Chapter 61: Conclusion

Really enjoyed this book. While the general theme and concept is explained early on, I was fascinated by the many different angles the authors looked at and the parallels that can be found in almost any industry and any scenario. As the author says;

"Businesses can no longer sit back and assume they know more than their customers. Today the power of information has shifted."

I will definitely consider reading some more of the authors works and have become an avid follower of his own social media, on all the platforms that he is active. You can find links to UnSelling's social media on the right sidebar of this blog!

Chapter 52: Should You Trade In Trade Shows?

A really neat parallel is explored between social media and trade shows. I was fascinated by the similarities in the two, and in particular the importance of remaining honest in how you represent yourself. There is a really interesting experiment mentioned in here where two trade show booths were set up for the very same product; one with trade show babes trying to sell it and the other with honest employees of the company. The latter did much better, both in terms of visitors and actual lead conversion.

Great Video from MARK9049

Thought I would share this great video that our professor showed us in MARK9049 class today, from the YouTube account of UnSelling author Scott Stratten.

Chapter 39: Crowdfunding

I really enjoyed the breakdown in Chapter 39 of crowdfunding on websites like Kickstarter and why people chose to fund projects in this way. The concepts of keeping funders happy with incentives and feel good stories or experiences is a really big part of what is making this young industry grow so fast. I found it related well to overall theme of the book.

Chapter 37: Netflix vs. Blockbuster

"Blockbuster didn't change, we did." I liked this line. Scott explains how Netflix didn't kill Blockbuster, it just went where they should have gone and adapted quickly to consumer needs. The icing on the cake was Blockbuster passing up the opportunity in 2000 to buy Netflix - instead deciding to go head to head with them and develop their own online system with backing from Enron. We all know what happened next!

Chapter 21: The Pulse of an UnAwseome Industry

 UnSelling by Scott Stratten and Alison Kramer mentions another item we covered in MARK9049 class!

 

This tweet by the York Region Police in response to a Mr. Lube employee's Tweet, talking about buying drugs, is used as an example of how to use a sense of humour on Twitter effectively. Furthermore, its a great example of social media can be a great tool even in the most rigid industries like law enforcement, where the author pulls a 2013 Mashable stat showing that %96 of police departments are now using social media. Fascinating!

Chapter 12: Aspiring to Be a Jedi

There's a fantastic story based on a blog article (full article here) that the authors summarize in this chapter. It has to do with Disney going out of their way to make a visit to Disneyland's Jedi Academy special for a young boy with Autism. This heartfelt story got over 1 million hits online. Not as much as fat star wars kid in my picture did but still amazing!