If this were 1923, this book would have been called "Why Radio Is Going to Change the Game" . . . If it were 1995, it would be "Why Amazon Is Going to Take Over the Retailing World" . . . The Thank You Economy is about something big, something greater than any single revolutionary platform. It isn't some abstract concept or wacky business strategy it's real, and every one of us is doing business in it every day, whether we choose to recognize it or not. It's the way we communicate, the way we buy and sell, the way businesses and consumers interact online and offline. The Internet, where the Thank You Economy was born, has given consumers back their voice, and the tremendous power of their opinions via social media means that companies and brands have to compete on a whole different level than they used to. Gone are the days when a blizzard of marketing dollars could be used to overwhelm the airwaves, shut out the competition, and grab customer awareness. Now customers' demands for authenticity, originality, creativity, honesty, and good intent have made it necessary for companies and brands to revert to a level of customer service rarely seen since our great-grandparents' day, when business owners often knew their customers personally, and gave them individual attention. Here renowned entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk reveals how companies big and small can scale that kind of personal, one-on-one attention to their entire customer base, no matter how large, using the same social media platforms that carry consumer word of mouth. The Thank You Economy offers compelling, data-driven evidence that we have entered into an entirely new business era, one in which the companies that see the biggest returns won't be the ones that can throw the most money at an advertising campaign, but will be those that can prove they care about their customers more than anyone else. The businesses and brands that harness the word-of-mouth power from social media, those that can shift their culture to be more customer-aware and fan-friendly, will pull away from the pack and profit in today's markets. Filled with Vaynerchuk's irrepressible candor and wit, as well as real-world examples of companies that are profiting by putting Thank You Economy principles into practice, The Thank You Economy reveals how businesses can harness all the changes and challenges inherent in social media and turn them into tremendous opportunities for profit and growth.

A simple, engaging, and eminently practical guide to overcoming your weaknesses your "Buts" to achieve the career and personal relationships you want Imagine a workplace where all the employees are aware of the things they do or fail to do that prevent them from being more productive and valuable. Imagine a company where everyone speaks openly and honestly about his or her weaknesses and is committed to strengthening and overcoming them. Imagine an environment where colleagues help one another become more efficient and less disruptive by speaking the truth about what detracts from the team's efforts and objectives. Imagine a place where the firm's most talented employees know exactly what they need to do to attain a leadership position. This is no fantasy workplace: it can be your business if you listen to Joe Azelby and Bob Azelby, brothers and successful executives in their own right.Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye will help all professionals find their individual BUT whether it's a lack of skills, a distracting behavior, or a personality quirk that interferes with achieving success. Using road-tested techniques, Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye helps you examine your BUT, understand it, manage it, cover it, and most important, shrink it. It also enables managers to help their employees discover personal weaknesses and to learn how to deliver the direct, honest feedback every worker needs and deserves.Finding your BUT can be tough medicine, but the Azelbys deliver it with a tasty spoonful of sugar. Get ready for success . . . get ready to Kiss Your BUT Good-Bye.

For the past twenty years, the growth formula for business has been to increase revenues by expanding product offerings and streamlining supply. But with the recent global recession, the world economy has changed forever. Now the old tools most notably supply-chain management are no longer enough. In a new digital age characterized by over-supply and too many product types in almost every market, the new challenge is to locate and capture the elusive pools of high-profit demand.Rick Kash and David Calhoun have the answer: a revolutionary, demand-driven model that has already proved successful for some of the world's most admired companies, including Best Buy, Anheuser-Busch, Hershey's, and Allstate. At the heart of this powerful new business model is an achievable vision for a new kind of winning company, one that uses sophisticated new tools and techniques to discover, characterize, and then serve these pools of high-profit demand and in the process gain pricing power in that market. Kash and Calhoun show how to use everything from social networks to more revealing and effective consumer-research techniques and then introduce the demand chain, the logical new partner to your supply chain. The authors' principles, case histories, and insights will help your business run faster, cut costs, and become better able to deliver high-quality products and services, even in the tightest economic climate.How Companies Win is a compelling call to action to engage every level within a company, small or large, local or global.

Change the way you think about new ideas by steering your creativity in new and more productive directions. Ideas. Whether the goal is to create a billion-dollar business, fix a broken process, reduce expenses, or simply find the perfect gift for that special someone, we all need a steady stream of breakthrough ideas and we've all learned from experience that traditional brainstorming doesn't generate them.Former McKinsey consultants Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne have spent more than a decade developing a better approach Brainsteering that takes brainstorming and other outdated ideation techniques and "steers" them in a more productive direction by better reflecting the way human beings actually think and work in creative problem-solving situations. By introducing just the right amount of structure into the process, and asking just the right questions, Brainsteering has helped Fortune 500 companies, small not-for-profits, and individuals alike generate ideas they previously could never have imagined.Peppered with thought-provoking and entertaining examples drawn from the workplace and popular culture, Brainsteering can help anyone develop breakthrough ideas, whether working alone on a one-time problem or turning an entire organization into an ongoing "idea factory." And getting started is easy: simply ask the right questions, and good ideas will follow.

The bestselling author of The Sellout tells the explosive story of the government’s crackdown on insider-trading networks an investigation that has already racked up more than 60 convictions.In Circle of Friends, award-winning journalist Charles Gasparino one of Wall Street's most knowledgeable observers follows government investigators and prosecutors as they pursue one of the most aggressive and broad-reaching series of insider-trading cases in the nation's history. A richly textured page-turner of investigative journalism based on extensive reporting, Circle of Friends chronicles the massive federal crackdown that has already put some of the biggest names on Wall Street behind bars, including Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the Galleon Group, and Rajat Gupta, a former CEO of consulting giant McKinsey & Co. Other similarly sized targets are still waiting nervously, including the biggest one of them all financial impresario Steve Cohen of SAC Capital, the giant hedge fund that has confounded regulators for years by cranking out a steady stream of market-busting returns.Gasparino goes behind the headlines to reveal how the government makes its case, using every tool at its disposal and at great expense to taxpayers to supposedly make the investing world safer for average Americans. Gasparino asks why federal officials are so eager to prosecute these cases: What is the real damage to individualsDo average investors really careHe explores why insider trading is all the rage these days when the U.S. government has failed to bring a single criminal case against the culprits who caused the 2008 financial crisis. Circle of Friends is not a defense of insider trading, but it does offer an account of the politics of Wall Street crime fighting, revealing the behind-the-scenes ambitions that motivate headlines and burnish political careers. A riveting work of narrative nonfiction, as engrossing and explosive as fictional thrillers of the finest magnitude, Circle of Friends is a wakeup call to the investing public.

In this illuminating study of corporate America's most critical issue leadership world-renowned leadership guru Warren Bennis and his co-author Burt Nanus reveal the four key principles every manager should know: Attention Through Vision, Meaning Through Communication, Trust Through Positioning, and The Deployment of Self. In this age of "process", with downsizing and restructuring affecting many workplaces, companies have fallen trap to lack of communication and distrust, and vision and leadership are needed more than ever before. The wisdom and insight in Leaders addresses this need. It is an indispensable source of guidance all readers will appreciate, whether they're running a small department or in charge of an entire corporation.

Home Sweet Home:How to buy your first home, your next home and save on taxes when you sell.A-Z of Investments:From annuities to zero-coupon bonds, go from owing money to OWNING money. Get out of debt (and stay that way).Estate Planning Long-Term Care:Learn how to protect yourself and your family.

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.

Sally Garratt has been an independent consultant since 1978 and is a prominent member of the Institute of Personnel Management. She has worked on numerous development programmes for senior professional and executive women. She is the author of Manage Your Time, which has sold over 32,000 copies in paperback.

Tim Jackson is the author of Turning Japanese and a biography of Richard Branson and Virgin, Virgin King. He is currently working on a book about the Sainsbury family.

What is talent? How do you get the best out of yourself? What are the secrets of leadership?In Edge, Ben Lyttleton gets unprecedented access to some of the world’s top football clubs to discover their innovative methods for developing talent – and reveals how we can use them in our everyday lives. Elite teams now look for an edge by improving the intangible skills of their players ‘above the shoulder’. Liverpool’s approach to talent will make you more creative. Chelsea’s culture will improve your resilience. Didier Deschamps will improve your leadership skills. Xavi Hernandez will help you make better decisions. But how?Football is the most hot-housed, intense, financially profitable talent factory on the planet. It’s time we woke up to the lessons it can provide.We all want to have an edge. This is your chance to find one…

The Way of Nowhere is a business book by the UK’s hottest change management consultancy who have led transformations in some of Britain’s biggest and best known organisations. An invaluable resource for anyone who wants to make a creative difference in their lives and the lives of people around them. Inspired by the unique practice of 'nowhere', a community of companies that specialise in co-creation, this is an inspirational book that will help you break through to a more creative and strategic future Renowned for their world-class approach to innovation, the nowhere group works with a wide range of businesses, government agencies and individuals to develop their creativity to its full potential. Now, their book maps out the groundbreaking ways that anyone can become more productive, playing a more creative role in your organisation while simultaneously nurturing your own growth along the way. It contains eight breakthrough questions designed to stimulate and enrich our creative capacity, both as an individual and as part of a team. Using examples and tools from their work with some of the UK’s largest and best known businesses, The Way of Nowhere shows us how to unlock the underlying and invisible forces at play within organisations, communities and cultures. With practice, you will discover how these questions and insights can release the latent creativity that exists within - a place where magic can happen - out of nowhere!

7 simple steps to help you get what you want from networking Networking: get it right, and it provides an opportunity for learning and expanding your business contacts. But there are so many ways to get it wrong. Maybe you’ve learnt this the hard way, or maybe you don’t know where to start. Whether you’re setting out into the world of business for the first time, planning a return visit or want to be the best in the job you’re in, this is the book for you. Follow these 7 simple steps to pick your way through the minefield that is networking. We’ll take you from creating new opportunities to maintaining valuable relationships, and show you how to survive any difficult moments along the way.

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.

An effective brand strategy that is clearly understood and supported throughout your firm is crucial if you want to attract and retain profitable clients and sustain a talented workforce. Managing Partner’s Brand Strategy and Management for Law Firms report provides a comprehensive framework and guidelines for developing a brand strategy tailored to your firm. Packed with key concepts, practical tools, tips and advice this report will give you an understanding of brand and how it can be developed and strengthened as your firm’s most invaluable asset. Specifically, this report will help you to: Understand the key elements of personal brands, firm brand, and the employment brand – and how they relate to each other; Align your brand strategy with your overall firm strategy, vision and values; Realise the importance of brand names, icons or logos, design and aesthetics; · Understand the key brand considerations when using online channels – websites, blogs, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook; · Create a customised brand stress-test and make improvements to strengthen your firm’s brand accordingly and ensure its success; · Get partners and staff on board to support and grow your brand; and · Avoid brand mistakes and overcome the common challenges – including recommended steps for managing your brand before, during and following a merger. · Brand Strategy and Management for Law Firms features insightful case studies, examples and expert contributions from the likes of Norton Rose South Africa, DLA Phillips Fox, Lex Mundi, Lex Africa and more… They reveal practical tips, lessons learned and mistakes made that will prove invaluable in the development and management of your own brand strategy.

Picking up where Liar’s Poker left off (literally, in the bond dealer’s desks of Salomon Brothers) the story of Long-Term Capital Management is of a group of elite investors who believed they could beat the market and, like alchemists, create limitless wealth for themselves and their partners. Founded by John Meriweather, a notoriously confident bond dealer, along with two Nobel prize winners and a floor of Wall Street’s brightest and best, Long-Term Captial Management was from the beginning hailed as a new gold standard in investing. It was to be the hedge fund to end all other hedge funds: a discreet private investment club limited to those rich enough to pony up millions. It became the banks’ own favourite fund and from its inception achieved a run of dizzyingly spectacular returns. New investors barged each other aside to get their investment money into LTCM’s hands. But as competitors began to mimic Meriweather’s fund, he altered strategy to maintain the fund’s performance, leveraging capital with credit on a scale not fully understood and never seen before. When the markets in Indonesia, South America and Russia crashed in 1998 LCTM’s investments crashed with them and mountainous debts accumulated. The fund was in melt-down, and threatening to bring down into its trillion-dollar black hole a host of financial instiutions from New York to Switzerland. It’s a tale of vivid characters, overwheening ambition, and perilous drama told, in Roger Lowenstein’s hands, with brilliant style and panache.

As scandal and the aftershocks of the crash rock the financial world, former Wall Street trader John Coates investigates why our financiers are driven to take risks. Now shortlisted for the 2012 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award and the Wellcome Trust Book Prize, this startling and unconventional book sees neuroscientist and former Wall Street trader John Coates explain something we have long suspected: that we think with our body as well as our brain. And this only intensifies when we take risks; at work, in sport and on the financial markets. Making and losing money provokes an overwhelming biological response, and this can alter the way we behave. Could this bodily turmoil lead to the kind of irrational behaviour that so regularly upsets the global economy? In a series of groundbreaking experiments, Coates has shown that under the pressure of risk our biology transforms us into different people. Traders and investors are especially prone, becoming revved-up and testosterone-driven when on a winning streak, and tentative and risk-averse when cowering from losses. Revealing the biology of bubbles and crashes, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf sheds new and surprising light on issues that affect us all.

The management secrets that experts and top professionals use. Get results fast with this quick, easy guide to the fundamentals of Management. Includes how to: ? Build a goal-oriented team ? Successfully manage individuals, teams and projects ? Set clear goals and give quality feedback ? Get things done on time and on budget ? Deal with difficult situations

The project management secrets that experts and top professionals use. Get results fast with this quick, easy guide to the fundamentals of Project Management. Includes how to: ? Deliver a successful project from start to finish ? Communicate effectively with people at all levels ? Manage changes and control scope creep ? Identify and deal with risks ? Work with common project management methodologies