Online Extras

Good to Great by Jim Collins

INSTORE tip: "Okay, just about everybody regularly creates “to-do” or “start doing” lists. But Jim Collins, author of Good To Great, wonders whether you have a “stop doing” list. Think of all the harmful, unproductive (or even less productive) behaviors you engage in ... and put them on your list. Let your “stop doing” list help you focus on the things you need to do to make your business great."

See Amazon review here.

How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins

Tip: A company on its way from massive success to complete collapse goes through five steps:

• Hubris born of success
• Undisciplined pursuit of more
• Denial of risk and peril
• Grasping for salvation
• Capitulation to irrelevance or death

See Harvard Business Review review here.

Little Big Things by Tom Peters

Tip from INSTORE: Rule to remember for better customer service: A screw-up,  responded to quickly, completely and with absolute sincerity, usually leads to a better relationship than if nothing had gone wrong in the first place!

See INSTORE review here.

Re-Imagine by Tom Peters 

INSTORE tip: Hang out with the dull, and you'll be dull; hang out with the weird, and you'll be weird. (Peters adores weird and wacky.)

See INSTORE review here.

Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

Tip: Think of how you can apply the "broken window theory" in your business. (This is where a campaign by Mayor Gulliani in the 1980s to quickly fix broken windows around New York City helped contribute to a massive drop in the crime rate. (Making the crime rate in the country's biggest city equivalent to the crime rate in Boise, ID.)

See Amazon review here.

Tip from INSTORE: Don't bother with "How did you learn about our store?" type polls. One company the author consulted with asked visitors to its brand-new store that question and had more than 30 percent answer that they had come because of the company's television ads. The kicker? The company had never run any television ads.

See INSTORE review here.

First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham

Tip from INSTORE: As a manager, your key goals are: find the right fit for employees, focus on strengths instead of weaknesses, choose staff for talent (rather than skills or knowledge), and define the right results and reward those who get them.

See INSTORE review here.

Free Prize Inside by Seth Godin

Tip from INSTORE:  The biggest risk for any business owner is to not take risks, to get too comfortable, and to stand still in your business.

See INSTORE review here.

The Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer

Tip from INSTORE: Here are a few sample interview questions from The Sales Bible:

1.) Why do you want to succeed at sales?;
2.) Where does your sales passion come from?;
3.) What is the last sales book you read?;
4.) What is the last creativity book you read?;
5.) Tell me about the biggest sale you ever made;
6.) What was the biggest reason you got it?;
7.) Tell me about a sale you lost;
8.) What do you say when a prospect says, ‘I want to think it over?’;
9.) What do you say when a prospect says, ‘I’m satisfied with my present jeweler?';
10.) What do you say when a prospect says, ‘Your price is too high?';
11.) How often do you listen to or read personal development information?;
12.) What was the last seminar you attended?;
13.) Are you a member of Toastmasters?;
14.) How do you improve your presentation skills?;
15.) What is your most creative approach to follow-up?;
16.) Give me your 30-second personal commercial.

See Amazon review here.

Customer Satisfaction is Worthless by Jeffrey Gitomer

Tip from INSTORE: Phrase Gitomer hates with a passion: "It's company policy". Don't ever catch yourself using this.

See INSTORE review here.

Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute

Tip from INSTORE: If you've got personnel problems in your store, the first thing to consider is that perhaps you are the problem. Feeling defensive already? Of course you are. Imagine a child crawling backwards on the floor, who gets stuck under some furniture. All she can think to do is push harder and thrash and struggle, thus wedging herself more deeply under the furniture. If the infant could talk, she'd blame the furniture for her troubles. After all, she's doing everything she can think of. The problem couldn't be hers. That's what the book refers to as "self-deception." And we do that, on a slightly more subtle scale, all the time in our professional lives.

See INSTORE review here.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Tip from INSTORE: Godin's credos? "The opposite of remarkable is very good" and "Safe is risky". While his words are far more applicable to the detergent-eat-detergent world of consumer marketing, they do also have some use for jewelry retailers ... especially those in already highly-saturated markets. But don't take his words too literally, and suddenly turn your store into, for instance, your town's one-stop nose piercing center — "all noses, all the time".

See INSTORE review here.

Retail Superstars: Lessons Learned From America's Best Independent Retailers by George Whalin

Tip: Try to be remarkable. Try to be different. Don't do the same things everybody else in the business seems to be doing. "Compared to so many cookie-cutter chain stores that all look alike and carry the same or similar merchandise, one can't help but acknowledge what these truly remarkable independent stores profiled herein have achieved."

See Amazon review here.

Why We Buy by Paco Underhill

Tip from INSTORE: In the majority of stores throughout the world, sales would instantly be increased by the addition of one chair. I would remove a display if it meant creating space for a chair. I'd rip out a fixture. I'd kill a mannequin. A chair says: We care.

Read INSTORE review here.

The One Thing You Need To Know by Marcus Buckingham

Tip from INSTORE: If your approach to performance management is focusing on ways to stop people doing things, then you have a problem.  Your number one job as a manager is to bring out the best in people. Find out what your people have a knack for and support them to grow those talents.

See Amazon review here.

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazi

Tip from INSTORE: The title — "Never Eat Alone" — is one great tip for a person looking to build a larger and more powerful network.

See INSTORE review here.

Outrageous Marketing by Jon Spoelstra

Tip: Getting people's attention pays off. But you've gotta do outrageous things to get their attention. Like sending them a rubber chicken in the mail. (As Spoelstra did in a $12,000 campaign that earned $2.5 million for his employer, basketball's Sacramento Kings.)

See Amazon review here.

The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding by Al and Laura Ries

Tip from INSTORE: The best store logos are simple, horizontal.Don't mar a logo's readability by trying to include artwork or a symbol. (These rarely work, according to the Ries.)

See INSTORE review here.

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

Tip from INSTORE: The only reason to read this book is if you've worked your butt off for many years, still aren't satisfied, and are now looking for a different type of currency — the currency of time.

See INSTORE review here.

Hug Your Customers by Jack Mitchell

Tip from INSTORE: One extremely important suggestion Mitchell offers is to "SKU your customers" — build your database so that you have as much information on each of your customers as you do any of your products. Get all the obvious stuff in there — as well as some less obvious stuff like hobbies, pets' names, and golf handicap. (Then, if you've got a free-standing store, when you see them arrive in the parking lot, you've got a minute or two to quickly call up and print up their profile for reference.)

See INSTORE review here.

Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heenl

Tip from INSTORE: WWhen you fire someone, that person will likely be upset, and possibly upset at you. Don't measure the success of that conversation by whether or not they get upset. It's their right to be upset, and it's a reasonable response. Better instead to go in with the purposes of giving them the news, of taking responsibility for your part in this outcome (but no more), of showing you care about how they feel, and of trying to be helpful going forward.

See INSTORE review here.

Made To Stick by Dan and Chip Heath

Tip from INSTORE: Good storytellers know that the more details you have, the more credible your story is. Example: would the famous "stolen kidney" urban legend have a tenth of its power without all the great details: the ice in the bathtub, the note by the telephone, etc? Remember this when writing advertising copy.

See INSTORE review here.

The Way We're Working Isn't Working by Tony Schwartz

Tip from INSTORE: Before you go to bed every night, make sure you know what key project you will work on the next day before anything else. Too many people wake up, fire up e-mail, encounter their first crisis before breakfast and bounce from emergency to emergency for the rest of the day. By picking one project to which you can devote your best, freshest period of work, 10 you ensure that the rush to complete the urgent never overwhelms what’s truly important.

See INSTORE review here.

The Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz

Tip from INSTORE: The mind is a muscle and should be treated as such. Like a muscle, when the brain works hard, it needs time to recover. Like a muscle, the brain can be trained in a manner that expands its capacity. Also like a muscle, the brain can be over-trained.

See INSTORE review here.

Your Marketing Sucks by Mark Stevens

Tip from INSTORE: in these days of text merges and printer templates, nobody — repeat, nobody — should be sending out form letters that start "Dear Mr./Mrs. Business Owner". Or send envelopes with mailing labels on them ... a tactic that gives a blood-curdling cry of "JUNK MAIL!!!"

See INSTORE review here.