800-CEO-READ Blog

Jack Covert Selects - Your Marketing Sucks

Your Marketing Sucks by Mark Stevens, Crown Business, 224 Pages, $24.00 Hardcover, July 2003, ISBN 0609609831

Author Mark Stevens certainly caught my attention with the title of his new book, “Your Marketing Sucks.” And just like the title, the slim book gets straight to the point in only 224 pages.

Stevens argues that marketing, like any other part of your business, should produce measurable results. Too many companies, he says, spend money on marketing programs that do not increase sales. So, instead of continuing these wasteful programs, marketing execs must re-evaluate them, and ask themselves, “Does our marketing suck?”

Don’t worry—Stevens tells you how to know if your marketing does, in fact, suck. There is even a diagnostic test on-line! If you do need to re-vamp your programs, he tells you some very important misconceptions about marketing (creative ads do not necessarily mean effective ads), and what to shoot for (sales!—isn’t that why we have marketing programs?). Some of the points he brings up are very common sense, but so often overlooked. Stevens shows how to test, execute, and monitor your marketing; how to use integrated marketing; and how to market to existing customers, which is often easier and more fruitful than trying to gain new customers. I especially liked the chapter that tells you how to go from being a Lazy Marketer to an Extreme Marketer. I think it is the crux of the book, sharing ideas on risk-taking, leadership, and execution.

Writing with an honesty and straightforwardness that goes very well with his premise, Stevens uses many case studies of companies he has dealt with in his career as president of a successful marketing firm. As we sit in the middle of a recession, no company can afford to throw money at things that don’t work. Every dollar counts—including those used for marketing. If your marketing is costing more than it is netting, this is the book for you.

Jack Covert Selects - Hug Your Customers

Hug Your Customers: The Proven Way to Personalize Sales and Achieve Astounding Results by Jack Mitchell, Hyperion Books, 260 Pages, $19.95 Hardcover, June 2003, ISBN 1401300340

Jack Mitchell is the CEO of Mitchells/Richards, an extremely successful clothing store in Connecticut, whose two locations are doing over $65 million in yearly sales. To thrive in an area just a nine-iron away from Manhattan requires something special, and Jack Mitchell tells us exactly how they do it in this fun read. They do it by “hugging their customers,” which entails not meeting expectations, but exceeding them.

Mitchell talks about the “magic list” which is free parking, free coffee, free alterations etc. And, every Saturday in the summer, they give away hot dogs. They also give away kosher hot dogs for their Jewish clientele. But what really makes them unique is the fact that since one of their loyal customers has a cholesterol problem, they now also offer turkey dogs! This is just one way that they have become a customer-centric organization.

Another way they accomplish this “hugging” is by SKU-ing their customers. This may sound cold and impersonal, but it really isn’t. As Mitchell says:
We’re trying to measure and understand our customers in every possible way. We have over 115,000 customers in our database, and by listening and learning over the years we get to know a great deal about every one of them…
Once you’ve built a customer-centric organization, you’ll find that customer loyalty builds over time, and with it, profitability. The true key to long-term profitability is strong and enduring relationships between customers and sellers.

What I especially like is how Mitchell presents his points. The book is 260 pages and has 56 chapters. The chapters are divided into eight parts like: “Hugging 101,” “The Big Secret,” “The Formula,” “We Love Mistakes,” and “The Power of New.” The page-to-chapter equation means that the chapters are short and easily digested. They are perfect for the training course that you have wanted to start on customer service.

Jack Covert Selects - Beans

Beans: Four Principles for Running a Business in Good Times and Bad by Leslie A. Yerkes & Charles Decker, Jossey-Bass, 176 Pages, $19.95 Hardcover, July 2003, ISBN 0787967645

This new book by Leslie Yerkes and Charles Decker tells the story of Jack and Dianne Hartman and the (real but fictionally-named) El Espresso, their highly successful coffee shop in Seattle. It’s a little shop, definitely an underdog in the city where Starbucks originated. But, every day, there is a line out the door of loyal customers waiting sometimes up to 20 minutes for an El Espresso espresso. However, after a large dot-com company left the neighborhood, business at the El has declined, and the Hartmans are baffled by what to do about it.

Jack and Dianne meet with consultant Carol Wisdom, who observes them and the business in action for a couple of days. She then tells Jack and Dianne that they can solve their problems by going back to the principles that initially made their business so successful: “The Four P’s”—Passion, People, Personal, Product—and “The Eye of Intention.”

The book has many helpful notes at the end, including notes from Carol Wisdom’s notebook, and discussion questions that you can use in a group reading of the book (which the authors recommend doing). Also, the authors have included a fun appendix containing “A Short History of Coffee Through the Ages.” This is a fast read (certainly an excellent airplane or beach read) which will show you how to gain perspective on your business and your role in the business, and how to be inspired to reach success whether you’re just starting out or recovering from a set-back.

Jack Covert Selects - The 1001 Rewards and Recognition Fieldbook

The 1001 Rewards and Recognition Fieldbook: The Complete Guide by Bob Nelson, Ph.D. and Dean Spitzer, Ph.D., Workman Publishing, 377 Pages, $17.95 Paperback, May 2003, ISBN 0761121390

Bestselling author Bob Nelson returns with Dean Spitzer to give us this giant compendium of rewards and recognition theories, programs, and case studies. This is 377 pages filled to the brim with all kinds of information, statistics, quotes, illustrations, graphs, and tables that make it easier for you to understand the main concepts at the heart of the book.

The thing that I love about this book (and all of Bob Nelson’s books) is the layout of it. I felt so energized and motivated by the layout of the book as I read it. This sounds trivial, but the layout really makes the book feel and act like an action guide, not just a book. Of course, to be an action guide, it has to contain great ideas, which the fieldbook does. And, all of them are backed with real-life examples that show how they work.

I just can’t stress how much this book contains. It starts out with why and how reward and recognition works, and its benefits. Then the authors go step by step (and I mean step by step!) and show you how to build your own recognition culture. Along the way, they point out what motivates people, what de-motivates people, many no-cost or low-cost recognition ideas, and helpful take-aways. They even provide sample recognition program plans! If you think you will have a hard time selling the idea of a recognition program to the higher-ups, don’t worry—they’ve got that covered, too! And if you’re having problems with the program you’ve created? There is a chapter called “Troubleshooting Recognition Problems.” After that, there is a chapter on how to maintain and reenergize recognition, followed by150+ pages of recognition tools, resources, and articles! THEN, there are even quick reference cards in the back for you to punch out and use. This is truly a complete, definitive—and most importantly—useful book.

Considering how much you stand to gain out of reading this book, you’d be silly to pass it up for its list price of $17.95. Even if you don’t read it all the way through, it still makes a great reference and idea book that you can return to time and time again. This is not a book you’ll read once and plant on a shelf—this is a valuable resource that will be dog-eared and book marked on top of your desk!

Jack Covert Selects - 24 Days

24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies That Destroyed Faith in Corporate America by Rebecca Smith, John R. Emshwiller, Harpercollins, $25.95, Aug 1, 2003, ISBN 0060520736

We know that Enron went out with a bang, but do we actually know what events led up to the explosion? 24 Days is the true story of the digging two Wall Street Journal writers did to try and understand one of the most complicated and shadowy corporations on the planet.

The title comes from the number of days between October 16, 2001 when Enron released its quarterly earnings, and November 8 when they filed documents with the Security and Exchange Commission. Those documents showed all the deceitful accounting practices and the hidden deals used to inflate the value of Enron. These practices destroyed Enron and Arthur Andersen, and cost us all money. Plus, Enron’s 15,000 employees’ retirement funds took a $1.2B hit. CEOs Skilling, Lay, Fastow and Pai walked away with $522m from selling Enron stock!

The story really reads like a mystery. It reminds me of a similar book, that in the 1990s, shocked but also fascinated people—not unlike a car wreck on the freeway—Barbarians at the Gate. It gave a fly on the wall view of the feeding frenzy around RJR. The book also read like a novel because you just couldn’t believe what you were reading.