What No One Ever Tells You about Marketing Your Own Business: Real-Life Advice from 101 Successful Entrepreneurs (Paperback)

by Jan Norman (Author) "Pete Maddox builds, repairs, and maintains computer systems for companies..." (more)
Key Phrases: most likely customers, many business owners, Wall Drug, Southern California, Wet Seal (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Jan Norman’s weekly newspaper column, It’s Your Business, explores real-life solutions to problems business owners encounter when launching and running their companies. She has produced more than 900 columns for the Orange County Register, and her work is syndicated internationally by the Knight Ridder/ Tribune News Service.

About the Author
Jan Norman is a journalist and writer. Her weekly newspaper column, It’s Your Business, explores real-life solutions to problems business owners encounter when launching and running their companies. She has produced more than 900 columns for the Orange County Register, and her work is syndicated internationally by the Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. She regularly contributes to magazines and Web sites, including Self-Employed America and Entrepreneur.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Kaplan Business (July 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0793185726
• ISBN-13: 978-0793185726
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #951,806 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Book For Marketing Ideas, March 30, 2006

By	Peter Hupalo (MN United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"What No One Ever Tells You About Marketing Your Own Business: Real-Life Marketing Advice from 101 Successful Entrepreneurs" by Jan Norman is an excellent book to give entrepreneurs ideas about how to market and promote their businesses.

The book contains 101 two-page stories where successful entrepreneurs share their marketing advice. Norman writes: "Every marketer has many different tools and tactics from which to choose, so emphasize the ones that capitalize on your style and preferences... Analyze both your business and yourself before developing a well-thought-out marketing plan that matches your personality and image..."

Marketing tactics Norman discusses include:

1. Understanding point-of-sale merchandizing.
2. Database marketing.
3. Direct mail.
4. Marketing on the Internet.
5. The importance of tracking marketing success.
6. The importance of location and using maps to guide customers.
7. Infomercials and radio advertisements.
8. Public speaking and networking.
9. The importance of product distribution.
10. The importance of understanding your customers and their motivation to buy.

Norman points out some entrepreneurs neglect marketing when they get busy. This leads to erratic profits. She suggests entrepreneurs list their marketing efforts in a marketing calendar so they can identify when no marketing is active. Norman writes: "The key is to plan so that you're always marketing in some way."

Many of the businesses featured are unique. To help us understand how pricing effects sales, Norman features an online pet store AnimalMania (animals.com) which uses management software to track how price affects sales. It helps the store decide the best price for green iguanas, turtles (three for $8), or neon cardinal fish.

Norman writes: "Computer analysis also helped Mike identify errors in product deliveries. He orders 2,000 goldfish and 1,000 guppies twice a week. His inventory would indicate he had 20,000 fish on hand but his tanks were empty. So he started counting the fish, difficult as that was, which routinely uncovered shortages in deliveries. ... analyzing his profits and adjusting prices quickly doubled Animalmania's profitability in two years."

Curiously, another company featured by Norman developed pattern recognition technology to help identify fish. Norman writes that a meeting: "... made DataFlow [the company featured] executives aware of the federal government's interest in identifying and tracking fish without physical tags that can harm them. The concept was to photograph and 'tag' fish using their skin spots based on pattern-recognition technology."

Apparently, there is a whole industry centered around counting fish. Who knew? This case shows the importance of finding solutions to customer problems. Norman says you must leave your existing beliefs behind and seek to understand customer motivation.

"Capitalize on customer dissatisfaction. Never underestimate the marketing value of solving a problem that irritates customers," advises Norman.

Another unique company (NoUVIR) developed special lighting without ultraviolet or IR radiation for use in museums and art galleries. Eliminating ultraviolet and infrared helps protect sensitive documents. Norman's NoUVIR lesson is to use trademarks and patents to protect your sales from competition.

Norman writes: "Another protection [in addition to patents] is the name [NoUVIR], which means no ultraviolet (UV) and no infrared radiation (IR). A huge competitor used the term "No IR" in its advertisements when trying to convey its fiber optic lighting as heatless. NoUVIR successfully stopped the ads on the basis that they infringed on its trademark. NoUVIR products became the lighting of choice for public displays of a 15th-century vellum copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the state of Delaware's original copy of the Bill of Rights penned in 1790, Thomas Jefferson's handwritten draft of the Declaration of Independence..."

Norman devotes one section of "What No One Ever Tells You About Marketing Your Own Business: Real-Life Marketing Advice from 101 Successful Entrepreneurs" to online marketing. The chapters discuss Google Adwords (keyword advertising), Google Adsense (putting Google ads on your site), blogging, eZines, and using eBay as a distribution channel.

No entrepreneur will use all the techniques discussed in "What No One Ever Tells You About Marketing Your Own Business: Real-Life Marketing Advice from 101 Successful Entrepreneurs," but you'll pick up some good ideas which might be appropriate to your own business. I highly recommend this book to all entrepreneurs.

Peter Hupalo, author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Case Studies, September 3, 2006

By	Nick D. "zero2hide" (Fort Collins, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews

Although this is the only the third review for this book, it deserves more attention than it's getting. Each very short chapter is really a condensed case study from small businesses across the U.S. It's not full of long-winded philosophies, and broad concepts, but practical ideas from people who have grown their businesses into successful, and highly profitable enterprises. More like a marketing handbook. Each chapter also has a bulleted overview at the end.

4.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational success stories, May 5, 2009

By	Roland Reinhart "RolandNJ" (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Basically each chapter is a success story from a different entrepreneur. It covers a wide-range of marketing ideas. Check out the book... perhaps a few of these success stories may be a source of inspiration to apply to your own business.