Rating: 
Summary: Fabulous!
Review: This is a great book. With so many people going into
service-oriented businesses for themselves, a handbook was needed to map out a strategy, and this is the book. The Internet has revolutionized the way we do business, and this book teaches the best way to market a service in this realm. For more information, I also recommend Guerrilla PR Wired, by Michael Levine, which focuses on Internet promotion strategies.
Rating: 
Summary: Business Plan
Review: Great book, and essential for today's service-oriented buying culture. From a different perspective, I loved Guerrilla P.R., and Guerrilla P.R. Wired, both by Michael Levine. As an Internet business owner, I am always looking for new and better ways to build my business, and Levine's books were the most helpful so far. I will be adding this book to my list of favorites, too.
Rating:
Summary: Stunningly Useful and On Point--Vital to Gold Collar Workers
Review:
I bought this book because I thought it might be relevant to "gold collar workers", those who manufacture and sell knowledge that is quite "invisible" or intangible. What a great book this is! Every person that relys on their brain for a living, whether as an employee or consultant or teacher, can double their *perceived* value by reading and applying the lessons of this book.
A few of the author's well-discussed and well-illustrated ideas are offered here to complement the many other favorable reviews: 1) Simplify access to your work! [Learn how to create executive summaries, tables of contents, hyper-links, etc.--don't assume that everyone knows your value and is willing to spend time digging into your work.] 2) Quality, speed, and price are *not* in competition, they must be offered simulaneously and at full value. 3) What is your promise or value proposition? Are you just showing up, or does every day offer a chance for you to show your value in a specific way? 4) Don't just be the best in your given vocation, *change it* for the better and redefine what "best" means! 5) Sell your relationship (and your understanding of the other person's needs), not just your expertise in isolation. Your boss or client has three choices and you are the last: to do nothing, to do it themselves, or to use you. Focus on being the first choice every time. 6) Execute with passion--and if you are a super-geek or nerd that does not have a high social IQ, form a partnership with a super-popular person and put them in front. There are many other useful thoughts in this book. If you want to know how to sell the invisible, the intagible, the value propositions that revolve around knowledge and insight instead of bending metal and assembling things, this is absolutely the best book one could ask for. Really nicely presented.
Rating:
Summary: Good book on the marketing of services
Review: I gave this book 4 stars because, while it was refreshing to read and I definitely learned quite a bit, it wasn't a paradigm-shifting book, which is what I am increasingly moving towards for my 5 star books. As our economy evolves increasingly into more of a knowledge-based economy books on the marketing of services will become more important. As the title indicates, selling and/or marketing an intangible service is a different process than tangible product marketing. Mr. Beckworth says, "Marketing is not a department" and he's right--it is your front line (sales people) to your CEO and everyone in between. Everyone at your company is involved in marketing your company-and the author makes sure you get the message. Stop wasting time with ploys that don't work. COMMUNICATE with the consumer and you will see increased sales and market share. This book is not about how to develop a complex marketing design or plan. What it does offer is quick, easy to read "business nuggets" that are a page or so in length. Each observation is a fairly insightful observation about marketing in general but focused towards the service industry. This book is written in a tone that is simple and down-to-earth rather scholarly or academic and was refreshing to read. As the author writes, most people cannot evaluate the skills of an accountant, or lawyer, or any number of professional services. We often look for tangible proxies that indicate the professional's level of expertise and success (e.g., fancy offices, degrees on the wall, presentation, etc.). If you read this book in its entirety in one session, you are bound to remember nothing in the sea of facts and tidbits. I've found the best way to read the book is to ponder on a few points every night and/or week, while attempting to apply them to a salient situation in your life. Overall, this book has some interesting and useful insights, and is a good read when you have a few minutes to spare. The best way to learn from this book is to APPLY it. Everything doesn't have to occur at once and frankly, I think that this book will be one that I look to in the future when I am looking for snippets of marketing wisdom. Other useful books on marketing that I have read or been recommended include Seth Godin's Permission Marketing and Unleashing the Ideavirus (both great reads), the 22 immutable laws of marketing by Jack Trout and All Reis (excellent authors and a good read), Robert Cialdini's Influence and Ogilvy on Advertising or Wizard of Ads for help in sales copying.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading
Review: In a world where companies tout their product's features and expect consumers to beat a path to their door based on what those features, it comes as a surprise that products with fewer features often sell better. Likewise, sometimes an inferior service ends up with many more customers. Why is this the case? Consumers want to feel connected to products in some way; they want a relationship with the product and/or the company that produces, markets or sells the product. Beckwith does an excellent job of presenting his case in a concise manner and gives many, many detailed examples to illustrate his points. The chapters are small and can easily be read in a fifteen or twenty minute break. This combined with its small size makes it especially useful since it can easily be carried in a purse or briefcase where you can pull it out and read, re-read or refresh your memory on a regular basis. Whether you are selling a product or a service, this book is required reading. I spent several years as a top salesman with a close rate much higher than the average for my industry and product. (A product that requires after sales service.) This book includes many of the techniques that I used to build client relationships. If you don't pick it up, read it, and use it then you had better be thinking strategically about how you are going to compete with the person who does because they will become a problem for you.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it!!!
Review: This book is really worth reading. I like this style. It is easy to read and understand. The main point is shown at the bottom of every essay, making it clearer. The examples used in this book are really great and realistic! Harry uses a lot of examples to illustrate a point, letting me see different aspects of a point. Unlike my textbook, just one detailed example is used to explain the point. (I am a university student major in marketing. And I have finished studying the subject Service Marketing). It is good for Harry to first point out how the "invisible" makes the customers unsecured and suppliers difficult to manage, which make me pay more attention to know how this condition can be improved and how to make the "invisible" visible in the following chapters. It also indicates that selling a service is the responsibility of every staff, not just one department. I agree because every point of communication of the company will leave a strong impression on the customers. It is good that Harry does not ignore every trivial point that most of us would easily neglect. And it is also true that selling a service is equal to selling a relationship. The book is very comprehensive. Harry puts emphasis not only on customers, the most important factor among the marketing mix (7Ps) in service, but also on positioning, pricing, naming and branding as well as advertising. Don't hesitate. Buy it!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book on service marketing
Review: I have marketed professional services for 18 years, and have written books of my own on the topic. Simply put, this is the one book I would recommend to anyone if they had to have one book on business development, marketing or sales. It is an excellent book, written in a digestible format, that is packed with ideas. From my observations over the years, most people don't practice half of what's in this book. Mick
Rating:
Summary: The book I wish I wrote.
Review: Over the past couple of years I've given out a least a 100 copies of "Selling the Invisible" to my clients at Fortune 500 firms. They all love it for the clear lessons, and lively writing style. (One of them, a Big Five marketer who had been at her job for 12 years, told me she was so engrossed in the book, she missed her subway stop.)
For any marketer in a professional service business including Big Five Firms; ad agencies; law firms; this book keeps you riveted with basic principles brought home with great examples. I found the book inspirational and reinvigorating for senior level marketing professionals. Junior marketers, I'm afraid, just won't relate to the wisdom here.
Rating:
Summary: Present in-depth theories in a simple and understandable way
Review: This is really a wonderful book that i have ever read about service marketing. The author use a very simple and relax manner to express many important points that a service marketer need to beware of.
Throughout the book, Harry have put a strong focus on talking about how human being play a big role in service marketing. He repeated many times that a service is dealing with people, ie your customers and your employees, and so as a service marketer, we should focus on working on, for example, how the customer think, what's their needs, and how our employees perform.
Also, Harry have discussed in the book that how we can differentiate a product or service from the other competitors, range from naming, to communicating with customers. It provided insights for a marketer to think about when they name their company or find ways to communicate with customers.
Rating:
Summary: From the author
Review: First, I want to thank so many of your for your kind words, both here and to me directly. The response has been very gratifying. The style and approach of the book were chosen deliberately, and while they seem to satisfy almost everyone, they don't delight everyone. That is to be expected. I wanted a book that people would read and respond to, and that might affect their behavior. This was the best way I knew how, and the responses suggest that if it wasn't the best possible choice, it was a good choice. Thanks. The best is yet to come, by the way, next September--I am convinced of it. One final word, to the reviewer who assumed I could not have meant "pervasive" or "synecdoche" in my discussion of stories. I did mean that the use of this device is pervasive rather than persuasive--the device isn't intended to persuade anyone, but it is very widely used, and therefore "pervasive." And I did mean "synecdoche" rather than "anecdote," as the reviewer suggests, for the reasons I mention in the text. Synecdoche refers, among many writers, to the technique of illustrating a larger point with a smaller, specific story. My books are more often criticized for appearing too simple and down-to-earth rather than too complex or ethereal. In this case, I appear to have confused at least this reviewer, and I try to avoid this. Again, I am delighted that so many of you appear to have benefitted from this book. I certainly have; oddly enough, its words constantly remind me of what I must do to attract and keep customers. Just as oddly, this advice seems to help me immensely. Best wishes to you all, dissenters included,
Harry Beckwith
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