You're in the insurance business, and you're searching for a breakthrough. Maybe you're a new agent and feel overwhelmed by the task ahead of you. Or maybe you've already been in the business for several years, and you're doing pretty well, but you've hit a plateau. Whatever the case, you're looking for a way to put your business on the path to continuous growth. If this sounds like you, you're in the right place. The Breakthrough Insurance Agency shows you how to build a successful agency from the ground up. Moreover, it gives you the keys to break out of the stagnation rut many agents fall into after they're established. Using his acclaimed agency-building process, top insurance agent Bart Baker walks you through the ten key steps of creating an agency that give you the results you've been dreaming of. You'll learn how to set a powerful vision for your business, fund continuous growth, maximize your success with the 3M Breakthrough System and the Gap Elimination Process, set up departments that work, structure a compensation plan that serves you and your employees, and ultimately transform your agency from a quote shop into a referral shop. It doesn't matter what stage of the game you're at. As long as you are truly motivated to create a bigger and better future for yourself, you can shave years and years off of your journey to getting you and your family to where you aspire to be. The Breakthrough Insurance Agency will show you how to make it happen."

Finally, a book just for multiline agents! Like any mission to space, the launch of your multiline agency is highly choreographed with many time- and sequence-dependent actions that need to happen at an exact time or within a tight launch window. You must develop and follow a specific flight plan. Nothing should be left to chance. Whether you are a new agent or an experienced veteran agent, Prepare to Launch contains your flight plan for success! You will learn time-tested and proven strategies developed just for multiple-line agents. Here are just some of the valuable and easy-to-implement strategies you will learn in this book that you can start using in your agency today: - Use the author's breakthrough marketing tool, MAC, to become a valuable partner to real estate agents and loan officers. - Start winning back the ground our industry has lost to direct writers by focusing on the significant value you provide to consumers. - Connect with prospects instead of just communicating with them. - Invest in staff to take care of office tasks so you can focus on production. - Steer price-seekers to the why conversation. - Request preferrals-preferred referrals-in every client meeting. - And much, much more! The T-10 steps in this book are the key to mission success in your multiline agency!

The world’s most forward-looking CEOs recognize the real challenge facing business today: a fundamental shift in the nature of commerce. While sustainability programs, government action, and nonprofits are all parts of the solution, CEOs and other leaders must focus on social, environmental, and economic benefit—not only because it will make the world a better place, but because it will ensure lasting profitability and success in the business climate of tomorrow. The Breakthrough Challenge is both an inspiring call-to-action and a guide for this transformation, based on the work of The B Team, a major initiative uniting leaders in sustainability. As a founding advisor and member of The B Team, John Elkington and Jochen Zeitz map out an agenda for change. The most important goal for businesses must be redefining the bottom line to account for true long-term costs throughout the supply chain. To achieve this, leaders must rethink everything: what counts on balance sheets, how to incentivize performance, who does what in the C-suite, and even what inspires us. The Breakthrough Challenge draws on over 100 exclusive interviews to show this shift in action, sharing the pioneering work of leaders such as Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever; Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of The Huffington Post; Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman of the Nestlé Group; and Linda Fisher, pioneering Chief Sustainability Officer at DuPont, among many others. Change-as-usual strategies are not enough to move business from breakdowns to breakthroughs. The Breakthrough Challenge shows leaders how to achieve a true transformation and refocus the definition of profitability on the lasting wellbeing of people and planet—for the lasting success of their business.

Dispelling the myth that innovation is invention & revolution, this text argues that innovators past & present have employed a strategy of technology brokering to source, develop & exploit new ideas. It provides a clear set of recommendations for managing the innovation process in organizations.

Advance praise for Service Innovation: "To the CEOs of all service companies I deal with: READ THIS BOOK!" -- Dave Wascha, senior director, Bing Product Management, Microsoft Corporation "Lance Bettencourt deftly blends his academic and consulting experience to provide an example-rich, readable, practical, and innovative discussion of service innovation." -- Leonard Berry, coauthor of Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic "Provides the robust framework to design services that unlock growth opportunities for every business." -- Lance Reschke, vice president, Ceridian Corporation "The tools and guidance in this book will inspire companies, small and large, to create effective and innovative services that are desperately needed." -- Mary Jo Bitner, Ph.D., W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, and coauthor of Services Marketing: Integrating Customer Focus Across the Firm "Cracks the code from the fuzzy front end through the complete life cycle of Service Innovation." -- Angelo Rago, division vice president, Global Customer Services, Abbott Medical Optics "Filled with rich examples of how firms can innovate service through helping customers get jobs done." -- Stephen W. Brown, Ph.D., W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University "Any leader intent on providing distinctive value to customers must read Service Innovation." -- Michael Reynolds, staff vice president, Commercial Marketing, WellPoint, Inc. If there’s one truism about the service sector, it's that businesses don't succeed by inventing a better mousetrap; they succeed by finding the best, most cost-effective way to get rid of their customers' mice. In industries ranging from heavy machinery to health care to financial services to consumer goods, service innovation is helping businesses find new revenue streams--and enhance existing ones--by satisfying their customer's need to get things done. Few understand this better than Lance Bettencourt, a strategy adviser at Strategyn and a leading educator in management innovation consulting. And in Service Innovation, Bettencourt gives a master's class on the art and science of creating breakthrough service products. True service innovation demands that you shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. To achieve this shift in your business--one that takes you from making educated guesses to building a clear model to guide service innovation--Bettencourt instructs on the finer points of how to rethink your approach to the customer's needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service. Bettencourt mines nearly 20 years' experience in teaching and advising clients with service- and product-dominant businesses to demonstrate proven ways you can build, streamline, and focus your company's service product innovation processes. Among the numerous key ideas and practices are: Insight on understanding the different types of clients you serve—and how your products deliver value to them Ways to design specific frameworks for discovering service innovation opportunities for new, improved, and supplementary service products Practical guidance on staying focused on the "fuzzy front end" of service innovation The fundamental elements of a winning service strategy Finding new ways to help people solve problems and get things done is why there are goods and services in the first place. And in Service Innovation, Lance Bettencourt fills a vital need by delivering the essential guide that can put your business on the latest frontier of value creation.

We live in a time when attention spans are shrinking while demands on our emotions are accelerating at ever increasing rates. The media that once brought us news now seems determined to interpret it, forcing us to take sides rather than come to understanding. This growing white noise of conflict threatens to overwhelm our ability to find peace of mind. How can we clear away the unnecessary clutter and help ourselves, and others lead lives of true contentment and continuing growth? The answer to this question is found in a remarkable new book, Beyond Help, by Dr. Camaron J Thomas. It is a breakthrough guide that shows us, step by step, how we can help ourselves and others become better human beings in a dehumanizing world. Thomas text is profound yet easy to grasp and richly illustrated by examples taken from her long experience as a professional mediator. It leads the reader through the challenges and pitfalls of self-perception to the heights of the abiding presence; showing us how to cast debilitating baggage aside along the way so we can rise to our fullest potential. Beyond Help breaks the mold of self-help publications by empowering rather than manipulating the reader. It is a lifeline to anyone struggling to evolve in the turbulent waters racing beneath the surface of todays social network.

Corporate Explorers Transform Disruption Into Opportunity With This Proven Framework Innovation used to be seen as a game best left to entrepreneurs, but now a new breed of corporate managers is flipping this logic on its head. These Corporate Explorers have the insight, resilience, and discipline to overcome the obstacles and build new ventures from inside even the largest organizations. Corporate Explorers are part entrepreneurs, using innovation disciplines to jump start cutting-edge ideas, and part change leaders, capable of creating support for investment. They see that corporations already own the ideas, resources, and—critically—the talent to build new ventures. Companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Bosch, LexisNexis, and Analog Devices enable managers to put these assets to use and gain an upper hand over startups that threaten to disrupt them. Corporate Explorer is a guidebook to the practices that enable these managers to go from idea into action. It demonstrates how success is not only possible but may offer entrenched companies better odds than venture-capital backed startups. This actionable and proven framework explains how managers can become successful corporate innovators; it includes tools to: Learn how to apply innovation practices with greater discipline Turn great ideas into a full-time job as an innovation leader Experiment with and scale original business models Transform innovation programs into a thriving source of new business Attract, retain, and motivate entrepreneurial talent Energize employees by creating a realistic way to innovate These lessons come from the trailblazers of corporate innovation—Andrew Binns (Change Logic), Charles O'Reilly (Stanford Graduate School of Business), and Michael Tushman (Harvard Business School)—who have decades of experience helping entrepreneurial-minded executives activate employees to become Corporate Explorers. Entrepreneurs take notice—it's time for Corporate Explorers to set the pace and chart the course for disruption.

If you’re aspiring to satisfy your customers, then you’re aspiring to mediocrity. That’s the fascinating premise of From Impressed to Obsessed, a book that will fundamentally change how you think about creating a successful, beloved business. Acclaimed customer experience expert Jon Picoult explains why building customer loyalty requires leaving indelible positive impressions on everyone you work with—not just shaping their experiences, but also shaping their memories. Picoult explores the cognitive science behind great customer experiences, pinpointing the breakthrough, psychology-based strategies that both industry leaders (like Apple, Disney, and Southwest Airlines) as well as fast-growing startups (like BILT and Framebridge) use to shape people’s perceptions and sculpt unforgettable impressions—thereby turning more sales prospects into customers, and more customers into obsessed brand ambassadors. Packed with intriguing case studies, engaging stories, and eye-opening research, the book details these proven principles and illustrates how they can be applied to almost any type of business or customer. Examples include cases that show how to: • Create Peaks & Avoid Valleys—leverage the science of memory to etch positive impressions in people’s minds, by creating greater experiential peaks and fewer experiential valleys. • Give the Perception of Control—the almost magical power of giving customers a sense of agency, via choice and expectation-setting, causing them to feel better about the experience a business is already delivering. • Make It Effortless—make interactions easy for customers, not just from a physical perspective, but also a cognitive one, to satisfy today’s demand for simplicity and convenience. • Stir Emotion—harness the power of emotion as a memory cue, by infusing customer experiences with emotional resonance, highlighting positive feelings while stemming negative ones. No matter what kind of constituency you serve—customers or colleagues, individuals or institutions, employees or employment candidates—this book will help you do it with distinction. Picoult’s message is particularly relevant for managers, as he shows the parallels between how great companies cultivate engagement with customers, and how great leaders accomplish the same with their workforce. From Impressed to Obsessed reveals the what, the why, and—most importantly—the how behind great customer experiences. Filled with actionable insights, the book provides an invaluable roadmap for becoming the company that everyone wants to do business with, the employer everyone wants to work for, and the leader everyone wants to follow.

The Inclusion Breakthrough explains how to make diversity a central and profitable part of an organizations strategy for long-term success rather than merely a peripheral program. The authors, principals of a leading diversity consulting firm, present proven strategies for stimulating the creativity and productivity of any businesss greatest resource its people. Benefits to companies that have implemented these inclusion strategies are also described.

Wasting time in pointless meetings....It's the bane of work life-and the one thing that never seems to change. But meetings can be highly effective, says Martin Murphy, who has helped a "Who's Who" of corporate clients transform timesapping meetings into "breakthrough sessions" that are truly productive. His strategy is not simply to speed them up or make them more palatable with flashier facilitation. Rather, the key is to upend the entire concept of meetings. That means throwing out traditional protocols and using one of four new collaboration models to get more done, faster than ever before. These sessions address: Issues management: identify, rank, and resolve issues-promoting critical concerns to Action Plan status * Problem solving: thirty-minute sessions for solving complex problems * Innovation: discover the billion-dollar idea that lurks in every organization * Strategic planning: stripped-down protocols for the kind of ongoing, realtime planning required in today's fast-paced economy In an era when innovation and speed-to-market rule, No More Pointless Meetings leverages the creativity and knowledge of an organization's people-a potent resource that conventional meetings ignore.