Consumer Research

Forget everything you've been taught about selling: forget the hard sell, forget negotiation strategies, forget those closing techniques. In The Inner Game of Selling, Ron Willingham debunks the familiar myths about "sales skills", showing that those tired methods are too shallow and manipulative to do anything but alienate potential customers and drain you of energy and dignity.

An introduction for everyone. In this rich, fascinating—surprisingly accessible—introduction, leading expert Eric Siegel reveals how predictive analytics (aka machine learning) works, and how it affects everyone every day. Rather than a "how to" for hands-on techies, the book serves lay listeners and experts alike by covering new case studies and the latest state-of-the-art techniques.

Based on three years of research and more than 300 firsthand interviews with experts, Your Best Health Care Now is your easy-to-follow, real-world guide to making today's health system work for you. You'll learn all the smart moves and timely tips to get better care and save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars - no matter what your concerns may be. Whether you're trying to book a free checkup, negotiate with a surgeon, or worrying about high insurance deductibles and rising premiums, Your Best Health Care Now has the answers you need.

The recent changes in our economic landscape have only exposed and intensified a phenomenon: an explosion in sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting, and swapping. From enormous marketplaces such as eBay and Craigslist to emerging sectors such as peer-to-peer lending (Zopa), "swap trading" (Swaptree), and car sharing (Zipcar), Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of business and reinventing not only what we consume but how we consume.

As Scott Galloway puts it, by the time you hit your mid-20s sh*t gets real. Life becomes stressful. Even the smart, the hardworking and the elite can feel lost in a chaotic, noisy and unpredictable world. As a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, the debate in Galloway's MBA class often veers away from business strategy to the challenging issue of life strategies. Which is why Galloway, in his signature take-no-prisoners style, has developed a dynamic formula for a life well lived.

Authentic influence is about more than creating a strong initial connection - it's about sustaining professional relationships long after an agreement has been reached. Based on their commitment to listening, genuine engagement, and the pursuit of win-win outcomes, authors Mark Goulston and John Ullmen share a new method that business leaders can use to examine priorities, learn about the needs of key players, earn others' attention, motivate others to hear more, and add value with question and actions.

In Demand, Adrian Slywotzky provides a radically new way to think about demand, with a big idea and a host of practical applications - not just for people in business but also for social activists, government leaders, non-profit managers, and other would-be innovators. To succeed in their various missions, all these groups need to master such ground-breaking concepts as the hassle map (and the secrets of fixing it); the curse of the incomplete product (and how to avoid it); why “very good” does not equal “magnetic”....

One of Michiko Kakutani's (New York Times) top 10 books of 2016. A funny thing happened on the way to the digital utopia. We've begun to fall back in love with the very analog goods and ideas the tech gurus insisted that we no longer needed. Businesses that once looked outdated, from film photography to brick-and-mortar retail, are now springing with new life. Notebooks, records, and stationery have become cool again.

If the consumer economy had a sex, it would be female. If the business world had a sex, it would be male. And therein lies the pickle. Women are the engine of the global economy, driving nearly 80 percent of consumer household spending in the United States alone. They hold the purse strings, and when they've got a tight grip on them as they do now, companies must be shrewder than ever to win them over.

"Citizens" opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive – as individuals, as organisations, as nations, even as a species. Jon Alexander's consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of Britain's biggest organisations such as the Co-op, The Guardian and the National Trust. Here, with the New York Times bestselling writer Ariane Conrad, he shows how human history has moved from the Subject Story of kings and empires to the current Consumer Story.

Whether you're a manager, owner, or employee, Customer Service Training 101 gets you up to speed fast. The completely revised and updated third edition addresses every aspect of face-to-face, phone, online, social media, and self-service interactions. Using scenarios, guidelines, and practice exercises, this inspiring training manual explains what to say and do, what to avoid, and why interactions go astray.

Going Public is a character-driven narrative centered on the last five years of unparalleled change in how technology startups sell shares to the public. Initial public offerings, or IPOs, are typically the first time retail investors can own a piece of the New Economy companies promising to rewire economic rules. Selling IPOs is also one of the most profitable businesses for Wall Street investment banks, who have spent the last 40 years protecting their profits.

After spotting Netflix and the deep-pocketed Amazon Prime Video a decade’s head start, rivals from the tech and start-up realm (Apple, Quibi) and traditional media (Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal) all decided to move mountains to enter the streaming game. At a cost of billions, each went after their own piece of the market, launching five new services in a seven-month span. And just as the derby was heating up, the coronavirus pandemic arrived, a black-swan event bringing short-term benefits but also stiff challenges.

Sales have dropped precipitously. The board is meeting next week. Bob, founder and long-time CEO, is urged by his team to hire an expensive management consulting firm and drastically cut costs as a last ditch effort to improve the company’s bottom line.

A compelling argument - masterfully researched and brilliantly articulated - that despite increasing prosperity for most of Earth’s inhabitants and an explosion of goods overall, consumption of natural resources such as metals, water, and timber has begun to decline. Best-selling author and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy Andrew McAfee says there’s a new reason for optimism: We’re past the point of "peak stuff" - from here on out, it'll take fewer resources to make things and fewer dollars to lead a comfortable life.

Books, baseball cards, ceramic figurines, art, iPhones, clothing, cars, music, dolls, furniture, and even nature itself. If you're like most people, at some point in your life you've found yourself indulging in a love affair with some thing that brings you immense joy, comfort, or fulfillment. Why is it that we so often feel intense passion for objects? What does this tendency tell us about ourselves and our society? Dr. Aaron Ahuvia presents astonishing discoveries that prove we are far less “rational” than we think when it comes to our possessions and hobbies.

Strategy consultant Robbie Kellman Baxter has been helping companies excel in this business environment for more than a decade. Now, in The Forever Transaction, she reveals all her secrets. Whatever industry you're in, Baxter provides the inspiration, tools, and insight you need to build and execute a business model that will leave your competition in the dust.

Persuasion is a technique that you use on a daily basis, but how persuasive are you? Are you getting what you are seeking when attempting to persuade others? If not, it is time to start working on your ability to persuade. It is often thought that persuasion, and the techniques that fall under it, is only used for selfish reasons, but this is not true. In fact, being good at persuasion is needed to get ahead at work, form friendships, and even when interacting with strangers.

These days, virtually anything you need can come through a subscription. Far beyond Spotify and Netflix, companies in nearly any industry, from home contractors to florists, can build subscriptions into their business. Subscription is the key to increasing cash flow, igniting growth and boosting the value of your company. Whether you want to transform your entire business into a recurring revenue engine or just pick up an extra five per cent of sales growth, The Automatic Customer will be your secret weapon.

Corporations are broken, reflecting no purpose deeper than profit. But the tools we are relying on to fix them - corporate social responsibility, divestment, impact investing, and government control - risk making our problems worse. With lively storytelling and careful analysis, O’Leary and Valdmanis cut through the tired dogma of current economic thinking to reveal a hopeful truth: If we can make our corporations accountable to a deeper purpose, we can make capitalism both prosperous and good.