Here's a winning formula for strengthening your current business: identify and improve the few key marketing factors that trigger sales, enhance the critical factors that control your costs, and begin using a technique that will stop competitors from stealing your customers. The result? More sales, lower costs, and fewer competitive problems.

The first half of Navigating the Marketplace: Growth Strategies for Your Business will help you strengthen your small business by using competitive strategies and the power of key success factors. The book explains five unique ways to design a business that will target and satisfy five different types of customers found in the marketplace.

Most owners and managers fail to discover their growth opportunities because they search only from a marketing perspective. The second half of Navigating the Marketplace helps owners and managers find all their opportunities to increase sales and profits. Using a simple system, you'll look at your business from a marketing manager's viewpoint, a management viewpoint, and finally from a chief executive officer's viewpoint — a thorough, efficient, productive approach to growth.

 

"This is the book we wish someone had given us three or four years after we had begun our small business," say authors Wayne Lovern and Anna Lovern. The book is ideal for owners or managers of established small firms, but it's also a great strategy primer for new marketing managers in larger businesses, entrepreneurs, and students in small business and strategic management courses.

Wayne Lovern is a small business strategist, business writer, and speaker. He presents seminars and workshops for business groups, chambers of commerce, and colleges. He founded and jointly operated a manufacturing and retail business for 11 years with Anna Lovern, and worked in marketing for the Dow Chemical Company for 10 years. He was also an operations management instructor at the University of Missouri and has taught a wide variety of marketing and management courses.

Anna Lovern is an association director and former editor. In addition to her business experience, she has taught at the University of Missouri and holds a Master's degree in Rhetoric and Composition.

 

As we march into the future, technology and business are rapidly changing. Marketing for the New Millennium: Applying New Techniques will teach you to follow the example of successful "brand" name companies to keep your marketing efforts up to date and bring your business into the next century.

Traditional marketing and advertising methods must be modified as we develop innovative ways to sell our products and services. The Internet, combined with traditional forms of marketing like direct mail, telemarketing, infomercials, and direct response campaigns, must take on a new face to achieve results.

Marketing for the New Millennium uses real examples of cutting-edge techniques to explain marketing strategies and improve your knowledge of developing effective marketing and advertising programs. It does not focus on providing the best marketing method, but will instead teach you how to combine several different techniques to achieve results.

 

The book contains case studies in the automotive, financial services, restaurant, and real estate industries. By using his own unique experiences in the marketing field, author Jay Tolman makes Marketing for the New Millennium an important guidebook that will benefit small business owners and advertising and marketing professionals alike.

Jay Tolman has worked in advertising and public relations for 22 years as a media planner, account supervisor, vice president, and director of marketing. He has worked for PepsiCo, The Prudential, Century 21, BBDO International, and J. Walter Thompson. His clients have included McDonald's, Taco Bell, Wrigley, Mars Inc., Sears Roebuck, and General Mills.

He is currently president of Millennium Marketing, which assists companies in developing marketing strategies. He received a bachelor's degree in communications from the University of Illinois.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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Friendship Marketing is a guide to building your business by fostering better relationships. In it, the author has distilled some of the best business thinking in the country and a refreshing new answer to the question: Can I make a living and have friends at the same time?

Some of the ideas in this book are deceptively simple. But Friendship Marketing is much more than a formula. The ideas appeal to leaders who have struggled with the challenge of balancing a personal life and workplace relationships. Business owners will enjoy this lively straightforward book that offers easy reading for busy executives.

This unique approach blends the best of all worlds in a way that may ultimately affect the bottom line of the reader's business. Contains hard-hitting figures and true-life examples gained from years of experience in the marketing and communications fields. Each chapter is intensely practical, as well as packed with easily identified suggestions to try at home Friendship Marketing is a breath of fresh air for any business reader.

Friendship Marketing shows:

• Common ground between success and fulfillment

• How effective people focus their time and energies where they will do the most good

• Why listening is extremely difficult, but it is also so very powerful

• How operating as part of an effective team is its own reward

 

Gerald Baron is a writer, speaker and entrepreneur. After teaching at the University level for four years he co-founded a successful software company. In 1982 he formed Baron & Company which has developed into a full service strategic communications firm serving a variety of clients in the Pacific Northwest. He has led political campaigns, published a regional business publication, written articles and conducted numerous business development seminars. His education includes a B.A. in Speech Communications and Art from Seattle Pacific University and an M.A. in Communications from Wheaton College. He and his wife, Lynne, have three children.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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In today's ever-increasingly competitive marketplace, every business is trying to discover ways to stand out in the crowd so it can attract new prospects, keep customers, and sell more of its products and services. So how do you stand out from your competition? The key is planning and implementing effective marketing strategies. How do you create marketing strategies that work?

Read Power Marketing for Small Business and listen to its companion audio tapes! Power Marketing helps you:

• Develop successful marketing and sales strategies
• Apply the Four Ps of marketing to get research results
• Tap the power of advertising and public relations
• Select the most cost-effective media options for your type of business
• Stretch your marketing dollars
• Convert prospects into customers

 

When you buy Power Marketing, you also get:

• A sample marketing plan that you can use as a guide and model;
• A glossary that defines marketing terms and jargon; and
• Thirty-seven worksheets with step-by-step instructions to help coordinate your market research, advertising evaluations, and marketing budgets.

 

Jody Hornor has helped companies increase their profits through more effective marketing since 1974. She started her career in sales and was a top producer for every company. Eventually, she moved into sales management, where in one instance, she developed the top-producing territory for her employer in less than six months. Since opening her consulting and advertising agency in 1984, she has helped client companies achieve significant growth rates. Ms. Hornor is currently a resident of Sacramento, California where she conducts marketing seminars for the state of California, chambers of commerce, colleges, and small business conferences.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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Many small business owners sink thousands of dollars into advertising, only to find out they have made the wrong decisions based on misinformation from overzealous media sales representatives. Advertising Without an Agency will teach business owners how to identify their customers, write advertising copy, and use a variety of resources to achieve the optimum response to their efforts.

Advertising Without an Agency includes extensive information on radio, television, and print advertising. It will show business owners how to use interns, press releases, logos, and the Internet to promote their efforts. The book also includes worksheets on buying advertising space and time to be filled out by media representatives.

Identify your customer markets by age, gender, and zip code with Advertising Without an Agency. This book will show you the best way to structure your advertisements and how to track your results. If you are interested in cutting through the fluff about what you can do through advertising and want to learn how to do it, then this is the book for you.

"Remember that advertising's only job is to make that phone ring, increase traffic in your store, and generate interest in your product or service," says author Kathy J. Kobliski. "Once that response has been achieved it's up to you to come through with friendly, helpful, knowledgeable employees, effective follow through on sales or new clients, and all other aspects that go into maintaining consumer or client interest that your advertising has generated."

About the Author
Kathy J. Kobliski is founder and president of Silent Partner Advertising, where she oversees multi-media advertising budgets for retail and service clients of the agency. She previously worked in radio advertising and currently teaches a course in advertising and media buying within the New York State Small Business Development Program. She lives in Camillus, New York.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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*Pathway To Your Profit Niche - The Home Business Network Marketing Model

                                                     by Pamela Woods

Written by a veteran entrepreneur and marketing professional who proclaims that network marketing over the Internet from home will be the 21^st century’s wealth builder for new millennium businesses.  The author provides her proven home-based business development model that readers can duplicate using innovative cyber networking techniques and any home computer connected to the e-commerce superhighway.  She tells how to create a lead source system that works by generating a constant  stream of niche business customers and clients for your venture’s growth and expansion.

This guidebook was written while launching her latest successful home business franchise.  It walks you through a user-friendly start-up process, straightforward decision-making, tools for maximum exposure, affordable investment strategies, and other practical essentials for building and managing a modern home-based profit center.  Whether you are looking for that opportunity of a lifetime, seeking the road to financial independence, or just exploring a new way to improve your current business, the author shows step-by-step how to TANGO (Tap Attractive Niches for Growth and Opportunity).        

Topics that home business owners and network marketing professionals can “bank on” include:

Choosing The Right Business 
Creating A Business Model Team Building 
Circle Marketing 
Establishing A National Lead Source System  
Developing A Business Growth Platform  
Supporting Global Alliances and Partnerships 
Using E-Commerce And The Internet Marketplace    
Franchising Your Venture 
BINGO (Boosting Income Networks and Generating Options )

Pamela Woods is a home business expert, network marketing professional, freelance information broker, and consultant/trainer.  She currently markets Pre-Paid Legal Services as an Independent Associate (www.prepaidlegal.com/associate/pamelawoods).  Her company Legal Care Systems is a member of the National Association of Home Based Businesses (NAHBB).  The author is a platinum member of the American Association of Home Based Businesses (AAHBB).    

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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The key to being a successful salesperson is to embrace the art of persuasion. The Twenty-One Sales in a Sale will teach you that pressuring a potential buyer will only produce a negative response. But by adopting the theory that selling means nothing more than persuading, salespersons can free themselves of potential moral violations and master the task at hand without frustration and stress.

By proving to yourself that there is a need for your product, and that you are skilled enough to sell it, you will develop the communication skills and confidence necessary to be an effective salesperson. You must also identify your target market and capture their attention through an energetic and innovative approach to introducing your product.

If you have the research and knowledge to back up your product, you will be able to show your prospective buyer how it will solve their problems. Approach your sale like a business proposal instead of lapsing into a straight proposition of "Buy my product" and the buyer will respect your information and consider your solution.

By following The Twenty-One Sales in a Sale, you will be using "entelechy," the atmosphere of mutual respect and ease created by an appropriate sales approach. This atmosphere can be useful even after the sale has been completed, and may be used to obtain references to other potential clients or further sales with your client.

Stan A. Lindsay, Ph.D., has been a successful financial consultant for 18 years, using his sales experience to apply the theoretical concepts he learned from his studies of philosophy and communications. He has been a college professor and lecturer for 15 years and has published a journal article and several papers presented at conventions across the country. He has also worked as a radio broadcast announcer and is a member of the Kenneth Burke Society, the National Communication Association, the Rhetoric Society of America, the American Academy of Religion, and the Society of Biblical Literature.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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There really are three secrets to great customer service: taking care of your customers, taking care of your organization, and taking care of yourself and your team. Smile Training Isn't Enough proves that the principles of good customer service apply equally both inside and outside an organization and that good customer service stems from a business' stance toward its customers and employees.

To make your transactions with customers friendly and productive, you must be more than nice. You must pay attention to what they say and do in order to treat each situation with a certain degree of class and integrity.

Your attitude and relationship with your employees may be more important than your customer transactions. The thinking behind your managerial decisions is a reflection of your customer service standards and affects how your employees will act and react in certain situations. Customer-driven organizations who treat their employees as partners create a good working environment and great service. The development of yourself and your team goes beyond a single customer transaction. The most successful companies treat their employees and customers as valuable on all levels. Practicing customer service inside and outside your organization enables your company to grow in any market, under all economic conditions.

When the three steps to customer service are followed in harmony, your customers will be happy, your employees will enjoy coming to work, and your business will be profitable.

About the Author
Richard Gallagher provides corporate training and consultation services to companies throughout the United States through his Ithaca, N.Y. firm, R.S. Gallagher and Associates. He helped oversee the growth of a West Coast engineering software vendor from a small business startup to a major NASDAQ firm, and is an author, business columnist and former customer service executive.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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The escalating costs of making a sale have made direct sales of low-cost items virtually obsolete in today's marketplace. Yet most selling techniques still revolve around concepts developed in the 1930s, when person-to-person sales of low-ticket items were the norm. The Secrets of High Ticket Selling by Hal Slater uses contemporary psychological research to teach you how to understand the behavior of your buyers to improve your unique sales process, leaving you with more control over your sales process and its outcomes.

The Secrets of High Ticket Selling describes advanced negotiating skills, language patterns, and gestures that enhance a buyer's excitement. You will also learn methods for picking up on a prospect's objections and doubts early in the sale and heading them off. This book stresses that the quality of the sale is far more important than the number of prospects you pitch, and that in today's high ticket market you must work smarter, not harder.

If you have a proven sales method, trying to change your process will not bring results. The Secrets of High Ticket Selling instead teaches you to build on your success by studying the dynamics of the sales transaction to discover areas for improvement. Once you have identified the steps in your process to be refined, you will have a better understanding of your own sales psychology and the needs of your target market.

 

Hal Slater has a successful history of selling high end products, and holds numerous awards for selling exotic swimming pools. He has marketed vacation membership packages with record-breaking sales, and was honored with all of the highest public speaking awards by Toastmasters International. He is also a three-time recipient of the General Motors highest sales awards.

In addition to leading thousands of public seminars on sales and management, Slater is also the author of First Call Closing. He owns the consulting firm Advanced Communication Training and resides in San Diego, CA.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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Connecting Online: Creating A Successful Image on the Internet will teach you how to promote your company, client, or not-for-profit organization through an Internet public relations strategy. Whether you are a small business owner with little public relations knowledge or a seasoned public relations professional, Connecting Online will help you improve your image.

Connecting Online: Creating A Successful Image on the Internet provides all the information you'll need to plan, budget, and establish an Internet presence. It covers the basics about the Internet, including its history, demographics, features, and benefits from the perspective of public relations. It also introduces the basic definitions, concepts and strategies for effective public relations.

With this book you'll learn about Internet etiquette, press releases, crisis communications, connecting online, security, and future considerations. This book also provides tips on Web site research, specification, design, development, marketing, and renewal. You'll also learn about issues such as cost, hardware, software, hiring consultants, and technical support needed to establish and maintain a Web site.

Connecting Online: Creating a Successful Image on the Internet presents the insider knowledge that comes from over 10 years of practical, hands-on experience with both public relations and the Internet from two experts in these respective fields.

About the Authors
Greg Sherwin is Director of Web Site Engineering at Snap, a joint venture between NBC and CNET: The Computer Network. At Snap, and as a former software architect for CNET, he has helped strategize, design and develop several of the Internet's most popular Web sites and their supporting technologies. He is also the co-founder of the national American Red Cross Web site and a consultant to various Internet and e-commerce businesses. Greg has been an Internet user for over a decade and worked on the first Web site in the U.S., launched in May 1991.
Emily Avila is a communications specialist with UCSF Stanford Health Care and is currently developing a Web site and Internet public relations strategy for Lucile Packard Children's Health Services. She was previously the content manager for the UC Davis Health System Web site and oversaw production of an award-winning weekly television medical news magazine, PULSE. Before joining UC Davis, she worked in television as a news assignment editor, reporter, editor, writer, producer and public affairs director.
Together, Sherwin and Avila instruct university courses on Public Relations and the Internet, and they are featured weekly columnists for ClickZ. They developed the concept for Connecting Online in April 1996 when they were preparing the curriculum for the course they taught in June 1996. The February 1998 release of this book marked the culmination of nearly two years of researching, writing, and refinement.

 

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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Learn how a small business can turn its customer database into a powerful asset. Benefit from the fundamentals of database marketing and start applying the concepts to your small businesses today. Easy to read, fun, and graphically demonstrates:

• How to by-pass mass media and reach only those people most likely to visit your retail or service business
• How to build long-term relationships with customers by marketing to them as individuals
• How to add information to your database and enhance your understanding of customer's lifestyles, interests, and buying habits
• How to efficiently tailor different messages to different customers and increase sales

 

In Chapter 12: learn how Grassfields, a men's clothing store, takes advantage of database marketing and increases store profits by 7.2% in one year.

"Database Marketing is more than a trend. It is the foundation for modern marketing practices. Most small businesses can benefit greatly from the implementation of database marketing. [TargetSmart!] provides a great starting point."

- - Philip Kotler World-Renowned Marketing Authority

 

Jay Newberg has spent his career bringing new technologies and techniques to businesses across the country. He has worked almost exclusively with small retail and service businesses, assisting them with customer analysis, marketing plans, and evaluation of the results. Jay holds a BA in economics, from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Claudio Marcus has worked in marketing for over a decade. Recently he has devoted his efforts to educating small businesses about the implementation and benefits of database marketing. He currently teaches database marketing at Colorado Free University. Claudio holds a master's degree in marketing from Northwestern University.

The books we select for our HomeBiz Book Store are considered empowerment books, after you have purchased a book. You can call the NAHBB for answers about your business venture, and talk to a professional consultant or a business developer.
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