Fool-Proof Marketing: 15 Winning Methods for Selling Any Product or Service in Any Economy [Paperback]

Robert W. Bly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 22, 2002

Make Your Business Thrive in Any Economy

From bestselling author Bob Bly, this easy-to-read, hands-on guide offers fifteen methods for maximizing business performance in any economy.

Depression and recession are real fears for businesses, but every industry has its ups and downs regardless of the economy. In response, Fool-Proof Marketing presents proven techniques for reversing any sales decline and developing business-generating ideas for sustaining momentum when business is good.

Fool-Proof Marketing offers hands-on advice, including:

• Personal strategies, from harnessing positive thought to gearing up for massive action, finding time for marketing during a boom, and maximizing downtime
• Time-tested marketing strategies for finding new customers and generating new leads, orders, and sales
• Proven business strategies for cutting costs, improving efficiency, and adapting your operating procedures to the current business climate
• The latest customer service trends and methods for building customer loyalty, increasing customer retention, and maximizing lifetime customer value

With Bob Bly's simple and effective marketing strategies, you'll find new sources of revenue, cut costs, improve your customer service, and create stronger relationships with your clients. Even if your business is currently on track, you'll find creative ways to streamline your organization and prepare for unexpected problems. Don't just watch your business dwindle--make your organization stronger through these proven techniques for making the most of your marketing dollar.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Make Your Business Thrive in Any Economy

From bestselling author Bob Bly, this easy-to-read, hands-on guide offers fifteen methods for maximizing business performance in any economy.

Depression and recession are real fears for businesses, but every industry has its ups and downs regardless of the economy. In response, Fool-Proof Marketing presents proven techniques for reversing any sales decline and developing business-generating ideas for sustaining momentum when business is good. Fool-Proof Marketing offers hands-on advice, including:
* Personal strategies, from harnessing positive thought to gearing up for massive action, finding time for marketing during a boom, and maximizing downtime
* Time-tested marketing strategies for finding new customers and generating new leads, orders, and sales
* Proven business strategies for cutting costs, improving efficiency, and adapting your operating procedures to the current business climate
* The latest customer service trends and methods for building customer loyalty, increasing customer retention, and maximizing lifetime customer value

With Bob Bly's simple and effective marketing strategies, you'll find new sources of revenue, cut costs, improve your customer service, and create stronger relationships with your clients. Even if your business is currently on track, you'll find creative ways to streamline your organization and prepare for unexpected problems. Don't just watch your business dwindle--make your organization stronger through these proven techniques for making the most of your marketing dollar.

About the Author

BOB BLY is a copywriter and consultant who specializes in business-to-business and direct marketing. He has over twenty years of experience writing marketing materials for such clients as AT&T, IBM, and Lucent Technologies. He is also the author of over fifty books, including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Direct Marketing, The Copywriter's Handbook, and the classic The Elements of Technical Writing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (November 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471236098
• ISBN-13: 978-0471236092
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #791,187 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert W. Bly (River Vale, NJ) is a professional writer, speaker and marketing consultant with over 3 decades of experience in business-to-business, high-tech, and direct response marketing. He became a self-made multi-millionaire while still in his 30s. Bob is the author of seventy-seven published books including Careers for Writers (McGraw-Hill/VGM), Secrets of a Freelance Writer (Henry Holt), The Copywriter's Handbook (Henry Holt), The Elements of Technical Writing (Alyn & Bacon) and The Elements of Business Writing (Alyn & Bacon). McGraw-Hill calls Bob Bly "America's top copywriter," and he was named 2007 Copywriter of the Year by American Writers and Artists, Inc. Bob writes regular columns for Target Marketing, a monthly trade publication covering the direct marketing industry; Early to Rise, a daily e-newsletter on business success; and The Writer, a premier monthly magazine providing information and inspiration for writers. The Direct Response Letter, Bob Bly's free e-newsletter, has over 60,000 subscribers.

Check out Bob's blog at http://bly.com/blog or contact him at www.bly.com/contact

Follow Bob:

E-newsletter: www.bly.com/reports
Twitter, http://twitter.com/Robertbly
LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbly
Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Bly/535042603

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bly Deliver 15 Easy to Use Marketing Tactics to Grow Your Business in Any Economy, June 12, 2011

By 

April Braswell "Your Romance Coach" (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fool-Proof Marketing: 15 Winning Methods for Selling Any Product or Service in Any Economy (Paperback)

With the current state of the economy, more business owners are seeking simple and fresh marketing methods to reach new clients and also to keep their current customers.

Prolific marketing and advertising guru author, Robert Bly, delivers power packed marketing methods which any business can use easily.

I first heard of Robert Bly when a girlfriend in Sales and Marketing lent me her two favorite books on selling and marketing. 1 was Kevin's Hogan's Psychology of Persuasion. The other was one of Bly's many Advertising and Marketing books. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing Bly speak at a business conference in the Tri-State area. I have been collecting his excellent books ever since!

Fool-Proof Marketing: 15 Winning Methods for Selling ANY Product or Service in ANY Economy is full of useful marketing for business owners, and even for sales people to leverage. Bly doesn't stint or hold back. His marketing methods are rich with content, not just superficial tactics which you feel you've heard a dozen times before. Neither are his tactics anything which everyone else is doing where your business would just get lost in the pack.

Each of the 15 powerful tactics, Bly goes into richly. For example his chapter on Reactivating Old Leads he devotes 29 pages to help you to go do this specifically in your own business.

Bly doesn't pull any punches. He's honest with you about what it takes to pull up your business during a down economy: "massive action" and "emotional strength." Additionally, he mixes providing some tactics which deliver "low-cost, high-results marketing" as well as some which are geared more for long term results. Every business in a down turned economy needs both to survive, sustain itself, and thrive for years to come. Bly is very realistic about what business owners need to do after a downturn (massive action, intestinal fortitude, and the right massive actions) delivered with encouragement, not false bogus hype that we've all heard from a bunch of others who shall remain nameless.

I don't want to reveal the 15 tactics inadvertently by giving you the title of the chapters as I often do in my book reviews so buyers can better know what they're purchasing. Instead, I will reveal just a little and leave the rest to Bly's Intellectual Property to respect that.

Bly breaks the 15 tactics into 4 major categories for you to sharpen the saw in yourself and in your business.


In the summary page of each of the 4 sections, Bly provides just a bit of a preview of what each chapter or series of chapters will deliver for your business so business owners and sales people can quickly head straight to the chapters which they need the most right away. You absolutely can read and use just a handful of chapters and tactics and benefit your business. Alternatively, read through the whole book, straight through, keeping paper and pen available for you note taking for what you'll be doing to implement Bly's 15 strategies into you business. It's your choice. Bly's book works beneficially both ways for readers.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Business Slow? Get this book!, January 16, 2004

By 

G. Maxwell (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fool-Proof Marketing: 15 Winning Methods for Selling Any Product or Service in Any Economy (Paperback)

Bob Bly has written an extremely helpful book for those times when business slacks off either due to a slow economy or personal reasons.

Whatever the case, this book has proven tips and techniques to jumpstart your business during those times when things get harried. Suggestions like getting a part-time job during a slow period may not be what we want to hear but it is relevant in that it works until the business picks up.

Other tips and techniques related to billing or customer service brim with wisdom and if put into practice will help any business large or small get through the slow times.

Lastly, although there is no guarantee against recession and financial downturn, it's what you DO during those times that will make or break you. Do yourself a favor and get this book so you come through in one piece!

Highly recommended.