Rating: 
Summary: Painfully boring and extremely basic
Review: Ouch! The first 5 minutes of listening were already extremely painful and annoying. I don't know what on god's green earth can drive a person to yell 50 times consecutively "ka-ching". After this traumatisingly painful beginning, things didn't really improve. His "marketing superstar wisdom" consists of basic, common sense statements that I'm sure all of us have already heard at some point. As if things were not bad enough, he also attempts to sing. This book-on-disk is one of the worst purchases I ever wasted my money on. (= bad ka-ching!)
Rating: 
Summary: Medicine for the Marketing Ego
Review: This book like Mr. Fox's other books are full of wit, memorable examples, and lessons delivered in such a way that it protects the mind of top performer's while teaching lessons that will improve performance, work outcomes or point attention to what appear to be little errors that have large impact on results.
I recommend this for executives that think marketing is magic, marketers, business development and sales professionals. It will make you better in the time of a plane trip.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and practical
Review: This was one of the best marketing books I have ever read. I own my own business and I gained 17 great ideas from this book that I will implement right away. It's easy to read, to the point and easily digestible. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: How Sweet the Sound
Review: Those who have read one or more of Jeff Fox's previously published works (notably How to Become a Rainmaker) already know that he is one of the most thoughtful and eloquent commentators on the contemporary business world. What I especially appreciate is his eminently practical approach to the unique and often daunting challenge of marketing: How to create or increase and then sustain demand for whatever one offers for sale? In this volume, he identifies and then explains various "unexpected rules that ring the cash register." Fox obviously agrees with Peter Drucker who asserted that the purpose of any business enterprise is to create a customer; the two basic functions are marketing and innovation, with marketing being "the distinguishing, the unique function of a business." He also agrees with Theodore Leavitt that "all industry begins with the customer and his or her needs, not with a patent, a raw material, or a selling skill." Fox wrote this book for those who need to be, want to be, or already are a marketing superstar. He divides his material within 57 chapters and includes within the narrative a series of "unexpected rules." He also poses four different "Marketing Superstar Instant Challenges." Each requires the reader to apply "marketing superstar" thinking to the given situation. (Later in the book, Fox provides the answers with explanations.) In chapters LVI and LVII, he reviews the hallmarks -- the guiding principles -- of the great marketing companies and of marketing superstars. In the final chapter, he observes that certain companies "consistently lead or dominate, their industries. They are feared by their competitors. What do they share in common? Fox suggests 17 characteristics, each of which he briefly discusses. When recommending this book to others, I suggest that they create self-diagnostic exercises for themselves and their associates based on the aforementioned hallmarks -- the guiding principles -- of the great marketing companies and of marketing superstars as well as on the 17 characteristics of the "killer competitor companies." The easiest way is to pose a statement and then require one of four responses: Always True, Generally True, Occasionally True, or Never True...or Totally Agree, Generally Agree, Generally Disagree, or Totally Disagree. For example, from Summary #1 (Chapter LVI): #3 We focus on market share as measured in units rather than sales dollars. #6 We have constant contact with our customers. #7 The entire company is oriented toward toward marketing. Everyone in the company understands that marketing is the only renewing activity. Every employee values the customer. #27 We price products to value, not to cost, and fearlessly sell that price. Or for example, from Summary #2 (Chapter LVII): #1 Marketing, in all forms, in detail, is the driving culture of our organization. #6 We are always making our products and/or services better not matter how good they are. We never leave well enough alone. #8 We view change and the need to adapt as windows of opportunity. #16 We value strategy and execution, not endless planning and analysis. Our three most important words in strategy are "execution, "execution," "execution." These are but an indication of the abundance of insights, observations, suggestions, and admonitions which Fox provides throughout his book. Only through a careful reading of it can one be prepared to understand and appreciate, then execute with maximum impact what Fox provides in his Appendix, "Dollarize Your Way to More Effective Marketing." It would be a great disservice to Fox as well as to those who read this review for me to say any more about the Appendix. Who will derive the greatest benefit from this book? I am tempted to say everyone in any organization about which there is any doubt of its ability to survive...period. However, obviously, that would strike many (if not most) people as an irresponsible exaggeration. So, I now suggest that this book will be of greatest value to decision-makers (at all levels) who are both willing and able to embrace and then follow the "unexpected rules" which Fox advocates. They are clear. They are practical. They are doable. And together, if performed with the precision of a symphony orchestra, they can indeed create a "music" unique to capitalism: Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
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