Recession Storming: Thriving In Downturns Through Superior Marketing, Pricing And Product Strategies
Posted by Stephen Cline on January 12th, 2010
Review
5 star-rated by 44 reviewers like you: “This book really amazed me for how practical its advice is.” “I loved this book!” “Very practical …Neat stuff, timely advice.” Price for the book on is currently $15.95, originally $27.95, for 250 pages of 100 marketing strategies.
–This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
edition.
The #1 book on Recession on Amazon. com for over a year. So you’ve cut costs, now what? You just can’t cut your way to gre… Buy Recession Storming: Thriving In Downturns Through Superior Marketing, Pricing And Product Strategies at Amazon
Tags: Downturns, marketing, Pricing, Product, Recession, Storming, Strategies, Superior, Thriving, Through
Hart knows his stuff; there is no doubt about that. He covers the topic of recessions from A to Z in dense prose laden with facts and figures. This is a good “handbook” style book that can be used as a catch-all for the little tactical tricks and ideas that one can use during recessions. The problem is that there is too much tactical emphasis and too little strategic, “big picture” ideas. This makes it necessary for the serious student of recessions and their impact to read additional books focusing on strategy. If you want a book that focuses on strategy with direct, practical examples there is my book, “Business Warrior: Recession & Recovery Edition”.
Rupert Hart tells the reader how to thrive in a recession by summarizing straightforward, no-nonsense, practical steps. He is a master of summarization and the précis – condensing typical content for Business Strategy 101 and Marketing 101 courses into 127 pages. He gives five areas of focus (a) Business environment, (b) Existing customers, (c) Pricing, (d) New products, (e) New markets, concluding with a chapter on integrating ideas from these sections.
Each section is peppered with case studies, taken from Rupert’s experience and classic business literature. Some of them may seem dated, describing companies that no longer exist, like People’s Express, or that have merged, like Ciba-Geigy. Since when was John Young, CEO of HP? At least John Chambers, also quoted, is still CEO of Cisco. However, business is business and Rupert races through the essentials with keen metaphors, e.g. not having enough market share is like trying to take water from a stream with your fingers spread out.
In the Business Environment section I particularly liked the section on managing company politics, e.g. “People on the board with no experience will make decisions for you.” Too often, company cultures are politically correct and common-sense observations, addressed by Rupert, are missed because of the company’s state-of-denial.
In the Existing Customers section, Rupert gets under the skin of how a customer feels. He tells the reader how the customer will be motivated and what to do about it.
The Pricing section, is full of reminders as to what to do when setting prices. If the sales people are negotiating away margins, then this book has ammunition to push back at them.
In the New Products section, I particularly liked the part about substituting products for services and vice versa. Sometimes a company is narrow-minded, or it wants to keep its valuation high, so sticks with a product, when moving to a service would keep the cash flowing.
A pragmatic approach to New Markets is suggested. Its too easy to leap at the next big segment, but Rupert cautions you to look carefully. He cites the travel market for retired boomers, large but with too many players. Instead he suggests selling insurance for adventure holidays, a related segment that is more easily targeted.
The detailed table of contents makes this an easy reference book to have on the shelf when a crisis occurs. A bibliography is given, as the book draws heavily on classic business writings. I’d have liked specific references throughout the book, but maybe that would have impeded the fast pace of the writing. So you may want to check out the reading list, that includes Peter Drucker’s 1993 classic, Innovation and Entrepreneurship – Rupert cites the later 2006 edition. In fact, the book can be viewed as a historical review of business cases and strategies.
Anyone thinking of going to business school, can read this book and get an idea of key business topics. Current MBA students can use it for revision. In fact, you’ll read this book quicker if you are familiar with academic business terms. If you haven’t been to business school and want to know what you are missing, it could be useful to whip through the book.
For marketing managers and product managers, there are a bunch of ideas that will help you make your case when confronted with opposition from colleagues.
Consultants can use this book as the basis for a series of workshops based on the five sections.
Board members and CEOs of small businesses, might use the book as a memory jogger or idea generator.
Rupert is the pilot and whether you are ship’s captain or deckhand it is up to you to think which of the ideas, case studies or quotations is relevant for your situation. I’d like to see a subsequent volume more applicable to Web 2.0 companies with more recent case studies and quotations, although the iPhone does get a mention.
I found this book extremely helpful for my business. Rupert Hart must have spent a long time researching all of the companies: lots of proven ideas.
Its easy to read format made it a quick read.
I found the following 3 strategies the most useful:
1) How to get more sales from my customers by convincing them to upgrade
2) How to figure out which products customers value so that I can hold the price on those items
3)How to come up with new products with recurring revenue to give a stable cash-flow
I liked the conversational style and the short paragraphs. It’s easy to dissect useful information.