From smallbiztrends.com's Ivana Taylor, these are the ten best new sales and marketing books to help your small business get and keep customers.
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7 Steps to Sales Force Transformation: Driving Sustainable Change in Your Organization
by Warren Shiver and Michael Perla
If you are part of an organization with a medium to large sales force that has experienced the end of sales as usual, “7 Steps to Sales Force Transformation: Driving Sustainable Change in Your Organization” is a book worth looking at. Authors Warren Shiver (@WarrenDShiver), Founder and Michael Perla (@MLPerla), Principal of Symmetrics Group have combined their collective experience and research in transforming sales organizations into this guide. This book provides a basic road map based on best practices for sales leaders to follow as they work to transform their organization to align with how their customers buy. Readers will find a step-by-step guide to a sales force transformation, how to get management and sales buy in and how to implement the transformation in your organization.
Knock-Out Networking
by Michael Goldberg
Referrals and word-of-mouth continue to outshine all other marketing strategies. In fact, 90 percent of all new business comes through networking. Yet, most people simply don’t know how to network effectively. In “Knock-Out Networking!“, author Michael Goldberg (@MEGoldberg) has a solution for anyone who feels shy or uncomfortable with the idea of pressing the flesh. This substantial book of more than 300 pages contains 15 chapters of networking strategies; where to network, networking for a job search, how to communicate, where to get your best networking and even how to start your own networking group. Goldberg has taken all of his experience and created a“Fight Plan System” that anyone can use to build and develop relationships that are profitable for you and your business.
Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges
by Tim Sanders
The futurist author Tim Sanders (@SandersSays) has used his decades of experience in pulling together multi-million dollar deals and shares it in this new sales process he calls “Dealstorming”. In his latest book, “Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges” Sanders introduces a powerful process that focuses on collaboration. In essence, this is a problem solving technique that leverages the power and talents of your company community to move those stubborn sales deals forward. While the Dealstorming process is great for larger organizations, small businesses can gain huge benefits by learning to collaborate with other small businesses, work together and get access to much bigger, more profitable deals. If you’re interested in the idea of growth hacking, you’ll find the concepts covered here a complementary addition to your skill set.
Beyond Your Logo: 7 Brand Ideas That Matter Most For Small Business Success
by Elaine Fogel
“Beyond Your Logo: 7 Brand Ideas That Matter Most For Small Business Success” by Elaine Fogel (@Elaine_Fogel) dispels the common misconception that marketing is all about logos, promotions and even social media. The backbone of marketing is having a brand that stands out and clearly communicates your value to your ideal customers. This book gives you the steps you need to take to get your brand back on track. Readers will get advice on how to put the customer in the center of every interaction and where to find low or no-cost marketing and branding help. This is a practical guide to complex marketing strategies and concepts written with the small business owner in mind.
The CMO’s Periodic Table: A Renegade’s Guide to Marketing
by Drew Neisser
Drew Neisser (@DrewNeisser) has interviewed more than 100 Chief Marketing Officers from companies such as American Express, Audi, Belkin, Black Duck Software, Converse, College Humor and D&B, Dow. Then he took 64 of those interviews and arranged them into categories based on the periodic table.
“The CMO’s Periodic Table: A Renegade’s Guide to Marketing” is designed with today’s CMO in mind and functions like a go-to-guide for common challenges such as research and strategy; internal issues like culture change and managing up and advanced, highly volatile subjects like risk-taking and changing agencies.
The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd
by Allan Dib
Who wants to get more customers and make more money with little effort? Every small business owner on the planet. While this little book can’t promise these outcomes, it can definitely get you on the right path. Allan Dib (@AllanDib) shares his step-by-step 1-Page Marketing Plan process in “The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd.” The book will get you focused on starting and completing marketing strategies that get results. You’ll learn how to set yourself apart from the competition without cutting your prices. It’s a marketing book that also contains sound sales strategies that are ideal for small businesses which don’t have the time or money for fancy expensive marketing.
The Hook: How to Share Your Brand’s Unique Story to Engage Customers, Boost Sales, and Achieve Heartfelt Success
by Richard Krevolin
You already know how important it is to have a brand story. But do you know how to put one together? Probably not. The good news is that you don’t have to be a natural born storyteller. Storytelling is a skill that you can learn. In “The Hook: How to Share Your Brand’s Unique Story to Engage Customers, Boost Sales, and Achieve Heartfelt Success” author and Professor Richard Krevolin shares his storytelling structures and strategies. You’ll learn how to create an emotional connection between you and your customers; generate interest, enthusiasm and support for a person, company or product and improve the power, tone and texture of your talks, proposals, presentations and printed materials. Krevolin also provides many examples of stories that you can use to inspire your own.
Business Charisma — The Magnetism of Personality, Presence, and Customer Engagement
by Kordell Norton
Don’t you wish that you had the kind of business that customers viewed as inspiring or irreplaceable? In today’s hyper-connected world, being ordinary and simply providing products and services that solve problems isn’t nearly enough. Businesses of all sizes, especially small businesses which rely on customer engagement and connection to compete with big box brands, need simple, low-cost strategies that engage and bind customers to them. “Business Charisma — The Magnetism of Personality, Presence, and Customer Engagement” by Kordell Norton (@NortonK571) shows you the way to that kind of customer loyalty. The author shares his research results and provides a clear guide on how to build your business charisma and long lasting customer relationships.
Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society
by John Browne, Robin Nuttall and Tommy Stadlen
Consumer trust in business is down below 50 percent, the lowest since the Great Depression. While it’s popular to make business the “bad guy”, businesses of all sizes are essential for economies to survive and grow. What can companies do? Authors John Browne(@LordJohnBrowne), Robin Nuttall (@TommyStadlen) and Tommy Stadlen provide an honest look at how businesses can function in a world without top-down control of public opinion. “Connect: How Companies Succeed by Engaging Radically with Society” discusses the four tenets of Connected Leadership and provides strategies and guides that corporations can use to connect and engage with their customers in a meaningful and authentic way. With the whole idea of Corporate Social Responsibility being discredited in recent times, businesses that are looking to make a real difference in the world will benefit from reading this book.
Millennials with Kids: Marketing to This Powerful and Surprisingly Different Generation of Parents
by Jeff Fromm and Marissa Vidler
Move over Baby Boomers, the next generation bubble is on the way. Millennials aren’t kids anymore. They are parents and this makes them an increasingly important marketing nut to crack for businesses of all sizes. In “Millennials with Kids: Marketing to This Powerful and Surprisingly Different Generation of Parents“, authors Jeff Fromm and Marissa Vidler share eye-popping case studies and interviews with millennial parents. This information sheds light on this group’s relationships to technology, the world, how they approach family life and an insight into their pragmatic philosophies that drive their purchasing decisions. You’ll get valuable takeaways from brand mistakes and failures as well as ideas for your own marketing strategies designed to connect and engage with millennial parents.
Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2016/04/10-new-books-wil...
