800-CEO-READ Blog: International Bestsellers

August's International Best Sellers

It's that time to find out what people were reading from 800CEOREAD in August all around the world!

Canada Heads Up Kenneth McGee	Great Britain Strengths Finder 2.0 Tom Rath
China The Necessary Revolution Peter M. Senge	Hungary Creating Success from the Inside Out Ephren W. Taylor
India Job Spa Milo Sindell

July's International Best Sellers

The world is getting smaller and smaller and more businesses are going to other countries. Different ideas are being talked about via conference calls, cell phones, emails and yes, books. Here are what people across the time zones of the world were reading from 800-CEO-READ last month:

Canada Strengths Finder 2.0 Tom Rath	Canada Peak Chip Conley
Germany Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan Kim Renee Maubrogne	United Kingdom What the CEO Wants You to Know Ram Charan
Spain Redefining Global Strategy Pankaj Ghemawat	Turkey Leadership Brand W. Norman Smallwood David Ulrich
United Kingdom Hug Your Customers Jack Mitchell	Hungary Remarkable Leadership Kevin Eikenberry

** June's Top 10 International Bestsellers **

You guessed it!

It's that time again to find out what everyone is reading outside of the United States! We had quite a busy month internationally, and here's just a smattering of what was popular:

India Mass Career Customization Cathleen Benko and Ann Weisberg	Spain Rules to Break and Laws to Follow Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.
France How You Do...What You Do Bob Livingston	United Kingdom Earth: The Sequel Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn
Singapore Authenticity James Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine	Thailand The Art of Woo G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
Sweden The Mind of the Customer Richard Hodge and Lou Schachter	Portugal Trading Up Michael Silverstein, Neil Fiske and John Butman
Canada Creating Success from the Inside Out Ephren W. Taylor	China MarketBusters Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan

Well - those are the top 10 books - Hope you all have a GREAT HOLIDAY!!

International Best Sellers for May

Here's what people have been reading across the globe:

# 1 - Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial I.Q. - by Robert T. Kiyosaki - Canada

# 2 - Hostage at the Table - by George Kohlrieser - Switzerland

# 3 - Authenticity: What Customers Really Want - by James Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine - Finland

# 4 - The Adventures of Johnny Bunko - by Daniel H. Pink - Australia

# 5 - Strengths Finder 2.0 - by Tom Rath - Australia

# 6 - Stumbling on Happiness - by Daniel Gilbert - France

# 7 - Its' Not a Glass Ceiling, It's a Sticky Floor: Free Yourself from the Hidden Behaviors Sabotaging Your Career Success - by Rebecca Shambaugh - Canada

# 8 - What the CEO Wants You to Know: The Little Book of Big Business - by Ram Charan - United Kingdom

# 9 - Creating Strategic Leverage: Matching Company Strengths with Market Opportunities - by Milind M. Lele - Denmark

# 10 - Performance Without Compromise: How Emerson Consistently Achieves Winning Results - by Charles F. Knight and Davis Dyer - Germany

Canada Tops the List this Month!

Here's what 800-CEO-READ shipped to other countries in March. Here's what they're reading overseas. :

The Big Switch - Quebec, Canada

Purpose - Besiktas, Istanbul

The Quest for Global Dominance: 2nd Edition - Shanghai, China

Get Out of Your Own Way - Frankfort, Germany

Who's Your City? - Hamburg, Germany

Strengths Finder 2.0 - Strattford-Upon-Avon, Great Britian

Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators - Florence, Italy

Senior Leadership Teams - Lisboa, Portugal

Forces for Good - Toronto, Canada

Hug Your People - London, Great Britain

This past month, we've seen more books then ever going to many different places, unlike previous times when just one book may have been ordered for businesses in different countries. American business books are getting more popular in other parts of the world. If you haven't ordered these titles yet, you may want to - just to see what could be interesting to companies in these other countries....

Bestsellers Overseas

Recently, I found a book called India's Century by Kamal Nath, that would be a great precursor to our listing of February's top sellers in other countries. Here's just a sampling of the book, from chapter five:

In the foreign mind, it was Mumbai (Bombay), of all Indian cities, that used to be the best suited to evoke a vision of modern India. This was all the more evident when I, as the minister for the environment and forests, represented India at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - the "Earth Summit", as it was called - in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 1992. In the course of the conference, which lasted 11 days, I got to know the representatives of a large swath of nation-states, many of them so new that I could barely locate them in a world atlas. Some of them had been born as a result of the breakup of the USSR; others were little specks of land strewn across the Pacific and the Indian Oceans. Many of these representative of new countries, as I could sense, had difficulty in placing New Delhi, the capital, on their mental map of India (unless, of course, they were told that it was close to the Taj Mahal, which brought a glint of recognition to every eye). But Mumbai was know to one and all. The Ukrainian or Moroccan knew it as the home of India's film industry. The man from the little island republic in Micronesia on the other hand, knew Bombay as a financial center, while the Trinidadian knew the city as the home of Sunil Gavaskar, the cricket legend.

Now, here is what was selling overseas:

# 1 Rules to Break and Laws to Follow - Denmark

# 2 Purpose - Bangladesh

# 3 How: Why We Do Anything Means Everything...in Business - United Kingdom

# 4 Smarts: Are We Hardwired for Success? - Mexico

# 5 Strengths Finder 2.0 - Australia

Shipping 'Over There'

I just got an inquiry concerning shipping to another country and they were kind of disappointed to find out how much and how long it will take. Here are just some of my own personal Rules of Thumb to keep in mind when shipping overseas.

* Regular shipping time varies upon countries and customs may hold up boxes for an undertimed length of time, so if you need materials for a specific date, plan well in advance!


* Customs also may charge for the books to get released. If you can, provide your own account information (FEDEX, DHL number) when ordering. Sometimes it helps if the carrier is for the person or company in the country.


* Some countries may have the book there at a distributor or warehouse. If you can and you want to save time and money, the country you are shipping to may have access to the book. Chances are unlikely, but sometimes a popular book can be easy to get in other countries.

* There is no thing called 'Not Enough Information' so, when placing an order for overseas include everything you can about the receiver of the book(s). Email, phone, fax, cell number, even another person for delivery can be helpful. (Mom's maiden name is ok to leave out, but you never know...)

Hope this helps for some of you that order overseas. If you have any questions about pricing, availability of a certain title(s) just give us a call and we'll be glad to assist you!

In the meantime, here are the top selling titles we sent out overseas this past January:

Hostage at the Table - Mexico

Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls - Mexico

Customer Centered Selling - Malaysia

The CEO Within - Sweden

The Dip - Canada

Happy February Everyone!

Thoughts of Friends

Seeing old friends during the holiday season always seems to encourage some reflecting. One thing that I personally thought about were the friends that no longer live close to me anymore. This past year, I made my usual pilgrimage to Hoboken, New Jersey where they moved to. Which is great because I get to stay near Manhattan with great pals, who could ask for more?

I have been visiting the New York City area on a fairly regular basis since 1989 and have done many things there. For instance, I have been to the cupcake place, the Strand, MOMA, the obligatory Broadway shows and all the usual touristy haunts from the start, or so I thought. What I did forget to do was the U.N. building. How could I have been so blind as to miss one of the most important touristy things to do in NYC?!?!

I was ashamed. Mortified. Taken aback, even!

After walking the Brooklyn Bridge (yes, I did not do that before, either) and right before getting a margarita at the pier (yes, I HAVE done that before), I urged my hosts to get me to the U.N., and found out that even they have not been there either. I felt I had done my little part to get us more educated. Then I wondered, when I saw the huge building and walked inside to see the many conference and meeting rooms, "Why haven't I ever wanted to see this before?" Not only is the U.N. one of the most important institutions in the world, but you get to see all sorts of cultures represented by their art, flags and photographs throughout its halls and rooms. If you get a chance to do so, get thee to the U.N.! You'll be amazed!! Oh, and the scenery from behind the building is just as spectacular!

By the way, be it NYC or any city, do try and plan to get back there at least one more time, you will be surprised by what you miss the first time. Which brings be to the point of this...here's what other people around the world are reading this past December:

Redefining Global Strategy - Spain

Strategic Intuition - Mexico

Boston Consulting Group on Strategy - Germany

CEO Within - Sweden

Sketching User Experiences - Mexico

OH and while I'm at it - here's the TOP 10 Books Sold Internationally in 2007!:

Green to Gold - Switzerland

Whole New Mind - Brussels

Redefining Global Strategy - Spain

Life After the 30-Second Spot - Mexico

Blue Ocean Strategy - France

Boston Consulting Group on Strategy - Poland

End of Poverty - United Arab Emiratis

Riding the Blue Train - United Kingdom

Treasure Hunt - Germany

True North - Switzerland

Happy 2008 Everyone!!

Let's Take a Holiday

So, there I was waiting patiently in line to go through the first of 3 security checkpoints at the airport. It was the first time I was traveling overseas with my mom, which I may not do again, but that's only because I lost her during the trip to Mexico. It turns out she was just getting a tattoo, but I digress.

Anyway, I was doing the 'patiently waiting' thing and all....kind of looking forward to be getting pulled aside and asked all 'those questions'. You know the ones, like why are you going here in this country and what not. I wanted to feel like a James Bond villain. I wanted to be That Guy that everyone sees that gets pulled out of the line and forced to go through various searches: body, luggage and then maybe brought in to a separate room for further dialysis. There would be search dogs and maybe even extra guards.

There was nothing, not even a raised eyebrow.

Alright, I know I'm being odd, but I did expect something. You see, I just recently broke my wrist, had metal put in to keep the bones together and the doctor said that the security alarms would go off at the airport. And when it didn't I was saddened. Made me think though. Like why didn't it? Are they doing their job right? If they're not catching me and my gimpy wrist, what else are they missing?

They are probably missing what books people were reading last month overseas and/or across the borders from us. Here they are:

3-D Negotiation - Australia

Wikinomics - Canada

The Boston Consulting Group on Strategy - France

The Starbucks Experience - Barbados

The Three Tensions - Mexico

Oh, and if you're going anywhere this holiday season, I hope you make it through it safely! And try not to lose your mother, if she goes with you!

Doing Business in Mexico

Earlier this month, I noticed a trend in 800-CEO-READ and global business. Just this week, a major U.S. corporation is sending out to their Mexico based offices a book called Redefining Global Strategy.

More and more American businesses are going global and vice versa. To me, it's interesting to learn what businesses are reading about us and taking back to their companies, employees and even their clients about not only what we think about doing business internationally, but how they can do business with us. In a world that is constantly getting intimate and we find other countries companies and cultures very different from what we are used to. So, it is kind of reassuring that one thing hasn't changed: getting knowledge. Learning from others through conversations and the media. On a personal note I'm kind of glad that there are both books about how we can all do business together and people that actively search out for this knowledge.

Some of the top business books 800CEOREAD sent out overseas in October:

Riding the Blue Train - Australia

Hostage at the Table - Switzerland

Kiss Theory Good Bye - Canada

The Point of the Deal - United Kingdom

Influencer: Mastering the Power to Change Anything - Germany

Business in Singapore

800-CEO-READ is doing more and more business internationally. This is not a new trend for us. In fact, we've shipped to places in Australia, Africa and so on since we first delved into the business book world. In the past few months we've been shipping more books to Singapore for conventions, avid American readers or Singaporeans that want to learn more about how Americans do business.

As a member of our customer service staff, this piqued my interest and I began wondering about Singapore: Why order books from the United States? Why use us? Are authors doing more business there for some reason? I don't expect answers to these questions, it's just something to think about and how this may influence our company and businesses in the future. Many companies are going global. There's even a McDonald's in Russia!.

Here are some of the top business books that are selling in Singapore.
And here is a sampling of what other countries are reading from us:

Wikinomics - Singapore
What is Lean Six Sigma? - France
End of Poverty - United Arab Emirates
Treasure Hunt - Germany
Redefining Global Strategy - Brazil