Tag Archives: New York
Admiral McRaven’s Quote on Daring in Life
In the book that I will present at the First Friday Book Synopsis at the Park City Club this week, Admiral William H. McRaven, wrote this in Make 
Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2017).
You Must Dare Greatly.
If you want to change the world sometimes you have to slide down the obstacle head first.
“Life is a struggle, and the potential for failure is ever present, but those who live in fear of failure, for hardship, or embarrassment will never achieve their potential.”
You can still register for this event online by going to our home page. The advance registration fee is only $29.
Terrible Trump Book Busts Best-Seller List at # 1
Ivanka Trump‘s new book, torched its way to the very top of the Wall Street Journal business best-seller list (May 13-14, 2017, p. C12). It is the first time that I ever remember a book debuting on the list at #1.
The book is entitled Women Who Work: Rewriting the Rules for Success (New York: Portfolio). It was released on May 2.
As of this writing, it is # 253 on the Amazon.com all-books sold list, and in the top 20 in three sub-categories. Of interest is that it is also # 9 on the Wall Street Journal non-fiction best-seller list.
The book is receiving scathing critical reviews. You can read a summary of these from the Huffington Post, written by Katherine Brooks, whose by-line reads, “It’s been described as “witless,” “insufferable,” “vapid,” and “very vapid.””
Click here to read the entire article referred to above.
Even though this is a best-seller, you can be assured that we will not present it at the First Friday Book Synopsis. My prediction is that it will be off the list, from # 1 to beyond # 10, within two weeks.
Another Sample Business Question and Answer from Our Upcoming Book
Last week, I posted a sample page from our upcoming book, entitled Answers to 100 Best Business Questions from 100 Best-Selling Business Books
Randy Mayeux and I are really excited about our the book, which attempts to answer questions that our clients have in areas such as customer service, management, leadership, teamwork, communication skills, and strategy. The answers come from books that we have presented over the years at the First Friday Book Synopsis in Dallas. Each question and answer fits on exactly one page.
Here is another sample for you to read, that asks a new question, and gives a new answer.
How can I apologize to someone in an effective way?
Battistella, Edwin. (2014). Sorry about that: The language of public apology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Many of us say “I’m sorry” or “Sorry!” every day. But, very few us really get that message across in a meaningful way. In this book, Edwin Battistella gives practical advice for giving a proper apology. Here are three quotes from the book:
“Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is different from saying ‘I apologize.’ The former reports on an internal state of the speaker but does not literally perform an apology….By itself, the minimal report ‘I’m sorry’..or, the simple ‘Sorry’…doesn’t tell us much” (p. 58).
“Regret…also reports an speaker’s internal state….regret in ways that merely report on situations without assuming agency for them….a speaker [can] regret a situation but not assume responsibility for it” (p. 61).
“Sorry is too personal for some professional and business exchanges, while regret is usually too impersonal and detached for condolences” (p. 62).
So, what does it take for an apology to be effective and succeed? There are two parts: ethically – by admitting moral wrongdoing and expressing regret, and socially – by making amends with the offended party. Apologies can fail on either count too, and key to the outcome is the language the apologizer uses.
And finally, consider this: “The expressions ‘I was wrong’ and ‘Forgive me’ are also sometimes taken to imply apologies. ‘I was wrong’ concedes error. ‘Forgive me’ asks for reconciliation. To conversationally cooperative listeners, either can imply the full apology process….When we shortcut a full apology by merely saying ‘I was wrong,’ we are relying on the naming of the offense to perform the work of the apology without the sorry-saying. And when we shortcut a full apology with ‘Forgive me,’ we are jumping directly to the response step of the process” (p. 65).
Our Upcoming Book Answers Essential Business Questions
Randy Mayeux and I are really excited about our upcoming book, entitled Answers to 100 Best Business Questions from 100 Best-Selling Business Books.
The book attempts to answer questions that our clients have in areas such as customer service, management, leadership, teamwork, communication skills, and strategy. The answers come from books that we have presented over the years at the First Friday Book Synopsis in Dallas. Each question and answer fits on exactly one page.
The idea for the book came from a presentation we heard last week at Success North Dallas with Jill Schiefelbein, who spoke on business video, podcasting, and livestreaming. She is called the DYNAMIC COMMUNICATOR. Her major take-away is that businesses need to answer the questions that their customers ask. I am pictured with her below.
Here is a sample page from the book to whet your appetite:
What do customers really want salespeople to know?
Ram Charan. (2007). What the customer wants you to know: How everybody needs to think differently about sales. New York: Portfolio.
The landscape for selling has changed in significant ways in the past twenty years. Customers’ quest for personal service and high quality, now rival the best possible price that they want to pay. In this best-seller, Ram Charan explains what this revolution in customer demands means for salespeople’s behavior.
What exactly has changed? Years ago, supplies were tight, and customers had to book orders months in advance, with little room to negotiate price. Salespeople transitioned from order-takers to ambassadors, identifying needs and linking them to products and services, building relationships with their customers. Today, there is a glut of suppliers and supplies, with access from the Internet to all types of locations. The customers are under pressure to deliver value to their clients. “But the pressure on customers to perform is actually a huge opportunity for those suppliers who can help them….So while they want low prices, they also want their clients to love their products and services. They want to win against their competitors and stay ahead of them…They want suppliers who can help them accomplish those things by acting as partners, not one-time transactors” (pp. 4-5)
So, what does Charan say to do? Make the focus on the prosperity of your customers. Become your customer’s trusted partner, requiring you to understand: (1) the customer’s set of opportunities and the anatomy of competitive dynamics, (2) the customer’s customers and the customer’s competitors, (3) how decisions are made in the customer’s organization, (4) the customer’s company culture and its dominant psychology and values, and (5) the customer’s goals and priorities, both short-term and long-term, clearly and specifically (p. 40).
In short, Charan tells you to measure your success by how well your customers are doing with your help. Do not focus on selling a product or service; focus on how you can help the customer succeed in all ways that are important to that customer.
Trump’s Art of the Deal May Not be a Big Deal
Many years ago, I read Donald Trump‘s The Art of the Deal (New York: Random House, 1987)
The book is often-cited as one of the best-selling business books ever written. Others use the 
content of the book to register complaints about his Presidency, claiming that what Trump wrote is inconsistent with what he now says and does.
But, the larger question is, “does The Art of the Deal even qualify as a business book?” And, exactly how big of a best-seller is it? As of this writing, the book is in the top 100 of three Amazon.com best-seller sub-categories.
I found some information about these questions; click here to read these questions.
“It’s difficult to weigh Trump’s opus against other “business books” for two reasons.
Brad Stone is Optimistic in The Upstarts
On Friday, April 7, I present a synopsis of The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, 
and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley are Changing the World (New York: Little Brown, 2017).
The author is Brad Stone, who previously wrote the best-seller, The Everything Store (Back Bay Books, 2014), about Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com.
You can register to hear this presentation at the First Friday Book Synopsis for just $29 online by clicking on: www.15minutebusinessbooks.com. The site also has directions to the Park City Club. Breakfast opens at 7:00 a.m., and we end the session at 8:05 a.m.
In the book, Stone is optimistic about the future of these companies:
“Both Travis Kalanick and Brian Chesky had made big promises: to eliminate traffic, improve the livability of our cities, and give people more time and more authentic experiences. If these promises are kept, the results might be well worth the mishaps and mistakes that occurred during their journeys; perhaps they’ll even be worth the enormous price paid by the disrupted.
“And if they can’t meet their own lofty goals? Or if the intensity of competition pushes them further toward a ruthless, win-at-all-costs mentality? Then Uber and Airbnb risk validating the worst claims of their critics – that they used technology and clever business plans merely to replace one set of dominant companies with another, amassing a staggering amount of wealth in the process.
“I’m more optimistic than that. I believe in the power and potential of the upstart s and have frequently admired their resourceful, adaptive CEO’s. But it’s up to us to hold them to their promises. They are the new architects of the twenty-first century, every bit as powerful as political leaders and now completely enmeshed in an establishment that they have, at times, bitterly fought” (pp. 331-332).
