Cheap DVDs, books, CDs & Games

Search:

What Clients Love

By: Harry Beckwith
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Business Plus Imports
ISBN: 0446527556
ISBN-13: 9780446527552
Released: 03 Jul 2003
RRP: £14.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

A very people oriented person! - By: Dr. P. Khaira, 06 Jan 2008
Harry reminds us what its reallly about. People. He takes what has become a mystified area & clears it alll up
On the Loo - By: Mr. A. Morgan, 26 Mar 2007
If one thinks one knows a thing or two about how to grow ones business or perhaps someone else`s but also know that occasionaly challlenging the way one does things has proved beneficial in the past then buy this book.

Its great for reading in the Loo because the worthy advice it contains is mostly in short paragraphs & consequently one can pretty much open it on any page.
Snappy presentation on selling and branding - By: Rolf Dobelli, 10 Aug 2006
This is a pleasant contemporary book on selling & branding in a marketplace where the average consumer is deluged with 3,200 advertising messages a day. In a format that makes for an excellent read while traveling, the book consists of short, colorful 300 to 1,000 word treatments of various topics, such as selling, branding & customer service. At times, author Harry Beckwith's approach seems episodic. It's not always clear what one section has to do with another. However, he nicely avoids business-speak jargon, & spatters the book with accessible pop culture examples, including motion pictures, clever ads & other common points of reference. The book's shortcoming resides more in the area of substance & depth of thinking. Each brief essay ends with a catchy one-sentence aphorism such as: "Comfort clients & you will keep them" or "Edit your message until everyone understands it." The author has invested a great deal of time devising colorful ways to tell you things that, upon further reflection, you probably already know. Yet, we find that the short-bite, snappy presentation makes the book interesting. If you're too busy to keep up on the latest trends in marketing & sales, reading this is an excellent way to make sure you're current.
Perhaps Invisible But Nonethless Real - By: Robert Morris, 28 Sep 2005
This "field guide" provides innovative & yet practical & prudent advice on what, in Beckwith's opinion, must be done to attract, reward, & sustain the loyalty of those to whom one sells...whatever that product, service, or idea may be. Consumers now experience an information, indeed a sensory overload of marketing messages which makes differentiation even more difficult now than ever before. Beckwith explains how to penetrate such clutter.

After identifying & then analyzing in detail four "Key Trends," he challlenges dozens of widely held beliefs about effective marketing which, in his judgment, have been invalidated by those trends. For example:

• "Word-of-mouth advertising has become the world's most overrated form of marketing." Why? "Our mobility propels us away from [old networks through which to process word-of-mouth communications] & into new cities where everyone seems to come from somewhere else."

• "Cold callls leave people cold." Why? "People feel most comfortable with people they know -- & mistrust ones they've never heard of. You must get known [to them prior to initial contact]."

* "It is not what you say; it is what people hear. It is not what you communicate; it's what gets communicated." Why? "You tell your story with words, perhaps, but words are only symbols....Written words, in other words, are just symbols of symbols."

• "Clients do not buy solutions." Why? Numerous research studies indicate that "responsiveness to phone callls" & "sincere interest in developing a relationship" ranked higher in importance than "technical skill" -- the ability to devise solutions. According to Beckwith, "It isn't the better solution that clients value. It's the simple act of listening itself. We value it because of how we feel. It makes us feel important."

He suggests an abundance of strategies & tactics by which to achieve any organization's desired objectives, given the aforementioned trends which continue to create an especiallly volatile, increasingly ferocious competitive marketplace. For example, how to cope with "Option & Information Overload" (pages 45-96) & how to accommodate "The [Clients'] Wish to Connect" (pages 195-242). Moreover, in the final section of his book, Beckwith answers the question "Why do some people & businesses thrive?" He includes an especiallly relevant quotation from David Landes' The Wealth & Poverty of Nations:

"In this world, the optimists have it., not because they are always right, but because they are positive. Even when they are wrong they are positive, & that is the way of achievement, correction, improvement, & success. Educated, eye-open optimism pays."

Beckwith urges his reader to build "something that fills you with passion, & then spread its flames into every corner of your business....Triumph, then, belongs to those who believe...[to those who take] the path which runs along the cliff -- that one, the one without any guardrails." By doing so, he assures his reader, she or he will know "the exhilaration of the ride & the pride you feel when you reach the end will inspire you to take that path again & again." Clients love comfort, Beckwith insists, especiallly in an age when there are so many choices & messages. They crave comfort more than anything else. They will love those who provide it with expertise, clarity, integrity, & sincere interest...but also with passion because it shows "you love what you do."

Those who share my high opinion of this book are urged to check out several of the sources listed in Beckwith's annotated "Reading List for Growing a Business" (pages 267-274). To that list I presume to add Stephen Denning's The Springboard & Squirrel Inc., David Maister's Practice What You Preach, & Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich.