Industry Books

I have 10 years experience in managing consulting company. When I red just first chapters of this book I immediatelly have started to implement some ideas described there and it gave greate results!
No matter if you plan to start new business or you are mature partner with many years of experiane in professional services business - this book is a must and greate reading. Enjoy!

I have used this book to implement many new processes into my business. This sits in my bag or on my desk all the time. It's a great resource.

This book is worth its weight in gold. Well written, great ideas, very helpful for anyone involved in or starting a consulting firm.

We build websites and I wanted to learn more about how professional service firms operate since its basically the same thing (lawyers, accountants, engineers, website programmers, etc). The book helped me realize an important maxim to a service firm:

Success = Perception - Expectation.

If the client perceives they received something better than they expected, they will be happy. This is the key to client service; managing their expectations. While obviously quality, timeline, cost, etc. are all important, in the end they only matter if the client is happy.

The book covers many different usable ideas to manage clients better.

I expected that this book would be interesting to read, but the reality was even better than my expectations. The book provides very specific "how-to" recommendations for managing PSF. Thank you!

Right from the gitgo Ben Hamper's Rivethead grabs you with gritty gusto of passages such as the above; Hamper is an extraordinary writer about life for the ordinary guy... at least the ordinary guy who winds up as an automotive assembly-line worker for General Motors in Flint, Michigan--once considered the Automobile Capital of the World. The author is a natural shop rat, growing up in Flint, with an alcoholic mostly absentee father and a long-suffering, working-three-jobs mother trying to raise the family as practicing Catholics.

...

For my complete review of this book and for other book and movie
reviews, please visit my site [...]

Brian Wright
Copyright 2008

The endless monotony and idiot bosses drive anybody with an IQ above their shoe size to do something to kill the thought that, if they're lucky, they only have 30 more years of mind numbing drudgery to go before they can retire. I'm not saying alcohol abuse is the proper outlet, but it does seem to be the most common and most convenient. Good book, excellent portrayal of what exactly "blue collar America" does for a living.

Ben Hamper shares his life as a worker on the GM assembly line in Flint, MI. Bold, frank, honest and often hilarious. This book was recommended to me years ago and for some reason I never read it until now. Hamper chronicles a part of American history (manufacturing jobs) that seem to be going stateside or as Ross Perot once described in a quip about NAFTA, what's that whoosing noise? manufacturing jobs headed to Mexico. This is prose for the ages. Loved the book.

I didn't really like reading this book because I too work in a (once) major three Auto plant. I didn't feel that it properly portrayed some of the workers. It made it sound like all workers are like the author where they just really don't give a damn about anything except having a joking time on the job. It also made the workers sound like they were underachieving, undereducated, bottom of the barrel workers and I didn't care to have that stigma for all of us. I hold two bachelor degrees, like my job and take it serious!

I grew up with people like Ben Hamper in a place which was much like Flint. For the first couple years of my adult life, I did the kind of work he did. What he describes is the tail end of a lifestyle; the lifestyle of the shop rat. It's dirty, monotonous and smelly. Many of the people you work with are either below average in intelligence or in sanity. Drugs, booze and having no concept of "forethought" are fundamental parts of the culture. It's nihilism with a rivet gun. If you come from a place like that, chances are, your only way out is via a jail cell or a career in the military. Or, you could win a workmans comp suit. Which is presumably how Ben got out.

I miss rust-belt working class america. It's a hard life, and it doesn't have much in the way of rewards, but the people who make it up are genuine in ways that others are not: they have a lot of heart and spirit. Ben's book brought it all back in a great galloping rush of memories. If you've ever wondered what the factory working classes are, or at least were like (back when we had factories); read the book.

Great book. Amazing story.
Lot's of good lessons to be learned here. I read it all the way through and enjoyed the writing style a great deal. A quick read with fascinating stories and good information.

I think this book gives In Search of Excellence a run for its money as the all time great. This book really promotes a different way of thinking about the workplace in a much more collaborative way. I can't wait to start his other book the Seven-Day Weekend.

I have been strugling about how to have an organization or a corporation that are at the same time efficient and humanistic/democratic. Although people normally receives these types of ideas with reserve, the feeling is that it is almost impossible (take out the "almost" if you wish).

After reading Maverick everything changes. We have heard histories before, for example, ancient Athenas, Robert Owen cooperative success in 19th Century England, Mahatmas Ghandi, and so forth. However, rarely a 20th Century corporation has gone so far as Semco, at least to the best of my knowledge.

If you are interested in "real" humanistic-democratic management, you must have this book in your reading list.

Maverick is the story of Semco, an medium size Brazilian company who has set free their employees. The owner, Richardo Semler has been on a journey to continuously improve and innovate their employee related practices. Maverick describes this journey, the steps Semco took, the effect it had and the reasoning behind it. The changes they have gone through is innovate, thought provoking and may be even revolutionary.

What are these innovations? They range from flextime for factory workers, letting people control their own work to more extreme practices like completely abandoning the organizational chart to people who can set their own salaries! Chapter after chapter, Richardo describes these changes, starting with the smaller ones and ending with the large and most thought provoking changes and ending the book with a speculation about how his ideas and Semcos experiences might influence other companies and maybe the general business culture.

Maverick is very well written. It took me 2 days to read it, it kept me reading all the time. Well structured and really builds up to the end. Also the end, for me, was not dissapointing and looking forward to reading Semler's follow-up book.

Very much recommended.

Maverick is a valuable management book because of many of the counterintuitive ("You just couldn't do that!") concepts that Semler actually implements. It's value lies as much in showing "Well, he did just do that" as it does in espousing theory - without the implementation, it would just be too out there...

Some of the counterintuitive:
- Let managers set their own pay. And publish publicly.
- Don't fire people during a strike. Or even take attendence.
- Get rid of extra management (don't "hoard" talent) but fund their new startups if need be.

There's much more, as well as some less controversial advice ("Treat people with dignity" & "Rotate your managers"), but it's best to read the book yourself to get the stories with the advice.

Waste of money. Waste of time. Only advertising book i've been inspired by has been "Hey Whipple Squeeze This." Save your money and skip this one.

I own the 5th edition. I haven't read earlier editions
which may contain more of Caple's original writing.

The 5th edition has modern ads for examples. It still
has a lot of old-fashioned, classic headlines.

There is a great deal of useful information in this
book. It's a fine reference to have on hand. Any
copywriter should own a copy and read it. As a
cover-to-cover read though it's pretty dry stuff.

I can't put my finger on why... Maybe the personality
was bled from the original text by the new editor's
additions and subtractions.

I'd like to read an older copy someday.

This book is a must read for learning fundamentals of ANY type of marketing. I am an online marketer and this book made ALL the difference to my sales. Best book on marketing as a foundation for all other marketing books. Seth Godins books are also fantastic for teaching you where to start and the "formula" for success no matter what you are selling. Another good read is Mark Joyners books!

This book is a classic. You need to have it in your library with sticky notes for easy access to frequently used parts of the book. This is not the only book you need on advertising, but it is one of the cornerstone books on advertising. The methods are tried and true (tested) and the content is usable, practical, and for the real world.

I have 47 books, at least as many audiobooks, and I read 23 newsletters and 12 bogs to learn about sales, marketing, and copywriting.

After my computer, this book is the most useful tool I own.

I refer to it daily, and it has saved me hours and hours of time and earned me gobs of money. It's dry, technical stuff but if you put it to use you'll get results. If you do any kind of marketing, selling, or persuading in your life, buy this book.

This is a phenomenal once-in-a lifetime read that will positively impact your life's trajectory, lending you the tools, resources, and tips you need to become a mega-successful entrepreneur.

This is not only a very good read, it is also a excellent source of helpful guidance. A modern day combination of The Power of Positive Thinking, and so many other self help books of the past, this one adds a few new wrinkles that will make the purchase price a mere pitance when compared to the benefits derived from reading this book.

I have been in the personal development field for over forty years. This is THE best book I have ever read in the field. It is life-transforming.The authors guide us with clear information and tools that anyone can use to guarantee success.
It's an instant classic on the level of Think and Grow Rich, the all-time best-selling self-help book.

Bruce Tredinnick

The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life A well balanced and crafted book. I have read books now by most the participants of the Secret and I believe that this one is the best. I say this becasue it carries you all the way through without dropping you. It is clear practical and spiritual but not in a flaky way. Buy and enjoy, it has the ingredients to 'do what it says on the tin'. Good information from and by guys who have succeeded and continue to succceed.

Dublin Ireland

Before I get into discussing this book I would like to tell a bit of a personal story relating to this book. It is a story that hopefully might even make the book even more interesting to prospective readers. To relate this story to you will make my review a good bit longer than normal, but please bear with me because this story really does have to do with what's in this book...

Last year I watched the international phenomenon, The Secret, which has swept the globe with its message: "Everything that you have, make or do happens because of your thoughts. Everything that happens to you, whether you wanted it to happen or not, was attracted to you by your subconscious mind. This is known as the Law of Attraction. If you want to have a better life, use the Law of Attraction to your benefit."

What The Secret was putting out there was that we are responsible for our own conditions but we need to align what we want in life with our subconscious before we can truly change.

I took this in as positive thinking, as a "philosophy", so to speak but I decided to give the Law of Attraction a try. But after putting a small amount of effort into its practice by trying to manifest some small things - a second trip to Egypt in the same year, an interview in a newspaper, etc., I found the Law of Attraction to be rather true in my life. Thus with no more guidance than the information in that film I started experimenting with one of my businesses last year, a business that hadn't been faring too well in the recent past. To my joy this business turned around and doubled in size within ten months. I then used the same principles to find my sweetheart and in a matter of weeks I found a wonderful girl, just as I had imagined her to be even before I knew her. And after that I turned my attention to a second business I had in December of 2007 and now it is double the size that it was when I started using these principles.

In the course of all of this I moved to Bangkok, Thailand, from Saigon, Vietnam. In Bangkok I have met many new and very interesting people. One day I was called out of the blue by a friend I hadn't seen in a while. She asked me to come to a showing of The Secret which was being held by a Belgian man named Guy, who was interested in the Law of Attraction. I dropped everything I was doing that Sunday and came to the showing. I came not so much to see the movie again, although that was a side benefit, but I really was interested to meet people who were using these principles in their lives so that I could compare notes and see how this was working in their lives. I was there to offer my experiences and to gain from others. Guy and I with another Belgian, Chris, formed our own monthly meeting group.

But something had always bothered me about The Secret: It wasn't enough. I felt like the information in The Secret was more of an advertisement than a practical way of doing things. I decided to focus on finding a guide, a teacher who could take me further into the nitty gritty of how we should use these principles to improve our lives on a day-to-day basis. I decided to "intend" a teacher to come into my life - a teacher who could show me both a much deeper understanding of what I was doing as well as how to use these principles in a practical way.

Two days after I made the intention of finding my teacher came the e-mail from Norm Goldman of BookPleasures.com. The public relations firm representing John Assaraf and Murray Smith was requesting a review of their new book, The Answer.

Recognizing John Assaraf's name from The Secret immediately, I jumped at the chance to review this book.

Coincidence? Stay with me. My story about this book doesn't end there.

I remembered John Assaraf's name especially for two reasons: First, one of the most poignant scenes in The Secret is when his six year old son finds a five year old vision board in a corrugated moving carton. In explaining to his son the purpose of this vision board John realized that the perfect home he'd wished for five years earlier was exactly the home he was living in at that time! (This amazing and thought provoking story is well covered in both the film and book versions of The Secret as well as in John's book The Answer, so I won't go into great detail about the matter).

The second reason I remembered John Assaraf's name is because it reminded me of a friend who I was trying to reach and had decided some time ago to find out about. At university I had a friend named Marc Assaraf. So the day the advance reading copy of The Answer arrived in my office in Bangkok I checked John and Murray's website for their One Coach business and I e-mailed John asking him whether he would be interested in helping me with any questions I had about the book (he responded that he would). But at the end of the e-mail I asked whether, just by chance, he had ever heard of someone named Marc Assaraf. It turned out that Marc Assaraf was John's own brother!

From my point of view, I could take this situation for a very, very wild coincidence, or I could take it that my receiving John's and Murray's book was a convergence of two intentions that I had clearly stated and wanted the manifestation of. Both answer could not be true.

To make matters even more "coincidental", the very day that I finished reading The Answer I received an e-mail from Chet Holmes inviting me to a conference call with none other than John Assaraf. I opened this e-mail less than one hour after finishing the last page of this amazing book!

Needless to say, this was a conference call that I participated in and gained much from.

The Answer is a well written book that explains exactly how such a "coincidence" occurs. At least in the first half of the book it does.

In the first chapters John Assaraf explains scientifically how your mind and mine are connected to the world through our subconscious and how we can change the poor results we have been getting, whether it be relationships, financial, professional, etc. I really have to admit that when I first opened the book I felt a bit strange reading all about the science behind this. What I was looking for was the quick, practical tips that would help me to better use the principles of the Law of Attraction. (John Assaraf prefers to use "Law of Resonance"). By the middle of the book all of John's painstaking research that he shared made sense - John put all of his findings in so that we'd know exactly the whys of the how to make the changes in our lives. Don't get me wrong, I was not saying that the first part of the book was not interesting. Just the contrary, it was extremely interesting. I didn't see its necessity until later in the book when it all came together and then it all came clear.

John's long-time friend and business partner Murray Smith took the latter part of the book where he gave advice on how to determine where you might be in your business and where you want to go (some of this was covered in John's section of the book, though the two authors were coming from slightly different angles). Murray then gave some excellent tools for both entrepreneurs as well as people who worked for others to be able to use in order to turn their businesses around and to guide the reader on how reach their goals. Both Murray Smith and John Assaraf gave many examples of how their clients had discovered where they had been going wrong and turned their businesses and organizations around. There are also plenty of practical resources in this book for the reader to use immediately.

Trust me. If you want to enrich your life or change something in your business in any meaningful way then read this book. Devour it. Digest it. Once you have read The Answer of course you can draw your own conclusions on what these guys are saying. But I am willing to bet that if you follow their advice you will feel like magic has come into the way you do things. Planning becomes fun and effortless. You will see doors opening for you that before were not just only closed - some of the doors weren't even there! Take it from me: You have nothing to lose and so much to gain by using Murray's and John's advice. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how to get more out of their life.

This book "flows" easily and it does a great job covering the meteoric rise of both Bill Gates and Microsoft. The narrative is never dull and both, the man and his company, are given a fair treatment. This book was published in 1993 and a lot of interesting stuff remains to be told. Wish the authors would team up for a sequel. This is a well written and authoritative account of Microsoft and its founder.

Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire

This book is a must-read for people who consider themselves ambitious and driven. It taught me the importance of single-minded drive and determination, coupled with a passion for the line of work one is in. IT is a tough line of work to be in - jobs could be outsourced anytime, skills become redundant quickly and there isn't the glamor or get-fabulously-rich possibility of finance or investment banking... but this book demonstrates that as long as you are passionate about what you do, there is always room at the top. Take heart from it!

This is the definitive Book about Bill Gates (and the history of Windows). It covers all the management aspects of how he drove Microsoft and how the work became his life. The man doesn't do business... He LIVES it. And this book describes it in very much detail.

The details includes how Bill "turned over" IBM... Promissing them the OS/2 under the "NT Technology" flag and how he realeased Windows 95 and killed IBM forever from the Desktop business. It also shows Gates apreciation for Older woman (and many that took him to bed). As part of this "private" package, it also explains the problems that He had with Steve Ballmer. How Ballmer was showing poor management and leadership under Gates perspective and how Ballmer got over it and made his loyalty to Gates forever.

I was more interested on the part that explains how Microsoft Windows 1.0 was developed. How disastrous the first Office was compared to the competition and how they managed to "work around" and fix it, by "coping" the competition and improving it "the Microsoft way".

Buy this if you want to know how business can be done... or be "copied".

Delightful book. Its one flaw is its addictiveness, I couldn't put it down which did cost me sleep (I'm an IT professional with an entrepreneur spirit- your results may vary).

The Microsoft/Gates biography is impeccable in its wealth of interesting details and engaging story-telling.

Bill Gates is a fantastic decision maker. He would be as successful selling water or space suits, he just happened to be at the right time in the right booming industry and pushed with his business-business mentality to the limit. Right decision after right decision, the Microsoft journey is a story that any entrepreneur should nitpick and absorb as much as possible.

Of course, his terrible capitalistic drive is a perfect subject for a discussion on morals, social responsibility and related matters, but without a doubt when it comes to maximizing outcome while playing by our economic rules, Hard Drive tells a tale of epic proportions featuring a superhero / villain that rivals the best of science fiction.

This is really a story of how Gates led Microsoft to its apex, ending in about 1992. It is well written and a good balance bewteen criticism, an explanation of the business model, and historical detail. The story is, to put it mildly, remarkable no matter what you think of MS and Gates.

While a student at Harvard in December, 1974, Bill Gates III and Paul Allen informed Ed Roberts by telephone that they had invented a BASIC computer language for the MITS Altair 8080, which was the first "personal computer" kit for hobbyists. Could they license it along with each Altair kit, Gates asked, to customers for a royalty fee? It was an audacious proposal, because not only had Gates and Allen invented no such thing, but they neither owned an Altair kit nor did they even know the technical specifications for the Intel 8080 chip. Skeptical of their claim, Roberts replied that whoever demonstrated a working BASIC would win the account: Gates and Allen were in competition, he told them, with 50 other "geeks" who already had made the same claim. Gates and Allen then hunkered down for 8 weeks to write the first BASIC for a microcomputer. The resulting "software", which immediately won over Roberts, was the first application of what would become Microsoft BASIC. Gates was 19.

As the company founders, Gates and Allen shared a vision that virtually every home and every office desk would eventually have a PC on them, all operating with their software. To run Microsoft full time, Gates dropped out of Harvard in January, 1977. Their business quickly expanded beyond the Altair as competing brands of personal computers emerged, including the Tandy from Radio Shack and the Apple II computer; they were also called upon to program BASIC into a number of other electronic devices. All along, Gates' goal was to gain market share, in effect setting the software standard for most, if not all, PC users. As a true believer who intimately knew the product, Gates was the principal salesman, while Allen concentrated on technical development.

During this formative period, Microsoft's corporate culture was established. Perhaps as a result of hiring many of his programmers straight out of university, Microsoft's offices (and later the campus in Redmond, Washington) took on the look and feel of a college campus, that is, an informal and a freewheeling intellectual atmosphere with "late hours, loud music, walls full of junk, anything goes dress, Coke, adrenaline, unbuttoned behavior." Employees tended to be very young with a programmer or engineering mentality; they designed their products for tech-savvy customers - male in their early 20s - like themselves, a kind of fellowship for computer adepts. Like Gates, they loved to play with and program electronic gadgets.

Microsoft hired the brightest programmers with demonstrated practical abilities. Employees were also expected to work extremely long hours as a team toward a common goal, not as strident individualists. Gates encouraged them to develop their entrepreneurial passions, forcefully advancing their own ideas of useful products for new markets. Overseeing it all was Gates, who gained the reputation of a harsh and challenging critic with a relentless drive for excellence, whether to beat the competition or out of fear of falling behind in such a fast-changing industry. As the sole remaining founder after Allen's departure in 1983, Gates remained deeply involved in both technical and business details as well as the general direction of company strategy. Nonetheless, as the principal revenue generators, Microsoft's product groups increasingly became the seats of decision-making power, in spite of Gates' active engagement.

At the end of 1979, Microsoft had $US 4 million in sales. Most of these revenues came from BASIC, which enabled programmers to create applications, such as word processing and accounting spread sheets. The level below BASIC and the other languages under development at Microsoft was the computer operating system, which performed the most elementary tasks required to run computers. With the prospect of providing software to IBM for the basic PC it was planning to market for a reasonable price, Gates and Allen began to acquire the rights to, and then develop, software for a computer operating system. Known later as DOS, it again set an industry standard that would enable Microsoft to efficiently develop languages and software applications in a single engineering environment rather than painstakingly customize them for a variety of incompatible operating systems. This would immensely simplify Microsoft's programming process as well as enhance its efficiency.

As Gates foresaw, this was a near-ideal position to occupy at the moment that the PC market was poised to grow explosively with the introduction of the inexpensive IBM PC, which was made of off-the-shelf components and hence easy to copy, or "clone". With the dual ownership of DOS and several major programming languages, Microsoft became one of the fastest growing companies in the world. By 1985, just prior to its IPO, on revenues of $US 140 million, Microsoft had a pre-tax profit margin of approximately 34%, no long-term debt, and cash reserves of $US 38 million. By 1987, the company surpassed Lotus to become the world's largest software vendor for PCs. Gates was on his way to become the richest man in the world, at least for a time.

However, the ownership of DOS and the programming languages would also, critics later claimed, confer an "unfair advantage" on the company. First, the Microsoft applications groups were accused to obtaining "inside information" from the operating systems group, which enabled them to design their products to function more quickly and smoothly than competitors could. Second, because each change in DOS required competitors to supply their latest products to Microsoft programmers to ensure compatibility, critics charged that this amounted to an inside peek into their strategy at the cutting edge of their capabilities. It was a symbiotic relationship that made many outside vendors - independent companies developing applications to run on Microsoft operating systems -uneasy and resentful. Third, DOS programmers were accused by rivals of inserting "hidden bugs" into the operating system in order to hinder the function of competing products, such as the Lotus spread sheet, damaging their competitive position and brand. The resulting negative publicity did a great deal of damage to the Microsoft brand, which began to be seen as the industry bully.

While Gates insisted that he had erected a "Chinese Wall" between Microsoft's applications division and its Operating System's Group, it was not enough to deter the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from opening a probe into the company for anti-competitive practices that purportedly hurt consumers. By 1991, when the FTC probe became widely known, Microsoft controlled one-quarter of the applications market and dominated the operating systems market with Windows. There was speculation about the imminent breakup of Microsoft into separate companies for these markets, similar to the dismantlement of AT&T. For their part, defenders of Microsoft argued that it was winning because it was better and smarter, presenting its customers with superior products at bargain prices.

This a pretty much where the book stops, which badly dates it. Not only is the story of the anti-trust law suits left untold, but subsequent business developments - notably the internet - are not even mentioned. Thus, this is an excellent early history, but the reader must look elsewhere for more detail. Of the shelf of books on MS, in my opinion this is one of the best, and it was most useful to me for a research project. Recommended.

I purchased the sandwich spreader and metal spatula. I paid twice what I would have paid anywhere else. They turned out to be junk. Both plastic handles separated from the metal parts within 9 months of the purchase.

I absolutely loved this book. Doris Christopher's ideas and humble beginnings are absolutely inspiring! She has built an amazing company and shares it for everyone to realize their own potential. Her basic no nonsense attitude towards life and her company are shared in this incredible story. I do not sell Pamperd Chef, but if I was not trying to build another direct sales business I know I would after reading this book!

I have been purchasing Pampered Chef products for over 16 years and my husband and I have always been huge fans. After many years of buying from someone else, I decided to give it a try and then so did my husband. . . yes, we are both consultants because we believe so much in the products.

I signed up as a consultant a few days after the book was released and read it in one night! After reading the book I was more of a fan than ever. The story is very inspiring to anyone who wants to take the leap of faith in themselves and try to start their own business.

Doris' vision of having a business to earn extra money and still have time to raise her family is very much alive today as it was 25 years ago. The book takes you through the 25 years of her dream from where she started the business in her basement with $3,000 to being the founder a of multi-million dollar company with thousands of women and men who work with The Pampered Chef as hobbyist, part- and full-time consultants.

A must read for anyone who wants to be inspired to start their own business.

An interview with the author and her daughter, who grew up in the culinary business, supplements The Pampered Chef, a story of Doris Christopher, a former teacher and home economist who returns to the work world with a vision of making cooking more convenient for families. Selling high-quality kitchen tools through demo groups and growing her business, The Pampered Chef, from a basement enterprise to a successful franchise. A story of personal success comes alive in audio.

In 1980 author Doris Christopher, former home economist and teacher, wanted to return to the workforce after raising her children: she began selling high-quality kitchen tools through cooking demonstrations and began her company, The Pampered Chef, from her basement. Twenty-five years later it's a corporation specializing in kitchen shows - and The Pampered Chef: The Story Of One Of America's Most Beloved Companies tells of how she became a culinary industry success. Insights on how the company expanded and handled its challenges provide entrepreneurs and cooks alike with much inspiration.

I love Absolut ad's and have always wanted to get one. They are expensive new , so I got an used copy from an amazon seller. It came quickly and I flipped through the book for about 20 min when it arrived 2 days later. I love all the ads and they are all so clever. I might not get some of the modern art ones, but I love the city ones in particular. Anyway, I got this book for my new house and new coffee table book, I think it is one of the best hardcover coffee table book (marketing story book) ever.

Compulsory addition to the coffee table library. An excellent example of a clever, consistent, cutting edge branding campaign helping to position a generic product at the top of consumer mind. Absolut genius.

If you like the Absolut ads, this is a good book for you. It's what you'd expect - big pictures of the Absolut ads with explanations from the ad agency guys who made it happen. A fun coffeetable book.

Absolut is one of the best selling vodkas in the world and the advertsing for it is second to none. In this fabulous book were are told the inside story behind the marketing and selling of this tasty treat. The paper is first grade and the pictures are outstanding to say the least. Absolut original with a bottle looking like a Roman ruin is probably my favorite one but there are so many nice advertising ideas that have become stupendous posters. Absolute Enivironment is also a nice one. This is a good coffee table book and a nice gift for the person that likes vodka and to read.

This is a wonderful, informative, and beautiful book.
This book is about the Absolut Vodka advertising campaign. How it began, and what it is about. There are many beautiful, and breath taking images which makes you see the entire light of the campaign which looks so simple from the outside. Now, you get the inside looks and it isn't simple at all but an amazing experience.
WOW!!

If you are an enterpreneur and you want to know how to price your product, don't look any further this is the book you are looking for. The chapter about costs has an MBA level and it will give you a lot of good ideas of how to improve your busines operation.

I updated from the 2nd edition I bought years ago. I'm glad to see the focus on value-based pricing. I was a little disappointed that it gets a bit repetitive on calculating price changes and it would be useful to see more examples on calculating the initial price when you really don't have much data to go on.

This book is one of the best in pricing. It is used as a textbook in business schools and highly recommended by consultants.
Unfortunately, it took 10 days to arrive using standard shipping.

I have spent over 30 years in computer software sales, pricing, and terms and conditions. This book resonates with me, specifically with it's emphasis on sustained company profitability rather than get rich quick pricing. It's comprehensive, not specialized to any specific product set or industry, and nothing I read failed to make sense to me, based on my experience.

If you are interested in this topic, there is no better work I know of to give you both practical and good theoretical advice.

This is the reference book of many of the best MBA courses in US, and when I started the reading, I realised why. It's written in a very easy way, and covers all the topics on pricing: strategy of pricing, segmentation, unbundling products and finally emotional pricing.

I have never readen any princing book before. At first, I thougt it would be hard to read, difficult to understand and almost all full of mathematics. This book is not so. In fact, the authors try to explain all the topics by words, not by numbers.

Actually, princing managers tipically try to find diverse formulae to apply to price their items. Nevertheless, this book teaches you that it is one of the ways, but pricing a product is much more than using a formulae...it is strategy and psicology as well!!!

This CD set took me from working the night shift at our town's local 7-11 straight to the lofty heights of the music business. Its a downright miracle. Its no coincidence that every single other reviewer gives this CD series 5 stars and as well as heaping on well deserved praise. If I didn't know Ty's work to be the message from God that it is, I would question the veracity of all these testimonials and wonder whether Ty or Ty's mother has a lot of email accounts. But since we know that's not true, we can go on enjoying the veritable gold nuggets of wisdom about today's music business crammed onto these CDs. I only hope that we can get Ty to turn his mighty mental powers to solving some other of the world's great challenges such as poverty and disease. If he does, these calamities won't stand a chance.

Are you tired of getting turned down by music companies? I was. I got this book from a friend for my birthday. So, I figured, `what have I got to lose?' The book surprised me. Cohen gives you everything you need to know about getting a start in the music industry. It has useful contacts and insider tips that give you an edge on the everyday musician. If you're serious about your music and want to get it in the right hands, get this book.

Ty Cohen has done it again. He has made the music industry so easy to understand and anyone can use the strategies that he provides. Cohen is able to show us all that being a musician with your own record label is possible and easy. Through a simplified process, any aspiring musician can implement these plans and put them into action within 21 days. If you are in the music industry, there is no better guide for getting a record label running on a small budget but still be successful and make money. My business is in a better place since "stumbling" across Ty Cohen's resources.

Thank you for putting together this resource for the music business. It certainly has given me some additional contact info and some other little surprises I'll keep secret.

The e book will be on my desktop to compliment some other resource books I have aquired in the last several months.

Thanks Ty for a great resource...

Lou
BackStage Pass

Great resource for any musicians out there that need to get their product into the right hands. Loaded with tons of useful contacts for all aspects of the music business from sales,distribution, legal etc. Easily downloaded and excellent customer service form Ty Cohen and his team at Platinum Millenium!