Beat the Recession: proven marketing tactics, Carol A E Bentley

Published by Sarceaux Publications, Dorset, England.


139 Proven Sales Letter Writing, Direct Marketing & Business Development Tactics Make Short Work of Recession Fears

So says the jacket blurb for Carol Bentley’s second book – and she backs it up with a money back guarantee if you buy direct.

Carol is a well-known copywriter who also writes a blog all about marketing (and sales and other stuff) for small businesses. This volume is a distillation of that blog plus comments she has received on various postings and a whole section of ‘guest blogs’ from other (mainly Internet-based) marketing experts.

Apart from the advice in the ‘guest blogs’ the book contains 139 business tips aimed at improving profits. And it has something that raises its potential value to any small business exponentially – links. The book is heavy with them; links to all kinds of clever material from all kinds of sources; I’d be willing to pay the cover price just to get the links!

It is not possible, in a short review, to cover everything that Carol talks about in over 400 pages but here is a taster:

· Marketing
· Web marketing
· Selling techniques
· Networking
· Time management
· Writing sales letters
· Cold calling
· Joint venturing
· Referrals
· Prospecting

You can get Carol’s book in all the usual outlets – but if you follow this link http://www.bentleybtr.com/ you will be able to get the ebook version as well as the printed book. This means you can use the many links direct from the ebook instead of having to key them laboriously in to your web browser. And if that is not enough, Carol gives you a whole year to evaluate the material and take a refund if you are dissatisfied!

No matter what you got for Christmas, give yourself a New Year’s gift that should pay for itself over and over again.

The 80/20 Principle, Richard Koch

Published by Nicholas Brealey

Buy it now from Blackwell Books

A classic returns!

Just in case you have been in a coma since the first edition in 1997 let me explain that The 80/20 Principle asserts that approximately 80 percent of positive results come from 20 percent of the effort input. First posited in the nineteenth century by a mathematician named Vilfredo Pareto, the principle seems to hold good in all areas and led to Richard Koch writing his original best-selling and highly influential treatise on the topic. Now he has produced an updated edition for the twenty-first century.

Littered with examples showing that this counter-intuitive theory does indeed produce results, The 80/20 Principle confirms Richard Koch’s status as one of the great theorists of the last century.

In the ten years since it was first published many thousands of people have confirmed the premise that most of what we do is a waste of time and effort.

A successful business consultant and author of a dozen other books, Mr Koch expounds his theories in a down-to earth manner and leads the reader (student?) through why their current strategy is wrong, how they can always get what they want and ways to become a ‘lazy entrepreneur’.

The book is divided into four sections; introductory, explaining the principle in broad terms; business; personal; and finally an examination of some of the responses received during the ten years since the first edition – including some serious criticisms of the principle which Mr Koch in no way tries to avoid or minimise.

If you have not read the original I recommend you invest now – it could save you time and effort and increase both your wealth and leisure time.

And if the book inspires you to start a new business, you might want to take a look at

The Ultimate Business toolbox!