Renowned business gurus Al and Laura Ries give a blow-by-blow account of the battle between management and marketing and argue that the solution lies not in what we think but in how we think There's a reason why the marketing programs of the auto industry, the airline industry, and many other industries are not only ineffective, but bogged down by chaos and confusion.Management minds are not on the same wavelength as marketing minds.What makes a good chief executiveA person who is highly verbal, logical, and analytical. Typical characteristics of a left brainer.What makes a good marketing executiveA person who is highly visual, intuitive, and holistic. Typical characteristics of a right brainer. These different mind-sets often result in conflicting approaches to branding, and the Ries' thought-provoking observations culled from years on the front lines support this conclusion, including: Management deals in reality. Marketing deals in perception. Management demands better products. Marketing demands different products. Management deals in verbal abstractions. Marketing deals in visual hammers. Using some of the world's most famous brands and products to illustrate their argument, the authors convincingly show why some brands succeed (Nokia, Nintendo, and Red Bull) while others decline (Saturn, Sony, and Motorola). In doing so, they sound a clarion call: to survive in today's media-saturated society, managers must understand how to think like marketers and vice versa. Featuring the engaging, no-holds-barred writing that readers have come to expect from Al and Laura Ries, War in the Boardroom offers a fresh look at a perennial problem and provides a game plan for companies that want to break through the deadlock and start reaping the rewards.

Every era has its merger every era has its story. For the New Media age it was an even bigger disaster: the AOL-Time Warner deal. At the time AOL and Time Warner were considered a matchless combination of old media content and new media distribution. But very soon after the deal was announced things started to go bad and then from bad to worse. Less than four years after the deal was announced, every significant figure in the deal -save the politically astute Richard Parsons has left the company, along with scores of others. Nearly a $100 billion was written off and a stock that once traded at $100 now trades near $10.What happenedWhere did it all go wrongIn this deeply sourced and deftly written book, Nina Munk gives us a window into the minds of two of the oddest men to ever run billion-dollar empires. Steve Case, the boy wonder who built AOL one free floppy disk at a time, was searching for a way out of the New Economy. Meanwhile Jerry Levin, who'd made his reputation as a visionary when he put HBO on satellite distribution, was searching for a monumental deal. These two men, more interested in their place in history than their personal fortunes, each thought they were out-smarting the other.

Why are otherwise smart and competent people such lousy investorsIndividual investors give up as much as two-thirds of their potential investment returns in misguided efforts to beat the market and most don't even realize it.Ashvin B. Chhabra, chief investment officer of one of the world's largest wealth management firms, explains that an important idea has gotten lost amid the relentless pursuit of investment returns. Rather than trying to beat the market, your primary goal should be to construct an investment strategy that creates a solid safety net and enables you to pursue your dreams and aspirations.With no more guarantee of lifelong jobs or pensions, all of us bear the burden of investing wisely. But many of us focus on the wrong set of investment activities, such as identifying the next great start-up or star fund manager, or simply beating a market benchmark. Even the standard framework for investing, modern portfolio theory, offers an incomplete solution. Meanwhile, the grand debates in finance, such as indexing versus active management, prioritize the wrong set of issues.We need a framework that shifts the focus of investment strategy from portfolios and markets to individuals and the objectives that really matter: protection against unexpected financial crises or retirement planning. Whatever matters most to you paying for your kid's education, starting your own business, endowing your favorite charity, or traveling the world you need a road map to help you achieve both your essential and aspirational goals.In The Aspirational Investor, Ashvin B. Chhabra outlines a groundbreaking yet intuitive approach to managing wealth, based on the identification of key goals and the careful allocation of resources and risks. The Wealth Allocation Framework will help you connect your investment portfolio with your life's goals, and accommodate the three seemingly incompatible objectives that must underpin every sound wealth management strategy: the need for financial security in the face of unknowable risks, the desire to maintain current living standards despite inflation, and the opportunity for life-changing wealth creation.Chhabra's pioneering work illuminates some surprising facts about how people get very wealthy, and reinterprets the success formulas of investing greats such as Warren Buffett and David Swensen. Chhabra also offers a novel perspective: If the markets don't really care about you, as surely they do not, then why should you spend all your time and effort trying to beat them?Raising the bar for what we should expect from our investment portfolios and from our investment advisors The Aspirational Investor is a thoughtful, practical guide for any investor, regardless of income or wealth level.

For almost forty years, Yankelovich Partners has helped America's biggest companies understand and reach their customers. Their breakthrough MONITOR studies-annual surveys that analyze the values, beliefs, attitudes, and expectations that shape consumer decisions-not only pinpoint current trends, but predict where the market will be in the future.Rocking the Ages: The Yankelovich Report on Generational Marketing (HarperBusiness; May 21, 1997) by J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman turns the spotlight on America's generation gap and transforms what was born as a political and social rallying cry into a sound foundation for profitable marketing. Defining the essence of three generations-the Matures (born between 1909-1945), the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), and the Generation-Xers (1965-1978)-it explores in telling detail the experiences, life skills, values, personal and professional aspirations, likes and dislikes, and hopes and fears that distinguish each generation. Drawing on this unprecedented data, it elucidates how and why each generation reacts to a vast range of marketplace issues-including technology and cyberspace, healthcare and fitness, media and entertainment, retailing and financial services.From highlighting generational differences regarding such basic concepts as work itself-Matures regard it as an inevitable obligation, Boomers as an opportunity for self-fulfillment, and Xers as simply a paycheck-and gratification-delayed by Matures, demanded instantaneously by Boomers,virtual in the case of most Xers-to describing the widely differing versions of the American Dream each generation harbors, Rocking the Ages offers invaluable insights into how to market a product or service to reach one, two, or all three generations.

Learn the keys to Outstanding Success and reveal the millionaire in your mirror Despite never being, as he admits, the best communicator, the most talented manager, or the smartest guy in the room, Gene Bedell quickly worked his way up the corporate ladder accumulating career earnings that put him among the country's top one percent of earners while doing what he loved and always putting family first. By looking at his own career and the careers of others who have achieved Outstanding Success people who all started with nothing he found it was possible for those who put their minds to it to become wealthy while spending their careers doing work they love. Now, in The Millionaire in the Mirror, Bedell reveals how you too can find career fulfillment while earning millions without social connections, an Ivy League education, an MBA, or the kind of earth-shattering managerial talent that makes the world take notice and how you can do it without destroying your personal life, resorting to hucksters' get-rich-quick schemes, or opting out of a traditional career path. Inside you'll find the seven success strategies that will revitalize your days at work, helpful tips for getting "unstuck" at any age or phase of your career, and answers to the crucial career questions that are asked far too infrequently. Approachable but authoritative, this is the book for everyday people who have extraordinary potential. If you have the desire and drive to achieve truly Outstanding Success, you can turn the person you see in the mirror into the millionaire you're destined to become.

In Everything Is Possible, Dan Abraham, the legendary founder of Slim-Fast, recounts the story of his personal and business life, starting from his childhood and army years and his purchase of Thompson Medical for $5,000 when he was in his early twenties, and culminating in the sale of Slim-Fast for $2.3 billion in 2000. At the heart of Everything Is Possible are 16 life lessons that Abraham has picked up in sixty years of a hard-working business career. Among them: ?There is no such thing as a mistake (see pages 198–202) ?Why I always insured that my suppliers made a profit (see pages 208–9) ?The philosophy of continuous improvement (see pages 202–5) ?If you have a theory and the facts dispute it, drop your theory (pages 205–8) ?The realization that we all have both good and bad luck in our lives, but many of us don't prepare for either (pages 216–9) ?I never saw a man pick a fight with a stronger man (pages 191–5) But this memoir, a brilliant guide for anyone starting and growing a business, is about far more than business. Abraham tells the heartwarming story of growing up in a modest home in Long Beach, New York, and the lessons he learned from his mother, father, and one high school teacher that have guided him ever since. And there is more, much more: a discussion of his beliefs about the pleasure of giving; what he has learned from Judaism about ethics and the Golden Rule; and what he learned from his experiences with the FDA about the importance of compromise and about the necessity to fight hard when you believe you're right. At a time, when newspapers are filled with reports of business fraud and deceptions, and when so many people believe that to have spectacular success in business you have to be ruthless and dishonest, this is an account of a business life that has been lived honorably, passionately, and successfully, and with fun. Everything Is Possible is a book to be savored and shared with young and old alike.

Today, with thousands of TV hours to fill, there's room on television for virtually every product, service, and personality and no one understands that better than producers Marta Tracy and Terence Noonan. Their one-of-a-kind handbook shows you how to make your dreams of on-screen success come true whether that dream is to appear on reality television, to showcase your catering skills on The Martha Stewart Show, to promote your flower shop on a local morning show, or to launch a thousand different TV-centered personal or professional goals. Starring You! outlines everything you need to market your business, product, point of view, or yourself, including: How to write the perfect pitch How to build and maintain relationships with producers How to become a regular guest . . . or even the host of your own show

The marketing revolution is here, so get on the right side of the barricade and become a part of it! Let's thank Mr. and Mrs. Consumer and their little Consumerlings who have seized power from the corporations and are now firmly in control. In Punk Marketing, Laermer and Simmons take an irreverent, penetrating look at the seismic change in the relationship between the people who sell stuff products, services, entertainment and those who purchase it. They demonstrate that to survive in business, a revolutionary approach is needed one they have branded "Punk Marketing" and it's one we all need to understand, for the traditional divisions among commerce, content, and consumers are continuing to blur ever more rapidly.Never dull, sometimes controversial, but always a helluva lot of fun, Punk Marketing presents a manifesto for any businessperson needing to engage consumers or any consumer seeking to understand and employ their newfound power. And here's the good news: It's based on principles that have existed forever. In an age of digital video recorders, "branded" entertainment, cell-phone TV, multiplayer online games, and never-ending social networking, a coherent approach to marketing has never been more vital. With Punk Marketing, there's a built-in plan to equip you with tools to make all this change work out just fine, thanks.Punk Marketing is the first shot soon to be heard 'round the world of a long-awaited and breathless uprising that businesses want, deserve, and desperately need.

Quit worrying about debt. . . .Forget penny-pinching. . . . Stop sacrificing. . . . Forget saving money. You don't get wealthy by putting your money away in a bank account, nor do you become poor just because you bought yourself an extra latte. You get rich by making money . . . and America's leading money-making expert Loral Langemeier can show you how.A timely book with a counterintuitive message, Put More Cash in Your Pocket helps you create your own "lemonade stand" by getting paid for the things you already do. By following Loral's simple and straightforward approach, you'll put more cash as much as $1,000 a month in your pocket in no time.

In the bestselling tradition of The Soul of a New Machine, Dealers of Lightning is a fascinating journey of intellectual creation. In the 1970s and '80s, Xerox Corporation brought together a brain-trust of engineering geniuses, a group of computer eccentrics dubbed PARC. This brilliant group created several monumental innovations that triggered a technological revolution, including the first personal computer, the laser printer, and the graphical interface (one of the main precursors of the Internet), only to see these breakthroughs rejected by the corporation. Yet, instead of giving up, these determined inventors turned their ideas into empires that radically altered contemporary life and changed the world.Based on extensive interviews with the scientists, engineers, administrators, and executives who lived the story, this riveting chronicle details PARC's humble beginnings through its triumph as a hothouse for ideas, and shows why Xerox was never able to grasp, and ultimately exploit, the cutting-edge innovations PARC delivered. Dealers of Lightning offers an unprecedented look at the ideas, the inventions, and the individuals that propelled Xerox PARC to the frontier of technohistoiy--and the corporate machinations that almost prevented it from achieving greatness.

A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the videogame industry in development as a feature film from Sony PicturesIn 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the videogame industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about videogames and everything about fighting uphill battles. His unconventional tactics, combined with the blood, sweat, and bold ideas of his renegade employees, completely transformed Sega and led to a ruthless, David-and-Goliath showdown with Nintendo. Little did he realize that Sega's success would create many new enemies and, most important, make Nintendo stronger than ever.The battle was vicious, relentless, and highly profitable, eventually sparking a global corporate war that would be fought on several fronts: from living rooms and school yards to boardrooms and Congress. It was a once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred conflict that pitted brother against brother, kid against adult, Sonic against Mario, and the United States against Japan.Based on more than two hundred interviews with former Sega and Nintendo employees, Console Wars is the tale of how Tom Kalinske miraculously turned an industry punch line into a market leader. Blake J. Harris brings into focus the warriors, the strategies, and the battles and explores how they transformed popular culture forever. Ultimately, Console Wars is the story of how a humble family man, with an extraordinary imagination and a gift for turning problems into competitive advantages, inspired a team of underdogs to slay a giant and, as a result, give birth to a sixty-billion-dollar industry.

The classic bestseller on socializing now fully updated for social interactions in a digital ageHow to Work a Room is the classic bestselling book on improving communication and socializing skills, and using them to create and leverage connections. This Silver Anniversary Edition is fully revised and updated to include the role of technology and social media in networking, as well as Susan RoAne's proven tips for using digital strategies to your advantage plus practical hints for starting conversations and strengthening rapport with strangers. How to Work a Room: The 25th Anniversary Edition is a vital tool for business professionals, job seekers and career changers of all ages.

Get Ready for the Real World How do you get a job without experience and get experience without a jobIt’s the question virtually every college student or recent graduate faces. Now newly revised and updated, Lindsey Pollak’s Getting from College to Career is the definitive guide to building the experience, skills, and confidence you need to succeed in the job search, offering action-oriented tips and strategies ranging from the simple to the expert. Learn how to: ?Get the best tools for career prep and job hunting ?E-mail like a professional ?Go global ?Practice the eight essentials of internship achievement ?Perform five minutes of stand-up ?Overprepare for interviews ?Persist without being a pest Getting from College to Career gives you the essential information and guidance you need to get your foot in the door of the real world. Don’t start your first job search without it!

Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all dayAn obsession that keeps you up at nightNow is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed here, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. By the end of this book, readers will have learned how to harness the power of the Internet to make their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Step by step, Crush It! is the ultimate driver's manual for modern business.

A business without a dream is like a life without a purpose. Michael Gerber Dream Vision Purpose MissionThese words have been defining the life of Michael Gerber, bestselling author and international small business guru. He created E-Myth Worldwide in 1977 to transform the way that small business owners grow their companies. Now he's created In The Dreaming Room as a place where entrepreneurs and future entrepreneurs come to discover how to make their dreams a reality.Michael's Dream: to inspire people to dream by awakening the entrepreneur within them. Michael's Vision: to be the authority for helping dreamers everywhere create the small businesses they once could only imagine.Michael's Purpose: to transform the lives of ordinary people by providing them with the thrill of creation while creating the means to generate their own and others' economic freedom.Michael's Mission: to create a turnkey system for awakening the entrepreneur within every person who wishes to go into business for themselves, while providing them with the support for doing it.And he has done it. In Awakening the Entrepreneur Within you are invited into the Dreaming Room, where your own entrepreneurial dreams will come alive and become reality. Michael will help you shape your dream into a viable, economically successful company! As he writes: It is time to dream. It is time to care about something bigger than you. It is time to imagine something sorely needed in the world the world you live in that somebody would pay to have. It is time to look around you and ask yourself, 'What's missing in this pictureIf you see something missing in your world, it's time to start dreaming. Let Michael Gerber welcome you to the Dreaming Room.

Kate White New York Times bestselling author, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan for fourteen years, and motivational speaker shares her gutsy secrets to success in this witty, straight-talking new career guide for women.Whether you've just settled into your first work cubicle and have no clue how to go after the success you crave, or you've already got a sweet little office but you aren't sure how to take your career to the next level, I Shouldn't Be Telling You This gives you all the secrets you need to become a success, go big with it, and then savor every second. It is jam-packed with insider strategies, interviews with women at the top of their game, and Kate's advice from her own career running five major magazines (including one of the bestselling women's magazines in the world, Cosmopolitan). She hows you how to break out of the pack, master the learning curve, make bold moves, and, ultimately, have the career you've always lusted for!Kate shares five secrets every woman needs to know how to:Land a Job You're Truly Passionate About Use "Bitch Envy" to Your Advantage Radiate Confidence and Get Buzzed About (Without Worrying What Other People Think)Ask for the Money You Want and Get It Manage Your Career and Not Just Your Job (It's a Whole Different Ball Game!)But more than anything, Kate says, you have to go big or go home do what's unexpected and always keep your career trajectory in mind. It might be tackling a project that no one else is taking on and nailing it then making sure your boss knows it. Or it might be developing a "golden gut" that will help you to break the rules the right way, so you always end up shining. In I Shouldn't Be Telling You This, Kate White shares the kinds of secrets no boss is ever likely to spill all with her irreverent wit and candid style. You'll come away with the know-how you need and you'll feel as though you've just gotten up from a fabulously dishy lunch!

One of the nations' foremost financial consultants shares 78 proven ways to cut costs dramatically, send productivity through the roof, and, in just six months, double profits.

Do you own or plan to own a small businessDo you work for a small business and desire to better understand your bossDo you know someone who owns a business and wants to be stronger, more focused, and more successfulThis is the book for you.The truth is that many business books offer a lot of wonderful sounding theories, but they have little practical application in the real world of small business. Common Sense Business is full of life-and-death ideas. Follow Steve Gottry's advice and your business will live and thrive. Ignore it and your business could founder or die. Benefit from Gottry's experience as an entrepreneur who grew a hugely successful media agency, experienced a harrowing business failure, then rebounded with a new business and a fresh start on life.Common Sense Business tells you how to succeed throughout every phase of the small business life cycle -- from starting to operating, growing, and even closing down a business. No matter the state of the economy or the maturity of your business, you will find winning solutions to the questions and situations you face every day. Steve Gottry will help you understand yourself; your employees, customers, and vendors; and how people come together to form a successful business. You will learn how to maximize your business's assets and how to ward off those threats that could eat away at your resources and peace of mind, including debt, sloppiness, addiction, and fear. Warm, honest, funny, and factual, entrepreneur Steve Gottry tells the whole truth about successfully managing a business through good times and bad.

You can't win a fight with your boss.If you have ever thought otherwise, then you're dead wrong. And you're career is over, too.In this lively guide to surviving the pitfalls of the modern corporate environment, Tom Markert, a senior executive at information giant ACNielsen, presents 56 practical rules that every employee, manager, and executive must follow in order to find corporate success. With rules such as "Work hard and smart" and "Find a good boss" Markert addresses some of the most important questions facing corporate executives today. Here, in colorful and inspiring language, he offers practical advice on how to impress and make your boss look good, how to position yourself for success, and how to address work and social situations that every employee must conquer.And, most important, Markert covers the number one question in any employee's mind: How do I work with my bossHere, this book becomes an indispensable guide to corporate life. Markert draws on his experience to illustrate these rules with telling, and often funny, anecdotes about people who have not followed the rules and paid the ultimate corporate price -- failure, embarrassment, and a career stopped dead in its tracks.

From the authors of Juggling Elephants comes the only guide you need to sort through the many priorities in your life, know what your it (Important Thing) should be, and understand how to get it done.How busy are youIn the daily struggle to get it all done, what are you forgettingIs your mind constantly racing through lists of all the things you could and should be doingDoes your day often feel as though you're treading water in an ocean of rushes and deadlines, trying to keep from drowning while handling the increasing demands of your work and life?Don't give up help is on the way. You just have to find your it. The Important Thing. Define it. Plan it. Focus on it. Get excited about it.Identifying IT isn't just the first step in the process of getting focused and heading in the right direction, it's every step. Getting to It provides the necessary tools to accomplish the important, handle the urgent, and get rid of the unnecessary. Want to enjoy a more fulfilling lifeGet to it.

The legendary leadership guide, distilled from a lifetime of wisdom and experience in government and business Throughout his long and distinguished career—as a naval aviator, a U.S. Congressman, a top aide to four American presidents, a high-level diplomat, a CEO of two Fortune 500 companies, and the only twice-serving Secretary of Defense in American history—Donald Rumsfeld has collected hundreds of pithy, compelling, and often humorous observations about leadership, business, and life. When President Gerald Ford ordered these aphorisms distributed to his White House staff in 1974, the collection became known as "Rumsfeld's Rules." First gathered as three-by-five cards in a shoebox and then typed up and circulated informally over the years, these eminently nonpartisan rules have amused and enlightened presidents, business executives, chiefs of staff, foreign officials, diplomats, and members of Congress. They earned praise from the Wall Street Journal as "Required reading," and from the New York Times which said: "Rumsfeld's Rules can be profitably read in any organization…The best reading, though, are his sprightly tips on inoculating oneself against that dread White House disease, the inflated ego." Meanwhile, the collection continued to grow as Rumsfeld added new rules derived from things he read, heard, or observed in more than eight decades of a remarkable life. Now these legendary rules are made available for the first time to corporate executive. Rumsfeld has selected his most useful and important rules for effective leadership, enhanced with fresh insights and entertaining anecdotes, and discusses them in the blunt and witty style that made his Pentagon press conferences "must-see TV." Distilled from a career of unusual breadth and accomplishment, and organized under practical topics like hiring people, running a meeting, and dealing with the press, Rumsfeld's Rules can benefit people at every stage in their careers and in every walk of life, from aspiring politicos and industrialists to recent college graduates, teachers, and business leaders. The book provides unprecedented insight into leadership, management, strategy, and life—thinking that not only helped Rumsfeld lead the Pentagon in wartime, but earned him a reputation as one of America's toughest and most effective CEOs.