Book Summaries

AMACOM, 272 pages

Absolute Value answers the question of what influences customers in this new age and describes how a company should design its communication strategy, market research program, and segmentation strategy in order to adopt a new way of thinking about marketing in this new environment.

John Wiley & Sons, 202 pages

In his revolutionary bestseller, The Long Tail, Chris Anderson demonstrated how the online marketplace creates niche markets, allowing products and consumers to connect in a way that has never happened before. Now, in Free, he makes the compelling case that in many instances businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. Far more than a promotional gimmick, Free is a business strategy that may well be essential to a company’s survival.

Trout and co-author Steve Rivkin address what factors allow a company or product to stand out in an increasingly competitive (and global) marketplace, offering readers solid strategies to get above the crowds of competitors and generate the business required to stay there.

If you are going to succeed in business today, you have no choice but to become customer-centered. This summary teaches you exactly what steps you need to take to become customer-centered, and explains what leaders in the field have done to change their focus and vision from an internally driven idea of what the customer wants to an outside-in vision of what the customer wants.