Getting Things Done: Book Review

February 8, 2010

At Raise Small Business Marketing we are constantly studying and learning to help our clients.  We follow many message boards, blogs, web sites, articles and books to make sure that we stay on top of current and future trends and ideas.  On our blog we will offer “reviews” of these learning tools, but not in the traditional way.  Our goal is to find the three to five things that stood out the most to us in our niche and how we might be able to use these ideas.

Getting Things Done

By David Allen

Getting Things Done is a productivity book, which is not necessarily marketing related- but time consumption is a big deal for many small business owners.  Proper use of time by small business can be the difference between success and failure.  Allen also argues that our productivity is directly related to our ability to relax, which I agree with wholeheartedly.  There is nothing worse than trying to relax knowing how much is on your plate at the office.  And when your office is at home, as mine is, it can make you crazy and really not ever allow you to relax.  So I was excited to get this information from David Allen.

1. Do it, delegate it, defer or drop it.  Those four words really do sum up Allen’s system.  At it’s simplest, you take every actionable item that comes across your desk or from your inbox and handle it one of four ways.  If it is something that can be handled quickly, do it; if a subordinate can handle it,let them; if it can’t be dealt witgh right now or shouldn’t be, put it in a tickler file until it is possible or appropriate to complete; or if it is not something that can be handled, let it go or throw it away.

2. This system is designed to not only help workers be more productive, but also allow them to be productive in the heat of the day.  The system can be used on your inbox on your desk, your mail, your email inbox or any other number of places.  It is a good system, that allows you to look at your life and work from different levels, from close up (day to day tasks) to far away (5-10 year plans).

3.  My main problem with this book is that I really just summed up the entire book in two bullet points, where Allen took 250.  For a book about productivity there i an awful lot of fluff and repeated information.  I honestly feel like the book could have been broken down into a flow chart that appears in the book and maybe 10 other pages.

In my opinion, while the book is fine, it wasted a lot more of my time than it saved.  With all the information available on the web from sites like Lifehacker, there is really no need for the book.  I do utilize parts of the system but still hobble together my index cards and Outlook as well.  If you really want ideas on productivity it isn’t bad, it just certainly was not worth the price I paid for it.

Brand Warfare: Book Review

August 3, 2009

At Raise Small Business Marketing we are constantly studying and learning to help our clients.  We follow many message boards, blogs, web sites, articles and books to make sure that we stay on top of current and future trends and ideas.  On our blog we will offer “reviews” of these learning tools, but not in the traditional way.  Our goal is to find the three to five things that stood out the most to us in our niche and how we might be able to use these ideas.

Brand Warfare

By David D’Alessandro with Michele Owens copyright 2001

Brand Warfare is an interesting book written by David D’Alessandro, the CEO of John Hancock.  It is subtitled 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand.  That is the way the book is set up is through the Ten Rules and include such chapters as, It’s the Brand Stupid and Do Not Allow Scandal to Destroy a Brand.  It is about how companies can build their brand, get employees on board, plan advertising, and protect and take care of the brand.

The Three Main Things We Took from This Book

1. The word Brand is still very hard to define.  Even though the book is completely dedicated to brands and building your brand there is no simple one sentence answer to what is a brand.  The book talks about how everyone from big business to Hollywood stars talk about their “brand”.  In the end, our working definition of the brand is what consumers think of you, what you  think of yourself, and everything that goes into creating those ideas about your business including marketing, products, and services.  Business people often have n idea of what their brand is that is completely different than what their customers think and sometimes even what their employers think.
2. If You Want Great Advertising You Have to Fight For It.  This is the name of a chapter in the book hat really made sense.  Oftentimes advertising campaigns have too many people involved.  The creative team comes up with a great concept and shows it to the client who is allowed to make changes based on intuition, advice from friends or employees, or just because they don’t like it.  Trust your creative people; you hired them for a reason.  Business owners should not allow incorrect information into their ads and should make sure that main themes are included but should trust the people they are paying to bring a clear consistent message.
3. David D’Alessandro  foresaw the demise of Circuit City all the way back in 2001.  Well maybe not exactly, but in the Chapter “Make Your Distributors Slave to Your Brand” he talks about an unnamed Superstore that could easily be Circuit City.  He talks about how the stores are messy, cashiers are hard to find, and salespeople are not knowledgeable.  That was my experience every time I walked into Circuit City.  Compare that to Best Buy, which prides itself on it’s customer service and the knowledge of the salespeople.  Best Buy is in business and Circuit City was liquidated earlier this year.  Know you niche, and market to your niche.  Some things, like high level electronics, will never just be commodities even if some consumers want them to be.  Sell on value, not on price.
4. Viral Marketing is not for small businesses.  Viral marketing is all the rage.  Some very forward thinking business owners attempt to start a viral marketing campaign using social media, YouTube and word of mouth.  But this is very hard for an unestablished brand.   D’Alessandro  uses he dot com bust to illustrate this point.  All the new tech companies had these funny ad campaigns and spent millions on SuperBowl ads that had nothing to do with their business.  Many were trying to follow Apple’s iconic “hammer throw” ad.  But Apple already had a known brand.  That commercial didn’t launch them; it propelled them to the next level.  You have to do all the hard work of brand identity before you should even think about getting cute or too subtle with your advertising.  Lay the groundwork first.

I did like this book and would recommend it to anyone with interest in the idea of brand.  Most of these strategies are for businesses much larger than the ones we normally deal with.  For instance we haven’t had any clients ask us about the pros and cons of being an Olympic Sponsor or buying the naming rights to a stadium, but the concepts remain the same.  After all what we always try and do is bring big business strategies to small businesses.