Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less and Make More Money with Your New Products, Services, Sales and Advertising [Hardcover]

Doug Hall (Author), Tom Peters (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2001

Jump Start Your Business Brain is must-have information for business people everywhere, especially small business owners. Why? Because author Doug Hall is on a personal quest - a Robin Hood-like mission to translate the wisdom he's discovered researching top corporations into no-fail, practical tactics for small and medium sized businesses. Jump Start Your Business Brain is packed with hard-won insight as to what truly works in the marketplace. To make it accessible to all, Doug transforms this real-life market intelligence into six scientific laws that, when applied with diligence, can make any business overflow with good fortune. Readers will learn how to: Increase sales by 10 to 50% by sharpening customer communications - not by spending additional money; Transform business offerings to enjoy a higher profit margin; Take charge of their future by increasing their skills at identifying and exploiting business opportunities; What makes this business book different from all the rest? Its laws of success are developed on scientific data and original research drawn from over 4,000 new products and services and over 6,000 front-line development groups. Even better, the purchase of this book also entitles the reader to conduct a Merwyn simulated test market on the probability of success for their own business plan/idea. Merwyn, the computer "brain trust" for all Doug's data and research, will run an Idea Scan (via a single-use password protected within the book - a $500 value) which will allow crucial analysis for their business. Finally, the promise of these scientific laws spring to life for the reader in dozens of small business success stories, including Village Pottery, Mo Hotta Mo Betta, College of Piping, Woolly Ware, Island Winds, Cavendish Figurines, Seasons in Thyme and Island Pewter.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an entrepreneur who just might have what we've all been looking for...the happy secret to success." -- Dateline NBC

"America's Top New Product Idea Man." -- Inc. Magazine

"Jump Start Your Business Brain is the first piece of TRUE, fact-based marketing wisdom since David Ogilvy." -- John Ruffley, Director of Marketing, M&M/Mars

"This book is beyond extraordinary. It's overwhelming in the nature of how powerful it is." -- Jerry McNellis, President and small business owner, McNellis Company

"When Doug meets Disney, creativity ne'er wanes; Our team explodes when he jump starts our brains!" -- Ellen Guidera, Vice President, The Walt Disney Company

About the Author

Doug Hall has been called America's no.1 New Product Idea Man by Inc. Magazine, A&E Top 10 and CIO Magazine, a title earned due to his outstanding work with such industry leaders as American Express, Ford Motor Company, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, Tropicana, AT&T and Frito-Lay. After 10 years with Procter & Gamble Co., where he became that company's first "master marketing inventor," he now runs the Eureka Ranch, a work-hard, play-hard haven where he helps companies like create breakthrough ideas for new products and services. This work, in combination with his years of consulting and researching, led directly to jump Start Your Business Brain, the best piece of good news for business owners to appear in the last ten years. Doug Hall is the founder of Eureka Ranch, a Cincinnati company that specializes in new business development training and consulting. Doug Hall and his family live in Cincinnati, Ohio.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Brain Brew Books (September 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558706070
• ISBN-13: 978-1558706071
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,592 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ROI of Eureka!, April 10, 2002

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less and Make More Money with Your New Products, Services, Sales and Advertising (Hardcover)

Perhaps you have already read Hall's previous book, Jump Start Your Brain (1996) to which David Wecker was a contributor. Most of the core concepts introduced in that book are developed in much greater depth in this sequel. However, Hall makes a much greater effort to explain their direct relevance to achieving business success. He shares "good news" in the Introduction: "Business success is not random. There are patterns in the universe of business. There are reproducible scientific lessons and laws that, when applied with diligence, can help you win more, lose less, and make more money with your new products, services, sales, and advertising efforts." Contrary to Darwinists, Hall rejects the term survival, replacing it with "thriving" through the effective use of data-validated scientific laws. Although he states that small business owners are the "focal point" of his book, I believe that literally anyone can benefit from this book who needs to formulate better ideas within a competitive marketplace.

These new ideas need not be limited to "new products, services, sales, and advertising efforts." On the contrary, they could also help substantially to improve the cycle time and first-pass yield of a process to produce new products and services, to increase both sales and profits, and to maximize the impact of marketing (i.e. creating demand for) whatever is offered for sale. In addition, effective application of "reproducible scientific lessons and laws" can generate new ideas which help a company to strengthen its relationships with customers, vendors, and strategic allies as well as with its own employees or "associates," as they are called at companies such as Wal-Mart and JCPenney.

Hall introduces and then explains what he calls "The Three Laws of Marketing Physics" in Part I (Overt Benefit, Real Reason to Believe, and Dramatic Difference) in Part II and then what he calls "The Three Laws of Capitalist Creativity" in Part II(Explore Stimuli, Leverage Diversity, and Face Fears). If I understand Hall correctly (and I may not in some instances), he works with a rather inclusive definition of "scientific" which bears greater resemblance to the thought processes of a Benjamin Franklin and Eli Whitney than those of, lets say, Frederick W. Taylor and W. Edwards Deming. Moreover, writing with what I characterize as a "Batman Style" (i.e. Pow! Bam! Gadzooks!), he seems to attach much greater value to enthusiasm, indeed PASSION! than he does to highly structured deductive and inductive reasoning. Hall asserts that ideas "are the only true fuel for winning customers and growing profits." How they are generated is determined by both attitude and process. With regard to scientific laws (however derived), they "provide a foundation for making decisions and taking action in the face of chaos."

Throughout this book, Hall includes all manner of exercises by which to "jump start" a brain. (FYI, each brain has about 12-trillion cells and is capable of 10,000 connections -- neurons forming synapses -- with other cells. To jump start is to expedite as well as increase such connections.) In Chapter 10, "How to Fuel Your Brain for Maximum Productivity," Hall includes several "Practical Tactics" such as those which can help anyone to break "mental constipation," "walk the talk," and complete a "mind dump." The extent to which a brain can make connections is determined almost entirely by the quantity and quality of what is available to connect. Hall recommends various specific strategies and tactics by which to increase, constantly, the number of one's "connectibles."

Near the end of many of my reviews, I ask "For whom will this book be most valuable?" With regard to this book, that is an easy answer to provide: Anyone who has a brain and wants to make much more effective use of it.

If your primary interest is in increasing "creativity" and "innovation" within primarily a business context, I highly recommend this book as well as Lynne C. Levesque's Breakthrough Creativity: Achieving Top Performance Using the Eight Creative Talents, Joey Reiman's Thinking for a Living: Creating Ideas That revitalize Your Business, Career, and Life, Stephen M. Shapiro's 24/7 Innovation: A Blueprint for Surviving and Thriving in an Age of Innovation, and Roger Von Oech's Expected the Unexpected (Or You Won't Find It): A Creativity Tool Based on the Ancient Wisdom of Heraclitus. If I were to buy only one of these books, Hall's would be my choice.

If your interest is more general in nature, check out Bernie DeKoven's The Well-Played Game: A Playful Path to Wholeness, Guy Claxton's Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less, Michael Michalko's Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius, and Roger Von Oech's A Kick in the Seat of the Pants: Using Your Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior to Be More Creative and A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars His best book so far, October 9, 2001

By 

John C. Dunbar (Sugar Land, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less and Make More Money with Your New Products, Services, Sales and Advertising (Hardcover)

Doug Hall has mellowed somewhat from his earlier works and is more focused on bottom line results in creating products/services and creating marketing messages. Before he could be "bounce off the wall creative." His prior book "Jump Start Your Brain" is also excellent, but this one is better. Start with this one first. Then get the previous one if you can.

If it weren't for the Foreword by Tom Peters, I would have rated this book a 10 in a scale of 1 to 5. So, I guess it is just a 7 on a scale of 1 - 5 since I had to suffer through one page of capital letters from Tom Peters glowing praises of this book. Can Tom Peters ever write a sentence without using all caps?

Fortunately, the writing style of Hall is very readable. In fact, this is much better than his previous books. In my copy, every page has many underlinings and comments or notes to myself.

If you are in the process of creating a marketing campaign, or creating products/services, you really need to read this book.

I highly recommend this very practical book. And, the author comes across as a great teacher, consultant, coach, motivator and friend. He has an excellent background to teach this subject and his recommendations appear easy to apply.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eureka!, December 11, 2001

By 

Jeff Davis, Senior Consulting Engineer, jdavis (Georgetown, KY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less and Make More Money with Your New Products, Services, Sales and Advertising (Hardcover)

Last week I finished "Jump Start Your Business Brain" and gave a report to the marketing group. Upon review of our marketing efforts, we found that we were selling the features of lean manufacturing and not showing potential clients the benefits and competitive business advantage to be gained. We also decided to market with more clarity to the client "reasons to believe." We landed two new contracts this week. Could be a coincedence, but more likely a result from putting to use Doug Hall's techniques outlined in "Jump Start Your Business Brain." Look for Doug's techniques to be used on the TSD web site. I feel so strongly about Doug's book that I am going to recommend that TSD try and provide a link to Doug's web sites!