Business Book Summaries

In this completely revised and updated edition of the bestselling Your Money or Your Life, Vicki Robin shows you how to take back your life by changing the way you relate to money in order to live more deliberately and meaningfully. This new edition which includes a new introduction, updated resources, an easy to use index, anecdotes, and examples particularly relevant to today, will show you how to get out of debt, develop savings; reorder material priorities and live well for less, resolve inner conflicts between values and lifestyle, convert problems into opportunities to learn new skills, attain a wholeness of livelihood and lifestyle, save the planet while saving money, and so much more.

This book will help you gain control of your money and start making a life.

Here is an excerpt from the book, "Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence", by By Vicki Robin & Joe Dominguez with Monique Tilford

VALUING YOUR LIFE ENERGY – MINIMIZING SPENDING

This step is about the intelligent use of your life energy (money) and the conscious reduction or elimination of expenses.

Consider the suggestions that follow, not as a blueprint for the single right way, but rather as a menu of options. Explore the ones that intrigue or inspire you and leave the rest. Frugality is about enjoyment and not penny-pinching!

TEN SURE WAYS TO SAVE MONEY

1. Don’t go shopping. If you don’t go shopping, you won’t spend money.

2. Live within your means. To live within your means is to buy only what you can prudently afford to avoid debt, unless you have an assurance that you will be able to pay for it promptly and always have something put away for a rainy day.

3. Take care of what you have. There is one thing that we want to last a long time: our bodies. Simple attention to the proven practices will save you lots of money.

4. Wear them out. Think how much money you would save if you simply decided to use things even 20 percent longer.

5. Do it yourself. Basic living and survival skills can be learned through websites, adult education classes, extension agents, and last but not least, books.

6. Anticipate your needs. Forethought in purchasing can bring tremendous savings.

7. Research value, quality, durability, multiple use, and price. Research well before you purchase.

8. Buy it for less. The goal is always to get them as cheaply as possible.

9. Meet your needs differently. The principle of substitution simply means, there are hundreds, if not thousands of ways to meet a need. Substitution isn’t limitation – it is simply liberation.

10. Follow the nine steps of this program. All the steps matter. They synergize to spur you on.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity

We are in the midst of a worldwide economic shift. Thousands of people are losing their jobs every day. Many have experienced successful business careers, but now their employers are dumping them. Those who have lost their jobs may be shell-shocked, but many will have a relatively soft landing: a corporate buyout, an early retirement package, or a pension. Having a bundle of cash to cushion the shock is certainly better than wondering how you are going to cover next month’s mortgage payment. But, that cash can do some real damage to you depending on your state of mind.

For many, buying a franchise after a bad work experience is a little bit like a rebound romance. You’ve been unexpectedly jilted. Your confidence is shaken. To distract yourself, you start Googling and clicking, and before you know it, you’re a franchisee. You’re still hurting from what happened in your job as you embark on something that will test your limits as nothing has before. You are not running toward something as much as running away from something—the pain of losing what you had before. And, it’s just a matter of time before you can’t run fast enough or far enough to get away from yourself.

This book is for people who may be caught up in the economic turmoil of our day; for those who have reached a point in their corporate careers where they’ve achieved success, have a lot to show for it, and just want out of the rat race; and it’s for those who seek coaching through the early stages of franchised and small business so they can create the success they deserve.

Here is an excerpt from the book, "Franchise: Freedom or Fantasy? – How to Know if a Franchise is Right for You After Your Corporate Career", by Mitchell York

Networking Marketing as an Alternative to Franchising

If you conclude that starting a business is the right thing for you, but you do not want to take on the risk of starting something from scratch or buying an expensive franchise, there are other viable alternatives such as Network Marketing, also called Multi-Level Marketing (MLM).

Just as franchisors sell their products through a series of franchisees, other companies sell through independent sales representatives. These reps or distributors are unsalaried but receive commissions from the parent company based on the volume of product they sell. They also receive commissions when they sign up others to become distributors.

You have to understand what is motivating you to consider starting your own business. Nowadays, it is all too common to see people gravitate to business ownership as a default to other possibilities. Because of layoffs, downsizings, and corporate buyouts, hundreds of thousands of people are losing their appetite for the corporate world and traditional jobs. It’s natural at least to consider starting your own business as one alternative to getting back on the corporate horse.

But for some, all they really need is a vacation, a hobby, or some other mechanism to get their equilibrium back and land another job. Are you sure that’s not a possibility for you? It’s guaranteed to be easier than starting a business. If it’s no longer an option and you must start a business to have the contentment and peace of mind you’re after, then more power to you.

If you are serious about making the transition from executive to entrepreneur, you should hire a professional – a certified business coach who has walked in your shoes and who has helped other people like you.

Making this transition can be a solitary and lonely road, but it doesn’t have to be. It can also be an invigorating self-discovery journey that leads to tremendous personal empowerment and fulfillment. A coach can help you navigate your way to a positive outcome by helping you shape your dreams into goals that can be methodically achieved.

Your family can help you come to the right decision if you involve them deeply in the process.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, afterwards, we concoct an explanation that makes the event appear less random and more predictable than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan and so was 9/11.

For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world – from the rise of religions to events in our personal lives. But because humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities, we are unable to truly estimate opportunities and are not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.”

Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan is a landmark book that will change the way you look at the world.

The revelations in this book explain everything you know about what you don’t know. It offers surprisingly simple tricks for dealing with black swans and benefiting from them.

Here is an excerpt from the book, "The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable", by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

THE NARRATIVE FALLACY We fool ourselves with stories that cater to our Platonic thirst for distinct patterns: the narrative fallacy.

We like stories, we like to summarize, and we like to simplify, to reduce the dimension of matters. The fallacy is associated with our vulnerability to over-interpretation and our predilection for compact stories over raw truths. It severely distorts our mental representation of the world. It is particularly acute when it comes to the rare event.

The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of events without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link or an arrow of a relationship, upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered. They help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.

There is another, even deeper reason. for our inclination to narrate and it is not psychological. It has something to do with the effect of order on information storage and retrieval in any system, and it’s worth explaining here because of what is considered as the central problems of probability and information theory.

o The first problem is that information is costly to obtain.

o The second problem is that information is also costly to store – like real estate in New York. The more elderly, less random, patterned, and narrated a series of words or symbols are, the easier it is to store that series in one’s mind or jot it down in a book so your grandchildren can read it someday.

o Finally, information is costly to manipulate and retrieve.

We, members of the human variety of primates, have a hunger for rules because we need to reduce the dimension of matters so they can get into our heads. Or, rather sadly, so we can squeeze then into our heads. The more random information is, the greater the dimensionality, and thus, the more difficult it would be to summarize. The more you summarize, the more order you put in and the less randomness it becomes. Hence, the same condition that makes us simplify pushes us to think that the world is less random than it actually is.

And the Black Swan is what we leave out of simplification.

Indeed, many severe psychological disorders accompany the feeling of losing control of – being able to “make sense” of – one’s environment. Platonicity affects us here once again. The very same desire for order, interestingly applies to scientific pursuits – it is just that. Unlike art, the purpose of science is to get to the truth, and not to give you a feeling of organization, or make you feel better. We tend to use knowledge as therapy.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, self improvement

Nudge is about choices – how we make them and how we’re led to make better ones. Authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein offer a new perspective on how to prevent the countless bad mistakes we make in our lives, including ill-advised personal investments, consumption of unhealthy foods, neglect of our natural resources, and other numerous bad decisions regarding health care, our families, and education.

Choice architecture and its effects cannot be avoided, and so the short answer is an obvious one, call it the golden rule of libertarian paternalism: offer nudges that are most likely to help and least likely to inflict harm. A slightly longer answer is that people will need nudges for decisions that are difficult and rare, for which they do not get prompt feedback, and when they have trouble translating aspects of the situation into terms that they can easily understand.

The key point is that for all their virtues, markets often give companies a strong incentive to cater to (and profit from) human frailties, rather than to try to eradicate them or to minimize their effects.

Citing decades of cutting-edge behavioral science research, they demonstrate that sensible “choice architecture” can successfully nudge people toward the best decision without restricting their freedom of choice.

This informative and entertaining book is a must read for anyone with an interest in individual and collective well-being.  It will change the way you think, not only about the world around you and some of its bigger problems, but also about yourself.

Here is an excerpt from the book, " Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

FRAUGHT CHOICES

Suppose you are told that a group of people will have to make some choice in the near future. You are the choice architect. You are trying to decide how to design the choice environment, what kinds of nudges to offer, and how subtle the nudges should be. What do you need to know to design the best possible choice environment?

Benefits Now – Costs later. It is seen that predictable problems arise when people must make decisions that test their capacity for self-control. Many choices in life, such as whether to wear a blue shirt or a white one, lack important self-control elements. Self-control issues are most likely to arise when choices and their consequences are separated in time.

Degree of Difficulty. Nearly everyone over the age of six can tie shoelaces, play a respectable game of tic-tac-toe, and spell the word cat. But only a few of us can tie a decent bow tie, play a masterly game of chess, or spell the name of the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Of course, individuals learn to cope with the harder problems. They can buy a prettied bow tie, read a book about chess, and look up the spelling of Csikszentmihalyi on the Web. They use spell checkers and spreadsheets to help with harder problems. But many problems in life are quite difficult, and often there is no technology as easy as a spell checker available to help. People are likely to need more help picking the right mortgage than choosing the right loaf of bread.

Frequency. Even hard problems become easier with practice. We have managed to learn how to serve a tennis ball into the service court with reasonable regularity, but it took some time. The first time people try to execute this motion, they are lucky if the ball goes over the net, much less into the service box. Practice makes perfect (or at least better).

Feedback. Even practice does not make perfect if people lack good opportunities for learning. Learning is most likely if people get immediate, clear feedback after each try. If you take the long route home every night, you may never learn there is a shorter one. Long-term processes rarely provide good feedback. When feedback does not work, we may benefit from a nudge.

Knowing what you like. It is particularly hard for people to make good decisions when they have trouble translating the choices they face into the experiences they will have. A simple example is ordering a dish from a menu in a language you do not understand. But even when you do know the meaning of the words being used, you may not be able to translate the alternatives you are considering into terms that make the slightest sense to you.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, self improvement

Disregard the myth of the lone professional superman and the rest of our culture’s go-it-alone mentality. The real path to success in your work and in your life is through creating an inner circle of “lifeline relationships” – deep, close relationships with a few key trusted individuals who will offer the encouragement, feedback, and generous mutual support that each of us needs to reach our full potential.

Whether your dream is to lead a company, be a top producer in your field, overcome the self-destructive habits that hold you back, lose weight, or make a difference in the larger world, Who’s Got Your Back will give you the road map you’ve been looking for to achieve the success you deserve.

Keith Ferrazzi, the internationally renowned thought leader, consultant, and bestselling author of Never Eat Alone, shows us that becoming a winner in any field of endeavor requires a trusted team of advisers who can offer guidance and help to hold us accountable to achieving our goals. It is the reason Ph.D. candidates have adviser teams, top executives have boards, world-class athletes have fitness coaches, and presidents have cabinets.

None of us can do it alone. We need the perspective and advice of a trusted team. And in Who’s Got Your Back Keith Ferrazi shows us how to put our own dream team together.

This book will show you how to create your very own Dream Team to help you bust through your own personal glass ceiling and start achieving the success and fulfillment we all were meant to enjoy.

Here is an excerpt from the book "Who's Got Your Back: The Breakthrough Program to Build Deep, Trusting Relationships that Create Success – And Won’t Let You Fail", by Keith Ferrazzi

GETTING TRIBAL: THE FOUR MIND-SETS TO BUILDING LIFELINE RELATIONSHIPS

There are four core mind-sets – which can be learned and practiced – that form the behavioral foundation for creating the kind of lifeline relationships:

Generosity. This is the base from which all the other behaviors arise. This is the commitment to mutual support that begins with the willingness to show up and creatively share our deepest insights and ideas with the world. It’s the promise to help others succeed by whatever means you can muster. Generosity signals the end of isolation by cracking open a door to a trusting emotional environment, a “safe space” – the kind of environment that’s necessary for creating relationships in which the other mind-sets can flourish.

Vulnerability. This means letting your guard down so mutual understanding can occur. Here you cross the threshold into a safe space after intimacy and trust have pushed the door wide open. The relationship engendered by generosity then moves toward a place of fearless friendship where risks are taken and invitations are offered to others.

Candor. This is the freedom to be totally honest with those you confide in. Vulnerability clears the pathways of feedback so that you are able to share your hopes and fears. Candor allows us to begin to constructively interpret, respond to, and grapple with that information.

Accountability. Accountability refers to the action of following through on the promises you make to others. It’s about giving and receiving the feet-to-the-fire tough love through which real change is sustained.

The real key to establishing close relationships with people you consider your trusted advisors in your career and in your personal life is how these Four Mind-sets work together.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, self improvement, work efficiency

A groundbreaking prescription for health care reform – from a legendary leader in innovation…

Our health care system is in critical condition. Each year, fewer Americans can afford it, fewer businesses can provide it, and fewer government programs can promise it for future generations.

We need a cure, and we need it now.

Harvard Business School’s Clayton M. Christensen – whose bestselling The Innovator’s Dilemma revolutionized the business world – presents The Innovator’s Prescription, a comprehensive analysis of the strategies that will improve health care and make it affordable.

Christensen applies the principles of disruptive innovation to the broken health care system with two pioneers in the field – Dr. Jerome Grossman and Dr. Jason Hwang. Together, they examine a range of symptoms and offer proven solutions.

This is real innovation at work: an eye opening manifesto that’s sure to spark international debate — and much-needed change for a healthier future.

This clear and provocative book should be read by anyone who cares about improving the health and health care of all.

Here is an excerpt from his book, "The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care".

WHAT WILL BECOME OF OUR HOSPITALS? In nearly every instance of disruption we have studied, the survival instincts of the disruptees, better known as the prior industry leaders who are being disrupted, set in motion defensive actions intended to slow the pace of disruption. In the end however, the advantages that disruptive competitors bring to customers in terms of quality, cost, convenience, and accessibility become so apparent that the regulations are removed and the disruption proceeds apace.

This results in significant excess capacity among the companies whose business models are being disrupted. It is due to the fact that, there just isn’t enough volume at the high end of their markets to support everyone. They respond by going bankrupt, merging, taking out cost and capacity, merging again to take out more cost and capacity, and so on.

The instinct of every leader is to frame disruption as a threat – even though it constitutes an extraordinary opportunity for growth by reaching more people more affordably. If today’s hospitals set up focused hospitals to disrupt themselves, the evolution can be profitable rather than painful, because the holding company can realize the systematic benefits.

At least three types of technological innovation will help propel primary care physicians in their move-up market.

The first is the disruption that brings analytical and imaging capabilities to the point of care.

The second is the emergence of online decision tools – sometimes referred to as “expert system software” – that distill from the massive volume of published information algorithms that guide diagnosis.

The third is telemedicine.

Medical theory takes a giant step forward. However, when scientists can categorize a disease by the different mechanisms that cause sickness or permit wellness, the ability to diagnose by cause rather than characteristics takes the theory about a disease from the descriptive to the prescriptive stage.

This is the essence of the transition to precision medicine. Effective treatment hinges on precise definition.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, personal improvement, marketing, management

Hit the Mother Lode!

Smart leaders learn from their own mistakes. Smarter ones learn from others’ mistakes – and successes.

John C. Maxwell wants to help you become the smartest leader you can be by sharing Leadership Gold with you. After nearly forty years of leading, Maxwell has mined the gold so you don’t have to. Each gold nugget is one of twenty-six chapters designed to be a six-month mentorship from the internationally renowned leadership expert.

Each chapter contains detailed application exercises and a “Mentoring Moment” for leaders who desire to mentor others using the book.

Gaining leadership insight is a lot like mining for gold. You don’t set out to look for the dirt. You look for the nuggets. You’ll find them here.

This book has leadership thoughts that will quicken your pulse and stir your heart. It will help you learn more about leadership that will make a difference in you and will make a difference in the lives of others.

Here is an excerpt from his book, " Leadership Gold: Lessons Learned from a Lifetime of Leading" .

BE A CONNECTOR, NOT JUST A CLIMBER

Most leaders naturally fall into either the climber or connector camp. They are either highly positional or highly relational. Which type of leader are you? Take a look at some of the differences between climbers and connectors.

Climbers think vertical – Connectors think horizontal. Climbers are always acutely aware of who is ahead of them and who is behind them in the standings or on the organizational chart.

Climbers focus on position – Connectors focus on relationships. Because climbers are always thinking about moving up, they are often focused on their position. However, connectors are more focused on relationships. Unlike positional people who desire to climb the ladder, relational people are more focused on building bridges.

Climbers value competition – Connectors value cooperation. Climbers see nearly everything as a competition. For some, that can mean trying to win at all costs. Connectors, however, are more interested in using their relationships with others to foster cooperation. They see working together as a win.

Climbers seek power – Connectors seek partnerships. The way to create really high-powered teams is to form partnerships, which is what connectors are more likely to do.

Climbers build their image – Connectors build consensus. Connectors are more concerned with getting everyone on the same page so that they can work together.

Climbers want to stand apart – Connectors want to stand together. Climbers want to distinguish themselves from everybody else in the organization. Connectors, on the other hand, find ways to get closer to other people, to find common ground that they can stand on together.

Why did Ray Kroc's plan for McDonald's thrive when all the other burger joints failed? How can we apply his lessons to Krispy Kreme? How did Walt Disney's most dismal day as a young cartoonist radically change his career direction? When Estée Lauder was a child in Queens, New York, the average American spent $8 a year on toiletries. How did she spot an opportunity in high-priced cosmetics? Why did she pound on the doors of Saks? How did Thomas Watson, Jr., decide to roll the dice and put all of IBM's chips on computing, when his father thought it could be a losing idea?

Todd Buchholz's excellent book uncovers the secrets behind the success of the great CEOs through their lives and personal stories. Readers are taught about these CEOs' biggest challenges and failures, and how they successfully rode the waves of demographic and technological change.

This book blends the lives and the business challenges of the featured CEOs in order to expose their strengths and the circumstances they had to overcome. It features CEOs who relied on more dependable, more human drives. Drives that took them on fascinating rides. Extraordinarily fresh and deeply thoughtful, "Lasting Lessons from the Corner Office" is a truly enjoyable and fun—yet serious and realistic—look at what we still have to learn and absorb from these former CEOs.

Here is an excerpt from the book regarding Thomas Watson, Senior and Junior, and what they did for IBM – plus some lasting lessons from their experience, as determined by Buchholz.

Let us start with a Freudian word-association test. Say “IBM.” You’ll think of “White shirts, dark suits, square jaws, straitlaced, and sober.” Indeed, Thomas J. Watson Sr. and his son Thomas Jr. molded the most straitlaced, most competitive sales force in history. The two Watsons built IBM into a powerhouse but nearly beat each other to a pulp in the process. Tom Jr. called their arguments “savage, primal, and unstoppable.” He said, “It amazes me that two people could torture each other to the degree Dad and I did and not call it quits.” And yet when his dad died and Tom Jr. had to face the office alone, he said that he was the most frightened man in America. To the outside world, IBM was the very face of efficiency, grace, and rectitude. But behind the slick, perfectly straight horizontal lines of the big blue IBM logo were towering waves of passion, hatred, and warfare. Tom Sr. acted like an egomaniacal narcissist; his son, a dyslexic depressive. The Watsons revolutionized more than data. They taught us how to build sales forces, how to hang on to wavering customers, and, most dramatically, how to “bet the company” on one big gamble. The two Watsons could be visionaries, teetotalers, hustlers, and bruisers. All at once. All in one family. Here are some lasting lessons from IBM that apply today : - Listen to the customer. Tommy realized that IBM should not be a company devoted to cardboard, but a company devoted to information and data processing. If the forces of technology were burying cardboard, so be it. He threw the throttle into overdrive and raced IBM to the front lines, hiring twenty thousand new employees and tripling the number of R&D employees to 9 percent of the workforce. - Hook them while they’re young. Since the 1980s, Apple Computer has done a wonderful job hooking young people, first with the Macintosh and more recently with the iPod. IBM has not. However, years before Apple’s success, Tommy led IBM into classrooms. His motive was twofold. First, IBM needed to hire more computer scientists. If he could encourage the study of computers, IBM would have a bigger list of recruits. Second, IBM would always need more customers for its computers. To this day, when you anxiously pick up a number 2 pencil, you can blame IBM for your jitters. - Make yourself obsolete. It is better to make yourself obsolete than to wait for your competitors to do it for you. Tommy Watson eclipsed his father and wrote his way into this book because he knew when to take a gamble. And, of course, he won. By the mid 1960s, IBM had grabbed an overwhelming market share for computers in the US and even enjoyed a 75 percent share in West Germany, Italy, and France.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, self improvement, marketing, sales

Donald Trump. Louis Gerstner. Deepak Chopra. Samuel Zell. Jerry Springer. These men don't have too much in common – aside from the fact, that is, that they are celebrated achievers. They are among the top business trailblazers and innovators interviewed and featured in The Success Effect, a book by Cincinnati Enquirer business columnist John Eckberg, that details what it takes for individuals, teams and companies to lead, achieve, prosper, and grow. Eckberg presents the transcripts of his "uncommon conversations" for his readers to learn from.

Here are three excerpts from the book that showcase Eckberg's unique approach and the lessons he draws out from those he interviewed, presented in a "carryout" he offers at the end of each section, which is intended to sum up said section for its readers:

Establish Your Niche – Sam Zell, Financier Chicago financier and billionaire

Samuel Zell is a modern-day Atlas of industry with a roster of companies that reaches around the globe. Zell started out in business by buying apartment buildings upon his graduation from the University of Michigan. In recent years, his business interests have ranged from office space to fiber optics, from mattresses to household products companies, from senior citizen housing sites to radio stations. His interests ebb and flow with the twin tides of value and opportunity.

Carryout: Extract redundancies. Attract talent to your organization by offering personal, professional or organizational growth opportunities. Measure staff and compensate on merit: what they’ve done and how much they contribute, not who they are or where they are on the executive ladder. Think big – always think big.

Learn to "Steer the Ship" – Louis V. Gerstner Jr., Former IBM Chairman

Big Blue had a bad case of the blues when Louis V. Gerstner Jr., was approached to turn around this American giant. He could reinvent the high-tech titan, smash it into autonomous units, or even sell off IBM division by division. Gerstner convinced the cadre of career IBMers that the company had to shift its focus. By 2002, the reversal was complete. IBM had profits of $8 billion, and Gerstner was gone, the reins in the hands of Samuel Palmisano.

Carryout: Markets opening in China offer an unprecedented opportunity and could herald an extraordinary period of economic growth. College students should expand their abilities: learn a language, read great books. Technical degrees never go out of style. Focus on horizons.

The Brand – Donald J. Trump

For real estate mogul Donald Trump, money is just one way to keep score. One of the nation’s first real estate developers to recognize the power of brand, Trump decided early on in his career that he would turn his personality, his name and his presence into a brand. The rest would follow.

Carryout: Education can be a marker of character, but it’s not the only concern when hiring staff. Individual initiative may be more important. Teach risk-takers that sometimes caution is the best course of action.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, self improvement, The Success Effect, John Eckberg

It's common knowledge that customer behavior directly impacts the profitability and growth of your company. But precisely which customer behaviors are positively correlated with increased profitability and growth – which is to say, which customer behaviors help your company grow and become more profitable?

As mentioned in Answering the Ultimate Question by Richard Owen and Laura Brooks, a book that discusses the importance of Net Promoter discipline (a fast, accurate, quantitative measure whose purpose is to gauge customers' real loyalty to a company, establish a baseline and effectively track changes going forward) and how it can be embedded in organizations of all types and industries, four primary customer behaviors that link to growth and profitability have been determined:

1. Repurchase. Loyal customers continue to buy goods and services from you not because they feel compelled to or because they feel trapped and have no other optioin, but because their experiences have led them to want to patronize your business instead of your competitors'.

2. Increased purchase. For many businesses, the total spending of loyal customers tends to increase over time, as does their share of wallet relative to their spending with your competitors. Companies are more likely to up-sell and cross-sell additional goods and services to customers who are loyal.

3. Referral.  Loyal customers tend to refer their friends and colleagues to businesses they themselves patronize. This word-of-mouth advertising is a powerful economic benefit in that it drives new business growth while simultaneously reducing your acquisition costs – you need to spend less to convince people to give your goods and services a try.

4. Feedback. Loyal customers spend more time with you, providing valuable feedback and giving you insights into their thoughts as well as ideas for improvements. They do so not simply to benefit themselves but because they want your business to succeed and continue to serve their needs.

Technorati tags: book summaries, business books, business productivity, self improvement, Net Promoter