Don't let the customer get between you and building a strong valued brand If you want to stand out from the crowd, develop a clear and consistent brand voice, and ultimately build a fruitful business – listen to your brand. Stop Listening to the Customer offers insights into how consumers are driving homogeneity in brands and shares the proven strategies you can implement to amplify your own position in the world. The customer is not always right. In fact, our obsession with the customer risks devaluing brands by making them generic and forgettable. Brands have become too consumer-led, where they are driven by journey-mapping, customer-centric design, and an excessive focus on consumer-driven data. Instead try redressing the balance, and be brand-led, where brands and businesses can truly become unique, interesting and highly profitable. Multi-award-winning brand strategist and consumer psychologist Adam Ferrier shares his contrary approach to building a strong brand in Stop Listening to the Customer. Backed by science, real-world examples and extensive industry experience, Ferrier explores the dangers of listening to the consumer too much, shares lessons from successful businesses who prioritise their brand, and reveals the brand-building secrets of their success. With insights from Jules Lund, Lisa Ronson, John Newcomb, Rory Sutherland, and many more, this invaluable book will enable you to: • Avoid the pitfalls of drowning in customer data • Establish a strong, brand-led business • Develop a unique brand by embracing and leveraging your weaknesses • Define your brand • Get your customers to invest into you Stop Listening to the Customer is ideal for those looking to grow their brands and businesses by defeating consumer-driven mediocrity, standing out from the crowd, and listening their own brand.

Stop Listening is an unapologetically blunt, autobiographical blueprint for those who strive to turn off traditional business, money, and life advice and replace it with real, raw, and achievable actions that will yield extraordinary results.

How do you turn website visitors into customers? Conversion Optimization offers practical advice on how to persuade visitors to make a buying decision -- without driving them away through data overload or tedious navigation. You'll learn how to use marketing principles, design, usability, and analytics on your site to increase your buyer-to-visitor ratio, whether you're involved with marketing or designing a large ecommerce site, or managing a modest online operation. Based on the authors' broad experience in helping businesses attract online customers, this book addresses every aspect of the process, from landing visitors to finalizing the sale. You'll learn several techniques for blending successful sales approaches with the particular needs of the people you want to attract. Are you ready to do what it takes to get a double-digit conversion rate? Explore case studies involving significant conversion rate improvements Walk through different stages of a sale and understand the value of each Understand your website visitors through persona creation Connect with potential customers and guide them toward a conversion Learn how to deal with FUDs -- customer fears, uncertainties, and doubts Examine the path that visitors take from landing page to checkout Test any change you make against your original design "The Web is unique in its ability to deliver this almost improbable win-win: You can increase revenue AND make your customers happy. Yet most websites stink. Worry not, Khalid and Ayat to the rescue! Buy this book to follow their practical advice on how to create high converting websites that your visitors love."--Avinash Kaushik, author of Web Analytics 2.0 and Web Analytics: An Hour A Day (both Sybex)

Robin Schneider Larkin knows what it is like to feel unhappy or unfulfilled and not know what to do about it. She knows what it is like to have everything and it not feel right. She believes the key to unlocking the mystery of fulfillment and happiness is within us if only we stop talking long enough to hear it. Learn how to unlock your true happiness with Stop Talking to Yourself and Start Listening.

Have you been led to believe that sales success is about learning killer closing techniques and being the master of selling anything to anyone? It isn't. If you want to drive mega long-term sales, get buckets of repeat business and referrals and be the top producer in your company, SHUT UP! Stop Talking and Start Making Money will fast track your success. You don't have to be the best presenter or stunning public speaker. Your customers don't care what car you drive and designer clothes you own. Decision makers want to deal with Salespeople have learned to SHUT UP and stop selling them something they don't want to buy. They want to engage with Salespeople who get it! In this book, you will learn The Five Success Skills of Professional Salespeople in B2B (Business to Business selling) and B2C (Business to Consumer selling): Ask Great Questions - Get great answers to find the true needs of your client. Actively Listen - SHUT UP and hear what your customer is telling you. Paraphrase - Capture the meaning of what was said and confirm the message. Summarize the Customer's Full Needs - The master paraphrase! Project a Positive Personality - Have fun and enjoy the process! Sales success is not rocket science. Stop closing your customers and start connecting with them! Too many Salespeople blow a sale by focusing on their commission, bonus and ego. They rush the sales process to prove to their Sales Manager that they are filling their sales funnel with the required activity level in cold calls, appointments and presentations. The quality of your client engagements will make the biggest difference in your ability to be the Salesperson that clients want to do business with repeatedly! Are you are tired of clients who say "maybe" to only find them running away from your efforts to get a final decision? Are too many customers asking you to send them an email versus booking an appointment with you? Do your clients use a cheap competitor to beat you up on price and put the boots to you? SHUT UP! Stop Talking and Start Making Money will teach you how to lose fast with the wrong customers and win with the right ones by engaging with decision makers that meet your ideal customer profile and close themselves. You will learn to get rid of customer objections by countering them before they even enter your client's mind. Read the reviews from actual Salespeople who have seen great sales results from this book and its Five Star Reviews. SHUT UP! Stop Talking and Start Making Money is a practical guide of proven, consultative sales techniques to generate sales through trust, needs analysis and the use of social media for inbound marketing. The greatest skill in Professional Sales is the ability to listen, not talk. If you truly believe that, allow this book to give you the tools to gain confidence and develop your natural abilities. SHUT UP! Stop Talking and Start Making Money is based on the 30 years of practical experience of the author - Dave Warawa. SHUT UP! Stop Talking and Start Making Money also has a complete Social Media Guide for Professional Salespeople. Start using Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Blogging to drive inbound marketing. It's short, easy to read chapters are great for experienced sales veterans looking to reach out to new ways to grow business, as well as new Professional Salespeople looking to build a lifetime career in the industry. Stop trying to be successful in sales and start reaching the achievement levels of the top-producers today!

The first book devoted entirely to B2B social marketing B2B markets are fundamentally different from consumer markets. Decisions are made on value, not impulse. Buying cycles are complex, often with many stakeholders involved. Relationships and support are critical. Bet-the-business decisions demand discipline, knowledge, and lots of information. This hands-on guide covers topics unique to this segment, including cost justification, prospecting and lead generation, matching tools to the sales funnel, building, B2B search engine optimization, social media monitoring, social media policy development, long-term client relationships, gaining stakeholder support, building a more transparent organization, and what's coming next. Features plentiful examples, case studies, and best practices Focuses on the channels that are most effective for B2B marketers Builds on the authors' more than 30 years of combined experience in the new media/social media space, as well as two previous successful books Leverage the vast business-to-business potential of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and many other social media platforms today with Social Marketing to the Business Customer!

Publisher description

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

UnMarket to build trust and make lifelong customers! In 2009, Scott Stratten and Alison Stratten wrote the bestselling UnMarketing: Stop Marketing, Start Engaging and began a journey that would take them around the world sharing their message of engagement with corporations, entrepreneurs, and students.They are now back with this second edition, because Everything has Changed and Nothing is Different, with all the brilliance of the first edition, plus new content and commentary to reflect the rapidly changing landscape we all live, buy, and work in today. For generations, marketing has been hypocritical. We've been taught to market to others in ways we hate being marketed to (cold-calling, flyers, ads, etc.). So why do we still keep trying the same stale marketing moves? UnMarketing shows you how to unlearn the old ways and consistently attract and engage the right customers. You'll stop just pushing out your message and praying that it sticks somewhere. Potential and current customers want to be listened to, validated, and have a platform to be heard-especially online. With UnMarketing, you'll create a relationship with your customers, and make yourself the logical choice for their needs. We know you've been told to act like other people, talk like other people, and market like all the people, but it is time for you to unlearn everything and start to UnMarket yourself. UnMarketing includes the latest information on: Idea Creation, Viral Marketing and Video, Marketing to Millennials, Authenticity, Transparency and Immediacy, Ethics and Affiliates, Social Media Platforming, UnPodcasting, Word of Mouth, Customer Service, Consumer Advocacy and Leadership. With examples of what to do, and what not to do, from small business right up to worldwide corporations in areas such as real estate, travel, service, retail, and B2B.

Creative marketing strategies for business owners and sales professionals illustrating the use of technology to attract, capture, convert and retain customers. Includes 7 key ingredients that make up a Top Producing salesperson, and a guide to developing a "Personal Roadmap for Success". 14 Chapters include 31 specific marketing strategies, website strategies including audio and video, autoresponders, e-zines, and generating laser-targeted traffic. Step-by-step guide to creating a profitable small-business or sales marketing plan.