Brand Real is a business strategy guide for making a brand's promise stand up at every customer touch point. Packed with proven, repeatable management practices, the book shows how to establish a clean brand architecture while avoiding the needless complexity that has tripped up many promising companies. Author Laurence Vincent presents cautionary tales of supposed brand superstars as well as instructive case studies of genuine brand giants like American Express, Apple, Cisco, Google, Qualcomm, Virgin, and others. Readers will learn how to connect the outward-facing elements of their brands--logos, advertising, imagery, communications--directly to the core elements of business strategy. Most importantly, they'll explore the correlation between a succinct, efficient brand and powerful, lasting connections with their customers.Companies are becoming increasingly creative in their branding strategies--building identities ranging from the warm and fuzzy to the ultra cool and edgy. But it seems many of these enterprises forget that a brand, at its heart, is a promise to deliver. Brand Real ensures your customers' experiences lives up to that promise and that their loyalties stay with you.

In their book Winning Behavior, Terry Bacon and David Pugh showed how great companies outperform good ones through ""behavioral differentiation"" -- going beyond superior products and dependable service to connect with customers at every touchpoint. The Behavioral Advantage broadens the concept, applying behavioral differentiation to the business-to-business arena. The best B2B companies depend on a multifront approach to business interaction, and The Behavioral Advantage reveals the secrets behind what is essentially a chess game with competitors. To win the game, companies must develop a carefully plotted opening game, with all internal values, policies, practices, and behaviors fully aligned. A smart and efficient middle game lets the company build and strengthen its position, and the endgame assures victory and lays the groundwork for future business. Just as individual customers do, B2B customers remember those companies whose behavior consistently and significantly outshines even strong competitors. These firms create a lasting advantage -- and reap the profits that come with it.

Written by some of industry's most knowledgeable thought-leaders, Insiders Know-How: Running Your Own Business is produced in an informative, conversational style with valuable, insightful advice and case studies taken from real business people running real businesses. Running your own business? This book has been written with you in mind. Insiders Know-How: Running Your Own Business is feature-packed with practical, easy to follow advice from experts and business professionals with years of experience at the helm of SME's and large corporations all over the world.

What to Say to a Porcupine uses the format of Aesop's fables to illustrate fundamental principles of customer service in a quick and lighthearted way. What do a demanding colony of porcupines, an upscale restaurant run by hyenas, and a famous medieval knight have in common? They are all part of one of the most engaging books on customer service in existence. In this book, you'll explore how: great service is all about going the extra mile, as learned by a group of rabbits running an express mail delivery service in "By a Hare"; there's a better way to great your customers, as one grizzly honey-shop owner discovers in "Bear with Me"; and how to handle difficult conversations with customers in a positive, constructive manner, as demonstrated in this book's titular story "What to Say to a Porcupine." Each story is followed by a short discussion, illuminating topics ranging from the best tips for building customer relationships to how to motivate a service team. Fun, quick, and constructive, What to Say to a Porcupine provides all customer service professionals with easy-to-remember lessons for delivering superior customer service.