The following review is strictly my opinion of what I believe is one of the greatest books written on Branding in the last five years. My review covers everything from the book cover design/layout to the concepts presented in the book. So please be patient as I share with you the value I believe you should be gaining from every page whenever you decide to buy what I believe is one of the greatest books written on Branding. And you might ask what qualifies me to do this and I could easily show you my library with nearly $10,000 worth of books or refer you to some of the greatest authors of our times who endorse my words because it is my calling to speak greatness into your life. Well here is what I have to say and thanks for listening.
What Ben Mack has created here is not only to be read but to be re-read at least several times. At the end of every chapter is a workspace review section for you to work out the concepts discussed in the chapter. By designing the book like this Ben Mack reveals to us how passionate he is about his Customers learning what he knows. One things for sure most authors don't do this. But Ben Mack wants to be sure you get wisdom and not just knowledge from what he writes. He is not just interested in writing a well written manual with a wonderful title in an effort to make a whole lot of money from selling a book. Because from the very beginning of the book you can sense that Ben Mack is totally and sincerely interested in winning friends & influencing people by giving them sound advice. He is completely interested in investing in you and in causing you to establish yourself as a successful Branding machine in your own circles of business. And by doing this he is ultimately setting you up to invest in his future books by making you a Branding Champion who is aware of the principles of successful Branding. And I believe you deserve to be well educated by the best and after reading his book I've concluded that Ben Mack is one of the BEST.
I must admit with all of the books I've been reading as of late this one just so happened to catch my attention. The title is very thought provoking but so are the outer book colors. The colors remind you of the old school bus that use to come and pick you up and take you to school in the morning. You remember the cheesy colored yellow bus with the brown fake leather covered seats. The one that had the plainly dressed bus driver who said hello when you got on the bus, that bounced up and down as you traveled across town to get to school. For some reason this book reminds us of that bus, the one that pulls up on nearly every other corner across America. The bus with the black writing on the sides. This book cover wakes up those memories deeply hidden and tucked away from times passed. So before we even open the book it communicates something to us about the time when we were getting our foundational principles in education.
This book cover screams out Caution as it makes you reflect on the title words "Think TWO PRODUCTS Ahead". This is not a request it's a command or an order. And what's even more thought provoking is...WHY...should we Think TWO PRODUCTS Ahead (with
caution)? Is it because we are living in unpredictable times where businesses wish they had greater control over where they are going. It was so much easier when some one else was driving the bus. In this book Ben Mack helps us to learn how to take control of the wheel of our businesses.
As an infoprenuer I can assure you that things are moving so fast and out of control that most major corporations and small business people are not really thinking two products ahead. When do you have time to Think? I mean really relax and Think about what you're doing. For one thing most people don't have time to Think and it's not because you don't have time. Your time is just eaten away by all of the other commitments you have made. And then there are others who are still trying to figure out why their last idea didn't work.
Among the baby boomers not many can afford to take out time to think now a days. To think for most is a luxury...but the embedded words on the bottom half of the book cover make you Think and THINK again. Because they're powerful words written on white pieces of shredded paper. Probably paper shredded in the shredders of the Big Advertising agencies by staff members who don't won't you to see what's been written. And if you're not reading much I guess they truly don't have much to worry about anyway. So open your eyes up and read the things Ben Mack is saying so that you can at least began to see what is available to you and at least then you'll have some peace of mind about where you're going.
Ben Mack the author and creator for the ideas in this book is no amateur at Branding, Brand Strategies, Idea Creation (brain storming) and most interestingly magic. So why is this important to you? Because if you want to be explosive in your sales or your marketing and Branding you've got to have a balanced approach...You must become part analytical and part creative in your Branding concepts.
And Ben Mack knows the information he's sharing with you is classified information that ONLY the real champions of advertising get to see and that was one of the reasons I liked reading the book "Think TWO PRODUCTS Ahead". If you want to be ahead of everybody else then you've got to do what everybody else is not doing. Most of your friends, business associates and your competitors are not thinking two products ahead so why don't you do that? And put yourself out in front of everyone else.
And please don't read this book because of what I'm saying because neither Ben Mack or the publishers John Wiley are giving me any commission on the book at all. But I believe Ben Mack really does know what he's talking about. Well if he doesn't know what he's talking about why did Cingular hire him to help them with their business or better yet how did he manage to take Yomega Yo Yos from $8,000,000 a year to over $110,000,000?
It's because he understands something quite substantial about the world of branding and advertising. He knows what motivates customers to buy. In "Think TWO PRODUCTS Ahead" he'll show you how you can attract more customers with the things he's learned while working on the inside of some of the most successful ad agencies in the world. The concepts he shares in this book are normally kept secret, prohibited from disclosure in most companies.
Now let me tell you about the book. It's filled to the brim with page after endless page full of illustrations, graphs, images from his power point demonstrations, venn diaghrams and more ideas than his e-book contained which he sold online for $197.00. He can prove the book earned him over $43,000 dollars which is why I believe the publishers at John Wiley saw real potential value in putting the book out on the market again for people like you and me to buy it for less than 8% of what his online customers paid for it. Now that's taking candy from a baby. As a matter of fact that's the good news! You or I don't have to pay $197.00, to get what everybody else did. But I guess that's the cost of being an early adopter. And here's what else you'll get:
A great forward by Mark Joyner, who's a very well known author and marketer in his own right. In this book Ben Mack debunks the normal thinking about how Branding is seen. He refutes concepts that most Brand Managers get caught up in. Like putting too much monetary value on the hue or color of your logo.
Ben Mack thinks that your Brand Essence and getting to the core of what your Brand Essence is all about is way more important, way more valuable and heck of a lot more beneficial to you from an investment stand point than pouring your money wastefully into some of the accessories of branding.
His communication style is clear and easy to follow from the beginning right down to the very ending of the book. With examples on how to create legendary branding. The Thinking Two Products Ahead helps you to consider where you're going versus just moving. A lot of business people and companies are moving and doing with out considering whether the other products are going to tie into the product, media and advertising campaign.
Ben Mack gives you instructions on how to get there, how to uncover your brand essence, how to see if your marketing tools are all working together for you. Midway through the book Ben Mack talks to you about the Five Basic Positions you need to master in order to project your company, your products and your services into the future. He lays it out for you on a spreadsheet and helps you penetrate your market far deeper, more better and at a level that's way more passionate and fulfilling than anything you've ever created for your client. You'll develop the less is more paradigm and your customers will love you more for it. In a nutshell I really enjoyed the book.
Finally Ben Mack offers us some structured creativity and great tools on how to frame your concepts. Again most of this information is the kind of information you would only get if you went into a top advertising agency undercover. It is my hopes to interview Ben Mack personally and I'll be going into the book with a more complete chapter by chapter profile on the blog "Deep Thoughts by A *Customer Passion Evangelist" beginning March 19th. I'll see you later.
Is there anything else I can do for you?
Your Servant,
Deremiah, *CPE
PS
WARNING:
I must also say that there is one part of the book that does warn you before it begans to expose you to some ideas and language that is more for mature audiences. Because Ben Mack does prompt us on it I must say he is a lot more considerate than other authors I have read who drop ideas without concern for their reading audience. Thanks for prompting us Ben.
by Deremiah *CPE
