The Ideafisher: How to Land That Big Idea-And Other Secrets of Creativity in Business

Customer Reviews:

NEED TO GENERATE YOUR CREATIVE GENIUS?.......2001-05-22

This book helps to bring the creative genius out of you instead of just teaching you "how" to be creative. I have accomplished many projects just by relying on simple principles in this book. It is well worth the purchase if you are dedicated to creating and going beyond what is expected.

Book Description

The art of selling financial products and services is a challenging process, requiring new skills and continuous learning to thrive in a constantly changing environment. With skeptical, bear-market bruised consumers demanding more for less, a solid, practical guideline is needed for both new and experienced salespeople to follow. 22 Keys to Success for Selling Financial Products and Services is the answer to this need. Each chapter addresses a fundamental issue in selling, representing the best practices of high-producing financial advisers and insurance professionals in the industry. Authors Jim Benson and Paul Karasik draw on their many years of personal experience in selling financial services to help all salespeople improve their skill sets and fundamental abilities. Succinctly and with engaging precision, the 22 precepts zero in on key issues--from qualifying clients to perfecting the sales presentation to overcoming objections--that financial services professionals need to master the art of selling. This handy guide for sales success is filled with powerful strategies, concepts, and principles, yet is easy and fast to read.

Customer Reviews:

Clear tips for selling financial products.......2006-02-23

Selling is not about pushing products any more. Pitches or sales gimmicks do not persuade the contemporary cynical, savvy consumer. In today's world, successful financial services and product sales professionals must build mutually beneficial relationships with their clients based on trust and respect. Authors James M. Benson and Paul Karasik use their experience and accomplishments in finance and insurance to identify 22 key sales strategies that anyone can use, including sales professionals in other industries. Much of the advice, for good or ill, is not specific to the area of financial services. Each chapter explains a tried-and-true, applicable sales strategy in an easy-to-understand format. You've heard some of these strategies before, but others will provide new fuel to energize your approach to sales. Each strategy makes sense and we recommend this book to everyone who sells financial products, whether you are a weathered sales veteran or a novice who is still finding your way.

Basic Review for Financial Planners.......2005-07-25

I have been a financial planner for a little over three years and I was reading this book to get some new ideas on growing my practice. Many of the ideas in this book I have read elsewhere. They just reinforced them in me, which is always good. I liked the Johari window idea in which you let everyone and remind everyone you meet what you do. I know sometimes I forgot exactly what some of my friends do. In the financial planning industry, I feel it is important to let everyone know all the things you can do and perhaps ask them to let their friends know about your services. Of course, don't push it - just give them a gentle reminder by weaving into the conversation every now and then.

This book would have been better if they had included more real life experiences from the people they have mentored. Hearing directly from them in their own words how they used each of these 22 keys would have made them more powerful.

In summary, this book is for someone who wants to reinforce the principles of sales success in the financial and insurance industry. For others who want new ideas they want to utilize in their practice, I would suggest looking elsewhere.

An incredible value for your money.......2004-08-31

Books that give genuinely new ideas -- or utterly practical tips -- on sales are worth their weight in gold. This one does both. The instructions on how to create your own One-Minute Positioning statement alone are worth 10 times the price of the book -- it is absolutely the best technique around for explaining to people in a brief statement what you do and why they should be interested.

Narrow Your Focus and Do More of What Works.......2004-05-10

Review Summary: 22 Keys to Sales Success has some very fine material in it. The book would have been much improved if it had focused on one type of sales professional in one type of organization looking for one type of client (a new life insurance salesperson in a small agency dealing with owners of small businesses, for example). That would have allowed the material to have been more focused and customized for immediate use. At the same time, some of the material just doesn't fit certain classes of sales professionals. If you are wise enough to ignore what doesn't fit, this book can greatly improve your success.

Review: The authors are clearly well read and have had a lot of experience going to seminars. The many references to the works of others are appropriate and add depth to this otherwise simple book. From that authority, they provide many helpful suggestions that will be essential to newcomers to financial sales and valuable to experienced people who aren't using the advice.

I thought that the advice to Create Your Compelling Vision, Position with Mission, Energize Your Success, Open the Johari Window, Market Yourself as the Expert, Focus on Clients (Not Compensation), Demand Objections, and Be Your Own Sales Manager were superb. I was skeptical about the strong emphasis on continuing efforts to close, scripts and the suggested ways to get referrals. The material in the book seemed inauthentic to me in these areas as a professional, and I graded the book down accordingly.

It seemed like the book was aimed more at those selling insurance products for life and retirement than anything else. So if that's what you sell, this book is probably good for you. If you are a financial planner who looks at all dimensions of planning, this book is probably too sales-oriented to meet your professional standards. If you are an attorney, you will probably find much of what the book says to be appalling in its commercial focus.

One of the ironies of this book is that the authors suggest that you focus in as narrow a niche of services and customers as possible. I wonder why they didn't follow their own advice in writing this book.

Book Description

Focuses upon the basic statistical problems criminal justice practitioners are likely to encounter. The book presents statistics as a set of tools or procedures for addressing specific data analysis problems rather than formal, somewhat abstract subject. This text is designed for criminal justice students, many of whom will be required to produce statistical reports at the administrative or supervisory level. Criminal Justice Statistics: A Practical Approach provides a clear and simple understanding of what is often perceived as a very difficult topic.

Provides a clear and simple approach to understanding statistics.
Geared towards the unique statistical needs of criminal justice students.
Introduces the reader to the use of SPSS, the computer program used by virtually all the social science.

Criminal Justice Statistics: A Practical Approach. (book reviews): An article from: Security Management

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Criminal Justice Statistics: A Practical Approach. (book reviews): An article from: Security Management
George J. Okaty
Manufacturer: American Society for Industrial Security
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Security Management, published by American Society for Industrial Security on October 1, 1997. The length of the article is 353 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: Criminal Justice Statistics: A Practical Approach. (book reviews)
Author: George J. Okaty
Publication: Security Management (Refereed)
Date: October 1, 1997
Publisher: American Society for Industrial Security
Volume: v41 Issue: n10 Page: p100(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

The Encyclopedia of Agricultural Science is the first comprehensive reference that covers the wide variety of disciplines which comprise the field of agricultural science. The four-volume set provides in-depth treatments of specialized topics which are comprehensible to high school and undergraduate students, yet are also beneficial to researchers and specialists. Articles are arranged alphabetically and include featured topics in animal, plant, range, and soilscience; food processing, storage, and distribution; agricultural economics, education, engineering, policy; pest management; rural sociology; water resources, and much more.

Four volume set, including subject and relational indices
2744 pages
200 articles
450 tables
650 illustrations
1300 bibliographic entries
1600 glossary entries
Large 8-1/2 x 11-inch, double-column format
User's guide
Internationally renowned Editorial Board

Book Description

Global Warming is one of the most controversial scientific issues of the twenty-first century. This is a problem that has serious economic, sociological, geopolitical, political, and personal implications. This Very Short Introduction is an informative, up-to-date, and readable book about the predicted impacts of global warming and the surprises that could be in store for us in the near future. It unpacks the controversies that surround global warming, drawing on material from the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a huge collaborative study drawing together current thinking on the subject from experts in a range of disciplines, and for the first time presents the findings of the Panel for a general readership. The book also discusses the politics of global warming, and looks at what we can do now to adapt to climate change and mitigate its worst effects.

Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
Mark Maslin
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJP8JA

Book Description

BESTSELLER of the XXth Century in Mathematical Physics voted on by participants of the XIIIth International Congress on Mathematical Physics

This revision will make this book mroe attractive as a textbook in functional analysis. Further refinement of coverage of physical topics will also reinforce its well-established use as a course book in mathemtical physics.

Customer Reviews:

eigenvalues for schrodinger.......1999-09-12

The book covers the theory about eigenvalues of Schrodinger operators. It is complete success in explaining clearly the basic concepts involved: perturbation theory (summability questions, fermi golden rule), min-max principle for discrete spectrum, Weyl theorem, HVZ theorem, the absence of singular continuous spectrum, ground state questions, periodic operators, semiclassic distribution of eigenvalues, compactness criteria.

It is still a usable book and little has change in the subject (except in Singular Continuous Spectra).

Book Description

The first anthology of its kind, this timely collection brings together a diverse range of black British literatures, essays and documents from across the post-war period within a single volume. Spanning half a century, this rich archive of representations includes South Asian, African and Caribbean cultural production by both leading and lesser-known artists, critics and commentators.

Writing Black Britain, 1948-1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology.: An article from: World Literature Today

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Writing Black Britain, 1948-1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology.: An article from: World Literature Today
Mark Stein
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on January 1, 2002. The length of the article is 562 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: Writing Black Britain, 1948-1998: An Interdisciplinary Anthology.
Author: Mark Stein
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2002
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 76 Issue: 1 Page: 159(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

One of the most tumultuous periods in modern Chinese history, the Cultural Revolution affected virtually all Chinese people and all aspects of Chinese life, including art, music and drama, education, factory management, economic planning, and medical care. Studies of the Cultural Revolution, in both Chinese and Western languages, have burgeoned over the past three decades. This comprehensive, easy-to-use bibliography provides a guide to published English-language sources on the Cultural Revolution. With over a thousand entries, it includes books, monographs, dissertations, and audio-visual materials on a broad range of topics from the military, education, religion, and economics to foreign relations, population, art, literature, and drama. Including titles published through the end of 1997 and a few in 1998, the book provides a general overview of the literature on the Chinese Cultural Revolution and its impact on China. Its scope and coverage make it a useful resource for any library whose readers have an interest in modern Chinese history.

China During the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976: A Selected Bibliography of English Language Works (Bibliographies and Indexes in Asian Studies)

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China During the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976: A Selected Bibliography of English Language Works (Bibliographies and Indexes in Asian Studies)
Tony H. Chang
Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTTJ18

Average customer rating:

Historically ignorant

Money makes the world go round, and the lack of money...

Politics or economics?

Does better when discussing the impact of politics on the economy

Looking beyond theology .

Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World
Stephen J. Glain
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Economic Conditions | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books
General | World | History | Subjects | Books
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No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

ASIN: 0312329113

Book Description

thousand years ago, a vast Arab empire stretched from the Asian steppe across the Mediterranean to Spain, pioneer-ing new technologies, sciences, art, and culture. Arab traders and Arab currencies dominated the global economy in ways Western multinationals and the dollar do today. A thousand years later, Arab states are in decay. Official cor-ruption and ineptitude have eroded state authority and created a vacuum that militant Islam has rushed to fill. In the tradition of Bernard Lewis, Thomas Friedman, and Anton La Guardia's War Without End, Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants takes us on a jour-ney through the heart of what were once the great Islamic caliphates, the countries now known as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, and Egypt, to illus-trate how a once pros-perous and enlightened civilization finds itself at a cross-roads between a Dark Age and a New Dawn.

Customer Reviews:

Historically ignorant.......2007-09-27

"Poor journalism" does not begin to describe the weaknesses of this 2004 volume by a former Wall Street Journal "reporter."

The book is comprised of pure, unadulterated propaganda, almost entirely with gleanings from anti-Israel sources--and not a single reference to a primary historical Islamic or non-Muslim eye-witnesses. Rather, Glain relies solely upon secondary, extremely politicized sources.

Glain for example in-substantively quotes the otherwise balanced, thorough journalist and historian Christopher Sykes, in defense of his great grandfather Sir Mark Sykes, whom Christopher described as a "man of peace" who would have been appalled by the current turmoil in the Middle East.

But Glain surely knows, Sir Sykes was a bigoted British Middle East adviser during and after World War I, who cast disgusting pejorative upon groups whose destiny he influenced. Town Arabs, he described as "cowardly," "insolent yet dispicable [sic]," and "vicious as far as their feeble bodies will admit." Bedouin Arabs he called "rapacious, greedy . . . animals."

As for Jews, writes David Fromkin in A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East Sykes "discerned" their imputed "web of dangerous international intrigue . . . in many an obscure corner." Sir Sykes sadly and mistakenly believed the Young Turks party to be governed by Jews, when none were privy to (much less within) their inner circle. Oriental affairs interpreter Gerald FitzMaurice and shared Gilbert Clayton, an adviser to Lord Kitchener, informed Sykes' pathetic distortion.

Glain moreover lionizes T. E. Lawrence and his debunked fairy tale, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and British Sir Glubb Pasha's adoring, hagiographic Life and Times of Muhammad, although in 1948 Britain appointed the latter to organize Arab forces against Israel.

According to this highly stilted view, Glain lauds the myth of al Adndalus al Andalus (debunked by Richard Fletcher in Moorish Spain, Eliyahu Ashtor in The Jews of Moslem Spain/2 Volumes in 1: Vols 2/3 (Jews of Moslem Spain), Dr. Andrew Bostom The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims and his forthcoming The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History and Robert Spencer in The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims, among others).

Glain ahistorically asserts that for almost 400 years starting in the 7th Century, "the Mediterranean was a Muslim controlled economic bloc administered by an enlightened and tolerant Arab empire," in which "Jews, Christians and Muslims coexisted peacefully. The contrary evidence is overwhelming (see Bat Ye'or's The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude : Seventh-Twentieth Century and The Dhimmi: Jews & Christians Under Islam and Moshe Gil's A History of Palestine: 634-1099).

The fact is, the early Islamic economy was built upon the imperialism, theft and plundering by the Islamic empire of the wealth and knowledge accumulated over centuries by the conquered peoples during their pre-dhimmi eras. Moreover, there was never a glorious historical Islamic financial system matching that of democratic Western markets and economies today (see Timur Kuran's Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism).

But according to Glain, the Arab world's current poverty stems not from Arab and Muslim illiteracy, restrictions and dictators but from, guess who, the U.S. Middle East policy, and of course those darned Israeli "settlers," whose communities compose less than 0.01% of the land mass in the entire Middle East.

I give a second star only because the author was good enough (though he omits footnotes) to include a list of "references" for each chapter in his book, thereby exposing his incredibly narrow, unschooled base of "knowledge."

But from a journalist, an "economic" journalist no less, the lack of intelligence and proper research demonstrated in this book otherwise represent a monumental disgrace.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

Money makes the world go round, and the lack of money..........2007-05-04

History and economics are often taught as separate disciplines in schools public and private. This is unfortunate as they are thoroughly intertwined at all levels of life and society, from courtship, family structure, cities, states, nations and empires. This book does a great job of connecting history and economics together into a cogent diagram of the Middle East. The book was written by a journalist who has spent a lot of time on the ground in the Middle East over the past 20 years, most of it dealing and living with locals. The author divides the book into chapters, one for each of the major areas with a long history; Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. In each one, the author provides a short history of past glories, more recent colonial experiences, and current troubles under the auspices of dictatorships, and sometimes war. The overarching theme throughout all the chapters is that economic decline has given rise to Islamic fundamentalism and a host of other bad government policies. The economic decline is attributed to imperialistic policies of divide and conquer, over-dependence on oil, Cold War politics, and the trumping of economic common sense by nationalistic urges and political grudges.

The book is lacking on several points. The most prominent is that it essentially ignores the Arabian countries of Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the UAE. The book also forgets about Libya and Qadafi, probably one of the most interesting Arab leaders of late. But overall, it is still a great book and a great study of the Middle East's problems.

Politics or economics?.......2005-09-30

The difference between a journalist and a scholar is that a journalist will write a book to mirror the views of his intended audience. This book is journalism, not scholarship. It is very well-written and will tell you what you want to hear. The author has advances an hypothesis as well as an agenda. I found Robert J. Lieber's book The American Era much more dispassionate and realistic.

Does better when discussing the impact of politics on the economy.......2005-08-13

The poor performance of Arab economies has been well documented, including in the much-cited Arab Human Development Report written by Arab intellectuals for the U.N. Development Program.[1] But the numbers, no matter how well presented, do not necessarily bring to life how Arab economies actually work as seen by the ordinary businessman or government official. Drawing heavily on his experience from 1998 to 2001 as The Wall Street Journal's Middle East correspondent, Glain provides a series of anecdotes about the lack of government transparency and accountability as well as the other main barriers to economic efficiency. He provides neither a structured or comprehensive account of how the economies work, much less what is needed to improve them. Glain's account is not the place to look for analysis about high politics and diplomacy. He touches on these subjects at times, but what he has to say is of uneven quality-this is obviously not his strong point. In particular, his comments about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are not insightful.

He does better when discussing the impact of politics on the economy where he skillfully musters tales from individual businessmen to bring to life how "ham-fisted, risk averse bureaucracy" stifles the rich talent of Arab entrepreneurs and workers. He gives a feel for life's frustrations with stories focused on the main problem of excessive state interference, in all its corruption, neglect, and bad management.

Glain considers six areas in successive chapters: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, and Iraq. The best chapters by far are those on Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt. These bring out how political interference has made two economies with such enormous potential into failures. He is particularly skillful at exposing the wide gaps between rhetoric about economic reform and the unpleasant realities of the continued dead hand of political interference to protect the well-placed. The Syria chapter is impeded by the difficulty of gathering information, and the Iraq chapter suffers from the problem of gauging how the economy is functioning under the peculiar circumstances of an occupation after decades of tyrannical rule.

Glain writes with obvious empathy for the suffering Arab peoples, and his confidence in their potential-if freed of such depressing governments-shines through. His account is a good example of the principle that the true friends of the Arabs are those who tell the brutal truth about the poor state to which they have been reduced by their leaders.

Patrick Clawson
[1] See "How the Arabs Compare: Arab Human Development Report 2002," Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2002, pp. 59-67.

Looking beyond theology ........2005-08-04

I found this book riveting. The messages come from firsthand encounters with people rarely covered by the U.S. mass media. The concern for economics and business is a valuable complement to the excellent writing of Karen Armstrong, with her profound insights into religious and cultural patterns.
The value of this book is magnified given the drivel, propaganda, and ideological/theological obsessions that characterize most U.S. reporting and analysis of the Middle East.

Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World

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Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World
Stephen J. Glain
Manufacturer: Thomas Dunne Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTLSVM

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Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World
Stephen J. Glain
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTLSZS

Book Description

Yu gives Western readers a full view of China's science and technology policy, plus a historical perspective on the development of her science, technology, and industrial enterprises. A realistic, objective review that will help overcome tendencies to under- or overestimate China's technological and industrial strength and potential for the future, his book focuses on the transition of her scientific, technological, and industrial systems from a planned to a market economy. It identifies the latest science-technology policy readjustment in China and gives Westerners a way to assess the successes and failures of technological-industrial development attributable to policy causes. Yu describes the evolution of China's scientific and technological systems before and after her economic reforms. He covers changes in science-technology policy in their socioeconomic context, and highlights all major steps in her economic development that have spurred China's scientific-technological progress. Mr. Yu views these as a driving force for economic development, while the success of science-technology policy is determined by its effectiveness in implementing various economic activities. His book also provides in-depth coverage of changes in major industrial sectors, including agriculture, infrastructure, mainstay, high-tech, and township industries and non-governmental science-technology enterprises. The result is a unique opportunity to gain an authoritative, reliable understanding of China's scientific and technological activities, her industrial development, and the interaction between them.

Book Description

In the ten years since the previous Koala book was published in the Australian Natural History Series by Lee and Martin, a great deal of basic research has been done on the koala. The conservation status of wild populations has been a topic of much debate and this new edition includes maps of the current distribution of the species and a commentary on the status of wild populations. Other recent studies have enhanced our knowledge in the areas of reproductive biology, endocrinology, energetics, and growth. Facts from all these studies have been woven into the narrative of this new natural history of the species. Headway has also been made in our understanding of koala disease, particularly Chlamydia, and this new information has caused a revision in our thinking as to its role and impact on koala populations. The book includes a chapter on koala population biology which is necessary for an understanding of the many complex issues for the management of the species. It concludes with a discussion of the most difficult management issues: conservation of sparsely distributed populations and the problem of overabundance.

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