Jay Baer

LinkedIn Unlocked, 2nd Edition: The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn Lead Generation for B2B Service Providers, Business Owners & Entrepreneurs This isn't a second edition—it's a complete transformation! Are you looking to attract high-quality leads and premium clients through LinkedIn? Look no further—LinkedIn Unlocked is your comprehensive, updated guide to mastering the platform in today's radically changed landscape. In this entirely revamped 2nd edition, you'll not just learn, but master the art of creating a captivating LinkedIn presence, generating high-impact AI-enhanced content, and leveraging a fail-proof system to turn your connections into clients. Double your leads and sales by applying the cutting-edge strategies packed into this transformative guide. This book is a fail-proof blueprint for LinkedIn marketing and social selling success. Note for Sales Professionals: If you're a sales professional using Sales Navigator, you'll find my other book "Navigating LinkedIn for Sales" to be a better fit for your specialized needs. What You'll Discover: Step-by-step instructions for a LinkedIn profile transformation to magnetically attract your ideal clients.Strategies to nurture relationships and convert connections into high-paying clients.Ready-made social selling action plans, communication templates, and checklistsThe LINK Method™ - a proven system for scheduling meetings and closing lucrative deals.LinkedIn growth strategies to build a powerful personal brand and boost inbound marketing.Tips to become an industry thought leader by consistently sharing valuable insights with the help of generative AI.Leverage emotional storytelling techniques to create compelling content. What's Inside? FOUNDATIONS: Lay the groundwork to become an unstoppable force using LinkedIn for business. Strategies to emotionally connect with your ideal clients.Fine-tune your profile to become an irresistible magnet for your perfect prospects.Compare subscription options to unlock LinkedIn's powerful tools. STRATEGIES: Elevate your LinkedIn and social selling game with foolproof strategies. Relationship-building techniques to foster trust and increase sales conversations.Advanced search filters to discover high-value leads based on keywords, titles, companies.The proven LINK Method™ to book meetings and close deals through structured outreach. EXECUTION: Uncover LinkedIn sales strategies to create a powerful lead generation source. Leverage generative AI in your LinkedIn content strategy to quickly establish yourself as an authority.Ready-made action plan to execute effective LinkedIn B2B marketing and social selling campaigns.LinkedIn outreach techniques using a method to convert connections into clients. Advanced LinkedIn Marketing Strategies: If you are using LinkedIn for business growth, you will find this book packed full of actionable tactics and strategies for personal branding, content marketing, social selling, and B2B lead generation. Create irresistible signature content tailored to your ideal client's desires using artificial intelligence.Build a LinkedIn audience who is interested in what you share.Develop repeatable sales funnels to turn leads into high-paying clients.LinkedIn content marketing strategies to quickly become a recognized authority. Get the Tactical Playbook Today and Unlock LinkedIn Lead Generation!

A No-Nonsense, Take-No-Prisoners Plan for Earning Positive Return on Your Email Marketing! “They” say email is dead. Baloney! 94% of Americans use email. Passionate social networkers use email more, not less. Mobile email is huge. Email offers marketers more opportunities than ever...opportunities to guide customers from consideration and trial to repeat purchase, loyalty, even advocacy! But email has changed. Email users have changed. To get breakthrough results, you must break the rules! Whether you’re B2B or B2C, Fortune 500 or startup, this is a complete no-nonsense plan for transforming your email marketing. Discover radically better ways to handle every facet of your campaign: lists, From names, Subject lines, calls to action, social network integration...everything! Learn how to Discover which email marketing “rules” are obsolete--and when to break the restOptimize every component of your message and campaign Drive list growth that translates directly into the top line Encourage opt-in by systematically simplifying signup Bring real humor and creativity back into your email Write a great main call to action--and great secondary and tertiary calls, tooTake full advantage of tools ranging from QR codes to texting to grow your email listMake better technical decisions about prechecked opt-in boxes and other attributesKnow when to deliberately introduce “imperfections” into your emails Use email marketing and social media to power each other Prepare for the short- and long-term futures of email marketing

The NEW Rulebook for Entrepreneurial Success What's the surest way to startup failure? Follow old, outdated rules. In Content Inc., one of today's most sought-after content-marketing strategists reveals a new model for entrepreneurial success. Simply put, it's about developing valuable content, building an audience around that content, and then creating a product for that audience. Notice a shift? Author Joe Pulizzi flips the traditional entrepreneurial approach of first creating a product and then trying to find customers. It's a brilliant reverse-engineering of a model that rarely succeeds. The radical six-step business-building process revealed in this book is smart, simple, practical, and cost-effective. And best of all, it works. It's a strategy Pulizzi used to build his own successful company, Content Marketing Institute, which has landed on Inc. magazine's list of fastest growing private companies for three years straight.  It's also a strategy countless other entrepreneurs use to build their own multi-million dollar companies.  Build an audience and you'll be able to sell pretty much anything you want. Today's markets are more dynamic and customers are more fickle than ever before. Why would you put all your eggs in one basket before securing a loyal customer base? Content Inc. shows you how to get customers first and develop products later. It's the best way to build a solid, long-lasting business positioned for today's content-driven world.  This is the simple but profoundly successful entrepreneurial approach of one of today's most creative business minds. A pioneer of content marketing, Pulizzi has cracked the code when it comes to the power of content in a world where marketers still hold fast to traditional models that no longer work. In Content Inc., he breaks down the business-startup process into six steps, making it simple for you to visualize, launch, and monetize your own business. These steps are:The "Sweet Spot": Identify the intersection of your unique competency and your personal passionContent Tilting: Determine how you can "tilt" your sweet spot to find a place where little or no competition existsBuilding the Base: Establish your number-one channel for disseminating content (blog, podcast, YouTube, etc.)Harvesting Audience: Use social-media and SEO to convert one-time visitors into long-term subscribersDiversification: Grow your business by expanding into multiple delivery channelsMonetization: Now that your expertise is established, you can begin charging money for your products or services This model has worked wonders for Pulizzi and countless other examples detailed in the book. Connect these six pieces like a puzzle, and before you know it, you'll be running your own profitable, scalable business. Pulizzi walks you step by step through the process, based on his own success (and failures) and real-world multi-million dollar examples from multiple industries and countries. Whether you're seeking to start a brand-new business or drive innovation in an existing one, Content Inc. provides everything you need to reverse-engineer the traditional entrepreneurial model for better, more sustainable success. Joe Pulizzi is an entrepreneur, professional speaker, and podcaster. He is the founder of several startups, including the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), recognized as the fastest growing business media company by Inc. Magazine in 2014. CMI produces Content Marketing World, the world's largest content marketing event, and publishes the leading content marketing magazine, Chief Content Officer. Pulizzi's book Epic Content Marketing was named one of Fortune magazine's Five Must Read Business Books of the Year.

What stories do you need to tell, and how do you tell them? Stories That Stick provides a clear framework of ideals and a concise set of actions for you to take complete control of your own story, utilizing the principles behind the world’s most effective business storytelling strategies. Professional storyteller and nationally-known speaker Kindra Hall reveals the four unique stories you can use to differentiate, captivate, and elevate: The Value Story—convince customers they need what you provide.The Founder Story—persuade investors and customers your organization is worth the investment.The Purpose Story—align and inspire your employees and internal customers. The Customer Story—allow those who use your product or service to share their authentic experiences with others. Telling these stories well is a simple, accessible skill anyone can develop. With case studies, company profiles, and anecdotes backed with original research, Hall presents storytelling as the underutilized talent that separates the good from the best in business. Stories That Stick offers specific, actionable steps readers can take to find, craft, and leverage the stories they already have and simply aren’t telling. Every person, every organization has at least four stories at their disposal. Will you tell yours?

The most comprehensive email marketing book from the most prolific email marketing author helps you master the most misunderstood marketing channel. Updated and greatly expanded, the 4th Edition of Email Marketing Rules demystifies this vital channel, guiding you through its complexities to find the best execution for your brand—the one that serves the needs of your business and the needs of your subscribers. Volume 1 of Email Marketing Rules discusses 184 best practices that help you…Build productive, safe email lists by identifying valuable subscriber acquisition sources, using appropriate permission practices, and managing inactives wiselySet the right program goals by understanding “deep metrics” and properly interpreting campaign, channel, and subscriber metricsCreate relevant messages with subject lines that draw in subscribers while avoiding “opener’s remorse” and designs that focus subscribers on taking actionCraft high-performance triggered emails, including welcome programs that set you up for long-term successEffectively plan and produce emails with workflows that allow you to seize opportunities and avoid errorsAnd much more, including understanding the law, optimizing email frequency, using the best landing pages, and doing A/B testing

NAMED one of  5 MUST-READ BUSINESS BOOKS BY FORTUNE MAGAZINE Publishing is the NEW MARKETING. How do you cut through the noise, commotion, and bad information that is right now cluttering up your customers' digital space? Epic Content Marketing. One of the world's leading experts on content marketing, Joe Pulizzi explains how to draw prospects and customers in by creating information and content they actually want to engage with. No longer can we interrupt our customers with mediocre content (and sales messages) our customers don't care about. "Epic Content Marketing" takes you step by step through the process of developing stories that inform and entertain and compel customers to act--without actually telling them to. Epic content, distributed to the right person at the right time, is how to truly capture the hearts and minds of customers. It's how to position your business as a trusted expert in its industry. It's what customers share and talk about. Once we hook customers in with epic content, they reward us by sending our sales through the roof. Epic Content Marketing provides everything you need to: * Determine what your content niche should be to attract and retain customers * Discover and develop your content marketing mission statement * Set up a process for creating and curating epic content * Learn how to leverage social and email channels to create--and grow--your audience * Measure the performance of your content--and increase your content marketing budget With in-depth case studies of how John Deere, LEGO, Coca-Cola, and other leading corporations are using content to drive epic sales, this groundbreaking guide gives you all the tools to start creating and disseminating content that leads directly to greater profits and growth. Whether you're the CMO of a Fortune 500, a digital marketer, or entrepreneur, "Epic Content Marketing" gives you the tools you need to vanquish the competition. Start your epic journey now! Check out EpicContentMarketing.com for book bonus material and to download "20 Epic Examples of Content Marketing"

From one of today's leading experts in content marketing, Content Inc. is the go-to guide to building a solid small business by establishing a loyal audience before you sell products or services. Do you create digital content? Well, this is the business model you've been looking for...In these pages, Joe Pulizzi provides a lower-risk, more effective way to create a path to success by re-engineering the process that so often leads to failure: You'll learn how to develop valuable content, build an audience around that content―and then create a product for that audience. Content Inc. walks you through the entire process, showing how to: Choose a topicUnearth an area where little competition exists (break through the clutter)Choose your best channel to build your platformBuild long-term customer loyalty (an audience)Start making money from your contentExpand your content into multiple channels/platformsSell your content asset or scale it into a successful business This updated edition includes new and enhanced coverage of platforms like TikTok, SnapChat, and Instagram, a new section about the exit strategy for the model, more practical how-tos, and current examples of companies that have successfully implemented these strategies. Content Inc. provides an ingenious approach to business based on a profoundly simple concept: Having a singular focus on audience, and building a loyal audience directly, provide the best, most nuanced understanding of what products ultimately make the most sense to sell. Apply the methods laid out for you in Content Inc., and create the business of your dreams.

Instant Bestseller on Amazon in Marketing and Sales!FACT: Less than ONE percent of all leads become customers. As a business, how can you break that trend and achieve client fidelity?In this book we reveal the secrets behind the framework that will sell and retain your customers. Did you know that less than one percent of all leads become customers? It is a true and shocking stat, but there is a way to stop the waste and flip this around. In this highly anticipated book, we reveal the secrets behind our signature TEAM - Target, Engage, Activate, and Measure - framework to transform your approach to market, increase sales, and retain your ideal customers. Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is the new B2B. It‘s time to challenge the status quo of B2B Marketing and Sales, and transition to what the business arena already expects as the updated B2B model. A transformation like this can only happen through an account-based approach that unites marketing, sales, and customer success teams (go-to-market teams) as #OneTeam. In summary, the TEAM framework coupled with the account-based approach enables your company to focus on the target accounts, engage them in a meaningful way, activate the sales team with top tier accounts proactively, and finally measure success based on business outcomes over vanity metrics. It's time to take the lead and transition your business to ABM.The process is simple when you have the right book - ABM is B2B. What are you waiting for?

Vlog Like a Boss is the complete guide to video blogging. Amy Schmittauer is the Vlog Boss. As a new media triple threat -- YouTuber, keynote speaker and author -- she coaches people to go after what they want in life and leverage online video to make it happen. Creator of the popular YouTube series Savvy Sexy Social, her channel boasts a global community and millions of views. Now, in her first book, she will show you how to Vlog Like a Boss and get the attention you deserve. A collection of strategies and tactics from years of experience in online video, Schmittauer shares time-tested, proven methods to creating brand awareness with vlogging that will build a loyal community for years to come. This complete guide will show you how to: overcome the 3 major fears that hold many people back from making videos create your most engaging vlog every time with the Authority Video Formula achieve your on-camera talent (and no, you don't need to be a natural!) leverage the "secret" to video success that creates fans for life and much more!

The lifeblood of your business is repeat customers. But customers can be fickle, markets shift, and competitors are ruthless. So how do you ensure a steady flow of repeat business? The secret—no matter what industry you’re in—is finding and keeping automatic customers. These days virtually anything you need can be purchased through a subscription, with more convenience than ever before. Far beyond Spotify, Netflix, and New York Times subscriptions, you can sign up for weekly or monthly supplies of everything from groceries (AmazonFresh) to cosmetics (Birchbox) to razor blades (Dollar Shave Club). According to John Warrillow, this emerging subscription economy offers huge opportunities to companies that know how to turn customers into subscribers. Automatic customers are the key to increasing cash flow, igniting growth, and boosting the value of your company. Consider Whatsapp, the internet-based messaging service that was purchased by Facebook for $19 billion. While other services bombarded users with invasive ads in order to fund a free messaging platform, Whatsapp offered a refreshingly private tool on a subscription platform, charging just $1 per year. Their business model enabled the kind of service that customers wanted and ensured automatic customers for years to come. As Warrillow shows, subscriptions aren’t limited to technology or media businesses. Companies in nearly any industry, from start-ups to the Fortune 500, from home contractors to florists, can build subscriptions into their business. Warrillow provides the essential blueprint for winning automatic customers with one of the nine subscription business models, including: The Membership Website Model: Companies like The Wood Whisperer Guild, ContractorSelling.com, and DanceStudioOwner.com offer access to highly specialized, high quality information, recognizing that people will pay for good content. This model can work for any business with a tightly defined niche market and insider information.The Simplifier Model: Companies like Mosquito Squad (pest control) and Hassle Free Homes (home maintenance) take a recurring task off your to-do list. Any business serving busy consumers can adopt this model not only to create a recurring revenue stream, but also to take advantage of the opportunity to cross-sell or bundle their services.The Surprise Box Model: Companies like BarkBox (dog treats) and Standard Cocoa (craft chocolate) send their subscribers curated packages of goodies each month. If you can handle the logistics of shipping, giving customers joy in something new can translate to sales on your larger e-commerce site. This book also shows you how to master the psychology of selling subscriptions and how to reduce churn and provides a road map for the essential statistics you need to measure the health of your subscription business. Whether you want to transform your entire business into a recurring revenue engine or just pick up an extra 5 percent of sales growth, The Automatic Customer will be your secret weapon. Table of Contents Introduction PART ONE: SUBSCRIBERS ARE BETTER THAN CUSTOMERS Chapter 1: The New 500-Year-Old Business Model Chapter 2: Why You Need Automatic Customers PART TWO: THE NINE SUBSCRIPTION BUSINESS MODELS Chapter 3: The Membership Website Model Chapter 4: The All-You-Can-Eat Library Model Chapter 5: The Private Club Model Chapter 6: The Front-of-the-Line Subscription Model Chapter 7: The Consumables Model Chapter 8: The Surprise Box Model Chapter 9: The Simplifier Model Chapter 10: The Network Model Chapter 11: The Peace-of-Mind Model PART THREE: YOUR SUBSCRIPTION BUSINESS FIELD GUIDE Chapter 12: The New Math Chapter 13: The Cash Suck vs. The Cash Spigot Chapter 14: The Psychology of Selling a Subscription Chapter 15: Scaling Up Chapter 16: Reflections

Melissa Agnes, a leading authority on crisis management and preparedness, provides a clear roadmap to implementing a crisis ready culture and thus building an INVINCIBLE brand. No matter your level of security, due diligence, or control, the reality is that we live in uncertain times. Organizations are prone to a multitude of risks that can attack from every angle. And yet the greatest exposure does not lie within these risks. Rather, it lies in having a team that is not prepared to anticipate, foresee, or respond to a rising threat and its impact on your reputation, revenue, and relationships in real-time. When your team is crisis ready, your organization is prepared for anything and everything that the modern world can throw at it. Crisis Ready is not about crisis management. Management is what happens after the negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative situations don't occur and even if they do, they're instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill. In Crisis Ready, Melissa Agnes draws from her remarkable experience in helping global brands, government organizations, and world leaders prevent and overcome a range of real-world, high-impact crises. No matter the size, type, or industry of your business, Crisis Ready will provide your team with insight into how to be perfectly prepared for anything life throws at you. Organizations that are crisis ready are more than just resilient. They're invincible. Crisis Ready is your roadmap to business invincibility. *** "If you think the same management techniques that allow you to win at business will enable you to weather a crisis you are doomed. In a crisis, emotions run high, people revert to habits instead of the plan, information travels quickly whether it is accurate or not and the effects of your decisions can be long-lived. Don't allow the crisis management plan sitting on your shelf give you a false sense of confidence. Read Crisis Ready and then get to work at making crisis management muscle memory for your organization." David Struhs, Vice President, Corporate Services and Sustainability, Domtar "Every business of any size needs to read Crisis Ready. Melissa Agnes demonstrates why she is a leading authority on timely, intelligent and appropriate communications in moments of crisis. If United Airlines had read this book in 2009 my United Breaks Guitars YouTube video would never have happened. I'm almost glad she hadn't written it yet." Dave Carroll, Singer-songwriter, speaker, and creator of United Breaks Guitars "Intelligent. Intuitive. Unabashedly gutsy. Melissa Agnes dismantles crisis cliché, shakes you awake, and takes you on a compelling and insightful journey that will ensure your organization is crisis ready." Scot Wheeler, Retired Global Director of Issues Management and Crisis Communications, The Dow Chemical Company "The speed of crisis in the digital age can quickly overwhelm organizations ill-prepared with outdated strategies centered around press releases, and bureaucratic layers of approvals for communication. Crisis Ready serves as a strategic blueprint to help organizations prepare for and successfully navigate turmoil, all while building trust and confidence with their stakeholders." Captain Chris Hsiung, Law Enforcement Executive "The ultimate guide to doing things right when it all goes wrong. Every businessperson should have a copy of Crisis Ready on their desk." Jay Baer, founder of Convince & Convert, and author of Hug Your Haters

The Age of Influence is an essential guide for marketing professionals and business owners who want to create and implement a highly effective, sustainable influencer marketing plan in order for their brands to succeed. We are amid an unprecedented digital transformation and tapping into this change is vital to any brand in today’s climate. Social media has democratized authority and influence, and information is created and consumed in ways that are constantly evolving. Internationally-recognized social media marketing expert Neal Schaffer explains how that shift plays a significant role in online marketing in the Influencer Era. Influencer marketing is about establishing relationships, turning fans into influencers, and leveraging that influence to share your message in a credible and authentic way. In The Age of Influence, Schaffer teaches entrepreneurs, marketing executives, and cutting-edge agencies how to: Identify,?approach, and engage the right influencers for their brand or product.Determine?what resources to put behind influencer campaigns.Manage the business side of influencer marketing, including tools that will help?measure ROI.Develop?their brand’s social media voice to become an influencer in its own right.This book is the definitive guide to addressing the issues disrupting marketing trends, including declining television viewership, growing social media audiences, effectively spreading their message digitally, and increasing usage of ad-blocking technology.

"Marketers struggling to create engaging content will have a savior in The Content Fuel Framework. The Focus + Format approach is a simple yet highly effective way to inspire numerous rich ideas to rescue any content marketing program." —Lee Odden, CEO and Co-Founder of TopRank Marketing In The Content Fuel Framework, trained journalist and award-winning content marketer Melanie Deziel shows you how to maximize your creativity by systematizing it. This simple framework catalyzes the brainstorming process, making idea generation effortless and nearly automatic. No more writer's block. No more asking "what should I post?" No more waiting for that "big idea" to show up in its own time. This system allows storytellers from any industry to produce fresh story ideas on demand, any time. Never before have we consumed as much content, in as many forms, and in as many places as we do now. This means marketers, creators, and anyone who communicates with an audience is under more pressure than ever to deliver unique content, consistently. How can you fill all those web pages, social feeds, blogs, and newsletters, every single day? The Content Fuel Framework will challenge you—and enable you—to tell stories in entirely new ways. It's an adaptable and evergreen guide you'll come back to again and again.

Are you happy? Like your job?Most people report low engagement and enthusiasm in their careers. And point their finger at a negative work culture, a mean boss… co-worker… or customer. Mean people suck. Some leaders believe that they need to be mean in order to be effective. Their lack of compassion creates negative relationships that lowers performance and profits! Michael Brenner’s Mean People Suck uses real-life experience and proven research to show why instead of blaming others, we can look inside ourselves, and learn how to use empathy to defeat “mean” in every situation. This insightful guide shows leaders, and employees how more emotional communication increases profits and enhances lives. You’ll learn: Why employees are unhappy and the power of empathy to turn things around.How organizational charts disengage employees by neglecting the human element.Why empathy seems counter-intuitive to success.The secrets to a happy, meaningful and impactful career.If you’re ready to enjoy a more gratifying professional and personal life, this book’s stories and proven tips will help get you there – even if Mean People Suck.

Joining the ranks of classics like The Elements of Style and On Writing Well, Writing Without Bullshit helps professionals get to the point to get ahead. It’s time for Writing Without Bullshit. Writing Without Bullshit is the first comprehensive guide to writing for today’s world: a noisy environment where everyone reads what you write on a screen. The average news story now gets only 36 seconds of attention. Unless you change how you write, your emails, reports, and Web copy don’t stand a chance. In this practical and witty book, you’ll learn to front-load your writing with pithy titles, subject lines, and opening sentences. You’ll acquire the courage and skill to purge weak and meaningless jargon, wimpy passive voice, and cowardly weasel words. And you’ll get used to writing directly to the reader to make every word count. At the center of it all is the Iron Imperative: treat the reader’s time as more valuable than your own. Embrace that, and your customers, your boss, and your colleagues will recognize the power and boldness of your thinking. Transcend the fear that makes your writing weak. Plan and execute writing projects with confidence. Manage edits and reviews flawlessly. And master every modern format from emails and social media to reports and press releases. Stop writing to fit in. Start writing to stand out. Boost your career by writing without bullshit.

How to tap the power of social software and networks to build your business In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of social networks to build your brand's influence, reputation, and, of course, profits. Today's online influencers are web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships, using social media to accrue the influence that builds up or brings down businesses online. The book shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can use those networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is key to building online reputations,, those who traffic in it are "trust agents," the key people your business needs on its side. Delivers actionable steps and case studies that show how social media can positively impact your business Written by authors with over ten years of online media experience Shows you how to build and wield influence online to benefit your brand Combines high-level theory with practical step-by-step guidance If you want your business to succeed, don't sit on the sidelines. Instead, use the Web to build trust with your consumers using Trust Agents.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The instant classic about why some ideas thrive, why others die, and how to make your ideas stick. “Anyone interested in influencing others—to buy, to vote, to learn, to diet, to give to charity or to start a revolution—can learn from this book.”—The Washington Post Mark Twain once observed, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” His observation rings true: Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus news stories circulate effortlessly. Meanwhile, people with important ideas—entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists—struggle to make them “stick.” In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds—from the infamous “kidney theft ring” hoax to a coach’s lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony—draw their power from the same six traits. Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It’s a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice. Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas—and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. Unabashedly inspired by Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling The Tipping Point, the brothers Heath—Chip a professor at Stanford's business school, Dan a teacher and textbook publisher—offer an entertaining, practical guide to effective communication. Drawing extensively on psychosocial studies on memory, emotion and motivation, their study is couched in terms of "stickiness"—that is, the art of making ideas unforgettable. They start by relating the gruesome urban legend about a man who succumbs to a barroom flirtation only to wake up in a tub of ice, victim of an organ-harvesting ring. What makes such stories memorable and ensures their spread around the globe? The authors credit six key principles: simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions and stories. (The initial letters spell out "success"—well, almost.) They illustrate these principles with a host of stories, some familiar (Kennedy's stirring call to "land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth" within a decade) and others very funny (Nora Ephron's anecdote of how her high school journalism teacher used a simple, embarrassing trick to teach her how not to "bury the lead"). Throughout the book, sidebars show how bland messages can be made intriguing. Fun to read and solidly researched, this book deserves a wide readership. (Jan. 16) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From School Library Journal Adult/High School—While at first glance this volume might resemble the latest in a series of trendy business advice books, ultimately it is about storytelling, and it is a how-to for crafting a compelling narrative. Employing a lighthearted tone, the Heaths apply those selfsame techniques to create an enjoyable read. They analyze such narratives as urban legends and advertisements to discover what makes them memorable. The authors provide a simple mnemonic to remember their stickiness formula, and the basic principles may be applied in any situation where persuasiveness is an asset. The book is a fast read peppered with exercises to test the techniques proposed. Some examples act as pop quizzes and engage readers in moments of self-reflection. The book draws on examples from teachers, scientists, and soldiers who have been successful at crafting memorable ideas, from the well-known blue eye/brown eye exercise conducted by an Iowa elementary school teacher as an experiential lesson in prejudice following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., to conversations among Xerox repairmen. Readers who enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's Blink (2005) and The Tipping Point (2000, both Little, Brown) will appreciate this clever take on contemporary culture.—Heidi Dolamore, San Mateo County Library, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Bookmarks Magazine Chip and Dan Heath—a Stanford professor and an education entrepreneur, respectively—attempt to determine why one idea succeeds while another fails. What could have been a dry marketing textbook is, instead, a generally engaging narrative generously endowed with anecdotes and instructive sidebars. The Wall Street Journal expressed annoyance at the profusion of personal stories, while the Washington Post cited some problems with the overall framework. Overall, however, Made to Stick is a worthy addition to the spate of recent books that explain why we do the things we do and how this self-knowledge can be used more effectively. "Anyone interested in influencing others—to buy, to vote, to learn, to diet, to give to charity or to start a revolution—can learn from this book" (Washington Post). Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. From Booklist Based on a class at Stanford taught by one of the authors, this book profiles how some ideas "stick" in our minds while the majority fall by the wayside. Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and compelling advertising make up much of the intrinsically interesting examples that the Heaths profile that qualify for "stickiness." This book explores what makes social epidemics "epidemic" and, as the Heaths cite from Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point (2000), defines the secret recipe that makes an idea viral. The principles of stickiness are examined--an unexpected outcome, lots of concrete details that we remember, emotion, simplicity, and credibility--all packaged in an easily told story format. Taking these five stickiness attributes, the book offers numerous examples of how these properties make up the stories we are all familiar with--the urban legend about kidney theft and the razor blades supposedly lurking in Halloween candy. Exercises, checklists, and other tools are sprinkled throughout the book to help the reader understand and test how stickiness can be applied to their ideas, whether they are teachers, parents, or CEOs. Gail Whitcomb Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review “Made to Stick summons plenty of brain science, social history, and behavioral psychology to explain what makes an idea winning and memorable—and the Heaths do the telling with beautiful clarity.”—The Christian Science Monitor “Utterly compelling.”—Los Angeles Times “Surprising and provocative.”—The New York Sun “Savvy.”—People “Fun to read and solidly researched.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) About the Author Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, teaching courses on strategy and organizations. He has helped over 450 startups hone their business strategy and messages. He lives in Los Gatos, California. Dan Heath is a senior fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports entrepreneurs fighting for social good. He lives in Durham, North Carolina. Together, Chip and Dan have written three New York Times bestselling books: Made to Stick, Switch, and Decisive. Their books have sold over two million copies worldwide and have been translated into thirty-three languages, including Thai, Arabic, and Lithuanian. Their most recent book is The Power of Moments. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. I I N T R O D U C T I O N WHAT STICKS? A friend of a friend of ours is a frequent business traveler. Let’s call him Dave. Dave was recently in Atlantic City for an important meeting with clients. Afterward, he had some time to kill before his flight, so he went to a local bar for a drink. He’d just finished one drink when an attractive woman approached and asked if she could buy him another. He was surprised but flattered. Sure, he said. The woman walked to the bar and brought back two more drinks—one for her and one for him. He thanked her and took a sip. And that was the last thing he remembered. Rather, that was the last thing he remembered until he woke up, disoriented, lying in a hotel bathtub, his body submerged in ice. He looked around frantically, trying to figure out where he was and how he got there. Then he spotted the note: don’t move. call 911. A cell phone rested on a small table beside the bathtub. He picked it up and called 911, his fingers numb and clumsy from the ice. The operator seemed oddly familiar with his situation. She said, “Sir, I want you to reach behind you, slowly and carefully. Is there a tube protruding from your lower back?” Anxious, he felt around behind him. Sure enough, there was a tube. The operator said, “Sir, don’t panic, but one of your kidneys has been harvested. There’s a ring of organ thieves operating in this city, and they got to you. Paramedics are on their way. Don’t move until they arrive.” You’ve just read one of the most successful urban legends of the past fifteen years. The first clue is the classic urban-legend opening: “A friend of a friend . . .” Have you ever noticed that our friends’ friends have much more interesting lives than our friends themselves? You’ve probably heard the Kidney Heist tale before. There are hundreds of versions in circulation, and all of them share a core of three elements: (1) the drugged drink, (2) the ice-filled bathtub, and (3) the kidney-theft punch line. One version features a married man who receives the drugged drink from a prostitute he has invited to his room in Las Vegas. It’s a morality play with kidneys. Imagine that you closed the book right now, took an hourlong break, then called a friend and told the story, without rereading it. Chances are you could tell it almost perfectly. You might forget that the traveler was in Atlantic City for “an important meeting with clients”—who cares about that? But you’d remember all the important stuff. The Kidney Heist is a story that sticks. We understand it, we remember it, and we can retell it later. And if we believe it’ s true, it might change our behavior permanently—at least in terms of accepting drinks from attractive strangers. Contrast the Kidney Heist story with this passage, drawn from a paper distributed by a nonprofit organization. “Comprehensive community building naturally lends itself to a return-on-investment rationale that can be modeled, drawing on existing practice,” it begins, going on to argue that “[a] factor constraining the flow of resources to CCIs is that funders must often resort to targeting or categorical requirements in grant making to ensure accountability.” Imagine that you closed the book right now and took an hourlong break. In fact, don’t even take a break; just call up a friend and retell that passage without rereading it. Good luck. Is this a fair comparison—an urban legend to a cherry-picked bad passage? Of course not. But here’s where things get interesting: Think of our two examples as two poles on a spectrum of memorability. Which sounds closer to the communications you encounter at work? If you’re like most people, your workplace gravitates toward the nonprofit pole as though it were the North Star. Maybe this is perfectly natural; some ideas are inherently interesting and some are inherently uninteresting. A gang of organ thieves—inherently interesting! Nonprofit financial strategy—inherently uninteresting! It’s the nature versus nurture debate applied to ideas: Are ideas born interesting or made interesting? Well, this is a nurture book. So how do we nurture our ideas so they’ll succeed in the world? Many of us struggle with how to communicate ideas effectively, how to get our ideas to make a difference. A biology teacher spends an hour explaining mitosis, and a week later only three kids remember what it is. A manager makes a speech unveiling a new strategy as the staffers nod their heads enthusiastically, and the next day the frontline employees are observed cheerfully implementing the old one. Good ideas often have a hard time succeeding in the world. Yet the ridiculous Kidney Heist tale keeps circulating, with no resources whatsoever to support it. Why? Is it simply because hijacked kidneys sell better than other topics? Or is it possible to make a true, worthwhile idea circulate as effectively as this false idea? The Truth About Movie Popcorn Art Silverman stared at a bag of movie popcorn. It looked out of place sitting on his desk. His office had long since filled up with fake-butter fumes. Silverman knew, because of his organization’ s research, that the popcorn on his desk was unhealthy. Shockingly unhealthy, in fact. His job was to figure out a way to communicate this message to the unsuspecting moviegoers of America. Silverman worked for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a nonprofit group that educates the public about nutrition. The CSPI sent bags of movie popcorn from a dozen theaters in three major cities to a lab for nutritional analysis. The results surprised everyone. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends that a normal diet contain no more than 20 grams of saturated fat each day. According to the lab results, the typical bag of popcorn had 37 grams. The culprit was coconut oil, which theaters used to pop their popcorn. Coconut oil had some big advantages over other oils. It gave the popcorn a nice, silky texture, and released a more pleasant and natural aroma than the alternative oils. Unfortunately, as the lab results showed, coconut oil was also brimming with saturated fat. The single serving of popcorn on Silverman’s desk—a snack someone might scarf down between meals—had nearly two days’ worth of saturated fat. And those 37 grams of saturated fat were packed into a medium-sized serving of popcorn. No doubt a decentsized bucket could have cleared triple digits. The challenge, Silverman realized, was that few people know what “37 grams of saturated fat” means. Most of us don’t memorize the USDA’s daily nutrition recommendations. Is 37 grams good or bad? And even if we have an intuition that it’s bad, we’d wonder if it was “bad bad” (like cigarettes) or “normal bad” (like a cookie or a milk shake). Even the phrase “37 grams of saturated fat” by itself was enough to cause most people’s eyes to glaze over. “Saturated fat has zero appeal,” Silverman says. “It’s dry, it’s academic, who cares?” Silverman could have created some kind of visual comparison— perhaps an advertisement comparing the amount of saturated fat in the popcorn with the USDA’ s recommended daily allowance. Think of a bar graph, with one of the bars stretching twice as high as the other. But that was too scientific somehow. Too rational. The amount of fat in this popcorn was, in some sense, not rational. It was ludicrous. The CSPI needed a way to shape the message in a way that fully communicated this ludicrousness. Silverman came up with a solution. CSPI called a press conference on September 27, 1992. Here’s the message it presented: “A medium-sized ‘butter’ popcorn at a typical neighborhood movie theater contains more artery-clogging fat than a bacon-and-eggs breakfast, a Big Mac and fries for lunch, and a steak dinner with all the trimmings—combined!” The folks at CSPI didn’t neglect the visuals—they laid out the full buffet of greasy food for the television cameras. An entire day’ s worth of unhealthy eating, displayed on a table. All that saturated fat— stuffed into a single bag of popcorn. The story was an immediate sensation, featured on CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN. It made the front pages of USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post’s Style section. Leno and Letterman cracked jokes about fat-soaked popcorn, and headline writers trotted out some doozies: “Popcorn Gets an ‘R’ Rating,” “Lights, Action, Cholesterol!” “Theater Popcorn is Double Feature of Fat.” The idea stuck. Moviegoers, repulsed by these findings, avoided popcorn in droves. Sales plunged. The service staff at movie houses grew accustomed to fielding questions about whether the popcorn was popped in the “bad” oil. Soon after, most of the nation’ s biggest theater chains—including United Artists, AMC, and Loews— announced that they would stop using coconut oil.

What if working like crazy to beat the competition did exactly the opposite, making you mediocre and more like the competition? In today’s world of overabundant consumer choices and superfluous apps, upgrades, add-ons, and features, brands have become nearly identical, as their efforts to outdo one another have pushed them into a dizzying herd of indistinct options. Youngme Moon identifies the outliers, the mavericks, the iconoclasts—the players who have thoughtfully rejected orthodoxy in favor of an approach that is more adventurous. Some are even “hostile,” almost daring you to buy what they are selling. Using her original research on companies such as IKEA and Google, Moon will inspire you to be counterintuitive and meaningfully different—to rethink your business strategy, to stop conforming and start deviating, to stop emulating and start innovating. Because to stand out you must become the exception, not the rule.

In today's world, there is a permanent advantage to becoming known in your field. Those who are known get the customers, the better jobs, and invitations to exclusive opportunities. But can anybody become known? In this path-finding book, author Mark Schaefer provides a step-by-step plan followed by the most successful people in diverse careers like banking, education, real estate, construction, fashion, and more. With amazing case studies, dozens of exercises, and inspiring stories, KNOWN is the first book of its kind, the bestselling book on personal branding that provides a path to personal business success in the digital age.