To build a successful business, you need to stop doing random acts of marketing and start following a reliable plan for rapid business growth. Traditionally, creating a marketing plan has been a difficult and time-consuming process, which is why it often doesn’t get done.

Most of us think of sales as convincing potential customers to believe or do something they don't really want to. But that cutthroat mentality makes the process much harder than it has to be—especially in an economic downturn, when customers are more suspicious and defensive. It's far more productive (and satisfying) when salespeople think like Go-Givers and focus exclusively on creating value for the customer.

Still in his early 30s, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations - and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back. In The $100 Startup, he tells you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose - and earn a good living.

The Thank You Economy is about something big, something greater than any single revolutionary platform. It isn't some abstract concept or wacky business strategy—it's real, and every one of us is doing business in it every day, whether we choose to recognize it or not. It's the way we communicate, the way we buy and sell, the way businesses and consumers interact online and offline.

Small business marketing doesn't have to be a mystery. It's just a series of simple decisions (and the action steps to implement those decisions) that will help you regain the clarity, confidence, and control you need to succeed. Do It! Marketing is an encouraging kick in the pants that will reignite your marketing mojo. The underlying premise is that "only action creates results."

Sales is a skill anyone can learn and master - and introverts are especially good at it once they learn how to leverage their natural strengths. Introverts aren't comfortable with traditional tactics like aggressively pushing a product or talking over a customer's objections. That's the beauty of The Introvert's Edge: it doesn't focus on the sale itself but on a sales system that helps introverts feel sincere instead of sales-y.

Stop "just getting by"... Master the 80/20 rule and make more money without more work. When you know how to walk into any situation and see the 80/20's, you can solve almost any conversion problem. Any traffic problem. Any money problem. If you're a sales and marketing professional, you can save 80 percent of your time and money by zeroing in on the right 20 percent of your market. By page 5 you'll be applying 80/20² and 80/20³ to gain 10X, even 100X the success.

Whether you’re new to marketing or a seasoned pro, this book gives you a crystal-clear road map to grow your business, make more money, maximize your impact in your market, and love what you’re doing while you’re doing it. Author Brian Kurtz takes you inside the craft to help you use all the tools at your disposal - from the intricate relationship between lists, offers, and copy, to continuity and creating lifetime value, to the critical importance of multichannel marketing and more - so you can succeed wildly, exceed all your expectations, and overdeliver every time.

Are you the Schwarzenegger of bodybuilding, the Branson of business, or the Clarkson of cars? Would you like to be? Own Your Industry is a guide to what you can do to position yourself as the "go-to name" in your industry. Because when you are known as the expert, the icon, the thought leader - the business will come to you. Business author and global speaker Douglas Kruger explores all the advantages of moving from amateur to expert, regardless of what you do for a living.

Magnetic Marketing® is a radical, dramatically different sea-change in the way new customers, clients, patients, or prospects are attracted and in the way products, services, businesses, and practices are advertised. It is a “change movement” that has established itself in over 136 different niches, business categories, industries, and professions, but is still also a “best kept secret”.

In seven years of blogging only to the community of voice actors, specifically on the subject of voice acting, I've educated myself and others on the challenges of being a freelance voice artist. My first diplomatic answer to my caller is: being a success in voice acting requires more than just a voice. I've had to gingerly explain the real secret to voiceover success so often that it became clear: somebody needed to tell the truth about being a voice-actor. It's hard work! It's a business and should be approached as a business.

Book authorship for personal promotion, to create powerful ‘lead generation magnets’ for use in advertising, for securing favorable media attention and publicity, to promote a cause or philosophy, for fun or fame or fortune... is the most proven, most powerful activity a person can take!

Hall of fame-nominated marketer and Wall Street Journal cartoonist Stu Heinecke discovered that he could get past traditional gatekeepers and reach those elusive executives by thinking outside the box and using personalized approaches that he calls "contact campaigns". Including presidents, a prime minister, celebrities, countless CEOs, and even the Danish model who later became his wife, Heinecke found that getting meetings with previously unreachable people was easier than ever.

What is most important to your success as a sales or business professional? Is it education, experience, product knowledge, job title, territory, or business dress? Is it your company's reputation, product, price, marketing collateral, delivery lead times, in stock ratios, service guarantees, management strength, or warehouse location? Is it testimonials, the latest Forbes write up, or brand awareness? Is it the investment in the latest CRM software, business 2.0 tools, or social media strategy?

Tim Sanders, Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo!, puts forth a wildly original idea: It pays to be nice. Sanders shows how being a "lovecat" will help you accomplish your goals, both in and out of the office.