Until last year I didn't know Jon Spoelstra from Johnny Appleseed. And I certainly didn't know that he's been wandering across America sprinkling the seeds of business growth.
In fact, I first ran into Jon when I ordered a copy of his thriller
Red Chaser: A noir thriller of the 1950s, the Cold War and the Brooklyn Dodgers
A heckuva deal on a great book. Amazingly, he offered it FREE, such an irresistible price that I felt guilty taking him up on it. So guilty in fact, that I shipped off to him a copy of my own book
Postcards. Little Letters From Life
as a thank you.
When I saw Marketing Outrageously Redux touted on the website of Roy Williams, who bills himself as the Wizard of Ads, and clearly deserves that title, I looked into this man Spoelstra and discovered that he is a legend in his own right. I am far from being a sports fan, but I have been on the creative side of the marketing and advertising business all my life and I know talent when I see it. This is it.
I rushed to buy his book.
Spoelstra has taken upside-down professional teams and put them on their feet and standing in the black. And he's turned good organizations to solid gold, all with ideas that would make the collective hair of typically "sensible" marketers stand on end.
I once walked into the office of the marketing director of a large bank whose name I won't mention. Behind him on the wall was a plaque that read, "What business needs is more General Pattons and fewer marketing chickens." Fred was well schooled, looked the part, but lived by the Law of Conventional Wisdom. He and his like-minded big bank were on the edge of going out of business. And this was when the economy was GOOD. Fred, as they say in Texas, was all hat and no cattle.
This bank didn't need unheeded mottoes, it badly needed Jon Spoelstra, who actually is one of those General Pattons. And his pearl handled revolvers are the "scary" ideas you'll read about in this wonderful book. Even the cover is a provocative hoot that will make you think about the stunning effect that unconventional, interruptive communications, promotions, policies, personnel practices, leadership, and unexpected organizational management style can evoke among the masses who are out there just waiting for somebody to surprise them.
Buy this book. Read it. Test your courage by answering some of the questions it asks -- and answers.It's 271 pages of sheer fun and terrific wisdom, particularly for business people longing for breakthroughs. If you've been wondering, "Is anybody out there listening?" you should probably be asking, "If I were them, why should they?"
Marketing Outrageously Redux will unscrew your thinking.
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