Easy-to-read fable that makes a convincing case to develop a content marketing strategy.
A financial adviser/digital marketing guru uses a fictional story to demonstrate the importance of content marketing, or authority marketing, to attract customers and grow your business.
In a 27-page preface, Simonds, a financial adviser and digital marketing consultant, outlines why all businesses should be in the business of creating free, useful digital content in order to become a trusted “authority” that will attract today’s surfing consumers. Simonds then uses the rest of his book to underscore the importance of content marketing, or authority marketing—essentially, marketing through telling personal stories of expertise, “helping as many people as they could, regardless of if they sold anything”—by presenting a fable featuring fictional financial adviser Steve Kennedy. Steve is stressed: His radio airtime costs are being increased, and a great prospect ends up not hiring him due to his skimpy online presence. Thankfully, he then attends an inspiring session by marketing guru Dave Utley at his industry conference. Though Steve returns home to find his neglected wife on the cusp of divorce, he soon improves his work/life balance as he implements Utley’s advice. He creates a website that clearly spells out how he can help his ideal client and includes a “call-to-action” that is attractive enough for surfers to provide their names and email addresses, allowing for further prospecting. He develops blogs that offer useful content and include key words that keep pushing up his presence in online searches. A year later, Steve is a speaker at his industry conference due to his phenomenal increase in sales. Simonds, who apparently has practiced what he preaches, has an engaging from-the-trenches perspective and infectious can-do spirit that should be appealing to businesspeople overwhelmed, even paralyzed, by today’s exploding digital marketing environment. While his preface is a bit lengthy and his story could be seen as a bit too simple, Simonds includes enough compelling facts (e.g., consumers increasingly hate the “interruption marketing” of traditional advertising) and helpful tactics (Steve sets aside four hours every Friday to develop his blogs) to make this book a helpful one-two push to get started in this critical marketing arena.
Easy-to-read fable that makes a convincing case to develop a content marketing strategy.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500387013
Page Count: 226
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
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These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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