market-economics

I agree with the reviewers: this book is a hidden treasure. Very good content, oriented towards aspiring marketing managers. Covers lots of stuff (consumer behavior, competitive dynamics, pricing, promotions, channels, etc). Focus is on achieving quantifiable results. 5 stars book.

Excuse the above pun and forget the fact that this book is required reading in many top-tier MBA programs. This book stands on its own as an excellent marketing reference. Strategy, Theory, Best Practices, Real World Examples...this book's a marketing treasure trove. Only problem with books this good, you'll wish you had the hardcover.

I found the text to provide an outstanding concise summary of product opportunity pursuits and valuation of business/product opportunities. The text includes lots of real world examples that reinforce concepts presented.

The best trading book I've ever read. This is not for the faint of heart or the trading beginner. There is a ton of info very well explained and you will need to re-read this several times to truly understand it. I recommend hand charting your own profiles everyday in a spreadsheet and then analyze what happens when the market opens in the value zone, out of the value zone but in yesterday's range, or completely outside of yesterday's range. Eventually you will be able to figure out what the current day will "look" after the day opens with remarkable accuracy. I was almost tempted not to review this publically, since this in my opinion is as close to a Holy Grail as you will get.

The Market Profile has been around long enough for there to be quite a bit of information available for free, in books and in courses. I've read all I can on the web and after reading this book, the Market Profile is finally becoming clear. This book is helping me see how to watch what the other participants are doing based on what they are doing. I'm reducing my reliance on after-the-fact, price-based indicators. It's really a method of trading with the market, instead of following it and being late.

I purchased this book in order to gain a better understanding of CBOT's 'Market Profile'. And the book certainly provides that. But it goes far beyond - this book also teaches you "read the plays" and does so in simple steps...taking you through novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, right up to expert trader. I gained an understanding of the importance of the opening call, what to watch for at the open, how to identify control and when it might be changing intraday, how to identify the extremes of the market, the types of auctions, what to look for at the close, day timeframe pattern recognition, evaluating institutional activity, knowing when to stay out of the market, and value area calculation. The information contained in the 'Directional Performance Relationship' table is worth the price of the book alone. The book is easy to read and understand..and the information contained within is quite unique.

In The Mirrored Window: Focus Groups From A Moderator's Point Of View, Judith Langer (senior vice president of Langer/Roper Qualitative Research Division) draws upon her more that twenty years of experience and expertise to cogently clearly explain the role and performance of the focus group as an important aspect of the marketing process. With the use of examples drawn from a variety of different industries (including parts of an actual transcript from focus groups for Playboy Enterprises), Langer illustrated the client's role, offers tips for controlling rambunctious groups, and how to energize groups that lag or get distracted from the targeted issue or presentation. The Mirrored Window is essential reading for all aspiring marketing professionals and is a core addition to any Marketing or Business School reference library.

This outstanding book has become my preferred resource as I develop in the practice of qualitative research consulting on Judith Langer's side of the mirror after years in the back room. It provides a comprehensive, intelligent and thoughtful approach to qualitative research that I highly recommend for anyone involved in learning more about consumers. I especially enjoyed discovering her process for writing actionable, meaningful moderator reports. The challenge of conducting analysis and developing implications is demystified, thanks to Ms. Langer.

Whether you're looking at using focus groups for the first time, looking for ways to make your projects more productive, or looking to make your facility the regional star, look no further. Expert moderator JUDITH LANGER guides you to success step-by-step, using real examples, from defining your project to writing the report.

o Compare the advantages of focus group research over quantitative studies.

o Understand the process and timing for selecting a facility, scheduling groups, screening respondents, re-screening respondents, conducting sessions, and reviewing results. Learn which features and services to look for when selecting a facility.

o Find out what you need to know about cheaters, repeaters, and deceivers. Learn how to deal with know-it-alls, people who talk too much, respondents who are rude, and conversations that stray off the topic at hand.

o Review dozens of tips, actual phrases and signals you can use to keep a group on track-how to get the group talking, how to ask questions without biasing responses, how to control group dynamics, when to probe and when to use a firm hand.

Get the most out of your sessions and research dollars. As a client, learn when to speak up and when to let the moderator do her job. As a moderator, learn how to address client concerns and how to deliver the most value to them-Every Time!

Having seen and read all too many Internet business books over the past few years, Net Markets is a standout. The authors do a great job of articulating a roadmap for the business leader that is not only rigourous and well thought out, but more important, is practical.

Industrial markets have changed significantly, and this is a great expose on what that blueprint for change is going to look like moving forward. Very highly recommended.

Dagenais and Gautschi have blended analytical rigor with straightforward pratical advice for the busy executive. Net Markets puts an enormous topic into perspective--it is easy to read, interesting, and very applied. I especially appreciated the CEO playbook at the conclusion of each chapter. Highly recommended.

~Despite the dot.com bust, and the topping of the Clinton boom in 2001, the revolutionary transformation of global markets gathers pace. This is particularly the case for B2B markets. Dagenais and Gautschi have built up a wealth of practical managerial experience and advise, and distilled it in a readable format for
managers. This is an invaluable reference for anyone seeking to
keep up with the impact of the net on marketing. A most important read.
Jonathan Story
The Shell Fellow in~~ Economic Transformation
Professor of International Political Economy
INSEAD
Boulevard de Constance
77300 Fontainebleau, France~

Cappelli's main idea -- that HRM is changing because the external marketplace is being brought into the firm -- really gets to the essence of changes in the employment relationship. Once you've read the first two chapters, you'll never think about HRM the same way again. However, I wish Cappelli had explored the complexity of labor markets and practices more deeply -- we really have a multi-model HRM now, rather than the "new deal" he outlines, and probably always will because of differences in product and labor markets and industries.

The New Deal explores the breaking of the structural ties that modern employees have with employer. It strives to explain the employee's basis for his association with his managers. A good read..no doubt.

Cappelli provides an understanding of the changes in the social and psychological contracts between employees and their employers in todays world. I feel as if blinders have been removed from my eyes and that I now have the tools to understand the changing work environment and labor market of the new economy.

A must read for those in large companies that have existed longer than 40 years (or are over 40 years old themselves).

For for those who believe they have security and entitlement based upon their "knowledge of the company"... Here's a News Flash " Organizational man is dead ..."

Thanks Professor for the heads up !

The cover is kind of "blah" but there's lots and lots of really god solid information inside. In fact, so far every question I've had has been addressed. A lot of the other books seem big on theory ("You must be organized!") but this book has the nuts and bolts. In fact, it's the only one that sits on my desk. The others are nicely preserved on my bookshelf.

The answer is read this book! You don't have to be a student of marketing or have a masters degree to become an excellent marketer of your farm products. "The New Farmers' Market" is a great way to get your ideas rolling for you as a farmers' market manager or even a vendor. Information is presented in a clear, almost common sense way. As a marketing specialist for a government agency, this is a great asset to my library of resources for my clients.

As the publisher/co-author of this book, I'm proud to have received the following reviews and testimonials:

"As one who spent 15 years working with farmers at Seattle's Pike Place Market, I was amazed at how much I could learn from this book. The book is laced with practical tips from growers and market managers from all around the country."
-Steven Evans, Farm Specialist, King County, Seattle, WA

"The definitive guide to farmers' markets is here! Whether you're part of a large, successful, urban farmers' market or you are a beginning farmer who wants to start a market in your small town... or you are somewhere in between... The New Farmers' Market is the one book you need. Put it all together and you've got a complete guide to farmers' markets, more in-depth and practical than any college course I know of, and highly readable."
-Editor Jean English, for "The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener"

"I've recouped the cost of the book several times over already and it's only our second market!"
-Joan Vibert, Windwalker Farm, Ottawa, KS

"The New Farmers' Market is the most comprehensive, pertinent source of information out there on selling at farmers markets. The breadth of the topics, issues covered, real-life information for all-size farmers and markets, and in-depth presentation of material will be invaluable for the farmers' market industry."
-Randii MacNear, manager, Davis Farmers Market

"In The New Farmers Market, the steps for establishing a farmers' market and for successful vending are well documented. The book includes stories from vendors, managers and other experts from around the country who share their experiences on what is required to be successful. In reviewing the publication, I could find very little detail that was omitted... After 20+ years of experience working with farmers' markets, it is great to see a detailed summary of how markets really work."
-Reviewed by Monika Roth, Extension Educator, Ithaca, NY, (Book Review for "County Agent Review")

"Fantastic! I honestly can't think of anything you have not put in there and
it reads like a who's who of the farmers' market industry. It is the
definitive guide for Farmers' Markets."
- Brent Warner, Direct Marketing Specialist, Province of BC, Canada

"GREAT! Very practical AND inspiring!"
-Dianne Stefani-Ruff, Manager, Portland Farmers Market

what more can i say? this is simply an amazing book.

This is a great entrepreneurial book: one that I wished I could have written on the value of having a niche for your business.

The authors go to great lengths to get the reader to understand the concept of a niche, then show you many ways to generate ideas for new businesses to satisfy their criteria of a good niche.

They contrast a niche versus a fad versus a trend and give you creativity techniques that work along side of analytical techniques. They also point out that a good niche is easily publicized and advertised.

To them, a niche is just not a small market. For example, a niche is not just serving a small community... a niche requires a commonality of needs among the customers. So, a niche would be selling to the boat owners in a small town, not selling general products to that small town. Thus, a niche has more easily identifiable customers.

The chapters include:

1 Niche: What's That?
2 Are You a Good Niche or a Bad Niche?
3 Finding a Good Niche
4 Where there's a trend, there's probably a niche
5 Taking Your Niche Online
6 Six Steps to evaluating a niche
7 Can you find a franchise niche
8 How to proect your business idea
9 Will you ever get noticed
10 Basic steps for opening a niche business
11 Go forth and niche

This should be REQUIRED READING FOR STARTUPS. I liked this book very much. It is very practical and useful.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

The collaborative effort of Jennifer and Peter Sanders, (Niche) and Grow Rich: Practical Ways To Turn Your Ideas Into a Business is an upbeat, go-getter guide to commercial success through specialization. From learning how to use intellectual property protection; to keep one's idea from being stolen; to the essentials of a solid business plan; to making the most of the Internet to promote a new business, (Niche) and Grow Rich is an excellent, practical, advice-packed, "user friendly", and highly recommended guide -- especially for the novice entrepreneur.

This book is a very good resource, especially if you are a person in mid-life who is considering a career change. Craig's writing essentially provides "permission" to look outside the box of our current vocations and consider moving into fields where we have more passion. A bit of a scary concept - at least for me. The book is well written and appears to come from the heart. Included are numerous exercises to work through. This book won't solve all your employment issues, but if you are seriously considering a career change, it may provide the "push" that you need.

This book is both enjoyable and informative. P is for Perfect made me think about what's most important in life. After all, we all have a limited time on this earth. We should spend this time doing what it is that we actually love. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone who wants to know how to live a more fuller and a more meaningful life. Excellent book! :)

Craig Nathanson's book is like a walk through nature in the middle of a smoggy city.

It's so refreshing to have someone tell us it's OK to want to do something else for a living; it's OK to stop choosing just on the basis of money. And he's walked the talk when he tells us that it can be difficult to make a change when everyone around you has trouble accepting the new you.

I have read many books about finding my true vocation, and I have taken every personality and aptitude test ever invented, I think, and this is the first place that I have ever found any answers to the problem "But what if I don't know what I want to do??"

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is not perfectly happy with the way they spend their day. The exercises in the book will really help you to focus on what is really important and what it is that you are meant to do.

In The Real Estate Guide to the Environment authors Barry Chalofsky and Joel Finestine present developers, spec builders, and realtors with all the information they need to investigate and report environmental issues.

The combination of talents works extremely well for all issues get the bottom line treatment - "what does this topic have to do with real estate values?"

I believe the book would make an excellent text for real estate salespeople, both as a future course and as a reference book. It could also be used as a future "seminar" for licensed or certified appraisers.

To do business in Africa, you must learn how Africans do business! Nowhere is this more important than in South Africa. Western investors, project managers, and business pioneers who wish to tap this dynamic frontier market must master African marketing methods. Distinguished African mercantile clans have honed and polished their methods and have formed notable, sophisticated, and successful trading companies across the continent for the past 2,000 years. Surely they have much to teach us. We must learn more about Africans in order to work more closely with them. We do not want Africans to perceive us as patronizing, arrogant, unwilling to learn African languages, contemptuous of local tradition, and hesitant to socialize with Africans.
Author Jeffrey A. Fadiman considers Africa as the West's commercial blind spot, believing we have ignored Africa since the 1960s and thus we have never learned how Africans do business. His book describes how we can use African methods to market African-style. He gives case studies of twenty-one African entrepreneurs. Fadiman knows Africa. He is a full professor of global marketing and an African area specialist with 32 years of experience in western, eastern, and southern Africa. He writes for the commercial pioneer who wants to venture beyond South Africa's small white market into the huge black market of more than 40 million with another 400 million beyond its borders. South Africa is the launch pad for the continent.
The book begins where you would-on the day you decide to launch a South African venture. Fadiman explains which tribes live where, what languages they speak, and where the markets are. Next he leads you through the history of South African racism, tribalism, and apartheid to illustrate precisely how each of these problems can still throw up major obstacles to Westerners who come for business.
After this rather sober beginning, the author takes you on a fascinating journey into the very heart of African methods, teaching you how to market yourself ("creating relationships") before even thinking of marketing your product. To do this well, you must learn how Africans greet, give gifts, do favors, show respect, and socialize as well as how their "big men" conduct negotiations, implement agreements, deal with labor, and so on. Then you must consider how to reach new market segments that have no U.S. parallels: dynamic African townships, extensive rural communities, and the large number of foreign Africans now pouring into South Africa.
Fadiman's tour then takes you into the "shadow" side of African marketing. You learn how to market your product through street hawkers and smugglers and even how to use the "tsotsi" (gangster) bands to implement your project. Fadiman is shockingly honest in analyzing South African crime. He tells it like it is and then suggests pragmatic and specific and effective methods to cope with it. In conclusion, Fadiman describes the sheer joy of working with a people whose optimism, exuberance, and love of life makes every day an adventure.

This book is more than just another lay-of-the-land, how-to for international business. Offering usable insights into the Sub-Saharan African culture, this text proved invaluable in establishing lasting African relationships... both personal and professional!

This book is scary! It tells you just what to do in order to penetrate South Africa's largest market of 40 million people, huge but chaotic. That's daunting to the commercially timid, but the text is geared to business pioneers who by nature defy discouragement. Fadiman tells us what's actually happening in the "Black" market, even the politically incorrect things that are often left out of books about controversial places. Then, having described how the local business games are actually played, he graphically delineates the rules so that an outsider can understand and participate. Essentially, he has created the ultimate business map.

His first chapter describes the national social geography, including both the visible and invisible sections of every major South African city. We all know of the visible, city names such as Johannesburg and Durban. The invisible sections are the African townships that surround each city -- which until recently were on no official maps. The townships contain millions of potential clients who were long dismissed as oppressed.

I skipped part of the long history lesson in Chapter 2, but as I read further I was glad it was there, up front. Here are some unforgettable concepts to consider. For instance, Fadiman argues that South Africa's whites did NOT create apartheid just to separate the races, but to reduce the millions of blacks to PULP (Permanent Underpaid Labor Pool), so as to maximize their private profit. Nowadays, these same millions can afford to buy the goods and services once reserved for whites. Fadiman's goal is to teach us how to sell to them.

One huge market that Fadiman explores is the African black market. It is untaxed, vast and completely unregulated. That suggests it should be chaotic as well. But he shows it to be highly structured, essentially efficient, and quite penetrable by Western marketers with open minds and imaginative methods. His examples of methods draw on either his own local experiences or on techniques that have worked in other emerging markets. Thus he describes a tactic used by James Thompson, the legendary silk king of Thailand, arguing that what works for Thai silk could do wonders for African wool.

The book pulls no punches in describing the risks of entry into the market. It's the old Wild West, but with carjackers instead of cowboys. Yet for every risk Fadiman offers practical personal action suggestions. I now know, for instance, that I have to see the bottom of the tires on the vehicle in front of me to have enough space to spin away from potential carjackers. Unusual stuff from a biz-school academic.

One structural criticism: The very last section should stand by itself. Although written in business prose, it's a short elegant poem, a tribute to the beauty and wonder of this unusual country by an author who does not ignore its problems. Readers of this book however will be mostly concerned with how to make money in a country with 60 million inhabitants who show another 400 million throughout Africa how to do things. Fadiman gives them the answers they need, but he also makes sure that they know, in colorful and often striking detail, why his answers will actually work.