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Recommended Reading Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing By Harry Beckwith Friend and colleague Jalaane Levi-Garza, National Sales Manager of Digital Feast/Readers Digest Association, suggested this treasury of quick, practical and easy-to-read strategies with golden nuggets to apply to your challenges. Jammed with insights on how markets work and how prospects think, it reminds us that to grow business we all need to be service marketers focused on relationships and how people think and act. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us By Daniel Pink I recently experienced the upbeat message of the energetic Daniel Pink, a member of the growing tribe of business writers attacking well-established business assumptions. Pink provides research-based and thought-provoking theories on why the carrot and the stick - reward and punishment – are less effective motivating today's workers and consumers. With the notion that loyalty and creativity are tied to control and purpose, Pink says we are motivated as much intrinsically, by the sheer joy and purpose of certain activities, as extrinsically, by rewards like promotions and pay raises. Trust Agent By Chris Brogan and Julien Smith Operating under the premise that people believe what conforms to their own social circles and the people that they trust, Brogan and Smith offer a nice introduction to the power and the possibilities of social networking. This topic does highlight an ongoing dichotomy – building loyalty among a society on the pursuit of celebrity and acquiring great quantities of snippets of relationships. Businesses cannot assume the value of quantity over quality in developing relationships. Cultivation of Trust Agents, even better- becoming a Trust Agent, is a viable part of the continual pursuit of excellence. An organization must offer genuine communication, be helpful and continually find ways to deliver more value. Social media is simply one more and very necessary way to strengthen relationships and revenue. |
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