“60 is the new 40.*”

You might start hearing the above expression more frequently, and there is truth behind it. Advances in modern medicine have allowed those reaching 65 to live an additional 17.9 years compared to those reaching similar ages in the mid 1960’s. Those born in the “boomer” period (from the years 1946 to 1964) total to a population of 77 million. That is the roughly the equivalent of 25% of the total US population.

The Baby Boomer market is abundant with opportunities. Boomers have disposable cash and are ready to spend it. When reading through the market data you’ll come across some formidable numbers:

• Boomers spend $157 billion on leisure travel - making up 80% of all US expenditures on leisure travel
• Boomers also spend close to $42 billion dollars on apparel

And these are just some of the figures provided. With 45% of US population being 40 or older the goal is to focus on what the author calls “Life stage marketing”. Boomers will go through more transitions in their 50’s and 60’s than any other phase of life.

Some of the phases:

• Family - empty nest, loss of parents, grandchildren
• Health - menopause, vision / hearing loss, arthritis
• Housing - downsizing, rightsizing, remodeling, second home
• Leisure - retirement, finances, travel, perspective/search for meaning

Each stage or phase provides ample opportunities.

Summary: Turning Silver Into Gold presents an comprehensive overview of the global baby boomer marketplace - including population statistics, financial data, trends, ect.

Dr. Furlong breaks down the various market segments and focuses on areas important to baby boomers. These include areas such as family, health, travel, housing, friendships, entrepreneurship, and fashion.

These market segment overviews also include the analysis of current leading and competing companies in the specific markets.

Focus Audience: This book perfect for those interested in focusing on the baby boomer market (investors, entrepreneurs, corporate strategists). Overall this book is an excellent resource for an overview of baby boomer market.

*Purely coincidental - this was the headline article for CNN the night this was posted.

Alpha Dogs is an easy read on various small companies and the lessons their owners have learned over the years as entrepreneurs. Written by a former contributing writer for Inc. magazine, Donna Fenn, the stories and lessons are diverse and eclectic. Ranging from an ice cream shop chain in Austin, Texas to Harley dealership in New England, each owner unabashedly reveals the mistakes and successful thinking that has elevated them to their current position.

These are not cutting edge industries but rather cutting edge companies in un-sexy niche areas like grocery stores in Ohio. The book does a good job demonstrating how creativity and passion can empower small businesses to carve out a niche and stand-up to Big Box competitors like Wal-Mart.

A key criterion for each company inclusion was the author’s insistence that each owner have a few skinned knees throughout their history. This was a smart move on Fenn’s part, as the text can be a bit monotonous at times. If it was all a Cinderella theme it could be tough to stomach. Reading these stories after digesting Good to Great, you start to see a company hitting its hedge-hog concept (Zane’s Cycle) or a leader realizing he is not Level 5 after a near-fatal stroke (THOR-LO socks).

Fenn summarizes the “key points” at the conclusion of each chapter and pulls in small anecdotes of other companies that attacked the same problem and their solution. Consistent themes emerge that exist at many larger successful enterprises, namely openness to innovation, early adoption of technology, and providing superior customer service.

There is nothing revolutionary in this text and that’s okay. It’s a good dispatch from the front lines of successful small businesses around the country. The biggest takeaway being that the fundamentals do still apply at any size and when executed properly can have impressive results.

Stay tuned for an upcoming review of Small Giants by Inc.’s Bo Burlingham, which covers similar ideas in a nice mashed up story line.

When the design of the Ipod Nano was first announced in September of 2005, fans of Apple’s products were rejoicing. Enthusiasts could now enjoy all the same features of its larger brother, the Ipod, but now in a compact form. At the debut media showing, Steve Jobs pulled the Nano from his pocket to demonstrate how small it is. If you could imagine 5 credit cards stacked upon each other, then you could imagine the size and depth of the Nano. The buzz was there. Fans were frothing at the mouth. Apple was at the top of their game.

There was a problem though.

The front screens were breaking – and they broke easily. Nano owners attempted to imitate Steve and carry their Nano in the front pocket of their jeans. Once they pulled the Nano from their pockets they were shocked to see the screen cracked and scratched as if their pockets were lined with sandpaper. Fans were upset. Apple was mum on answering complaints. Those with broken screens wanted an answer. What would they do? Boycott the Nano? Take it up with large media outlets? Neither.

They utilized the power of the Web and got Apple to respond.

The Internet has allowed the mass collaboration of similar individuals. There are no borders on the Internet (that is if you don’t live in China). Geography, what used to be a barrier to collaboration, has become marginalized. As best selling author Tom Friedman says: the Internet has ‘flattened’ the world. If you have access to a computer and a high speed connection, you can participate on the Internet.

This low barrier to entry has spawned what is known as ‘social media’. You’ve experienced social media if you have ever visited a blog, or websites such as Flickr, MySpace, or YouTube.

Social media can be thought as the online tools (blogs, wiki’s, message boards) which allow people to create and share content which expresses their opinions and perspectives with others. Those who create this content are called ‘Citizen Marketers’. Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, who are word-of-mouth marketing experts, examine the dynamics of this group of citizens in their new book, “Citizen Marketers: When People are the Message”.

Ben and Jackie have broken down Citizen Marketers into four categories: Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators and Firecrackers. Below you’ll find text taken from the book that summarizes each category.

Filters

• “Human wire services. They collect traditional media stories, bloggers rants and raves, podcasts, or fan creations about a specific company or brand and then package this information”
• “Amateur brand journalism..”

Fanatics

• “True believers and evangelists…they love to analyze the daily or weekly progress of a brand, product, or organization or persona and prescribe some courses of action. They are, essentially, volunteer coaches.”
• Food/entertainment topics are popular with fanatics
• “Assume activist role”
• “They want to contribute and often do so, even if the company isn’t listening.”
• “The delivery mechanisms built into many social media tools accelerate knowledge sharing. When collective knowledge is created at a faster rate, decisions can be made comparably faster, potentially resulting in faster action.”

Facilitators

• “Community creators. Their primary citizen marketer tool is a Web-based bulletin board or community software. Facilitators are like the mayors of online towns, and some online communities exceed the population of small cities.”

Firecrackers

• “Firecrackers are the one-hit wonders of citizen marketers.”
• “They typically attract considerable attention because they have created a song, animation, video, or novelty that generates a lot of interest but tends to die out quickly as the creators go one with their other work.”

As you can see, each group fulfills a special niche. One commonality of four groups is that their work incorporates the following traits:

• Personal Expression – opinions are their own, designed to inform, entertain, or analyze in a way that builds a case – unlike what a professional journalist, pundit, or analyst would do.
• Amateur status – volunteers and don’t announce their arrival with noisy banging of pots and pans of an expensive marketing program. They are transparent about their motives and associations.
• Freely given – Their work is not meant to steal money, time, or attention away from the company of their affiliation. It’s meant to enhance or improve it. Their work is a contribution to the commons.

It’s important to point out the size of users who fit under the ‘Citizen Marketer’ title. Only those who create content can be classified under one of the four F’s. Ben and Jackie’s research discovered that roughly 1% of people who visit a democratized website will create and interact with the content. When looking at the latest statistics of web users that equals to roughly 10 million people. That is like the entire population of New York City creating and interacting on the Web. Not a small size!

A common attribute of the Citizen Marketer is the democratization of content they create. Transparency will always beat out secrecy with this crowd. The same goes with democratization of content compared to content control. To be successful in wooing the Citizen Marketer you have to have an open, democratized website. What do the authors refer to when speaking about democratization?

What to do now?

Keys to democratizing your business:

The main ingredient for success is the democratization of the website content. Here are some ways to do so:

Contests – One of the easiest ways to experiment with citizen created content is with a contest. A perfect example is the commercial campaign that Doritos ran for the Super Bowl. Their contest called “Crash the Superbowl” has allowed citizens to submit their own commercials which are to be voted on by a community of users. This contest holds both the ideas of openness (allowing anyone to upload their commercial) and democratizing (allowing anyone to vote – Doritos doesn’t choose the winner- you do.)

Co-Creation – The t-shirt company Threadless has been as popular in my examples as they are in my clothes dresser. They are highlighted in the book as catering to the Citizen Marketer. They have given the amateur individual the ability to co-create t-shirts. Anyone with a design program and a computer can become apart of the community. Threadless doesn’t choose the winning designs, the community of users do. With the help of customers Threadless creates stylish t-shirts. If your design is selected to be placed for sale you get hooked up with gift certificates and free t-shirts. Allowing citizens to co-create builds a loyal fan base.

Community – The goal of building a community is to establish a central location on the web where fans can gather to discuss and debate all things relating to a product, movie, service, restaurant, ect.

A perfect example is TivoCommunity.com which has 130 thousand registered members and 1.2 million unique visits per month. It is the #1 site for users wishing to find and discuss anything relating to Tivo. The unique thing about TivoCommunity.com is that it has no affiliation with the company Tivo. The site was created by a fan of the product. Users have since flocked to the site creating a knowledge base which rivals anything Tivo could create on their own. Users have taken the open culture of forums and built a valuable resource for the technological device.

Apple not responding initially to broken screen complaints caused a negative backlash from a citizen marketer. This is where the power of one can create tipping points for action.

An owner of a broken Nano screen created a website under the URL flawedmusicplayer.com and posted pictures of his broken Nano. Shortly after the site appeared, word spread and he was receiving up to 30 emails an hour from other users with similar problems.

The site became a pressure point on Apple. Many believe the site was what forced Apple to change positions and finally release a statement that they would replace the broken screens.

The availability of high speed internet forever changed the way we are connected. The Internet is a 365×24x7 world and the Citizen Marketer will continue to play a vital role within it.

Some more goodies:

• Citizen Marketers website
• 7 reasons why small businesses should blog
• Extensive list of all the people, brands, and sites mentioned in the book
• Ten Questions With Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell by Guy Kawasaki

It’s no secret that reaching a technical audience is challenging for marketers in the B2B world. Engineers and scientists are skeptical of the typical copywriting fluff that fills up print ads and websites. This group has little tolerance for emotional ads that are intrusive.

So, how do you court this crowd?

Give them information in a straightforward editorial style and cut the marketing hype. Study after study is showing that key decision makers will not only read a white paper but also pass it on to another colleague. This can bring about something you rarely hear anything about…viral marketing for engineers!

Technical white papers are not a new idea but are being reexamined as a way to communicate product information in an editorial voice and in turn generate leads. Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged offers straightforward tips on how to write a white paper and most importantly ensure that it gets it read.

His chapter regarding interviews is worth a close look, especially for anyone tasked with the difficult challenge of taking the information the product engineers provide and making it into interesting prose. Product specs do not make for easy reading and key decision makers most likely will not have the familiarity or interest for gobbledygook. The skilled white paper writer will know how to blend the conversational and the technical into a decent product.

Stelzner covers the gambit from tricks for research using search engine caches to marketing the white paper itself. Pointers like picking a sticky title and busting through writer’s block are covered as well. A couple samples of white papers close out the book giving the reader a chance to see how everything comes together.

A veteran of freelance technical writing, Stelzner’s blog has multiple tips on how to write for and get along with all clients. Make it part of your morning routine if your in the B2B marketing world.

There is an overwhelming prevalence of mediocrity in business today. That makes it all the more easier for your business to stand out from the rest of your competition. William Taylor and Polly LaBarre’s book, Mavericks at Work takes us deep into the world of businesses that refuse to accept mediocrity. We learn this by meeting such companies as ING Direct, Commerce Bank, Pixar, Cirque de Soleil, Anthropologie, Southwest Airlines, Jones Soda, and Craigslist.



There is a tendency to be skeptical of business books that focus on defining the characteristics of successful companies and then trying to fit that model to all businesses. I believe this happens due to two biases. First, there is the confirmation bias – creating your theory and then highlighting companies that fit your theory, and second, the survivorship bias – the tendency to ignore all the companies that fit the same criteria but weren’t successful.

That’s not the case with Mavericks at Work. The author’s declare in the opening paragraph:

“We will consider Mavericks at Work a success if it opens your eyes, engages your imagination, and encourages you to think bigger and aim higher.”

I can only speak for myself that they accomplished this. Not once did I find myself doubting any of the material put before me. They aren’t preaching pie in the sky theories. Maverick at Work zeros in on four areas: Competition, Innovation, Customers, and the Workplace. Each area is packed with vivid examples of the ‘maverick’ values in work.

There is no shortage of inspirational passages. I found myself marking the pages up left and right. Exceptional quotes and passages are the norm in Mavericks at Work. After finishing the book and thumbing through, the pages of the book looked like a battle field where red, blue, and black pens had fought for command. Below you can find a word document with all the remarkable quotes from Mavericks at Work. Download it, print it out, use it for inspiration!

Final Word: Inspirational read on fresh ideas from companies that aren’t taking the ‘normal path’ in business. Small business owners could gain the advantage from this book as it would be easier to adopt these values from an implementation standpoint.

Some more Goodies:

• Mavericks at Work blog
• Guy Kawasaki’s 10 Questions with co-author Patty LaBarre
• Bob Sutton’s (Stanford biz school & design school Professor and author of Hard Facts & The No Asshole Rule) Favorite Maverick blog post

I think the small business market gets overshadowed in the business book world. When you look at the titles that are released yearly they tend to focus either on the individual (leadership, effective communication, ect) or a broader base audience. Although they are considered great books, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins or “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner aren’t going to help you with your small business’s success. That’s why it was a breath of fresh air when I found “Small Business Cash Flow: Strategies for Making your Business a Financial Success” by Denise O’Berry show up in my mailbox.



In what I feel is aimed more towards the freshly minted small business, Small Business Cash Flow offers practical advice in a format which could be read in one sitting. It is vital for small businesses to understand the importance of cash flow because it is directly correlated with the probability of succeeding in your venture. There is more to the equation of succeeding in business than cash flow. This is a no brainer. But, if cash isn’t managed with a watchful eye you will find yourself in a predicament which could result in your businesses demise.

Some key points that I felt were worth mentioning;

• Denise stresses the importance of having a close relationship with an accountant, emphasizing that having the ‘right’ accountant is one of the most important pillars of your business foundation. What does ‘right’ accountant mean? It depends on the current state of your business. This is why she provides a questionnaire to bring with you when interviewing potential accountants.
• Understanding how money works in your business is another important skill to master. This may seem obvious, but for many small businesses (ma & pa shops for instance) this isn’t practiced. Leave the detailed number crunching for your accountant, but have knowledge of the various ways cash flows in and out of your business. Don’t be ignorant about your finances!
• Record keeping is your tool for future business decisions. Not keeping records of your business (budget, current cash flow, outflows, ect) is analogous to walking with your head pointed up to the sky. You don’t know where you are standing. How will you make future decisions (like taking on more business) if you don’t know the current state of your business?
• Denise also stresses the importance of marketing. Her rule of thumb is 50% of your time should be spent on marketing. Although this may not be viable for those small businesses that consist of 1 or 2 people, it’s a good figure to aim for. How else is the product or service you are selling going to be noticed by customers? One area which she doesn’t mention, which I find a weighty mistake, is not mentioning about maintaining a blog. Blogs are the best way to separate yourself from competition, keep customers informed, and help build a brand. For refrence on blogs, refer to a book we featured, “Blogging for Business” by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos. It covers everything you need to know about blogs.

Overall this book is a good read for anyone interested in starting their own business. “Small Business Cash Flow” will provide them with the proper steps to take to increase their chances in succeeding.

This past February BizBookTalk highlighted Rafi Mohammed’s book “The Art of Pricing”. In what could be considered the definitive guide on pricing, Rafi’’s book offers invaluable advice on creating the best pricing strategy for your product. The upside also being that this advice can be converted into actions on Monday morning.

In his inexhaustible effort to spread his knowledge on pricing, Rafi has created a website dedicated to his pricing strategies. He envisions this website will become the “hub of new pricing ideas” on the Internet. The site titled ‘Pricing for Profit’ offers rich content, an interactive value decoder that will help visitors find their right product price, and a blog which offers Rafi’s insights on pricing. Reads may find the most helpful section being the Pricing Q&A. This section provides answers to pricing questions which you would like Rafi’s advice on.

Check out the site at www.pricingforprofits.com

If you frequent the business section of your local Barnes and Noble or Borders you will notice the constant flow of new titles on the shelves. Within each book you will find the authors advice backed up by case studies on successful companies or opinions from industry leaders. How do you know what to accept as useful information and what to pass off as platitudes?



This is where Jeffery Pfeffer and Robert Sutton come into play. The Stanford professors have written “Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths And Total Nonsense“. Their advice: Don’t accept what you read in these books as infallible. Much of what is accepted as truths or conventional wisdom within business is wrong. The reason: You need to practice evidence based management to steer away from making this mistake. What is evidence based management?

“Evidence-based management is based on the belief that facing the hard facts about what works and what doesn’t, understanding the dangerous half-truths that constitute so much conventional wisdom about management, and rejecting the total nonsense that too often passes for sound advice will help perform better.”

In the first part of the book Pfeffer and Sutton lay out where companies fail in the decision making process. Too many companies fail to back up their decisions with facts and evidence. They are too quick to act on new ideas and theories without judging whether it will benefit their particular situation. This is where things can go wrong. Instead, by following the evidence based management technique you are less likely to fall into this trap.

The second part of the book, where the meat of the information is, picks apart 6 common half truths in detail:

• Is Work Fundamentally Different from the Rest of Life and Should it Be?
• Do the Best Organizations Have the Best People?
• Do Financial Incentives Drive Company Performance?
• Strategy is Destiny?
• Change or Die?
• Are Great Leaders in Control of Their Companies?

The authors provide examples where conventional business wisdom will help answer each question and examples where it will lead you down the wrong path.

After reading through these chapters you will begin to understand Pfeffer and Sutton’s fundamentals for using evidence based management. Not all decisions are clear cut – you will need to back your decisions up with evidence to support them.

This book is an excellent read for anyone in their career – from CEO’s to those starting off their career. Pfeffer and Sutton have written a book that is easy, interesting and insightful.

*** Check out Robert’s blog - Work Matters for daily insights, recommended books and information on his other publications. ***

Change is hard to implement in organizations. People revolt against change. They want familiarity. They want the ‘old’ and don’t care what the ‘new’ is. This is the reality that organizations must face, but a reality which many ignore. All is not lost though; you can get change to stick. Richard Reale lays out the principles that make it happen in his book, “Making Change Stick: Twelve Principles for Transforming Organizations”.



Richard has over 20 years of research which shows why programs fail and why changes refuse to stick. This book is the culmination of his studies. Richard provides an easy to read manual on getting change to stick. He focuses on the ‘soft’ side of change – people, emotions, communication, and leading to name a few. Each chapter ends with a bulleted section titled Putting the Principles to Practice. This is where the nuggets of wisdom are found. A key section was titled ‘Involve and Be Involved,’ which says that you shouldn’t make changes and assume that everyone will follow. That is a sure way to failure. Instead, do as Richard says:

• Be approachable. Be authentic. Think ‘we’.
• Talk personally to individuals as well as groups
• Be open to input from everyone. Ask opinions and solicit ideas. Listen intently.
• Identify yourself with the change.

Check out the Postivie Impact Associates, Inc. website for more information regarding Richard’s work.

I bought this book after hearing Shel speak in one of Dan Janal’s Great Teleseminars. He came off as extremely knowledgeable, very down to earth, and hype-free. So is the book - I was not disappointed.

In my opinion, this is a “friendly” textbook on marketing ALL small businesses, consultants, etc. should read, and certainly applicable to big biz as well. It answered questions I never knew I had. There was information I could use IMMEDIATELY! For example, I went back and made minor yet significant edits to my (very few) Press Releases right away.



Let’s step back for a few minutes, I know very little about marketing despite having run my own business for 15+ years. I never paid attention to marketing, sales, or much of anything but my core competencies - what I was getting paid for as a consultant. Yeah, I’ve been “lucky,” but don’t want to count on luck anymore. Besides, I’ve suddenly decided I’m interested in marketing - it’s sooooo scientific. I’m serious - it’s all trial and error, truly scientific principles and methods. But there are some basic principles I lacked, and this book taught those well.

I understood some advanced marketing issues and techniques very well, as I’ve been studying marketing the last few months out of interest and curiosity, but I lacked most basics. It’s like understanding advanced calculus and topology, but not being able to add and subtract reliably. This book taught those basics. I should have read it 15 years ago, had it been published then! I still lack experience in most marketing areas, but now at least I have a “clue.”

In my first pass I read the topics that interested me with extreme interest. For example, I have, or thought I had, zero use for “Yellow Pages” ads as just one example. I was wrong. I’ve read this book cover to cover a few times and keep getting more value - and actionable information. It’s been on my nightstand now for months and I often read a random section before retiring at night.

If there is a downside, it’s that the Internet section is somewhat out of date. That is no surprise as the Internet is evolving rapidly and the book is copyright 2000, but I still think it would be the perfect primer for the uninitiated. Hey, I’m a 25 year Internet veteran and I learned things!

I’ve read (and reviewed here on TheTedRap.com) quite a few great books in the past year or so. This is one of the best! You can purchase it directly from Shel’s website.

I’ve just got Shel’s latest book, Principled Profit, and it’s on my reading short list. You may also want to check out Shel’s Good Business blog.

Bottom line: Grassroots Marketing, highly recommended.

- Ted Demopoulos, September 2006

Sorry for the lack of posts….I’ve been in the aurduous process of moving from NY to IL! Some book reviews are on the way!

Tom Peters (read bio), the biz guru/knowledge broker/sensei of insights, is one of the most respected individuals in the business world. His insights are refreshing, original, and best of all - free. In this day and age of the ’scarcity mentality’, many charge for what he provides at no cost. Don’t cringe when you hear the word PowerPoint either. PowerPoint, the word that has become synonymous with ‘nap time’, doesn’t apply to Tom’s presentations. Read through one and you’ll see what I mean. Here are some of my favorites (all links open up to PowerPoint’s - right click to save):

• Them-Us
• Work Matters - “When was the last time you asked, ‘What do I want to be?’ ”
• Excellence - “It gets back to planning versus acting: We act from day one; others plan how to plan—for months.”
• Mini Presentations - “CEOs have little effect on performance”
• TP’s small business lessons - “Never attack the monsters head on! (Instead steal niche business and lukewarm customers.)”

More FREE stuff can be found at his site tompeters!.com

Sometimes it’s the failures and mistakes of others where you can learn the biggest lesson. Bob Pritchard, CEO of Logos Bible Software has made his fair share of mistakes in his 14 year career as an entrepreneur. In his book, “First Someone Today”, Pritchard not only expl