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65 of 65 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Who Are You? What Do You Really Want?, November 16, 2000
Actually, this is a two-books-in-one volume: an insightful explanation of how to increase personal as well as professional development, and, an uncommonly useful book on marketing. Rating either, I would give it Four Stars. Ranking the combination, I rate it higher. Abraham promises to provide "21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition." He delivers on that promise. If fully understood and properly applied, the 21 "ways" (actually strategies) will help almost everyone to become a better person as well as to increase the value of what they produce; perhaps indirectly but significantly, their business associates as well as family members can also be among the beneficiaries. Abraham organizes his material within 21 chapters. Correctly, he first addresses the need for a plan ("Where You're Headed -- an Overview of Your Journey") and then the need for the proper attitude to ensure the success of that plan ("You Can Become Unbeatable"). By the final chapter, he has prepared his reader to understand what he calls a "unique definition of success." Specifically, "something I call optimum personal, business, and career strategy. What's this mean? It means that you must refuse to get less out of an effort, less out of an opportunity, less out of a day, less out of a dollar, less out of a relationship, than the maximum that activity or action has the capacity to give. It means that you don't do things just to be doing them. That you insist on playing life to the fullest. But playing it based on your sense of value."...You [first] have to figure out who you are and what it is you want." Obviously, Abraham cannot figure out who you are but the 21 "ways" he shares can help you to make that determination. He cannot tell you what it is you want but the same 21 "ways" can help you to make that determination, also. Who will derive the greatest benefit from this book? One candidate would be the recent graduate for whom this would be an especially valuable holiday gift. Also, your less-experienced business associates who seem to lack a sense of purpose and/or direction in their lives, jobs, and careers. Finally, just about anyone else for whom most of what Abraham suggests seems "obvious" but would benefit from the human equivalent of a vehicle's 60,000-mile check-up. Abraham knows a lot. He has street smarts. Also passion, conviction, and a remarkable amount of empathy. Years ago, Woody Allen once suggested that 80% of success is "showing up." For many people, Abraham suggests the other 20%: Knowing who you are and then being that person...knowing what you want and then pursuing it with energy and integrity. His use of the "journey" metaphor is apt. All successful journeys begin with the right "map" and resources, applied with precision and determination. If you are both willing and eager to begin your own "journey", I highly recommend Abraham as a companion.
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84 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Highly recommended reading for the business community.., April 4, 2000
Don't let Jay Abraham's title fool you. It may sound like just another "me generation" appeal to greed, but a careful reading will reverse that impression. What Abraham stresses throughout this helpful marketing book is that you must earn your rewards through serving others. What you have to sell (whether a product, an idea, or a service) must fill a genuine human need. You will earn the loyalty of clients only if you sincerely care about satisfying their needs. From the numerous success stories in this book, we can believe that Abraham has helped more than 10,000 businesses, large and small, to recognize overlooked opportunities and capitalize on them. His preference for the term "client" rather than "customer" sets the tone. Customers are people who buy from you. But clients are those for whom you provide some guidance or who are under your protection. Think of yourself as serving your clients, he says, helping them make the decision that will be most satisfactory to them, so that they will come back again. Much of Jay Abraham's advice has the ring of the tried-and-true, those fundamentals of marketing that have applied to human transactions from the beginnings of barter and trade. As always, you must offer quality and value, deal honestly, and back up the claims you make for your product. In today's world, you must also function efficiently, find your market niche, and test your advertising concepts (he tells you exactly how). You must maintain a reliable database of clients and contact them periodically to discover their changing needs. Abraham offers sound strategies for obtaining referrals, maximizing your advertising dollars, and writing appealing advertising copy. But many of Abraham's ideas are imaginative, and he encourages imagination in promoting your company and its products. He cautions against departing too radically from the promotional strategies that have worked well, yet there is also a need for original and fresh approaches. E-commerce, says Abraham, follows basic marketing principles within a new medium. He discusses the unique advantages of Internet marketing, showing respect and familiarity with the milieu of Cyberspace, while suggesting sensible precautions to avoid wasting your time and money. This section alone is worth the price of the book. Helen Heightsman Gordon, Reviewer
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32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You'll take the cash away in buckets after reading this one., September 4, 2001
This has got to be one of the best books on marketing that I've read in a long while. You find yourself sitting back and re-examining your entire business process and easily coming up with ways to attract NEW business from your existing customer or client base. I easily came up with three full pages of new services to offer my existing clients. Jay is big on creating a Unique Selling Point. The lightbulb went off in my head as soon as I read about his. Putting these ideas into action can be done by anyone. These services were just sitting here waiting to be discovered -- and I never would have found them without Jay's book. No matter what your business, you will be able to use the ideas in Jay's book. They are broad enough that you can capture the concept and mold it to the way that you do business. Jay also has a set of tapes on this concept which I strongly recommend. His web site (abraham) has a good preview of his methodology and concepts as well.
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