Bounce
|
Balls!: 6 Rules For Winning Today’s Business Game
By John Wiley & Soms $19.95, 178 pp.
|
The title of this book gets your attention. The subtitle hints at what Ms. Venneri, presently the chief marketing and communications officer at a telecom-based firm, and formerly with the Seattle Mariners, is really up to. She grabs your attention, then pays it off in a somewhat less raucous way, with the noun of the title ostensibly serving as an acronym that describes what it takes to get it done in today’s competitive environment:
- B: Brave enough to take risks
- A: Authentic enough to follow tried-and-true business practices
- L: Loud enough to attract serious attention
- L: Loving enough to care for your employees and customers
- S: Spunky enough to do things differently
- !: Inspired and excited enough to go and make things happen
It is also a term that relates to a promotion that she used at a trade show, where she distributed 10,000 balls to achieve some visibility. It worked. While she does use examples from a few companies, the man who founded the firm she works for, Who's Calling, gets a preponderance of coverage. Which may be a good thing for the company. But it leaves many other avenues unexplored.
Her fundamental message is encompassed in one line: "We've found that being aggressive, being loud, being different, and being a little wild make our marketing dollars go much father than if we played the game like traditional buttoned-down business executives." But her company is metrics-driven, so it isn't all about just bouncing higher and brighter than the suits, even though that may be more fun—if you have the guts to do it.—GSV
|
