The Marketing Book Podcast

The Sea We Swim In: How Stories Work in a Data-Driven World by Frank Rose About the Book: A practical guide to "narrative thinking," and why it matters in a world defined by data. In The Sea We Swim In, Frank Rose leads us to a new understanding of stories and their role in our lives. For decades, experts from many fields―psychologists, economists, advertising and marketing executives―failed to register the power of narrative. Scientists thought stories were frivolous. Economists were knee-deep in theory. Marketers just wanted to cut to the sales pitch. Yet stories, not reasoning, are the key to persuasion. Whether we’re aware of it or not, stories determine how we view the world and our place in it. That means the tools of professional storytellers―character, world, detail, voice―can unlock a way of thinking that’s ideal for an age in which we don’t passively consume media but actively participate in it. Building on insights from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Rose shows us how to see the world in narrative terms, not as a thesis to be argued or a pitch to be made but as a story to be told. Leading brands and top entertainment professionals already understand the vast potential of storytelling. From Warby Parker to Mailchimp to The Walking Dead, Rose explains how they use stories to establish their identity and turn ordinary people into fans―and how you can do the same. About the Author: Frank Rose is an author, essayist, and keynote speaker. A senior fellow at the Columbia University School of the Arts, he teaches global business executives as faculty director of its Strategic Storytelling program, presented in partnership with Columbia Business School Executive Education, and serves as awards director of its Digital Storytelling Lab. His previous book, The Art of Immersion: How the Digital Generation is Remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the Way We Tell Stories, was hailed by the International Journal of Advertising as "an essential overview" of the fundamental changes affecting media. Before moving to Columbia, Frank spent many years reporting on the impact of technology on media as a contributing editor at Wired and a contributing writer at Fortune before that. His 1989 best-seller West of Eden, about the ouster of Steve Jobs from Apple, was named one of the ten best books of the year by Businessweek. Among his other books is The Agency, an unauthorized history of the oldest and at one time most successful talent agency in Hollywood. And, interesting facts: he is a native of Virginia and graduated from Wash­ington & Lee University with a degree in journalism and moved soon after to New York, where he got his start covering the punk scene at CBGB for The Village Voice, chronicling the emergence of Patti Smith, the Ramones, and Talking Heads. Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/sea-we-swim-in-frank-rose

Positioning for Advantage: Techniques and Strategies to Grow Brand Value by Kimberly Whitler About the Book: Most of us have an intuitive sense of superior branding. We prefer to purchase brands we find distinctive―that deliver on some important, relevant dimension better than other brands. These brands have typically achieved positional advantage. Yet few professionals have had the formal training that goes beyond marketing theory to bridge the “theory-doing gap”―understanding the specific techniques and strategies that can be used to create brands that attain positional advantage in the marketplace. Positioning for Advantage is a comprehensive how-to guide for creating, building, and executing effective brand strategies. Kimberly A. Whitler identifies essential marketing strategy techniques and moves through the major stages of positioning a brand to achieve in-market advantage. Introducing seven tools―from strategic positioning concepts to strategy mapping to influencer maps―Whitler provides templates, frameworks, and step-by-step processes to build and manage growth brands that achieve positional advantage. This book presents real-world scenarios, helping readers activate tools to increase skill in creating brands that achieve positional advantage. Brimming with insights for students and professionals alike, Positioning for Advantage helps aspiring C-level leaders understand not only what superior branding looks like but also how to make it come to life. About the Author: Dr. Kimberly A. Whitler is currently the Frank M. Sands Sr. Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business.  Previously, she spent nearly 20 years in general management, strategy, and marketing roles within the consumer packaged goods and retailing industries, managing global, U.S., and Eastern European-based businesses. She spent most of her career at Procter & Gamble and more recently served as the general manager of the Breakfast Division for Aurora Foods, the CMO of David’s Bridal, the country’s leading bridal apparel retailer, and as an officer of PetSmart, the U.S.' largest pet specialty retailer. She has written over 350 articles as a Forbes senior contributor and has published in Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Washington Post, Ad Age, and numerous academic journals and other publications.  Her Forbes articles have garnered over 3,500,000 views, and she has been ranked as a Top Five influencer of CMOs, a Top 10 influencer of Tech B2B CMOs, and a Top 100 MarTech influencer. She has been interviewed, cited, or quoted over 2,100 times, including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, New York Times, NBC, ABC, USA Today, Entrepreneur, Fox Sports, Huffington Post, and a variety of international media outlets. And, interesting fact – she is an avid UVA men’s basketball fan! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/positioning-advantage-kim-whitler

RE:Think Innovation: How the World's Most Prolific Innovators Come Up with Great Ideas that Deliver Extraordinary Outcomes by Carla Johnson About the Book: RE:Think Innovation makes coming up with great ideas everybody’s business. People think innovation isn’t sustainable, so they make it much harder than it has to be. Experts portray it as confusing and complicated so they can charge big fees. Executives make it intimidating and complex, so they appear smarter and important. Traditional innovators imply you need a special degree or training to know how to do it right. The truth is, consistently coming up with great ideas isn’t a talent one is born with or a skill that takes years to learn. It’s actually a simple 5-step framework that anyone can follow to look at the work that they do differently, and have a bigger impact on the people they serve. RE:Think Innovation answers the question of how to tie individual competence with innovation techniques to direct corporate outcomes. Within its pages, Carla Johnson shows how to create a unified, idea-driven employee base that delivers more ideas in a shorter amount of time. Ultimately, this is the path that makes organizations genuinely nimble, passionate, innovative powerhouses that deliver extraordinary outcomes for sustained periods of time. About the Author: Carla Johnson is an innovation and marketing expert, keynote speaker, and prolific author. Her work with Fortune 500 brands served as the foundation for many of her books. Having lived, worked, and studied on five continents, she's trained thousands of people how to rethink the work that they do and the impact they can have. Her expertise has inspired and equipped leaders at all levels to embrace change, welcome new ideas, and transform their businesses. And, interesting facts about Carla - (based on a careful reading of her book) she grew up in a town of 1,000 people in rural Nebraska, when she was four years old she was in the community fashion show, she's been known to doze off in big, soft, cushy chairs and coffee shops, and if you ever meet her in person – she's a hugger! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/re-think-innovation-carla-johnson

Data-First Marketing: How To Compete and Win In the Age of Analytics by Janet Driscoll Miller and Julia Lim About the Book: In Data-First Marketing: How to Compete & Win in the Age of Analytics, distinguished authors Miller and Lim demystify the application of data analytics to marketing in any size business. Digital transformation has created a widening gap between what the CEO and business expect marketing to do and what the CMO and the marketing organization actually deliver. The key to unlocking the true value of marketing is data – from actual buyer behavior to targeting info on social media platforms to marketing’s own campaign metrics. Data is the next big battlefield for not just marketers, but also for the business because the judicious application of data analytics will create a competitive advantage in the Age of Analytics. Miller and Lim show marketers where to start by leveraging their decades of experience to lay out a step-by-step process to help businesses transform into data-first marketing organizations. The book includes a self-assessment that will help to place your organization on the Data-First Marketing Maturity Model and serve as a guide for which steps you might need to focus on to complete your own transformation. Data-First Marketing: How to Compete & Win in the Age of Analytics should be used by CMOs and heads of marketing to institute a data-first approach throughout the marketing organization. Marketing staffers can pick up practical tips for incorporating data in their daily tasks using the Data-First Marketing Campaign Framework. And CEOs or anyone in the C-suite can use this book to see what is possible and then help their marketing teams to use data analytics to increase pipeline, revenue, customer loyalty – anything that drives business growth.    About the Author: Janet Driscoll Miller is a digital marketing expert, writer, and keynote speaker. She has nearly 30 years of digital marketing experience and founded the digital marketing agency Marketing Mojo in 2005. She has worked with many top-tier clients, including National Geographic, Mazda USA, LexisNexis, and Activision. She is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Virginia and James Madison University, her alma mater.  She previously authored a book on Google analytics, Getting Started With Google Analytics: How to Set up Google Analytics Correctly from the Beginning. And, interesting fact - outside of digital marketing, Janet is passionate about women's rights and building the next generation of female leaders. She is an active supporter of the Girl Scouts, serving as a troop leader, camp volunteer, and trainer. Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/data-first-marketing-janet-driscoll-miller

Human-Centered Communication: A Business Case Against Digital Pollution by Ethan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli About the Book: Digital pollution is the problem. Human-centered communication is the solution. We’re spending more time than ever in virtual environments. That will only increase, as will the amount of noise we encounter there. The seemingly endless series of unwelcome digital distractions range from frustrating to dangerous. As individuals and businesses, we not only spend time and energy managing this digital pollution, we often create it. At risk are relationships and revenue. The only viable way forward is to be more thoughtful, intentional, and personal. Human-Centered Communication provides a philosophy and practice to help you connect in more meaningful and effective ways with prospects, customers, team members, and every stakeholder in your success. Learn to: Break through the noise and earn attention Build trust and create engagement Enhance your reputation with both people and algorithms The concepts and models in this book apply to any form or channel of communication, but human centricity favors video. More visual and emotional than faceless digital communication, video enhances tone, intent, subtlety, nuance, and meaning. Learn to be clearer and more confident on camera in live video calls, meetings, and presentations, as well as in recorded video emails, social messages, and text messages. The authors of the bestselling Rehumanize Your Business join with eleven industry-leading experts from companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and RE/MAX to lead the growing conversation on leveraging human strengths in an increasingly digital world. The brightest future is tech-enabled, but authors Ethan Beute and Stephen Pacinelli show that it’s also human-centered. The experts studied, interviewed, and featured: Jacco van der Kooij, Founder of Winning by Design Dan Hill, Ph.D., President of Sensory Logic Mathew Sweezey, Director of Market Strategy at Salesforce Julie Hansen, Creator of the Selling on Video Master Class Adam Contos, CEO of RE/MAX Lauren Bailey, Founder and President of Factor 8 and #GirlsClub Mario Martinez Jr, Founder and CEO of Vengreso Viveka von Rosen, Co-founder and Chief Visibility Officer at Vengreso Shep Hyken, Customer Service and Customer Experience Expert Morgan J Ingram, Director of Sales Execution at JB Sales Training Dan Tyre, sales executive and founding team member at HubSpot Among the themes addressed: Trust and relationships Communication and connection Service and value Text and video Noise and pollution Among the types of videos in which you’ll become more confident and effective: Live, synchronous video meetings Recorded, asynchronous video messages Video calls and video presentations Video in emails and text messages Video in social feeds and social messages Video for specific individuals and large groups Video for known audiences and anonymous masses Video for prospects, customers, employees, and other stakeholders For immediate benefits and for long-term reputation, now is the time to get ahead of and stay ahead of ever-increasing digital noise and pollution - with Human-Centered Communication. About the Author: Ethan Beute is the Chief Evangelist at BombBomb a video email sales and marketing software platform, is the host of The Customer Experience Podcast, and co-author of Rehumanize Your Business: How Personal Videos Accelerate Sales and Improve Customer Experience (featured on episode 239 of The Marketing Book Podcast in 2019). Ethan has collected and told personal video success stories in hundreds of blog posts, in dozens of webinars, podcasts, and stage presentations, and in countless conversations. He's sent more than 12,000 video messages himself. Prior to joining BombBomb, he spent a dozen years leading marketing inside local television stations in Chicago, Grand Rapids, and Colorado Springs. And, interesting fact - his first real job out of college was driving a school bus for Microsoft! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/human-centered-communication-ethan-beute

Sell Different!: All New Sales Differentiation Strategies to Outsmart, Outmaneuver, and Outsell the Competition by Lee Salz About the Book: Game-changing new strategies to outsmart, outmaneuver, and outsell your competition! Salespeople face fierce competition in their pursuit of winning deals. Differences in product features and functions get smaller by the minute and are not always meaningful to buyers. How do you stand out from the pack and not just land the account, but win deals at the prices you want? Lee B. Salz’s previous ground-breaking, bestselling book, Sales Differentiation, armed salespeople with strategies to differentiate both what they sell and how they sell it. Sell Different! provides a new component of Sales Differentiation strategy to help you outsmart, outmaneuver, and outsell the competition to win more deals at the prices you want. This book provides you with the tools you need to land new accounts and grow existing ones. The practical, proven strategies presented in Sell Different! include: How to defeat your toughest competitor (hint: it’s not who you think it is) An actionable 16-phase plan to reach and engage elusive prospects Finding more of your best clients (it’s easier than you think) Acquiring more referrals than you ever dreamed possible Virtual selling and how to harness its potential Neutralizing the fear of change that paralyzes buyers and kills deals Structuring pilot programs that advance your deals Identifying the critical person needed to win more deals at the prices you want Solving closing problems and fixing the real issue limiting your success Dissecting and resolving the most challenging sales objection — price! What 99.999% of salespeople don’t do, but should Expanding account relationships to explode revenue and lock out the competition How to address a major flaw when comparing salespeople with professional athletes And much, much more! If you are a salesperson, executive, or business owner who desires to win more deals at the prices you want, then this book is for you. About the Author:  Lee Salz is a keynote speaker and sales management strategist on sales differentiation, salesforce development, hiring, onboarding, compensation, and other sales performance topics. He is the CEO of Sales Architects, and prior to that for most of his career, he served in sales and marketing leadership roles. He’s the author of several books, including Sales Differentiation: 19 Powerful Strategies to Win More Deals at the Prices You Want and is a featured columnist in The Business Journals and is a media source on sales and sales management, and has been quoted and featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, The New York Times, MSNBC, ABC News, and numerous other outlets. And, interesting facts: he is a championship powerlifter, a die-hard New York Yankees fan, and he proposed to his wife in the White House Rose Garden!  Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/sell-different-lee-salz

The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth by John Jantsch About the Book: It is more difficult than ever for businesses and marketing professionals to cut through the noise to create relationships with their customers. Organizations that focus on converting their customers to members and helping them achieve the lasting transformation they are seeking rather than simply offering the transaction of the moment are winning. The Ultimate Marketing Engine promises to teach readers how to develop a system to take every customer from where they are to where they want to be by building on the innovative principles first brought to the marketing world in Duct Tape Marketing and honed over three decades of working with thousands of businesses. Introducing the Customer Success Track The Ultimate Marketing Engine introduces an innovative new approach to a marketing strategy that will transform how readers view their business, their marketing, and perhaps, even how they view every customer. Readers will learn: Why strategy must come before tactics. How to narrow your focus and choose only ideal customers. Why no one wants what you sell – and what they actually want. How to use story and narrative as the voice of strategy. How to construct the perfect customer journey. How to grow your business with your customers. This book will help readers take control of their marketing while creating ridiculously consistent business growth. About the Author: John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker, podcaster, and author. His other books include Duct Tape Marketing, The Referral Engine, The Commitment Engine, Duct Tape Selling, SEO for Growth, and The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur. He is also the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network, which trains and licenses independent consultants and agencies to use the Duct Tape Methodology. John’s small business advice has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall St. Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, CNBC, and CNNMoney among others. Seth Godin called John Jantsch the "Peter Drucker of small business tactics." And, interesting fact - he is now a member of a very exclusive club, The Marketing Book Podcast 5-Timers Club! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/ultimate-marketing-engine-john-jantsch

About this Bonus Episode: Not too long ago I was interviewed by Philip Stutts on his Undefeated Marketing Podcast. Longtime listeners may recognize his name since Philip has been a guest on The Marketing Book Podcast twice: The first time for his book Fire Them Now: The 7 Lies Digital Marketers Sell...And the Truth about Political Strategies that Help Businesses Win More recently to talk about his newest book, The Undefeated Marketing System: How to Grow Your Business and Build Your Audience Using the Secret Formula That Elects Presidents He was also on the show for part of the limited-time series Authors in Quarantine Getting Cocktails when I produced 66 episodes during the lockdown in 2020, and he was one of the primary reasons I started doing it. Philip has a very interesting background. For many many years, he has been a political consultant and has worked on over 1,200 political campaigns including U.S. presidential races in the United States. His political media firm is Go Big Media. Over the years a number of his clients asked for business marketing advice so he later established a separate marketing firm just for businesses Win Big Media. Much of his marketing advice is based on the realities of what has worked well for marketing candidates, and I find that very intriguing and enormously effective these days. Philip and I were introduced by another guest on the show, David Meerman Scott, author of several books including The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Content Marketing, Podcasting, Social Media, AI, Live Video, and Newsjacking to Reach Buyers Directly (7th edition), and Phillip later introduced me to the legendary Jay Abraham whom I was able to interview on the podcast about his book, The Sticking Point Solution: 9 Ways to Move Your Business from Stagnation to Stunning Growth. Phillip has really enjoyed being on The Marketing Book Podcast and has heard from a lot of marketing book podcast listeners, and he thought that this short interview might be of interest to my listeners because we talked about some key ideas from the first 350 books that have been on the show, and since last week I did publish episode 350 with Dorie Clark about her new book, The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, this seemed like a nice celebratory bonus. Enjoy! -Douglas Burdett, host of The Marketing Book Podcast Click here for this episode's website page to access all the links mentioned during the interview: https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/ideas-350-books  

The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World by Dorie Clark About the Book: Your personal goals need a long-term strategy. It's no secret that we're pushed to the limit. Today's professionals feel rushed, overwhelmed, and perennially behind. So we keep our heads down, focused on the next thing, and the next, without a moment to breathe. How can we break out of this endless cycle and create the kind of interesting, meaningful lives we all seek? Just as CEOs who optimize for quarterly profits often fail to make the strategic investments necessary for long-term growth, the same is true in our own personal and professional lives. We need to reorient ourselves to see the big picture so we can tap into the power of small changes that, made today, will have an enormous and disproportionate impact on our future success. We need to start playing The Long Game. As top business thinker and Duke University professor Dorie Clark explains, we all know intellectually that lasting success takes persistence and effort. And yet so much of the relentless pressure in our culture pushes us toward doing what's easy, what's guaranteed, or what looks glamorous in the moment. In The Long Game, she argues for a different path. It's about doing small things over time to achieve our goals—and being willing to keep at them, even when they seem pointless, boring, or hard. In The Long Game, Clark shares unique principles and frameworks you can apply to your specific situation, as well as vivid stories from her own career and other professionals' experiences. Everyone is allotted the same twenty-four hours—but with the right strategies, you can leverage those hours in more efficient and powerful ways than you ever imagined. It's never an overnight process, but the long-term payoff is immense: to finally break out of the frenetic day-to-day routine and transform your life and your career. About the Author: Dorie Clark helps individuals and companies get their best ideas heard in a crowded, noisy world. She has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards, and one of the Top 10 Communications Professionals in the World by Global Gurus. She consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, including Google, the World Bank, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Yale University. Dorie is the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You, and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Dorie has been described by the New York Times as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” She is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and she is quoted frequently in the worldwide media, including NPR, the BBC, and MSNBC. And, interesting facts - she is a former journalist, a producer of a multiple Grammy-winning jazz album, and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School. Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/long-game-dorie-clark

Get Different: Marketing That Can't Be Ignored! by Mike Michalowicz About the Book: From Mike Michalowicz, bestselling author of Profit First, Clockwork, and Fix This Next, a practical and proven guide to standing out in a crowded market. Many business owners are frustrated because they feel invisible in a crowded marketplace. They know they are better than their competitors, but when they focus on that fact, they get little in return. That's because, to customers, better is not actually better. Different is better. And those who market differently, win. In his new marketing book, Mike Michalowicz offers a proven, no-bullsh*t method to position your business, service, or brand to get noticed, attract the best prospects, and convert those opportunities into sales. Told with the same humor and straight-talk that's gained Michalowicz an army of ardent followers, with actionable insights drawn from stories of real-life entrepreneurs, this book lays out a simple, doable system based on three critical questions every entrepreneur and business owner must ask about their marketing: 1. Does it differentiate? 2. Does it attract? 3. Does it direct? Get Different is a game-changer for everyone who struggles to grow because their brand, message, product or service doesn't stand out and connect with customers--the long-anticipated answer to the defining business challenge of our time. About the Author:  By his 35th birthday, Mike Michalowicz had founded and sold two multi-million dollar companies. Confident that he had the formula to success, he became a small business angel investor... and proceeded to lose his entire fortune. Then he started all over again, driven to find better ways to grow healthy, strong companies. Since then Mike has devoted his life to the research and delivery of innovative, impactful business growth strategies. Mike is the creator of Profit First, which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies around the world to drive profit. He is the creator of Clockwork, a powerful method to make any business run on automatic. He is the author of Profit First, Clockwork, Fix This Next, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Pumpkin Plan, Surge, and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. Today, Mike leads two new multi-million-dollar ventures, as he tests his latest business research for his books. He is a popular keynote speaker, a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and business makeover specialist on MSNBC. Mike is also a guest lecturer at universities including Babson, Boston College, Columbia, Copenhagen Business School, Emerson, Harvard, Penn State, Pepperdine, and Princeton. His books have been translated into over 25 languages and are in the core curriculum for business students at many universities. And, interesting fact - he is a graduate of Virginia Tech (go Hokies!) where he was Captain of the lacrosse team!  Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/get-different-mike-michalowicz