The book I read to research this post was Behavioural Economics For Dummies by Morris Altman which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book is about a subject that has only recently started to be taken seriously and in certain other quarters especially among economists alot of people dismiss it. With economics it's often assumed most people will respond to market forces in a certain way often favourable to the economist which simply doesn't happen. You might find a product is the best of its type on the market and gets favourable reviews but sells poorly. Equally you might find a company making good profits and its products doing well but its shares perform badly. Of course this is about human nature and this book would best suit someone interested in economics. This book is about why people are so fickle and is there a way to predict what is going to happen. Interestingly if someone has to give up a small amount of money to gain a larger amount most people won't risk it because losing the money upsets them more than the potential happiness they are set to achieve by the profit. Equally some people were asked if you lost $50 you were due to buy a concert ticket with would you still buy the ticket and most people said yes but if they lost the concert ticket most people said no. This book only delves into this subject a little as it is a very complex subject and the book isn't as easy to understand as some for dummies books. A final point is if a country has rich ores and mineral resources you would think it would be wealthy but many countries have corruption and bad government which keeps the general populace poor. Equally some countries are the complete opposite where what mineral wealth they have is well managed.

The book I read to research this post was Pour Your Heart Into It by Charles Schultz which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. A while back I reviewed Onward also by Charles Schultz about how he came back into the CEO job at Starbucks and helped make the company much more successful. This book is the prequel to that book and is about how he started the company and follows his first stint as CEO. Charles had a holiday in Italy and came up with the idea of trying out having restaurants that specialized in gourmet coffee. In Italy they had these places where they had newspapers for you to read and had gourmet coffees like espresso which served a discerning clientele. He thought the same could be done in Seattle, Washington. Seattle was facing a bad recession with one of there major employers slimming down its workforce from over 100,000 to just 38,000. Initially when he was working in a restaurant he talked the boss into turning part of it into a gourmet coffee section but had only been given a small area which was so tiny customers had to stand and there was no tables. They did however get some coffee machines. He left this company and started his own gourmet coffee restaurant. He had difficulty getting financing. They ran at a loss for the 1st 3 years due to the amount of financing needed. After that they made a profit and later he was able to buy the company he used to work for and he took their name Starbucks as the name of his company mainly because it was better known but also because he liked the name. Later on they started a mail order business for discerning coffee drinkers. Eventually they even invested in their own research and development centre where scientists would try and develop new products centred around coffee. I really enjoyed this book and it's a reasonable length at around 340 pages but is also a wealth of information. I think this book is even better than Onward.

The book I read to research this post was How To Use Pinterest For Marketing Purposes A Beginners Guide by Jeff A Hamilton et al which is a very good guide which I bought from kindle. Pinterest has 21 million members and is the fastest growing social network on the planet behind Facebook & Twitter. It's even bigger than linkedin & google+. Added to that where is an unusually high proportion of women and people into things like crafts, the right product can really sell like hot cakes. To get an account with Pinterest they have to give you an invite which isn't a problem and you have to link it to your twitter and facebook accounts to help them avoid spam accounts. When you go on the website there is a kind of revolving display of popular repins and you can either repin, follow or comment on an item you are interested in. A lot of people look for a narrow niche they are interested in and concentrate on that. Whatever you offer on this site has to be interesting and avoid spam as this site is very much geared up to penalize that and most members are very much against it. With the right product marketed in the right way you can get a lot of business. A lot of what this site is about is giving something back whether that be special offers, free gifts or free information etc. One word of caution be careful what you repin, you can repin ie someones website but that can infringe on copyright and the same goes for images. Pinterest make it clear in the event of a lawsuit you are responsible for any legal costs etc although if they are sued they will defend their interests. There is no cut legal agreement as tried and tested in the courts so you must be careful. I don't currently have a pinterest account as I think it would be difficult promoting my blogs on there but it does look interesting as a source of information. I did really enjoy reading this book which I think was free and I would recommend it

I am reviewing the business autobiography In My Shoes: A Memoir by Tamara Mellon which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Tamara is famous as the part owner of Jimmy Chou Company in which she designed a lot of the shoes and boots they sold. Before that she worked for a women's magazine and did a backpage feature on footwear. She got made redundant from that job and had a bit of a drug and drink habit which had to be sorted out. She did go to a rehab centre. She had by then met up with a shoemaker and suggested she could look after the day to day operations of the business and this man, Jimmy Chou could make the shoes. They had a hell of a job getting funding and later they focused on breaking into the American market. They tried to get celebrities to wear their shoes at functions like the Oscars. Kate Winslett almost unbelievably mentioned her Jimmy Chou boots during her acceptance speech. Sales then really took off. At this point Tamara was just drawing a salary of $15,000 per year although later on she would become extremely rich. Funnily enough in those days when Jimmy learned to make shoes, little emphasis was put on designing them. Eventually after the company had been going for a few years and was one of the designer label toasts of the town, Tamara had a cut from the $101 million it was valued at when it went public. She eventually got annoyed that the new set up skimped on materials which she thought would ruin the companies success. She currently has her own new fashion label called Tamara Mellon which will focus on limited edition fashion goods which she is expanding on the shoes and handbags the previous company did.

The book I read to research this post was Onward by Charles Schultz which is an excellent business autobiography which I bought from kindle. Charles is the ceo of Starbuck's, they always express job titles in lower case letters at that company and later on he was brought back into that role to turn the company around. Charles went on holiday to Italy in the early 70's and was impressed by the specialist coffee shops in Milan & Verona. He then started learning all he could about specialist coffee and how it should be prepared. He worked in a cafe that served instant coffee so he left his job and started his own coffee shop. 10 months later he earned enough to buy out his former employer and their name which was Starbuck's became the name of his company. This book is a kind of a sequel and is primarily about when he was brought back as ceo. One thing he discovered was that the employees didn't make the coffee properly. When they made cappucchino they often put the milk in the milk frother more than once which broke down the sweetness of the milk. When they made espresso they either poured it to quickly or too slowly which spoilt the consistency which should be similiar to that of honey. He closed down all his shops in America and retaught his workers their job which many thought was corporate suicide and cost the company millions but paid off in the long run. They also reintroduced sandwiches at breakfast which they had previously only been doing on request which resulted in a cut in their revenue. This many people requested be reintroduced. Starbuck's is one of the best employers anywhere and even gives shares to it's part time employees. Employees are called partners. It has a very strict but fair policy on the products it buys where it pays more than the market price but the highest standards are expected. Workers don't wear after shave or perfume in case it taints the coffee. Starbuck's has also become a cyber-cafe and was among the first to see the benefits of social networking. Believe me this is a heck of a good read and I think any business person will love this book.

The book I read to research this post was Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media by Dennis Smith which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book which is around 170 pages is a reasonable length and a good introduction to this subject although if like me you are quite savvy about social media it might not offer that much new information. There is quite a large section on Facebook which is quite interesting and something I didn't know is if you promote a business or cause on a personal profile page which is quite common that is a serious infringement of their rules. Also if you have a page like a product you don't need to authorize every like button message you get which is the equivalent of a friend's request on a personal profile. There is a substantially shorter section on pinterest and this site boasts predominantly women users and apparently the average user clocks up 89 minutes on this site every month. The figure for Google+ is 3 minutes per month. Twitter is another powerhouse on the social media front with micro blogging which they call tweets which has now become a part of our language. I did quite enjoy reading this book and there is some interesting stuff on BlogTalkRadio where you can upload a podcast and there is the option of using the website which is free or downloading the software which you pay for but has additional features. There website is http://blogtalkradio.com.

The book I read to research this post was Digital Disruption by James McQuivey which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. This book looks at a growing trend in marketing for businesses where they are becoming more focused on pleasing customers above else. At one time what dictated the markets was the scale a company could manufacture something on and the price but now we are getting into a level playing field where a small company with a good product can compete on equal terms. This is scary for big companies but also you can compete using social media and with a small budget but still market a product successfully. The book mentions an author of thriller ebooks priced at 99 cents called Amanda Hocking who is making more than many established authors. Also a 12 year old boy who is writing iphone apps from the software development kit or SDK and got his parents to pay the $99 to sell them on itunes but who is making a nice profit and for him his age is a bonus because many youngster buy his apps. I enjoyed reading this book although it is only around 150 pages but I think was only free or quite cheap on kindle. Of course many people start using computing as a hobby and then move on to developing a product and marketing it. This means that the competition a well established company faces can come from anywhere not just within the industry. We are also seeing products that have always demanded a high price losing a few features and a product that is still quite good being marketed at a much lower price.

The book I read to research this post was Strategy & Marketing A Case Approach by Kenneth Simmonds which is an excellent book which I bought from a car boot sale. I struck lucky with this book because I bought it for just 50 p at the car boot sale in question & the same chap had lots of books on business all for the same price so I did buy 4 all together. If you see this book and it is reasonably priced I would suggest buying it as it is interesting even though it was published in 1988 & a lot of the information about the business climate has probably changed since. This book teaches marketing by example in the form of a case by case approach of quite a lot of companies. There is a company that has 85 % of the filtration business sewn up and they find that in terms of performance and price they are the best. There filters last for 6 years which is better than any of their competitors although some customers resent their success and go with a competitor anyway. They also find that some of their competitors concentrate on small niches in the market where they can out perform them. Another company has a major share of the plastic bathroom market and find that the stainless steel market price wise is narrowing the gap on price. Many people like the kind of novelty bathrooms with things like unusually shaped baths which they excel at. Many people also upgrade their bathroom to include a shower or bidet which they need to focus more on. At the time this book was written copper baths were being edged out due to their excessive price. This book is around 240 pages so isn't that long but is an interesting read.