About The Author.
Rick Crandall is an interesting if rather perplexing character
in order to complete this section of the review I had a look around
his website
to find out a little more about the man. I had assumed that his
Ph.D. would be in the field of marketing but it is in fact for Psychology.
I suppose however the two fields do have a lot in common.
Crandall appears however to currently make his living from a combination
of sales training and editing, both come through very strongly in
this book.
The Book.
If you walk in to a bookshop and thumb though this book you would
probably get the impression that it is simply a list of 1001 and
one anecdotes on sales and marketing that you may or may not be
able to apply to your business, however you would be wrong.
This book represents much more than that, although yes it is a
list of short anecdotal ideas, the beauty of this book is in the
structure. The ideas have all been grouped together in 28 chapters
each addressing a different style or method of marketing. So if
for example you want to look at how you could use promotions to
help your business you can jump straight to chapter 7 and find 34
ideas on promotions, and an action planning tool to help you get
going. If you can't find at least one idea from the 34 that you
can use or adapt to your business then I'd love to know what business
your in!
In my line of work I often have to go and visit clients in their
homes or placers of work. Congestion being what it is these days
I generally arrive 15-20 minutes early, rather than inconvenience
my clients by turning up too early I like to keep something in the
car I can do to fill in those minutes. This book is ideal the structure
means you can pick it up and put it down at your own convenience.
In the end I read the whole book from cover to cover over a period
of about a month. I then went over it again picking out the ideas
that I felt could have the most immediate impact on my business.
It's only now writing this review I realise how much I have actually
taken from this book, particularly the sections on client mailings
and newsletters to be honest I forgot where I got the ideas from.
There is nothing revolutionary about this book all the ideas are
tried and tested and you will have heard many of them before or
ones similar. However, the way in which Crandall has put them together
makes their application much easier. You think about where your
marketing needs help and flick to that section and pick out an idea
this is an invaluable resource and one I think Ii will read again,
now!
Rating: 9/10
Who is the book for: Anyone who is involved in sales or marketing
in any organisation regardless of size.
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