Rating: 
Summary: Read it - think - act - re-read it - think - act again.
Review: Harry Beckwith understands the fundamental truths: our customers are individuals and they are afraid. Yet, somehow, Mr. Beckwith imparts hope. It's a gem of a book - I keep it on my desk
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Summary: A reality-check for every business
Review: This book really hits the mark with practical perspectives and real life applications. This is the best book on the "service" business - PERIOD. Mr. Beckwith helps the reader get a handle on the critical issues that help turn your current clients into long-term clients. If you want your business to suceed - do your clients a favor - read this book...I'm sure your competitors will
Rating: 
Summary: Summary of the basics we tend to forget
Review: From a service marketer's point of view, we often tend the business at the expense of, or in spite of the customer. This book is a quick read and a good way to make sure you remember the customer and not focus all your energies marketing toward either your competition or your bottom line.
On a personal note, after interfacing directly with Mr. Beckwith, the author, the book loses much of its appeal. He appears to be another of those do as I say, not as I do type experts. His approach to business with my company in no way reflected the approach he outlines in his book. He will no doubt sell many books, but his saleability on the speaking circuit will be short unless he begins living by the rules he outlines.
Impressed by the book, not by the author!
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Summary: Finally a Marketing Book that Applies to NonProfits!
Review: Most marketing books are aimed at businesses that sell stuff, which makes them fairly inapplicable to the NonProfit world. "Selling the Invisible" comes the closest I've seen to helping market what NonProfits do. That's because "Selling the Invisible" focuses not on marketing products, but on marketing services, which makes it a great book for NonProfits. "Selling the Invisible" is not a how-to book. Instead, it is a thoughtful guide, providing insights on how marketing works and how prospects think. The chapters are short - more like snippets than chapters - each with a single thought that moves you towards the next thought. I have read this book a number of times, and I can never get past 3 or 4 of its tiny chapters without stopping to scribble down notes, or to consider just how our clients (and our own organization) are currently doing things. I have even found it helpful in thinking about different ways to market my own book on NonProfit board recruitment. The book starts by asking first things first: Are you sure what you have to market really is worth telling people about? Have you surveyed clients to find out if your service really is a quality service? Are you really providing what the community needs? Beckwith aims right for the heart. Once you are convinced you have a quality organization to talk about, he moves you through all the thought processes that should go into that marketing. But don't expect to move quickly. Expect your brain to light up in thought. Keep a note pad handy. Here are just some of the things I love about this book:
Under the heading 'Fran Lebowitz and Your Greatest Competitor,' comes this quote:
"Your greatest competitor is not your competition. It is indifference."
And under the heading 'The Value of Publicity,' you will find this:
"There are six peaks in Europe higher than the Matterhorn. Name one." The last chapter is a discussion of other books that can help round out the reader's understanding of marketing. Because Beckwith takes a systems approach to the subject and not a 'sell-the-widget' approach, many of these books are applicable to the NonProfit world as well. As someone who spends a lot of time combing bookstore shelves for business books that translate well to the NonProfit world, "Selling the Invisible" is one I would strongly recommend.
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Summary: People hear what they see
Review: Communications make services more tangible and visible and give clients something firm to grasp. Marketing communications for services haul a heavier burden than communications for products. We trust products but we are far less trusting of services. So communications about services must make the service more tangible and real and must sooth the worried prospect.
People are interested in themselves. Turn the attention away from "I'm an expert", "I'm the smartest", "me, me, me" and turn the attention to the client. Indifference is the worst enemy not competition. When you do speak say one thing. Saying many things usually communication nothing. Your prospects have one question "What makes you so different that I should do business with you?" So give them one good reason to do business with you then repeat it again and again. Don't use adjectives to explain your reasons, use stories. Work one good basic communication; the communication must be vivid and not unclear, concrete and not abstract, familiar and not unfamiliar, and proper nouns not adjectives. Create evidence of your service and then communicate your service quality. Don't use silly or unprofessional promotional ideas. Prospects don't necessary want to buy the best, they just don't want to buy bad; so, help assure the prospect that you have weakness, you are good enough, and they can be comfort with selecting you. Convey that you are positively good. The client will continue using your service, if the client feels comfortable with them. The golden rule of marketing applies: "It is far better to say too little than too much."
People hear what they see. When people watch commercials they don't hear words, they see pictures. For example, an attorney climbing a mountain caused people to say that "First Banks were strong and solid, like the man climbing the mountain". People will trust their eyes far before they will ever trust your words. Make the invisible visible by using visual symbols to look for clues about what the business is about: Prudential has it's Rock of Gibraltar, Travelers is umbrella, Allstate is good hands, TransAmerica its tower, and Wausau its railroad station. Make sure people see who you are. Make sure your visual communications are consistent and reinforcing through out your company, it make you look more organized and professional and easier to remember. If your selling something complex, simplify it with a metaphor. Metaphors can quickly define your concept and your uniqueness.
If you want publicity then advertise. Prospect believe advertising is publicity and creditability. Advertising is the source by which people come to know the companies mentioned in the ad. People do not believe in companies they have not heard. Write articles and if you want editors to help you then give them something interesting. Give them a story worth publishing. Look deeply there are interesting stories to be told.
Focus on Buying and not selling. Think of the opposite side ask the customer "What do you want; what do you need; who are you". Make buying easy for the customer. Talk with the prospect about them and not you.
People want to smile. The most important thing you can sell is hope. Hope makes people feel good and customers that feel good will continue to give you business.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the Price of Admission
Review: Ugly cats for sale...focus wins...Don't charge by the hours, charge by the years...Value is not a position, if good value is the first thing you communicate, you won't be effective...Use vivid words and pictures...tell stories.
Selling the Invisible brings common sense advice about sales and marketing to your business. If you are in business for yourself, which I am, you will certainly glean enough from this book to make more money. It is written in a way that it makes a good companion for a cup of coffee or a train ride to work. Powerful and practical ideas explained easily.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time.
Review: The back cover makes you think that the book is full of new ideas and advice. Well, if you've read any basic marketing book, you already know it all. In fact, if you have plain old common sense, you probably will not find anything new in that either.
I felt ripped off by the back cover comments. I read the book on a plane and, even for an airport book, I found it to be really lame.
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Summary: This book talks about everything
Review: This book really should be called: "The 10,000 Best Books on Sales, Marketing, Management, and General Business Compressed into 272 Easy and Small Pages So That Anyone Can Read Them." It has way too much information in way too condensed of a format.
And, you guessed it...a book that talks about everything doesn't do a good job of talking about anything. And, it's as much about marketing a service as it is an exhaustive compendium on the success of Wal-Mart.
It gave me a headache. It's written in Aesop's fable format, with a short tale in each of the 300 sections, and then a simplistic moral at the end of each of them.
I can see only two uses for this book. It could be an introductory book for someone who has never read a business book before, and wants a quick scan of a bunch of business topics. The other use could be for speakers. If you want a ready-made 1 minute speech on a business topic, this book has about 300 of them.
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Summary: Should be called "Showing The Invisible"
Review: Personally, I wouldn't limit this book to only apply to sales. In fact, Harry Beckwith's information in this book could be applied to literally ANYTHING that involves communication with another human being. As he does in his other books, "The Invisible Touch" and "What Clients Love," Harry gives simple anecdotes to clarify otherwise complicated methods. He shines a comforting light on the intimidating shadow of "sales" and "marketing" to make it far easier to imagine yourself able to do whatever you are using your communications to accomplish.
At the end of each section he even has little one to two sentance "summaries" in bold, so you have a quick understanding of each point he is making.
In short, he has packed 1000 pages of priceless information, into a 250 page, easy to understand, and apply, book.
I strongly suggest not only buying this book, but the other two that I mentioned as well.
No matter if you want to be a sales and marketing success, a communications master, or simply someone who wants to better understand what inspires and influences people, this book is one you will be glad that you bought.
That's My Opinion But You're Welcome To It
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Summary: I'm Sold
Review: I tried sales as a career in the past and let me tell you it isn't easy. Selling "services" is not about a monthly quota, it's not about your personal bills.
This book helps the average sales person with what their focus should be. Providing a "reasonable" or "fair" service that a client needs, recognizes and is willing to pay for. One of the main points that stuck with me was the fact that the potential prospect is the sales persons biggest competition, not the other sales guy down the street. A prospect can avoid using your services by doing it(the service) themselves or even by choosing to do nothing at all. That equals no sales and no commission.
Buy this book, and invest your time to read it. In the end, I bet your sales numbers will go up and your clients will be happier!
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