Jeffrey Gitomer Archives - Successful Blog

The Book List: 42 Rules for your New Leadership Role and The Little Book of Leadership

May 4, 2011 by teresa

The Book List: a weekly series by Teresa Morrow

Iâm Teresa Morrow, Founder of Key Business Partners, LLC and I work with authors & writers to help them with their online book promotion and marketing. As part of my job I read a lot of books (I love to read anyway!).

The books in The Book List series will cover a range of topics such as social media, product development, marketing, blogging, business, leadership, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development, and inspiration.

’42 Rules for your New Leadership Role’ by Pam Fox Rollin

“Pam gives us that rare gem of a bookâthe perfect blend of proven tactics solidly grounded in the latest research. 42 Rules for Your New Leadership Role offers smart, busy leaders the proven mindsets and
practical to-do’s to make their strongest start as they rise in the leadership ranks. She also provides great tips on leading change across your organization. Refer back to the book often, and take every
chance to hear Pam speak about leadership.”
Sharon L. Richmond, Director, Change Leadership Center of Excellence, Cisco Systems

“Pam and I met 10 years ago when we started our coaching company. Since inception Pam has been one of our most effective and loved coaches. Her clients love her because of how she helps them reach
the heights they were capable of. 42 Rules for Your New Leadership Role represents the best of what she has learned over the years. Buy this book, and expect it to change your life!”
Scott Blanchard, Executive Vice President, The Ken Blanchard Companies

Book Excerpt

Now that you’re stepping up to a new leadership role, you’re far less likely to receive useful guidance than earlier in your career. This holds true whether you are in your first manager role or an experienced leader joining top executive ranks. I find this problem is especially acute for new Directors and VPs. You’ve been hired at these levels for your track record, so people assume you know what to do.

However, just because you were successful in your last role doing or managing marketing, accounting, engineering, or whatever you did, doesn’t mean you know how to make a strong start at your next job.

One-quarter of senior executives promoted from within fail in the first 18 months; one-third of outside hires fail. Many flame-outs can be traced to missteps during their first quarter. More importantly, for the 60â75 percent of leaders who survive into the second year, their effectiveness and trajectory are powerfully affected by choices made as they start.

If you’re like the technology leaders, marketing executives, and top teams I coach, you might notice how easy it is to become so caught up in fighting fires that you forget to shut off the gas. Or, you suspect you’re lousy at certain aspects of leadership, so you ignore them and hope they won’t bite you. Or, maybe you never learned the rules in the first place! Leadership is an apprenticeship craft. With the trend toward more “flat” organizations, your boss may be stretched so thin that he/she can barely advocate for your team, let alone mentor you. Welcome to your new leadership roleâyou have a bigger job, in a tough climate, with very little support!

I wrote 42 Rules for Your New Leadership Role to fill that gap.

Based on two decades of coaching senior leaders, helping executive teams craft strategy, and guiding Stanford MBAs, I describe a proven set of approaches to teach you what you’ve yet to learn, remind you of what you already know, and inspire you to become the best leader you can be in this jobâ¦and your nextâ¦and your next.

As you read this book, take what I say as a starting point for your own good thinking. Adjust what you find here to serve your team’s needs, the market conditions, the cultural context, your goals, and your personal leadership approach.

The intense learning curve and unfamiliar environments of a new job make it difficult for your brain to consider options and make decisions as well as you usually do. When brains are overloaded, people tend to rely on what they’ve done before, even when that didn’t work very well or is out of place in the new context. Ironically, this tunnel vision and rigidity is especially true of leaders who have experienced successâpeople like you who have been promoted or recruited for a new role.

So use this book to prompt what you want to do at each phase of your start. Ask yourself what from this material will be useful to you in the week ahead. See what results you’re getting, and come back to this process at the end of the week. Consider the rules, make up your own mind, act, observe, and reflect. Repeat. Succeed.

About Pam*:

Pam Fox Rollin coaches executives to succeed at the next level. She specializes in helping functional leaders who are taking on broader roles with greater strategic opportunity and management responsibility. Pam is also known for expert work with assessments (personality, leadership, 360s) and for designing and facilitating unusually productive leadership offsites. Her company, IdeaShape Coaching & Consulting, advances leaders and teams at top and emerging Silicon Valley and Bay Area companies in biotech, technology, and consumer products. Before founding IdeaShape in 1999, Pam consulted with Bain & Company and Accenture; her MBA is from Stanford, where she often serves as a Guest Fellow, helping top MBA candidates develop their leadership skills.

You can order a copy of ’42 Rules for your Next Leadership Role’ online at Amazon. *this information came from Amazon.

Next, I would like to introduce you to a book on the business book list on Amazon: ‘ The Little Book of Leadership: The 12.5 Strengths of Responsible, Reliable, Remarkable Leaders That Create Results, Rewards, and Resilience’ by Jeffrey Gitomer.

‘The Little Book of Leadership by Jeffrey Gitomer

This book came out recently on the new releases (business) list on Amazon. You can also check out my recent blog post on this blog about his book, Social Boom.

The Little Book of Leadership: The 12.5 Strengths of Responsible, Reliable, Remarkable Leaders That Create Results, Rewards, and Resilience (Hardcover)
“As with Gitomer’s other books, this one is packed with bite-size gems that are worth living by, and learning from… this time on leadership. One of the core tenets he starts with is discussing how leadership must be earned (and how to get there), by one’s actions and not just conferred respect via position. He makes you look inside yourself to see where you’re providing authentic, likable leadership in a way that hits home.

Like his other books, all of which I’ve read at least a few times (thanks for the ribbon in these, too, a nice touch to keep ’em from getting dog-eared), this one makes you think about how others perceive you. And how to build a personal leadership philosophy, backed by actions, attitudes, belief and effective communications with others, that really makes sense.

Above all else, I like this book because it models how to develop personal responsibility for providing leadership (which in a way we all need to study, to be leaders of our families, in communities, as entrepreneurs, as well as formal managers and execs), and the checklist of activities and “things to keep in mind when leading others” that can make a big difference.

On a last note, I will say I’m very glad Gitomer’s gone beyond just sales training to correctly teach and show us all about how to develop a winning attitude, how to communicate and brand/position ourselves effectively, how to lead successfully and live a life worth living. He’s always been a great role model — thanks Jeffrey for all you’ve done for us. It’s sincerely appreciated. And much-needed in these dark times… you’re a beacon. Thanks.”
Kenneth Calhoun – Amazon Reviewer

About the Book
A new and impactful book on leadership from the perspective of leaders

What makes a leader relevant? It’s not their place of employment, job title, experience, or status in life?it’s their resilience. The true measure of any leader is his or her ability to react based on past experience and gut feelings, respond in real time to current circumstances, and then to recover quickly and move on with new lessons learned. The Little Book of Leadership combines classic style with the latest innovations to challenges the reader to self-evaluate every facet of their leadership, coaching, and communication abilities in order to better formulate what actions can be taken to improve their natural skills. Ideas and answers are provided for every challenge.

* Chapters include information about the 12.5 leadership strengths: From insights to legacy and every element in between. Morale, Attitude, Resilience, Opportunity, Guts, Measurement, Coach, Celebration, Next-level, and Lost Secret of Leadership
* Foreword by Dr. Paul “Doc” Hersey, creator of Situational Leadership
* Other books by Gitomer: The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, Revised Edition, also by Wiley, The Little Red Book of Selling (Bard Press) The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude (Pearson)

Whereas other books rely on theory or philosophy, The Little Book of Leadership takes leadership into the real world of business, providing proven methods for becoming a successful leader.

About Jeffrey*:
AUTHOR. Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The New York Times best sellers The Sales Bible, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Black Book of Connections, and The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. All of his books have been number one best sellers on Amazon.com, including Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Patterson Principles of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching!, and The Little Teal Book of Trust. Jeffreyâs books have appeared on best-seller lists more than 750 times and have sold millions of copies worldwide.
*courtesy of book website and/or Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘The Little Book of Leadership’ at Amazon.

The Book List: ‘I’m There for You, Baby’ and ‘Social BOOM!’

March 30, 2011 by teresa

The Book List: a weekly series by Teresa Morrow

The books in The Book List series will cover a range of topics such as social media, product development, marketing, blogging, business, organization, career building, finance, networking, writing, self development, and inspiration.

‘I’m There for You Baby: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Neil Senturia

âNeil Senturia is San Diegoâs own âLarry David;â charmingly acerbic, witty and straight to the point! Neil is a high energy guest who makes business concepts entertaining, informative and accessible to our audience. Hope Neil never curbs his enthusiasm or his willingness to share his insight on business!â
–Maureen Barnes, Producer, The Big Biz Show with Sully and Russ T Nailz

When reading this book, you are hit right off the bat with Neil’s humor and wit and love for storytelling. And intertwined in the mix are delicious tidbits of insightful resourcefulness and experience from his been-there, done-that entrepreneurial life.

Here are a few of the “baby rules” I enjoyed while reading this book and my take on the rule:

Rule #220 – Treat your Superstars well, if not, they may leave and take your universe with them.
When I read this rule, it made me think about the 80/20 rule and how entrepreneurs should be mindful to take care of the top 20 percent of their clientele because that is where the loyalty is.

Rule #243 – Do you actually think your customer is stupid or do you just tread him that way?
This rule reminds me of the principle of “being your customer” and remember that you need to KNOW who you customer is in order to be able to be the go-to person for them.

Rule #300 – It never hurts to ask.
This rule speaks directly to me and this is something I share with others all the time. This is what I tell others….if you don’t ask the question, the answer is automatically “no”. You negate the possibility of yes if you don’t ask the question. So if you want to ask someone to talk with you or do a joint venture with you or even connect with you….ask!

About the Book*:
Success, failure, joy, pain, and rejection. Neil Senturia shares the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial life and how the lessons learned along his journey can be applied to all of our lives. The book reads like Neil talks (with the occasional four letter word!) so be prepared for a humorous and insightful read. Two hundred and twenty three of his Baby Rules are included here, and you ll have to wait for Volume 2 for the rest.

About Neil*:
Neil Senturia has re-invented himself several times in his relentless pursuit of entrepreneurial success. Currently he is the CEO of Blackbird Ventures, an investor in high growth potential companies. He also serves as the chairman of the board of directors of Valore, an online marketplace for the sale and rental of used textbooks.
Neilâs diverse endeavors range from writing sitcoms to technology with a stint as a real estate developer in the middle. He has been CEO of six technology companies, three in software, one in material science, one in media and most recently clean tech.
His companies have been sold to Cisco, Kofax and Lockheed Martin. And no bio is complete without noting that one of the six went broke.
Neil has taught new venture creation as an adjunct professor in the MBA program at San Diego State University and has served on the board of directors of SDSUâs Entrepreneurial Management Center. Currently he teaches entrepreneurship at UC San Diegoâs Jacobs School of Engineering von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement (http://www.vonliebig.ucsd.edu). He is a member of the San Diego Venture Group (http:/www.sdvg.org) and the MIT Enterprise Forum.
His numerous honors include winning the Microsoft Retail Application Developer Award twice, the Arnie Karush award from the San Diego Software Industry Council, CONNECTâs Most Innovative New Product Award in software, and CONNECTâs Lifetime Contribution Award in Technology.
Neil graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. degree in English and received a mastersâ degree in cinema from New York University. He was a Fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and served in the U.S. Army from which he received an honorable discharge.
He is married to Barbara Bry, and their blended family includes four children between the ages of 25 and 29, and Momo, a Himalayan cat.

You can purchase a copy of ‘I’m There for You, Baby: The Entrepreneur’s Guide to the Galaxy’ online at Amazon. *this information came from Amazon.

Next, I would like to introduce you to another book on the business book list on Amazon and on my reading list: ‘Social BOOM!’.

‘Social BOOM!’ by Jeffrey Gitomer

This book came out recently on the new releases (business) list on Amazon.

I can attest to Gitomer’s wonderful writing style and never ending insights about business sales (I have purchased several of his books) and now he has written about the mix of social media within the business world…all I can say is I am so looking forward to reading this book!

“…He helped clarify the message that every business person needs to incorporate into their philosophy: GIVE VALUE consistently and you have a great chance to succeed in the emerging behemoth of “Business Social Media Marketing.”
Here’s a hint: If you don’t know what Business Social Media Marketing even IS, then you need this book. If you think you Maybe do, then you need this book. If you own any size business, you need this book. If you coach, train, advise or counsel any professional or business person, then you need this book…” *Review on Amazon by Lowell Sheets

About the Book
Social BOOM! contains every aspect of social media, including the business periphery (blog, personal website, e-zine) that you need in order to create the real law of attraction. When you create a connection, itâs an indicator that that prospect, or that customer, or that person wants to continue the online relationship, which may lead to real business. Graduate from social media to business social media by creating value that others will perceive as important to fulfilling their needs.

As you go through each aspect of this foundation-building, platform-building book, you will read the ideas that Gitomer and others are using right now. None of the ideas are random. All of them are fully tested and can be implemented by you, too. None of the ideas contain solicitation (buy my product, make a lot of money). All of them get you and your brand out there in a systematic way that will bring in dollars.

Gitomer has invited a number of social media experts to âguest speakâ in the book, to help you get a wider range of views and options. The best part about this book is that the minute you begin to read it, if your laptop or mobile device is handy, you can begin to implement it in the same minute.

About Jeffrey*:

I remember my mother chasing my car as I backed out of the driveway to register on my first day of college: “Take pre-med!” she screamed, “You can always switch!” But I wanted to be a businessman, like my dad.

He was the consummate entrepreneur. Growing up, I used to sneak downstairs and listen in on his Thursday night pinochle game. Arguments and laughs about business and life. It proved to be my inspiration for my life’s pursuits. My pal, Duke Dalton said, “You know what I hate about your old man? He’s never wrong.” I miss my folks, and I’m grateful to them for their wisdom – the stuff they accused me of never listening to for 30+ years. If your parents are alive, call them right now and tell them you love them.

In college, I played Scrabble every day with my best friend, Michael Toll. He usually won. It taught me about words and how to use them. Michael also provided me with the challenge of winning at games, both sports and intellectual. He’ll tell you he was better than me at everything. I feel the same about him. That was the fun.

I spent a year in Europe and came to the realization that I knew very little compared to what there was to know, which is funny, because I left for Europe knowing everything.

I raised a family. My three beautiful daughters taught me patience. They also gave me the courage and inspiration to achieve in the face of failure. Girls, I love you.

And I became a salesman. My first goal was to be the best salesman in the world. I’m still on that journey, every day. In the pursuit of that goal I surprised myself by becoming a columnist, an author, a speaker, a consultant, and a sales trainer. I used to hate flying. Now I spend about a quarter of my life in an airplane. But I really don’t mind, because it gives me the precious opportunity to share my sales knowledge and my secrets with a worldwide audience. What could be better?

My name is Jeffrey Gitomer. I’m a salesman. I’m a dad. I’m a college dropout.

My objective in life is to help others, establish long-term relationships, and have fun – every day. When you love your work like I do, every day is the same. It’s a holiday.
*courtesy of book website and/or Amazon

You can purchase a copy of ‘Social BOOM!’ at Amazon.