Showing results by narrator "Walter Dixon" in All Categories

Shift your strategy downstream. Why do your customers buy from you rather than from your competitors? If you think the answer is your superior products, think again. Products are important, of course. For decades, businesses sought competitive advantage almost exclusively in activities related to new product creation. They won by building bigger factories, by finding cheaper raw materials or labor, or by coming up with more efficient ways to move and store inventory - and by inventing exciting new products that competitors could not replicate.

Most companies today realize the imperative to connect with their customers, employees, and partners through social technologies - Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and elsewhere. But a huge challenge is still in the way: How to build programs and teams for accomplishing all that. While organizations have been fixated on how to use the latest social tool, they've lost sight of how to create a business strategy capable of adjusting to the next wave of technology around the corner.

When it comes to strategies, salespeople usually veer toward one of two extremes: operating analytically…or by the seat of their pants. In this groundbreaking audiobook on sales creativity, listeners will learn how to integrate the right-brain aptitude for innovation with the left-brain affinity for logic and process. The result is a fresh, dynamic approach that addresses customers' needs while expanding the salesperson's entire way of thinking.

In the summer of 2007, the subprime empire that Wall Street had built all came crashing down. On average, 50 lenders a month were going bust - and the people responsible for the crisis included not just unregulated loan brokers and con artists, but also investment bankers and home loan institutions traditionally perceived as completely trustworthy.

What's holding you back from business success, marital bliss or parenting nirvana? More than likely it's under the radar or below the surface of what you think. Maybe, it's like a pebble in your shoe that's irritating, uncomfortable, nagging and eventually crippling. In The Pebble in the Shoe, author Jim Fannin tells a simple story where you'll learn how a seemingly undetectable pebble can stop you from achieving your fullest potential. Some pebbles are lodged only in your business shoes. Some reside in your house slippers that you tuck under your bed.

Goals will help you learn how to keep your "eye on the prize". Author, Gary Ryan Blair is considered one of the nation’s experts on the topic of goals. He teaches that your life will not go according to plan if you don’t have a plan! His 10 rules for setting goals are loaded with nuggets of wisdom and "a-ha" moments that will bring the power of your goals into focus. The 10 Rules of Goal Setting is the combination that opens the lock of success. Each rule is one piece of the combination; each seamlessly integrates with the other nine; each one counts.

Tracing culinary customs from the Stone Age to the stovetop range, from the raw to the nuked, this book elucidates the factors and myths shaping Americans' eating habits. The diversity of food habits and rituals is considered from a psychological perspective. Explored are questions such as 'Why does the working class prefer sweet drinks over bitter?', 'Why do the affluent tend to roast their potatoes?', and 'What is so comforting about macaroni and cheese anyway?'

Members of the 'Old Coast-Guard' are sent to put down pirates in the Straits of Malacca. A young boy, named Tempest, finds himself often criticized for being a coward by the crew, but he proves his mates wrong during the thick of battle. Tempest allows the crew to defeat the pirates in the Red Stockade due to his bravery and willingness to sacrifice.

Because they're doing the day-to-day work, front-line employees see many problems and opportunities their managers don't. But most organizations fail to realize this potentially extraordinary source of revenue-enhancing ideas. The authors of Ideas Are Free use real-world examples from their work with hundreds of organizations to show how to exploit the virtually free, perpetually renewable resource of employee ideas.

These days more and more employers are using “competency-based” job interview questions to try to ensure that new hires’ experience and abilities match the demands of the positions they’re filling. Designed to elicit real-life career events demonstrating your knowledge, judgment, and skills, this new breed of interview question can trip up even the savviest job seekers. And in this extremely tough job market, there are no second chances.

In their book, Phillip Longman and Ray Boshara show how today's progressives have much to learn from their counterparts of a hundred years ago. The original progressives built super-majorities in both parties and achieved stunning reforms by combining scientific expertise with deep deference to all-American values, particularly those of freedom-loving, small-scale entrepreneurs and producers.

YOU'RE THE BOSS.... NOW WHAT! GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR EMPLOYEES WITH THESE 3 INDISPENSIBLE GUIDES. One of the biggest challenges for new managers is how to get the best out of each of their team members so they achieve superior results - and make you, the new manager, look good!

Moving beyond mere tolerance, us-versus-them is the costly mind-set in which organizations, communities, and whole nations too often find themselves trapped. In fact, recognizing difference as a positive force can bring astonishing value to even the most diverse organizations. In Us Plus Them, leadership scholar Todd Pittinsky introduces a groundbreaking new science of diversity.

The Web is a powerful “money button” that can connect you with vast networks of customers, solidify your business image, and create continual growth. The key is in knowing how to install that button effectively. In an era of blogging, social networking, message boards, and web sites for every subject under the sun, it’s difficult to figure out which Internet tools are the ones that will make your virtual register go “KaChing!”

We judge people in business the same way we judge those in our personal lives. We listen to what they say, watch how they behave, and take note of the results of their actions. Success is ultimately built on a foundation of character, communication, and trust. To accomplish our goals, people must believe in us. The Power of Reputation offers business people an action plan for creating the kind of reputation that generates trust, inspires confidence, and paves the way for lasting success.

When you think of a great business, you often think of its clients. They’re not just happy customers; they’re raving fans who’ll take time out of their day to tell you or anyone within range just how much they love that business. They’ll line up before dawn for its latest product offering, create buzz, and treat the brand as a personal status symbol. Does your business have super-fans like this? Do you want them? If so, ...And the Clients Went Wild! is your essential marketing toolbox.

Beginning with an exploration of some of Robert Frost's least-known poems, these essays consider Ezra Pound's letters, T. S. Elliot's metaphysical lectures, the lightness of Elizabeth Bishop, and the civil tongue of Richard Wilbur, finding in poetry a language that lasts beyond the petty conventions of the age. Added to these thoughtful essays are provocative reviews of contemporary poetry, full of Logan's caustic wit and sharp-eyed scrutiny.

Being a great leader today is much harder than you think. Meet Jim Barton. He’s a newly minted CEO, rising leader of a firm in transition, and manager of massive complexity - thanks to our incredibly networked and increasingly unpredictable world of business. What if you were in his shoes?

Underdogma is a new "idea book" that shows how our love/hate relationship with power - and those who have power - shape how we look at the world. For many people, those who have less power (underdogs) can do no wrong, even when we do wrong, and those who have more power can do no right - even when they do right. Michael Prell gave this belief system a name - Underdogma - and he reveals how Underdogma is affecting your life right now - and how it threatens America's superpower status.

Why work harder than you have to? One manager kept his senior execs happy by secretly hacking into the company’s database, providing them the reports they needed in one-third the time. Hacking is a powerful solution to every stupid procedure, tool, rule, and process we are forced to endure. Benevolent hackers are saving business from itself. It would be so much easier to do great work if not for lingering bureaucracies, outdated technologies, and deeply irrational rules and procedures.