Products Books

This is a great business book and immensely timely. I recommend it highly.
Here's what I really like about Recession Storming:
It's full of actionable ideas that marketing and business development people, as well as business owners, can use today. I opened the book at random pages and immediately saw ideas I could use in my business.
The largest chapter in the book is Pricing, and it's very valuable. As Chairman of a large consulting company, we are often under price pressure in a recession. It's the first thing our business development folks reduce but it has tremendous impact on our margins. This Pricing chapter provides them with useful ammunition and ways of resisting this margin pressure. I particularly liked the way Rupert starts with ways to utilize better positioning as a way to resist price pushback, moving onto using game-changing pricing (like leasing, pay as you go, paying for results) which take the pressure off price, investigating ways of raising prices on certain products to claw back margin, managing price reductions in ways that do not destroy your price structure, and using marginal pricing a secret weapon against competitors who do not manage their costs well.
Since my business is developing new products and service for companies, I saw a lot of relevance in the New Products chapters. Rupert's clear thinking points out the enormous importance of Recurring Revenue strategies (i.e. getting a steady stream of revenue in a downturn) and how to configure your products and services for it. I liked the way he reminded us that products and services can be equivalent, which can help you end-run your old-timer competitors. And his emphasis throughout the book of doing the things you can do today and, only then, doing the things you can do tomorrow, together with the strategies to do just that, was powerful. For example, it's easy enough to find some ancillary services to add to your product-offering. You can do that quickly. That takes precedence over refreshing the product by changing the casing, say, and before embarking on a new product redesign. There are also some good ideas on speeding up development through outsourcing, collaboration, joint ventures and, of course (!) by using consultants.
It is a very readable book. Every right-hand page has a wonderful graphic at the top which makes it easy to see where you are in the book as you work your way through the 6 main sections. The pages themselves have small paragraphs which are easy to digest with relevant titles. The examples are numerous and well-considered. After a reminder of the classic examples (e.g. Gillette razor, People Express) Rupert moves on to some very up-to-date companies such as VMWare and Digikey, and other examples from 2008, even. We can learn from companies throughout the past, and in different countries. His reading was clearly comprehensive.
Recession Storming deserves a wide readership. Frankly, I would be amazed if you could not find a dozen new ideas for your business you couldn't start on today. Even one idea would be well worth the price of this book. Good work!

As a Harvard MBA with several start-ups under my belt in good times and bad, I found this book quite refreshing. While most business books take 200 pages to present what should be an article, this one contains kernels of wisdom in nearly each paragraph, and packs a wallop in a short, tight read. It is like a refresher course in strategic marketing, from the macro-economic terrain to tactical maneuvers.

I highly recommend this book to those in large and small corporations who seek more effective ways to weather the current storm.

"Death and Taxes" are sure bets in this life, but someone left out the word "Recession" in this saying. Hart, in refreshingly plain English, tackles this condition for effective business decision making in a free market economy. With brief and relevant case studies, the author illustrates how the business animal can "bob and weave" in turbulent times. This is a must read for all of us whose lives are directly impacted by economic fluctuations. A "HIGH 5" to Rupert Hart's craftmanship in "Recession Storming".

Michael Bini

This book is a tool kit of sharp ideas born of practical experience, that will positively influence the health and bottom line of any business in times of recession.
I have run several small businesses, and I wish such wisdom had been available to me earlier. While written in an easy to read style that cuts through the normal jargon, it none the less delivers powerful solutions without having to be a Marketing Specialist. Mr Hart does that for you!
Recession Storming is a book that looks at the challenges and issues during recession, and provides practical strategies and tactics that will help businesses to survive and prosper.
The vast range of information in this book and realistic to-do lists, deliver no nonsense advice that can be implemented immediately. It will maximise your opportunities and deal with specific obstacles, objections and scepticisms businesses face in times of recession.
I found the book extremely relevant in the current climate, and delivers great value for money.

Rupert Hart's book is very timely. As he quotes John Kenneth Galbraith, 'financial memory is about 10 years. That is about the time between one episode of sophisticated stupidity, and the next.' Given that we've not had a real recession for that amount of time, a book like this provides a useful refresher on how to survive and prosper in a recession. The book itself reminds me of my MBA marketing course, covering key subjects such as the business environment, customers, pricing, new product development and new markets. It is a very useful primer, reiterating what we probably have already learned but maybe do not pay attention to day to day, but it is more relevant because it is targeted at today's business environment.

I loved this one growing up. Really. Amelia Bedelia always choose the funniest possible interpretation of words, and her name rhymes! What's not to love?

The one thing I'd be concerned about is that a lot of the usages in this book are going to be unfamiliar to your young kid. I don't think many of us say "draw the curtains" anymore, and even if we do, we probably don't often talk about "trimming" steak (with or without lace!) or "dressing" chicken, at least, not around our kids. Maybe we should, but we don't.

So this book might be better saved for read-aloud time than read-alone time.

I remember reading these books years and years ago! I'm in 10th grade and it's been more 5 years since I was in elementary school and yet when I go work at my old school I go back and read them again!

A fun (and funny) book which will delight kids with Amelia's well-intentioned but mistake-laden chores. Kids feel empowered because they are 'smarter' than the character and are able to cheer her on. In the end, Amelia's good deeds overpower any mistakes she makes.

I recommend this book for any child who is beginning to read on their own!

This is surly a kids favorite since I was a little girl! We join Amelia Bedelia as she starts her first day of work for the Rodgers. They rush off shortly after she arrives, but they've left her a list of things to do. Should be a snap, as all the tasks are simple and clearly stated...but that's what you think...Amelia Bedelia begins completing each chore in quite a literal fashion...drawing the drapes and much, much more! Younger kids (1-4) will like the silliness of it and beginner readers and more savvy grade schoolers (5-8) will like that's it's simple and clever/silly too! I recommend it without reservation! I'm sure Amelia will be with us, teaching fine lessons about the words we use and the many means they can have for generations to come!

A great, witty book that my 4-year old loved. Made her think about the different meanings of words.

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!!!

I enjoyed reading this book and used it in a training session for teachers this August.

I am a retired teacher who has experienced many a case of "First Day Jitters." I purchased this book for a young friend who had just gotten her first job teaching kindergarten a week before school started. I was familiar with the story and thought she would enjoy it on her first day in a brand new school. I delivered the book to the school office two days before the start of school. Since she was busy getting the new classroom in order, my friend didn't read the book until the first day of school with her new class. She read it aloud, not knowing the ending. Both she and the children were surprised and excited to find out that the main character was the new teacher.
This book is well written and covers all the anxieties of starting school, even if you're the teacher. It shows children that they aren't the only ones with apprehensions. It is a great book for all elementary grades and especially for teachers facing a new class.
First Day Jitters

The kids were so surprised by the ending and it helped them understand that their first day of school feelings were normal - even the teacher has them! :)

I read this book to my middle school students at the start of every year. They just love it! They giggle and laugh about my use of a picture book, then they really get into it. It's a wonderful icebreaker!

The book arrived quickly and was exactly as described. My class enjoyed the story. It was very cute and funny.

I ordered this item in the hopes to teach my speech-delayed son more sign language. I was an elementary school teacher for over ten years and this product was overwhelming! The songs are way too fast! Then you have to refer to the book while listening to the song and then supposedly teaching your child- UGH! It would be beneficial if the book came with a dvd showing the signing along with the songs...

We love the upbeat original songs and my 2 1/2 year old requests this cd to be played when we're getting bored in the house. I came home one day to find the kids dancing with our nanny. Needless to say, whether for signing or pure enjoyment it is a great product everyone can enjoy together. Parents will find that the songs are easy enough to remember to sing along and practice signs when changing diaper, feeding time, bath time, etc... which are perfect routine activities to introduce signs to your baby and toddler. As an instructor who has seen participants enjoy the activity book and cd I highly recommend the item. www.sign4baby.com

I use this in my sign language classes I teach to babies, toddlers, children, adults, and special needs. It is a BIG hit, everyone loves it, everyone gets involved, and after class my clients want to purchase one. I have received e-mails after classes letting me know that they just love it and find it very helpful in learning the signs. Parents love the detailed information and illustrations in the book it is very easy to understand and shows what signs to use for babies. Well worth your investment.
www.signsforlife.biz

The pick me up cd is a central component of my early literacy sing and sign program that I offer to preschools and kindergartens in the central and seacoast regions of NH. Sign language combined with music gives students the opportunity to use mulitple processes to internalize vocabulary information. As I subcontract with schools, I have become the students' favorite specialist and have watched them blossom and grow in their signing vocabulary. Students learn by doing and when complimented with music they internalize the information with greater speed and efficiency. If you aren't having fun with this product you need to to rethink what you are doing because this is all about a large dose of fun with learning.

I use this product every week I teach my Baby Sign Language Classes in Houston, Texas and love it. The songs are a little silly, but the kids love them. Unfortunately, I find myself singing them all the time and get annoyed, but they are a great way to practice and get yourself comfortable with signing during daily activities. I highly recommend it!

I can't take it anymore, I'm only on pg 73, this guy is driving me up the wall.

he keeps confusing product design (egg) and branding (chicken) as the samething and their not. what comes first, type of problem, the chicken or the egg.. (I can hear Adamson saying it the samething dummy)

This book, is his resume, he has to be looking for work

on pg 71 he makes a reference to VCR, u can't even buy one, much less use one....so why bring that up....i'm guessing, he pushed his old note.

if your still confused after reading the book, hire his agency so they can pick your pocket clean...brand-broke

the reason I didn't give it one star, u might think i'm some nut
I bet $20 he used his friends to pump the 4.5 rating

update:
finished the book and tossed it in the garbage can

BrandSimple is a refreshingly easy read that boils the essence of brands and branding down to, well, their simplest but most important basics. Anyone involved in business management of any kind should read this book.

Adamson reminds us throughout the book that a brand is a very different thing than branding and that marketers cannot be great at branding without first creating a great brand.

The best brands are different. They promise something different and unique and deliver on that promise every time. They also find a way to simplify their brand message so that just about everyone instantly "gets it" and that the "it" resonates and seems obvious after the fact. Getting to that simplicity can require a lot of hard work and thinking, but making it seem so simple, obvious and intuitive is the key.

As Managing Director of Landor Associates, Allen Adamson peppers the book with real-world examples from his work at Landor and from his previous positions. His case studies show how the best brands work tirelessly to emerge with a simple promise and a simple message that is easily communicated in just a few words.

The real examples are brief yet clearly show the challenges and ultimate solutions from brands like Compaq, Visa, Apple, Aquafina, Baby Einstein, BlackBerry, JetBlue, Timberland, Pixar and many more. He uses these brands to show that often a simple insight that makes your product different is the real power in building a great brand -- as long as that difference is important and relevant to your potential customers.

The book is written at an easy reading level so that any business manager will be able to readily breeze through it without tons of technical branding terminology and grasp the important concepts. This in turn will inspire them to reevaluate and transform their own brands. The book is straight-forward, simple and highly insightful and useful.


On my "Professional Marketer Investment Scale";
($-Poor investment, $$$$$-Great investment)

Rating: $$$$$

- If you're starting an ad agency, marketing business, or developing your own brand you NEED to read this. I know while reading personally, I had to stop and breathe every 2 pages and take notes because it was packed with so many thought provoking truths.

- Every page has something important or special. Usually books like these are written with a lot of Filler in between chapters just to make the book longer. However BrandSimple avoids this, and stays clear, simple, and informative throughout the end.

- I'm keeping this one, If I ever hire employees for my Ad Agency this book will be a mandatory read.

- Also, Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples is a Must read as well.

This book provides insight about how to make your brand stick. With all the marketing noise that we as business people have to penetrate through, it is necessary to differentiate your product. This book details the process of creating a relevant brand in our global market. I recommend this book to anyone who has a business at any level from a home based business to a start up. It is written in a simple style and is highly informative with stories and interviews to highlight the key points. Learn how to establish your brand idea and align your signals for a profitable return.

I've just finished reading BrandSimple and wanted to thank Allen for writing this book.

We are at a stage in the life of our company in which we are using branding & positioning to go head-to-head with companies that are much bigger than us and BrandSimple has saved us from making many mistakes that would have cost us dearly in both the short & long term.

Beware though, that this book has been written in a compelling manner which is true to its mantra (i.e. keeping things simple) and will make the reading of other most other marketing books much more difficult.

This is a well needed book in todays society. I being raised by older parents sure benifitted from it. I am listening to it over and over to get it into my making. And really all it is is common sense. KAren

We got this to use as a study book for a church small group. It has been very practical and helpful, but the chapters sometimes seem long. However, the methods suggested are very proactive and easy to implement in any household.

This book helped me to see that implementing scripture pricipals into parenting makes life so much easier. It was encouranging and convicting at the same time. First got it from the library and then had to buy it so I could reference it over and over.

This is another one of those books that I borrowed and read first. It was so good that I went back and bought a copy for myself for reference. The good doctors Thompson and Cloud give a very good framework for raising useful and productive adults. If you don't want to raise large children, this is the book for you. What I found particularly useful, coming from a fairly disfunctional family, was the amount of space devoted to empathy. If you have been disciplined harshly and unfairly, it can be hard to know how to discipline with kindness. This book devotes a fair amount of space to making your discipline empathetic so that your child understands that the discipline is neccesary, but that it isn't something you are doing just to make him/her miserable. They really help you to always keep the goal in front of yourself and your child, that is: the adult you want them to become, not the child they are now.

I wish someone had loved me enough to give this to me at my baby shower. This is a great book and wonderfully easy to read. OK maybe the baby shower is a bit early, but I would definitely recommend it for parents of toddlers and older. I ordered a copy for my best friend. I had always heard about respecting your kids so they'll respect you, but never the real "how to's". This book gives what you need.

I absolutely LOVE this book! I would consider myself an experienced breastfeeder as I nursed my 1st daughterfor 6 months. I am also a nurse in maternal child health at our local hospital. When I became pregnant with our second child (7 years after our first) I decided I needed a refresher. I found it difficult to find a book that covered all the areas I was interested in. Many books did not go into enough detail about things and didn't seem to teach me anything new. This was not the case with this one! It covers things I didn't even know I had questions about like storage capacity and why some babies nurse more frequently than others. I also found out by reading this book that I really never had a good latch with my first daughter! Who knew?! My milk supply decreased when I gave my first daughter solid foods so I wanted a book to explain how to handle that situation this time around. This book does it! It even covers weaning! I like that it explains why breastfeeding is important but also how the formula industry came about. I would recommend this book to any new mom, experienced mom, or even healthcare workers looking for more information to assist their patients.

This book was written very well. If you are a breastfeeding mom, then put this book on your nightstand because it is a great resource.

I was not successful breasfeeding my first child and was quite determined to make it work with my second. I bought this book after she was born -her doctors were warning me that she wasn't gaining enough weight and I felt that I may not be successful a second time. I read only the chapters that applied and reread them every time I had questions or read further on when we got to a new "phase". I have found it very difficult to get BF advice without getting a load of judgement for bottle feeding. I felt this book was different and just pratical. It was a very helpful book as it made the little querks of BF make sense and answered lots of questions I had. I was able to BF my child and also able to wean her without issues when the time came. I refer this book to all my new mom friends.

This was a great gift for the new mom, who will be nursing! Looks like a great book for my daughter. Happy with the purchase, from the soon to be grandma!

This is a great book for help breastfeeding for the first time. It covers correct latch and different positions for breastfeeding. It is really helpful for first time moms.

"The Giant Jam Sandwich" is great for any kid with a vivid imagination its laid out in such a way that it flows like honey or in the case of this book STRAWBERRY JAM! The basis of this book is the town of "Itching Down" has one serious dilemma, one day in flew 4 million wasps and of course they were wreaking havoc for everyone and everything so what do you do to try to get rid of these pesky wasps? why build a giant jam sandwich and trap them in it!
From what I see this book came out 30yrs ago its has a fun rhyming text, the illustrations are great I love the expressions of the townsfolk and it showcases a community really coming together to solve a big buzzing problem. A great food fun book a lot like "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs" which I also highly recommend. This book is complete fun for the family a great story to bring along for picnics just don't forget to pack your own jam sandwiches!

My son who is graduating from high school requested this book as a graduation gift. It is one of his favorite memories from childhood and may have even influenced his decision to become a professional pilot. A charming story told in rhyme accompanied by whimsical illustrations. An asset for any child's library.

I grew up with this book and am rapt that amazon could find it for me.
I love the simplicity of the book, the story, pictures etc.
I am now able to read it to my children.

This was a favorite of mine as a child, so I was excited when my daughter was the right age to read it. She enjoys it immensely and loves to point out and name all the details in the colorful pictures.

I love how the paperback version offers a gerat book at an affordable rate for my boys. I remember watching it on "Reading Rainbow" as a child and was happy to share it with my own boys.

Very cute illustrations and simple text introduces color mixing. Yellow and blue make green, etc. I always read this story to my kindergarten children and then we experiment with finger paints. Great activity!

This is the best "color" book I've ever read. I love that it has an actual storyline, and a clever one at that! The text is perfectly concise, and the illustrations are simple but engaging. My 5-month-old daughter loves it!

Ellen Stoll Walsh teaches color mixing in this entertaining story about 3 white mice who find three jars of primary colored paint. I read this book to my kinders before they did their own color mixing art project and they just loved it!

The pictures, created with cut-paper, are just darling. This is worth having in any classroom or home library.

As a mom I love Mouse Paint! There is depth to the story. In addition, the innovative introduction of concepts with primary colors is just plain fun. Reading for reading is always good. But reading to teach information opens up new horizons for lifelong learning. The whole book has me smiling all the way through. It is short so when it becomes a beloved favorite -- and it will be a favorite guaranteed! -- you can easily get through it to the satisfaction of all. This is the type of book I tell my friends about.

This edition in hardback would be nice as a gift.

Mouse Paint is a great book for early childhood. I use this book for infant toddler storytime. The colorful pictures make easy eye contact for young children. The book was in excellent condition and delivery was expeditious! Thank you Amazon.