Jump Start Your Business Brain: Win More, Lose Less, and Make More Money

Book Description

Doug Hall has been called America's #1 New Product Idea Man by Inc. Magazine, A&E Top 10 and CIO Magazine, a title earned due to his outstanding work with such industry leaders as American Express, Ford Motor Company, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Hewlett-Packard, Tropicana, AT&T and Frito-Lay.

After 10 years with Procter & Gamble Co., where he became that company's first "master marketing inventor," he now runs the Eureka Ranch, a work-hard, play-hard haven where he helps companies create breakthrough ideas for new products and services. This work, in combination with his years of consulting and researching, led directly to Jump Start Your Business Brain, the best piece of good news for business owners to appear in the last ten years.

Jump Start Your Business Brain is must-have information for business people everywhere, especially small business owners. Why? Because author Doug Hall is on a personal quest--a Robin Hood-like mission to translate the wisdom he's discovered researching top corporations into no-fail, practical tactics for small and medium sized businesses.

Jump Start Your Business Brain is packed with hard-won insight as to what truly works in the marketplace. To make it accessible to all, Doug transforms this real-life market intelligence into six scientific laws that, when applied with diligence, can make any business overflow with good fortune. Readers will learn how to:

* Increase sales by 10 to 50% by sharpening customer communications--not by spending additional money
* Transform business offerings to enjoy a higher profit margin
* Take charge of their future by increasing their skills at identifying and exploiting business opportunities

What makes this business book different from all the rest? Its laws of success are developed on scientific data and original research drawn from over 4,000 new products and services and over 6,000 front-line development groups.

Even better, the purchase of this book also entitles the reader to conduct a Merwyn simulated test market on the probability of success for their own business plan/idea. Merwyn, the computer "brain trust" for all Doug's data and research, will run an Idea Scan (via a single-use password protected within the book--a $500 value) which will allow crucial analysis for their business.

Finally, the promise of these scientific laws spring to life for the reader in dozens of small business success stories, including Village Pottery, Mo Hotta Mo Betta, College of Piping, Woolly Ware, Island Winds, Cavendish Figurines, Seasons in Thyme and Island Pewter.

Every copy of Jump Start Your Business Brain provides customers with access to one FREE Merwin Idea Scan--a $500 value!

Merwyn is a simulated test marketing system for business ideas. It allows test marketing of a new business, product, service or advertising idea before investing time and money in its execution.

Marketplace data indicates that ideas selected to go to market are successful only 25% of the time. An 845-case validation found Merwyn to have a 70% to 90% accuracy picking winners--thus dramatically reducing business risk. Merwyn's accuracy comes from:

1) Modeling what customers "do" as opposed to what they "say,"
2) Analyzing probability of success relative to millions of data points and
3) Eliminating the emotional bias that is common when pursuing new ideas.

Customer Reviews:

Mediocre follow-up to "Jump Start Your Brain".......2005-08-06

The average 5-star rating that this book has received to date is interesting. My 2-star rating credits Doug Hall's follow-up to his classic "Jump Start Your Brain" text with introducing readers to basic marketing in an enthusiastic manner. However, unlike the first "Jump Start" book (refer to the associated 5-star review I wrote for that text), there really is no uniqueness to this book when compared to other business-related marketing books except for the style in which the material is presented. Hall constantly brings up his "Merwyn" probability success tool that is being sold to the reader as a good way to predict the outcome of their product ideas, but since it is a proprietary tool there is no concrete explanation of the analytics behind the tool. Often, the book seems like it is merely a 300+-page sales pitch for Merwyn (and by the way, there is even a coupon in the book to get a one-time discount on use of his tool through the author's firm). After reading "Jump Start Your Business Brain" line by line for the first few chapters, it became quickly apparent that there is definitely a large amount of non-value-added fluff in the material. I still highly recommend "Jump Start Your Brain", but I do not believe this new Hall effort is worth your time unless you are completely new to marketing theory.

If you own just one buisness book, this is the one to have........2005-04-09

If there is only one business book to own, this is it!

Doug Hall lays out a straight forward, highly logical, and common sense means to communicate with your customers. Using his approach of communicating through overt benefits, dynamic difference, and real reason to believe, your business is sure to grow. This is a keeper!

What a disappointment.......2004-03-24

I buy about a book a week from Amazon and never write reviews - but I have to on this one.

Did you buy one of the original Apple Ipods? All the PR and reviews got your expectations up - only to find out that they went cheap on the battery. It lasts about 3-minutes. Big disappointment. It was capable of so much more.

Same with this book. I LOVED Hall's first book. Great breakthrough stuff. So when this one was released I got in the pre-publication line. I saved the book for a Saturday cross-country plane ride ready to savor. Had the highlighter all ready and - bummer. Couldn't believe it.

It's the equivlant of "Eat plenty of vegetables, get plenty of sleep and brush your teeth every day." Mundane, sophormoric stuff to be associated with the name Doug Hall. Not at all in the same league as his first book - a masterpiece. This guy is so much better than this cute little book of lists. I'll buy his next one, pay money to go see him - but this isn't the Doug Hall of the first book.

Tried and true ideas, reasonably well presented........2003-12-31

The book is full of marketing truisms that are presented better elsewhere, but set forth here as if they were new discoveries. For example, "benefits sell more than features." Well, duh! You already know this if you have read a single introductory marketing text. That said, the book's positive point is the energy with which he conveys the information, and it is a reasonably engaging read. The negative point is the ego of the author rises to the level of distraction.

So what's with all the glib five star reviews this book has received? Was I missing the point, was I reading a different book, or were there a few reviews planted by the publisher?

Up Your Business Success Odds to 80 percent/TESTED !!.......2003-04-29

Up Your Business Success Odds to 80 percent/TESTED TO WORK!!

Is your business or business or product idea focused in a way that makes its success chances from 60 to over 80%?

Or is it in the 17 to 23 % range that most people achieve?

Would you like a guide that explains the 3 principles that can help you to make that upgrade & that has been tested to work ??

Would you like a way to test your marketing materials IN ADVANCE & know how successful they're likely to be--that also has been found to be accurate in practice to within a few percentage points?

How about detailed, reasonably easy to use, tips from a man who successfully teaches Fortune 500 exec's how to do all this?

If so, immediately buy, read, & use this book !!

You'll be dramatically glad you did !!

I think it's one of the 3 best business books ever written.

David Eller

Average customer rating:
Jump Start Your Business Brain - Win More, Lose Less And Make More Money With Your New Products, Services, Sales & Advertising
Doug Hall
Manufacturer: Brain Brew Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IXEWSK

Book Description

None but those who resided in the South during the time of slavery can realize the terrible punishments that were visited upon the slaves. Virtue and self-respect were denied them. -Octavia Albert in The House of Bondage With a fiery, righteous rage, former slave Octavia Albert set about, after Emancipation, collecting the true stories of those that "terrible institution" affected most. That raw material gave rise to The House of Bondage, a refutation to Uncle Tom's Cabin, and an answer to other works of literature of the period that purported to show the horror of slavery even though their authors had never set foot in the South. First published in 1890, this is an important example of a sadly small genre: 19th-century literature by African-American women. With its straightforward and heartbreaking litany of cruelty at the hands of slaveowners, families forever divided, and the harsh effects of particularly hard labor, this is an unforgettable work that should be read by every American who thinks he knows his nation's history. Teacher and social activist OCTAVIA V. ROGERS ALBERT (1853-c.1890) was born into slavery in Georgia; after Emancipation, she studied at Atlanta University.

Customer Reviews:

A book to be passed down from generation to generation..........1999-02-26

Narrated by Octavia Albert, this book documents the true stories of several former slaves, their personal views, their struggles, and their triumphs. The stories are heartfelt and the convictions of the author to pass on the history of her people are evident in her dedicated writing.

The house of bondage: Or, Charlotte Brooks and other slaves, original and life like, as they appeared in their old plantation and city slave life;

Average customer rating:

The house of bondage: Or, Charlotte Brooks and other slaves, original and life like, as they appeared in their old plantation and city slave life;
Octavia V. Rogers Albert
Manufacturer: Cranston & Stowe
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Customer Reviews:

its official.......2004-05-12

when you in business for 122 years you probably know something.
lets see.on page 191 table 293 we read- violence by intimate
partners by sex.if we believe table our female partners rape men
left and right.and its official.in real life its opposite.
resume-dont believe everything government tells you.
from 122 years of publication we should expect perfect book
on US statistics and most important for any country is one table
quality of life.And when I travel outside US local folks ask-how come US has 8 million homeless people?And I answer-no homeless
are in Statistical abstract of US and therefore they dont exist.

Statistical Abstract of the United States 2002: The National Data Book 2002 (CD-ROM Edition Released 2003)

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Statistical Abstract of the United States 2002: The National Data Book 2002 (CD-ROM Edition Released 2003)
U.S. Census Bureau
Manufacturer: Progressive Management
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM
ASIN: 1592482481

Book Description

This is complete reproduction of the official U.S. Census Bureau Statistical Abstract of the United States CD-ROM, 2002 edition released on CD-ROM form in April 2003. At only $19.95, it costs two-thirds LESS than the $60 price charged by the government when purchased through the NTIS! Our reproduction is thus an incredible bargain for one of the most valuable reference works available today.

This amazing disc contains over 1400 tables and charts, making it the best known and most popular single source of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of our great nation. The Abstract has been published since 1878 and serves as a convenient, easy-to-use reference source. It provides an extensive selection of statistics for the United States, with selected data for States, metropolitan areas, cities, and foreign countries from reports and records of government and private agencies. The Census Bureau declares that the Statistical Abstract is "the government's most important statistical factbook - great for students, libraries, research organizations, or home reference - Uncle Sam's Reference Shelf." It is truly an incredible resource for any curious mind.

The CD-ROM edition contains more years of data, more countries, and more categories of subjects than in the print edition. The CD-ROM also provides over 1,500 table-to-spreadsheet links, direct table-to-Internet site links, and search capabilities on table number and titles as well as general subjects. The Adobe Acrobat PDF software used to view the data offers the advantage of high quality printing and viewing. Tables and charts appear in color highlighting important information and adding clarity to the graphics. The Adobe Acrobat search function allows for easy searching--simply enter a keyword or phrase for a full text search of all files, including text within graphics and charts. Searching by general subjects and table numbers and titles is also supported. By using Lotus worksheet (.WK1) files or Excel (.XLS) files, you can do your own analysis of Statistical Abstract tables, state rankings, and the population of metropolitan areas. The spreadsheet files can be opened directly by clicking on a button at the bottom of each table or directly from spreadsheet software. The CD-ROM also provides more than 1,000 direct table-to-Internet site links. "With our new CD-ROM you can easily get the latest population and money income figures from our Internet links to many Federal agency sites and start your own analysis of the latest trends," says Lars Johanson of the Statistical Abstract staff. Section contents include:

Population * Vital Statistics * Health and Nutrition * Education * Law Enforcement, Courts, and Prisons * Geography and Environment * Elections * State and Local Government Finances and Employment * Federal Government Finances and Employment * National Defense and Veterans Affairs * Social Insurance and Human Services * Labor Force, Employment, and Earnings * Income, Expenditures, and Wealth * Prices * Business Enterprise * Science and Technology * Agriculture * Natural Resources * Energy and Utilities * Construction and Housing * Manufactures * Domestic Trade * Transportation * Information and Communications * Banking and Finances * Arts, Entertainment and Recreation * Accommodation, Food Services, Other Services * Foreign Commerce and Trade * Outlying Areas * Comparative International Statistics * 2000 Census Sample Data

New for 2002 - "As usual, we have updated most of the more than 1,400 tables and charts that were on the previous disc with new or more recent data. Most noteworthy are new data from the 2000 census found in a special new Section 31, entitled 2000 Census Data Sampler. The 30 new tables include data covering the resident population's migration status, educational attainment, disability status, ancestry, place of birth, and language spoken at home as well as household income, poverty, and selected housing characteristics fro

Average customer rating:
Statistical Abstract of the United States 2002: The National Data Book [122nd Edition]

Manufacturer: US Dept of Commerce/US Census Bureau
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0934213909

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Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002: The National Data Book (Paper)

Manufacturer: Bureau of Census
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Statistics | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Yearbooks & Annuals | Almanacs & Yearbooks | Reference | Subjects | Books
21st Century | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0160428173

Book Description

The official government authoritative guide for data on the economic, social, and political lives of Americans. Produced by the Census bureau, the Statistical Abstract provides exhaustive information from the 2002 Census, and gives complete up-to-date information on the United States from national, state, and regional levels.

This guide also contains more than 1,000 additional charts and tables covering every facet of American behavior, which are organized by age, state and geographical area and other variables. Information in this edition includes: population statistics by age, sex, race and metropolitan area; income, consumers expenditures and wealth distribution; vital information on births, teen births rates and infant mortality, deaths and marriages; law enforcement data including drug-related arrest rates, hate crimes, and delinquency cases, and banking and finances, debt, interest rates, and the stock and bond markets.

Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002: The National Data Book (Paper)

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Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2002: The National Data Book (Paper)
US Commerce Dept.
Manufacturer: Bureau of Census
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OK45B6

Book Description

This tribute to the legendary, enigmatic American music icon features rare archival interviews with Dylan himself, as well as with musical compatriots such as Al Kooper and Levon Helm of The Band. BOB DYLAN: A TRIBUTE contains over 2 hours of insights and interviews with the musical and poetic genius behind 4 decades of provocative pop culture.

A Nod to Bob: An Artists' Tribute to Bob Dylan on His 60th Birthday.(Review) (sound recording review): An article from: Sojourners

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A Nod to Bob: An Artists' Tribute to Bob Dylan on His 60th Birthday.(Review) (sound recording review): An article from: Sojourners
Kimberly Burge
Manufacturer: Sojourners
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Sojourners, published by Sojourners on May 1, 2001. The length of the article is 768 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: A Nod to Bob: An Artists' Tribute to Bob Dylan on His 60th Birthday.(Review) (sound recording review)
Author: Kimberly Burge
Publication: Sojourners (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2001
Publisher: Sojourners
Volume: 30 Issue: 3 Page: 58

Article Type: Sound Recording Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Bob Dylan Songbook
Bob Cdklon 063 Va-Tribute Dylan
Manufacturer: KLONE RECORDS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

General | Books on CD | Audiobooks | Formats | Books
ASIN: 630770697X

Average customer rating:

Positively 12th &K Bob Dylan Tribute
S Valentino , and J Cddigm 109 Green
Manufacturer: DIG MUSIC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

General | Books on CD | Audiobooks | Formats | Books
ASIN: 6307629991

Amazon.com

"Childhood's work is to see what lies beneath," Mark Doty writes in his memoir, Firebird. And adulthood's work, he suggests, is to make sense of what the child-self once saw. Doty, a poet, does this remarkably well, capturing the peculiar talismans of youth--"little cars of fragrant plastic whose wheels turn on wire axles that can be popped loose and examined; hard candies; sweet, chalky wafers strung together into wristlets and necklaces"--as well as a child's experience of sin:

I am standing paralyzed by what I've done, there's a rush and roar from the direction of the living room, my father rising from the couch, he's coming down the hall, I'm afraid he's going to spank me, I remember the last time, the humiliation of it, him pulling my pants down on the porch and whaling me, his red face filled up with blood and rage, striking at me because what have I done? Now I've done something plain and sharply lit like the big shards of glass on the floor...

It's clear from the start that the author's home life was not happy. His father's job with the Army Corps of Engineers kept the family crisscrossing the country; his older sister got pregnant at 17--"these girls knew what they were doing, these girls married to get out"--and ended up, eventually, in prison; and his mother, a frustrated artist, sank eventually into depression and alcoholism. As if growing up in this family during the 1950s and '60s weren't difficult enough, Doty's homosexuality provided additional anguish. A confrontation over his long hair led to a humiliating scene at a barbershop where Doty's father had dragged him and ended up with his attempted suicide at the age of 14. There are plenty more heart-wrenching episodes like this, and at times you might wonder why you'd want to put yourself through the ordeal of reading about them. Doty himself seems aware of this. "Why tell a story like this, who wants to read it?" he demands near the end of the book, then responds, "Even sad stories are company. And perhaps that's why you might read such a chronicle, to look into a companionable darkness that isn't yours." That may be one reason for reading Firebird; the other, undoubtedly, is Mark Doty's precise and lyrical prose, his acute perception, and his compassionate heart. --Alix Wilber

Book Description

In Firebird, Mark Doty tells the story of a ten-year-old in a top hat, cane, and red chiffon scarf, interrupted while belting out Judy Garland's "Get Happy" by his alarmed mother at the bedroom door, exclaiming, "Son, you're a boy!"

Firebird presents us with a heroic little boy who has quite enough worries without discovering that his dawning sexuality is the Wrong One. A self-confessed "chubby smart bookish sissy with glasses and a Southern accent," Doty grew up on the move, the family following his father's engineering work across America-from Tennessee to Arizona, Florida to California. A lyrical, heartbreaking comedy of one family's dissolution through the corrosive powers of alcohol, sorrow, and thwarted desire, Firebird is also a wry evocation of childhood's pleasures and terrors, a comic tour of American suburban life, and a testament to the transformative power of art.

Customer Reviews:

A Mysterious, Beautiful Memoir .......2005-05-11

I read (and met) Mark Doty while I was in college. On the grass at Sarah Lawrence, I memorized his sad, beautiful poetry and read and re-read his book, Heaven's Coast, chronicling his life with his partner dying from AIDS. So, I was very excited when Firebird was chosen by my book club. Again, I found myself amazed and delighted by Mark Doty's use of imagery, but I was also disappointed as the book leapt from experience to experience without explanation. Maybe this is why I never felt "inside" his character, and at the end, was left feeling as though the chapters were more like poems, mysterious pieces of his life that were without resolution. Mark Doty is a man of great accomplishment, a poet of unquestionable talent, but after this book, he's still a mystery to me.

Evolution of a poet.......2003-08-20

It's not always a pretty story, but it's always intellectually and emotionally moving. Mark Doty is one of America's finest writers of poetry and prose. That such a mind should have triumphed over his stressful growing up years is remarkable. His background would have landed many other kids in a foster home. Firebird is a coming-of-age memoir of a pre-gay geeky kid with a deranged and alcoholic mother, a passive/conflicted father, and a sister whose middle name is Trouble.
Firebird is beautifully written, revealing how a person who lives in a world of art, music, and literature rose from the ashes of his youth like the proverbial Phoenix of legend. It could easily have been titled Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but somebody got to that one first.

Unfathomable memoir for ssuch a Poet of beauty.......2002-12-29

Mark Doty is one of the finest poets of our time, writing eloquent, informed poems, essays, books, and musings about life and art. To read FIREBIRD: A MEMOIR almost breaches credibility, so stressful and trying was his childhood and youth. But perhaps, and probably, this is why he is able to write with such sensitivity today. FIREBIRD relates the coming of age of a chubby, nerdy, alienated, pre-gay, geeky kid who finds little solace in his family (a deeply disturbed alcoholic mother, a passive ne'er-do-well military type father, a sister headed for incarceration) yet manages to capture moments from this distorted childhood, like expressive dancing to Stravinsky's 'Firebird' and learning to paint from his mother, to head him toward the sucessful communicator he is today.

If this sounds a bit like a book you'd rather not endure, then think again. This is one of rare memoirs that reveals all the pain and learning that life offers to the sensitive mind and then shows how the body that holds that mind can rise from the ashes (phoenix/firebird) and behold a world of art, music, and write about it like few others. The book is immensely well written. There are comic moments, childlike reveries, imagination blooming among the atrocoties of discovery of what is adulthood that are related so clearly and eloquently that they beg to be re-read again and again. Example: "A life hurtles forward, tumbles out and ahead from these twin poles: firebird and revolver, diametrical opposites like the yes and no which rule the Ouija board: twin magnetic poles which cause a kind of gyroscopic spin, advancing the motion of my tale." and "All along, the firebird watches, patient in ashes, smoldering till the hour to flame. Just one dance teaches it to believe in the brightness to come. All it ever needed was a practice run, in preparation for someday's full emblazoning."

And with words like that this reader can only recommend this experience book to all who wonder whether they are of worth. Highly and joyously recommended!

This Book Is a Must Read.......2002-02-26

FIREBIRD is one of those books that draws in the reader and holds his/her attention. The reader is at once morbidly fascinated and horrified by the author's life experiences. The author writes about his life without self-pity or a plea for sympathy. That he had the strength to survive all he has endured in the first half of his life is inpsirational. I am proud to have known Mark Doty for two brief school years in the late sixties. Thirty-five years later Mark Doty continues to impact my life.

We voted Mark Doty "Most Likely to Succeed".......2000-10-25

For several years I had read favorable reviews of Mark Doty's work and wondered if this writer was "that Mark Doty"--the smartest boy in my junior high school, the one we voted "Most Likely to Succeed."

My curiosity got the better of me when Firebird was released, since it is autobiographical, and yes, it is that Mark Doty. Those junior high years were but a blip on the screen of Mark's life (chapter seven), but his memories and descriptions of the place and the same people I knew are spot on. This book, however, is so much more than a snippet of shared history. There is nothing I could say about this book that would accurately describe its impact on me--all of my words would be an understatement.

Mark Doty's work is fine art. His prose and the structure work beautifully together. This is not another package of self-pity in which the author is intentionally pulling up emotions. Yes, I cringed and felt outrage at some of the most uncomfortable parts, but the writer soothed me and reassured me that where there is art, there is a home, a place in the world--like that which Petula Clark sings about in "Downtown."

I am proud of and pleased for Mark Doty's outstanding literary achievements. I also thank him for having the courage to write this book. Many of us who are fortunate enough to have read it are grateful and forever changed through the experience of his work of art.

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