Good marketers know that customer-centered marketing is mandatory. However, we are not the customer. What the customer perceives as relevant is the thing successful marketers must anticipate, plan, and deliver on. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing offers Persuasion Architecture, a proven Persona-based methodology. Persuasion Architecture enables marketers to anticipate different angles from which customers frame their questions and then coordinate messaging across multiple channels so that marketers can create predictive models of customer behavior. Don't miss out on learning about this six-sigma marketing approach that can skyrocket the effectiveness of your interactive marketing.

"There's some big thinking going on here-thinking you will need if you want to take your work to the next level. 'Typical, not average' is just one of the ideas inside that will change the way you think about marketing."-Seth Godin, Author, All Marketers Are Liars

"Are your clients coming to you armed with more product information than you or your sales team know? You need to read Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? to learn how people are buying in the post-Internet age so you can learn how to sell to them."-Tom Hopkins, Master sales Trainer and Author, How to Master the art of Selling

"These guys really 'get it.' In a world of know-it-all marketing hypesters, these guys realize that it takes work to persuade people who aren't listening. They've connected a lot of the pieces that we all already know-plus a lot that we don't. It's a rare approach that recognizes that the customer is in charge and must be encouraged and engaged on his/her own terms, not the sellers. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? takes apart the persuasion process, breaks down the steps and gives practical ways to tailor your approaches to your varying real customers in the real world. This book is at a high level that marketers better hope their competitors will be too lazy to implement."-George Silverman, Author, The Secrets of Word of Mouth Marketing: How to Trigger Exponential sales Through Runaway Word of Mouth

"We often hear that the current marketing model is broken-meaning the changes in customers, media, distribution, and even the flatness of the world make current practices no longer relevant. Yet few have offered a solution. This book recognizes the new reality in which we operate and provides a path for moving forward. The authors do an outstanding job of using metaphors to help make Persuasion Architecture clear and real-life examples to make it come alive. Finally, someone has offered direction for how to market in this new era where the customer is in control."-David J. Reibstein, William Stewart Woodside Professor, Wharton business School of the University of Pennsylvania and former Executive Director, marketing Science Institute

"If you want to learn persistence, get a cat. If you want to learn marketing, get this book. It's purrfect."-Jeffrey Gitomer, Author, The Little Red Book of Selling

"In 1999, the Wachowski brothers revolutionized moviemaking with stunning new angles and special effects revealed in The Matrix. Now the 'Eisenbrothers' have done the same for business in Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Stunning new angles! Techniques that will be copied for decades. Cat is sure to be remembered as the genesis of an important new direction in marketing."-Roy H. Williams, New York Times Best-Selling Author, The Wizard of Ads Trilogy

"The Web is a democratizing force as the world's largest global brain. It educates everyone on the pros and cons of every product, service, and even person. An educated person doesn't react well to the traditional 'art of manipulation' that most marketers attempt to employ in their campaigns. As a matter of fact, it makes them angry and defensive-like a cat backed into a corner. No one understands this new world of marketing better than the Eisenbergs. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? is the marketing manifesto of our generation. Read it, weep, and then go do something about it." -Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice, Founder of Coremetrics, and Shop.org Board Director

"It is easy to buy traffic but persuading that traffic to buy, subscribe, or otherwise take a profitable action is essential. Persuasion Architecture provides a framework for companies to better understand and reach customers with more relevant messages that increase the probability of acquiring and serving customers. Traffic cost inflation is a real problem, and this book not only tells you how to allow customers to buy the way they want to buy but makes the entire process accountable. I'll be encouraging the companies I invest in to read it." -Tod Francis, Managing Partner, Shasta Ventures

"Who's buying? How are they buying? And why do they buy from you? Consumers have been turning away from old media channels and even most methods of advertising to embrace new media. The Eisenbergs have developed a proven methodology for selling in this new environment where the old marketing rules no longer apply. This book will change how you think about marketing. It may even change how you think."-Rebecca Lieb, Executive Editor, The ClickZ Network

"This book lays out a powerful and fresh way of thinking about personas, persuasion, and marketing in today's increasingly fragmented media environment. If you want a practical guidebook for successfully marketing to today's consumer, then this is a must-read."-Mark Kingdon, CEO, Organic, Inc.

"Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? systematically covers every aspect of critical thinking about customers and prospects a marketer could need in today's complex business world. This is a book you'll reach for every time you begin your strategic planning."-Susan Bratton, CEO, Cendara, Inc., and Executive Chair ad:tech Conferences

"With Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?, the Eisenbergs have shown us the power of persuasion for marketing. They back up their positions with compelling case studies and great firsthand experience that is priceless. This is a must-read for all marketing professionals and is on my desk."-Rand Schulman, Chief Active marketing Officer, WebSideStory

"The Brothers Eisenberg usher us out of the 20th-century age of media and into the 21st-century age of optimization. They show us step-by-step how to leave behind the diminished returns and false expectations of quantity, and how to replace them instead with the more universal appeal and profitability of quality."-Jeff Einstein, Media Pioneer and Social Critic

"The Eisenberg brothers have done it again! Hot on the heels of their best-selling Call to Action, Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? is a guide to the use of personas and Persuasion Architecture that will force readers to reconsider all of their marketing efforts. Chock full of 'big picture' thinking and great strategic advice, the chapters 'Choosing Personas' and 'Bringing Personas to Life' are must-reads for anyone serious about marketing. Jeffrey and Bryan force us to rehumanize our audience in a way that drives measurement and forces accountability."-Eric Peterson, Author, Web Analytics Demystified and Web Site Measurement Hacks

"Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? is a tremendous read. It has fresh ideas and practical solutions for persuading customers to act. I highly recommend this book."-Ivan R. Misner, PhD, New York Times Best-Selling Author and Founder of BNI

A world-renowned innovation guru explains practices that result in breakthrough innovations

"Ulwick's outcome-driven programs bring discipline and predictability to the often random process of innovation."

For years, companies have accepted the underlying principles that define the customer-driven paradigm--that is, using customer "requirements" to guide growth and innovation. But twenty years into this movement, breakthrough innovations are still rare, and most companies find that 50 to 90 percent of their innovation initiatives flop. The cost of these failures to U.S. companies alone is estimated to be well over $100 billion annually.

In a book that challenges everything you have learned about being customer driven, internationally acclaimed innovation leader Anthony Ulwick reveals the secret weapon behind some of the most successful companies of recent years. Known as "outcome-driven" innovation, this revolutionary approach to new product and service creation transforms innovation from a nebulous art into a rigorous science from which randomness and uncertainty are eliminated.

Based on more than 200 studies spanning more than seventy companies and twenty-five industries, Ulwick contends that, when it comes to innovation, the traditional methods companies use to communicate with customers are the root cause of chronic waste and missed opportunity. In What Customers Want, Ulwick demonstrates that all popular qualitative research methods yield well-intentioned but unfitting and dreadfully misleading information that serves to derail the innovation process. Rather than accepting customer inputs such as "needs," "benefits," "specifications," and "solutions," Ulwick argues that researchers should silence the literal "voice of the customer" and focus on the "metrics that customers use to measure success when executing the jobs, tasks or activities they are trying to get done." Using these customer desired outcomes as inputs into the innovation process eliminates much of the chaos and variability that typically derails innovation initiatives.

With the same profound insight, simplicity, and uncommon sense that propelled The Innovator's Solution to worldwide acclaim, this paradigm-changing book details an eight-step approach that uses outcome-driven thinking to dramatically improve every aspect of the innovation process--from segmenting markets and identifying opportunities to creating, evaluating, and positioning breakthrough concepts. Using case studies from Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, AIG, Pfizer, and other leading companies, What Customers Want shows companies how to:

• Obtain unique customer inputs that make predictable innovation possible
• Recognize opportunities for disruption, new market creation, and core market growth--well before competitors do
• Identify which ideas, technologies, and acquisitions have the greatest potential for creating customer value
• Systematically define breakthrough products and services concepts

Innovation is fundamental to success and business growth. Offering a proven alternative to failed customer-driven thinking, this landmark book arms you with the tools to unleash innovation, lower costs, and reduce failure rates--and create the products and services customers really want.

From the Back Cover

"Ulwick's outcome-driven programs bring discipline and predictability to the often random process of innovation."
--Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Solution

"We are institutionalizing across the entire company desired outcomes as the essential form of customer input we collect in research, and we've seen the powerful results it's had in our product development, marketing, and sales groups."
--Jeff Baker, Senior Market research Manager, Corporate Market Research, Microsoft

"Outcome-driven thinking made it possible for us to hit a home run in the mature and competitive circular saw market. The Bosch CS20 is a breakthrough innovation and a hit with both users and our channel partners."
--Jason Schickerling, Product Manager, Bosch CS20

"Being outcome-driven enabled us to grow our market share in the angioplasty balloon market from less than 1 percent to over 20 percent and to create the stent, which became a billion-dollar business in less than two years."
--Rick Faleschini, Vice President of Marketing, Johnson & Johnson

"This approach enabled us to devise breakthrough Web-based service solutions and to make valued operational process changes. Knowing where to focus our creativity made all the difference in the world."
--Paul Zarookian, Executive Vice President, Financing Division, A. I. Imperial

"This methodology was used to create the PRO7150 and the TalkAbout--two of our best-selling radio products to date. It was also used to build a valuable patent portfolio in the fuel cell market without making a large investment in technology."
--Dr. Robert Pennisi, Director, Advanced Product Technology Center, Motorola

Put into practice today's winning strategy for achieving success in high-end sales!

The SPIN Selling Fieldbook is your guide to the method that has revolutionized big-ticket sales in the United States and globally. It's the method being used by one-half of all Fortune 500 companies to train their sales forces, and here's the interactive, hands-on field book that provides the practical tools you need to put this revolutionary method into action­­immediately. The SPIN Selling Fieldbook includes:

• Individual diagnostic exercises
• Illustrative case studies from leading companies
• Practical planning suggestions
• Provocative questionnaires
• Practice sessions to prepare you for dealing with challenging selling situations

Written by the pioneering author of the original bestseller, SPIN Selling, this book is aimed at making implementation easy for companies that have not yet established SPIN techniques. It will also enable companies that are already using the method to reinforce SPIN methods in the field and in coaching sessions.

The 11^th edition of this popular text continues to build on four major marketing themes: building and managing profitable customer relationships, building and managing strong brands to create brand equity, harnessing new marketing technologies in the digital age, and marketing in a socially responsible way around the globe. Thoroughly updated and streamlined, Principles of Marketing tells the stories that reveal the drama of modern marketing, reflecting the major trends and forces that are impacting this dynamic and ever-changing field. topics include: the marketing environment, managing information, consumer & business buyer behavior, segmentation, targeting, and positioning, branding strategies, distribution channels, advertising and sales promotion, direct marketing, and the global marketplace. An excellent tool for anyone in marketing and sales, whether self- or corporate- employed.