Customer Marketing

While marketers look for more ways to get personal with customers, including new tricks with "big data", customers are about to get personal in their own ways, with their own tools. New customer tools will provide the engine, with Vendor Relationship Management providing the consumer counterpart to vendors’ Customer Relationship Management systems. As customers become more independent and powerful, and the Intention Economy emerges, only vendors and organizations that are ready for the change will survive, and thrive. Where do you stand?

Ken Schmidt is a wanted man. His role in transforming Harley-Davidson Motor Company - one of the most celebrated corporate success stories in history - led business leaders all over the world to seek his guidance. After all, how many companies can get their customers to tattoo their logo on their arms? In Make Some Noise, Schmidt shares his full-throttle approach for businesses and individuals alike. Anyone looking to become more competitive and grow customer loyalty can learn from the case studies and experiences he shares.

The digital landscape has changed buyers’ habits. Sales professionals now need to develop relationships with decision-makers through social networks to reach them early in the decision making process. Social Selling provides a practical, step-by-step outline for harnessing the skills and techniques necessary to achieve this, including developing a high quality community, building trust, developing authority and influence, and connecting with changemakers. It also discusses enterprise implementation of a social selling strategy and much more.

While referrals are important, they're not the endgame. Beyond Referrals helps you turn referrals into introductions, appointments, and sales - showing you how to turn referrals into introductions to the prospects who are eager to hear from you. Then, you'll learn proven ways to convert a high percentage of prospects into high-value clients.

In Selling the Price Increase, celebrated sales trainer Jeb Blount reveals the strategies, tactics, techniques, and frameworks that allow you to successfully master price increase initiatives. From crafting effective price increase messages to protecting hard-won relationships, handling common objections, and making the case for the value you deliver, this comprehensive guide walks you through each step of the price increase sales process.

Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-selling author and leader of one of America's top sales training companies, Todd Duncan reveals the 10 most deadly mistakes salespeople make, and offers insight on how to avoid them. Duncan addresses the catastrophic mistakes that are commonly made, such as selling your product before knowing your customer or making unplanned calls on unknown customers, with clarity and directness.

This practical, step-by-step book is designed specifically for selling teams committed to high achievement in the enterprise environment. You'll learn how to master 13 selling tools integral to your SES success - like the KARE Account Planning Tool, Growth Account Booster Tool, LinkedIn Levers Tool, and Client-Centric Satisfaction Tool. You'll discover practical solutions to the vastly complex challenges in enterprise organizations - extended sales cycles, wide buyer networks, or significant investments in pursuits.

We bring products to life and connect them to living, breathing customers. Without us, our companies would crash and burn. And yet, it often seems we don’t get the prospectors the budgets we deserve. Where is the love? The reason our companies don’t love us is that they see us as cost centers rather than revenue centers. So, how do we change that perception (and that reality)? How do we become provable, dependable sources of revenue? By changing our relationship with our customers; by turning them into raving advocates and long-term clients.

Fred Reichheld's 2006 book The Ultimate Question - that question being, "How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?" - challenged the conventional wisdom of customer satisfaction programs. It coined the terms "bad profits" and "good profits" and pointed to a faster, much more accurate way of gauging customers' real loyalty to a company. Richard Owen and Laura Brooks are co-developers, along with Reichheld, of the methodology behind answering the question.

David Cay Johnston has made a name for himself as the defender of the common man, calling out the rich and powerful for cheating the system at the expense of everyone else. Whether he's exposing unjust loopholes in the tax code that help the rich get richer or pointing out how powerful corporations pocket government subsidies at excessive taxpayer expense, Johnston is an eloquent town crier for justice and equality.

Every businessman and entrepreneur worth his salt knows that the most important element for every business is the people. It's not your products or the revenue but the people. An ideal situation would be that all of your customers are 100% happy all the time, but this is impossible. At some point, some of them would be unsatisfied. It is important to understand what to expect from your customers and what your customers expect of you so you can provide great customer service that would leave both parties happy and satisfied.

The Experience is a unique guide to mastering the art of customer service and service relationships, based on the principles employed at the renowned leader in customer experience - the Walt Disney Company. Co-author Bruce Loeffler spent 10 years at Disney World overseeing service excellence. He has partnered with Brian T. Church to show you how to bring that same level of care and value to your own organization.

Alignment is the single most critical business challenge for any organization and its leaders. Without it, inefficiency, conflict, and disengagement will cripple your ability to provide value to your customers. Companies live or die based on their ability to communicate and deliver on the promise their brand makes to its customers. To do this effectively, leaders need to clearly define the vision and strategies that support that brand intention and ensure these are manifested in the roles, expectations, and goals of each and every member of the organization.

Loyal customers are the beating heart of every great business. So why do so many companies act like adrenaline junkies, chasing after new customers at the expense of creating deeper, more profitable relationships with the ones they already have? Evergreen exposes the mad pursuit for what it is: a brief spike in metrics and an ongoing revenue drain as one-time customers fail to return. A better solution is to shift resources from attracting new customers to engaging the base.

From the best-selling authors of The Power of Visual Storytelling comes the highly anticipated follow-up, The Laws of Brand Storytelling - the definitive, quick rulebook for how to use the power of storytelling to win over customers' hearts, minds, and long-term loyalty.

Slow Down, Sell Faster! does this by introducing a simple yet powerful method for buyer-focused selling that is practical, repeatable, and easily customizable. This buyer-focused approach extends to proposals and presentations, loyalty and retention, and, of course, cultivating more business. Each step in the book corresponds to a role you should adopt to meet customers’ needs at each stage of the buying process. Increasing sales is not just about learning more sales techniques; it’s about understanding the buying process - from your customer’s point of view.

Charm is good business. It can increase your income, boost your status, and establish and maintain your reputation. Most businesspeople don't fully understand the concept of charm. It ought to be a reflex, a conditioned response, to "turn on the charm" when dealing with customers, clients, associates, and employees, but it isn't. Charm draws customers. Charm gets noticed. But charm is only partly innate. Much of it is learned.

The leader's guide to building a service powerhouse using the approach that made Mayo Clinic the number one health-care system in America.

For hardworking and dedicated professional service providers, Make Them Smile offers a way out of the grind of living hour to billable hour, providing a road map for how to build a scalable, standardized brand that provides a consistent, repeatable, and high-quality customer experience.

In Branding Is Sex, brand dominatrix Deb Gabor explains how proper brand positioning gets your customers in the mood. In just seven short and sweet chapters, Deb covers these juicy topics and more: how the most successful brands in the world get their customers laid; how to never fail the Bullshit Test; and who your brand should hop in the sack with (and it’s not who you think).