warning: for three days I did little else but read this book.” —Harry N. MacLean, New York Times bestselling author of In Broad Daylight Perfect for readers of Anne Rule and Kathryn Casey Includes sixteen pages of dramatic photos
Download or read book The Content Trap written by Bharat Anand and published by Random House Group. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “My favorite book of the year.”—Doug McMillon, CEO, Wal-Mart Stores Harvard Business School Professor of Strategy Bharat Anand presents an incisive new approach to digital transformation that favors fostering connectivity over focusing exclusively on content. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Companies everywhere face two major challenges today: getting noticed and getting paid. To confront these obstacles, Bharat Anand examines a range of businesses around the world, from The New York Times to The Economist, from Chinese Internet giant Tencent to Scandinavian digital trailblazer Schibsted, and from talent management to the future of education. Drawing on these stories and on the latest research in economics, strategy, and marketing, this refreshingly engaging book reveals important lessons, smashes celebrated myths, and reorients strategy. Success for flourishing companies comes not from making the best content but from recognizing how content enables customers’ connectivity; it comes not from protecting the value of content at all costs but from unearthing related opportunities close by; and it comes not from mimicking competitors’ best practices but from seeing choices as part of a connected whole. Digital change means that everyone today can reach and interact with others directly: We are all in the content business. But that comes with risks that Bharat Anand teaches us how to recognize and navigate. Filled with conversations with key players and in-depth dispatches from the front lines of digital change, The Content Trap is an essential new playbook for navigating the turbulent waters in which we find ourselves. Praise for The Content Trap “A masterful and thought-provoking book that has reshaped my understanding of content in the digital landscape.”—Ariel Emanuel, co-CEO, WME | IMG “The Content Trap is a book filled with stories of businesses, from music companies to magazine publishers, that missed connections and could never escape the narrow views that had brought them past success. But it is also filled with stories of those who made strategic choices to strengthen the links between content and returns in their new master plans. . . . The book is a call to clear thinking and reassessing why things are the way they are.”—The Wall Street Journal
Download or read book The Money Trap written by R. Pringle and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-06-07 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world economy is caught in a money trap. Existing monetary arrangements meet the needs neither of the ageing societies of the West nor of younger emerging economies. This in-depth analysis explains how the world got into the grip of global finance - and how it can escape, with a growing demand for reform.
Download or read book The Distribution Trap written by Andrew R. Thomas and published by Praeger. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, two business experts take an incisive look at product distribution--one of the most important forces shaping the American and global landscape. It is time for U.S. companies to wake up to the destructive mass-marketing theories that have cut their profits, diminished their reputations, and sent American jobs overseas. The Distribution Trap: Keeping Your Innovations from Becoming Commodities is the eye-opener that can help turn things around. Current marketing and distribution notions, the authors contend, have wrongly convinced thousands of U.S. innovators that the sale and distribution of their products and services is better left in the hands of outside forces. By catering to the mass market, innovators are allowing mega-distributors to dilute the value of their products and services, imposing costs and changes in strategic direction and operational control. Fortunately, there are practical steps innovators can take to control--and retain--the value of their products and services. The first section of the book explains the distribution trap, detailing how it hurts companies by forcing them to reduce costs, often by chasing cheap labor overseas. The second section details how to avoid the trap, it's a lesson U.S. companies ignore at their own peril. - Presents original research, including interviews - Includes a chapter-length case study on the German outdoor products maker STIHL, and other case studies on Oreck, Rubbermaid, and Goodyear - Offers 10 images, figures, and graphs
Download or read book The Twister Trap written by Michael Dahl and published by Capstone. This book was released on 2008 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Page Turners, two powerful books from the Library of Doom, have fallen into the hands of an evil magician. He turns the books into two terrible tornadoes, to destroy the Librarian. But when the twisters suddenly head toward a small village, the Librarian must risk his life to stop them.
Download or read book The Time Trap written by R. Alec Mackenzie and published by AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. This book was released on 2009 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on twenty major obstacles to effective time management, a guide to using time well offers practical solutions to the problem.
Download or read book The American Trap written by Frédéric Pierucci and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2019-11-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2014, France lost part of the control of its nuclear power plants to the United States. Frédéric Pierucci, former senior executive of one of Alstom's power company subsidiaries, found himself at the heart of this state scandal. His story goes to the very core of how he plotted the key features of the secret economic war that the United States is waging in Europe. And after being silenced for a long time, he has decided, with the help of journalist Matthieu Aron, to reveal all. In April 2013, Frédéric Pierucci was arrested in New York by the FBI and accused of bribery. The US authorities imprisoned him for more than two years - including fourteen months in a notorious maximum-security prison. In doing so, they forced Alstom to pay the biggest financial penalty ever imposed by the United States. In the end, Alstom also gave up areas of control to General Electric, its biggest American competitor. Frédéric's story unpacks how the United States is using corporate law as an economic weapon against its own allies. One after the other, some of the world's largest companies are being actively destabilised to the benefit of the US, in acts of economic sabotage that seem to be the beginning of what's to come...
Download or read book Clients for Life written by Andrew Sobel and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-02-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finally, the book that all professionals frustrated with fleeting client loyalty and relentless price pressure have waited for -- the first in-depth, client-tested guide to developing lasting business relationships. What separates extraordinary professionals from ordinary ones? Why are some professionals always drawn into their clients' inner circle of advisers, while others are employed on a one-shot basis and treated like vendors? Based on groundbreaking research, Clients for Life sets forth a comprehensive framework for how professionals in all fields can develop breakthrough relationships with their clients and enjoy enduring client loyalty. Drawing on insights from extensive interviews with both leading CEOs and today's most prominent client advisers, Jagdish Sheth and Andrew Sobel debunk the conventional wisdom about professional success -- "find a specialty, do good work" -- as hopelessly inadequate in a world where clients have unlimited access to information and expertise. The authors replace these tired conventions with an innovative blueprint, supported by over one hundred case studies and examples drawn from consulting, financial services, law, technology, and other fields, for how you can evolve from an expert for hire -- a commodity -- to an extraordinary adviser. Riveting portraits of both exceptional contemporary professionals and legendary advisers such as Aristotle, Thomas More, Niccolò Machiavelli, and J. P. Morgan reveal how great client relationships are achieved in practice. Readers will learn, for example, to develop selfless independence, which tempers complete emotional, intellectual, and financial independence with a powerful commitment to client needs; to become deep generalists and overcome the narrow perspective caused by specialization; to systematically build lifelong trust; and to cultivate the power of synthesis -- big-picture thinking -- that is so highly valued by clients. Acclaimed by leading management thinkers, Clients for Life clearly illustrates the most important attributes and strategies of extraordinary client advisers and shows how you can use them to enrich your own relationships. It provides sophisticated professionals with the tools and insights they need to reap the rewards of lifetime client loyalty.
Download or read book Eliminate Your Competition written by Sean O'Shaughnessey and published by . This book was released on 2018-05-14 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most salespeople lose the deal before they ever get started! It isn't uncommon for the customer to have already made a decision before most salespeople even learn of the opportunity. Most salespeople have to beat the preferred competitor by a significant margin just to be considered equivalent. Don't you wish that you could be the preferred vendor in all of your opportunities? Selling is a difficult career in which to make a living; it is not uncommon to have the commission check denied before the salesperson even gets a chance to win. Analysis of thousands of sales situations has made it phenomenally obvious that most salespeople begin their sales campaign so late in the decision-making process that they are virtually guaranteed to lose the order. To make matters worse, when they do start the campaign early enough, most salespeople do not know how to control the prospect adequately so that they can guarantee their victory. Typical turnover for a sales department is 10-20%. Many companies see turnover that approaches 40-60%! This turnover costs them 50% of their revenue-generating capability. In any organization that exceeds 25% turnover, the loss of trust with the customer can be astounding as the new salesperson tries to rebuild the entire relationship. In any given quarter dozens or hundreds of companies do not make their forecasted numbers and are dramatically punished by Wall Street. This book will provide the management of a company with a framework to teach their salespeople how to attain their quotas with higher profits. It will also allow salespeople to rise to the top of their organization and be the super-achievers who win awards, trips, bonuses, and respect. In this book, I will show you how to eliminate your competition and maximize your commission.
Download or read book The Peanut Butter Trap written by Elaine Moore and published by Little Rainbow. This book was released on 1996 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After Frank McCormick puts bubble gum in Crystal Gibbons' braids, she and her friends plan the perfect revenge--tricking Frank into eating a peanut butter and ant sandwich.
Download or read book Beyond Selling Value written by Mark Shonka and published by Kaplan Test Prep. This book was released on 2002-09-16 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to sell value, increase margins, make price irrelevant, win executive-level credibility, and create competitive immunity. Selling value is taking on a whole new meaning for sales professionals. Here's a proven process pros can use to address their customer's pressing business issues, position themselves as strategic partners, and recommend solutions that improve the way their customers do business. In Beyond Selling Value, top sales consultants Mark Shonka and Dan Kosch share their proven process for becoming a critical partner in their customers' success. From targeting the most promising prospects, to bypassing the gatekeepers, to reaching the decision makers who are empowered to buy, and to closing the deal with a powerful presentation, the authors impart their battle tested secrets to forging long term business relationships. For sales professionals tired of being beaten up on price, here is a new way to leverage their strengths, elevate their sales game, and establish relationships with those who appreciate their value. Selling Power magazine calls it "a detailed, street smart roadmap".
