Jay's recommended reading list
Following is a list of books and briefs that were used to research this publication and that we think will help you, your business advisors, and employees gain more education about all the aspects of becoming an independent, consumer-centric specialty bicycle retailer … and in creating a customer-centric store and preeminent brand in your community and market.
Alpha Dogs
By Donna Fenn
Comments: A great book for small business owners. Chapter 2 "Seduce Your Customers" is all about Chris Zane, owner of Zane's Cycles in Branford, Connecticut and his $2 million a year single store specialty bicycle retail store.
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
By Malcolm Gladwell
Comments: Explains the endemic prejudice that the specialty bicycle retail channel of trade has evolved and sustained over the last fifteen-years. See Conclusion Listening with Your Eyes: The Lesson of Blink, page 245.
Brand Harmony
By Steve Yastrow
Comments: One of the best studies of modern branding in the Information Age. Very applicable to specialty bicycle retailers as well as suppliers of all sizes and types.
Call Of The Mall
By Paco Underhill
Comments: The geography of shopping by the preeminent retail-shopping anthropologist in the world. A great companion work to his first book - which retailers should read first, followed by Call Of The Mall.
Consumer Nation: Retailing 2010: Global Retailing in a Consumer-Centric Universe, published by Retail Forward, January 2000.
Comments: A benchmark brief on global consumer-centric retailing.
Deeper customer insight: Understanding today's complex shoppers
An IBM Institute for Business Value executive brief, 2004 www.ibm.com
Comments: Great research and one of the best business briefs on the complex U.S. consumer-shopper.
Good To Great
By Jim Collins
Comments: Why some companies make the leap from good to great, and some don't.
Just Ask A Woman: Cracking the Code of What Women Want and How They Buy
By Mary Lou Quinlan
Comments: This is a must read for anyone who is really serious about making real progress in selling the women's market.
Micro Branding: Build a Powerful Personal Brand & Beat Your Competition
By T. Scott Gross
Comments: A complete how-to text for specialty bicycle retailers in establishing their store brand in their communities and local markets.
Nine Shift: Work, life and education in the 21st century
By William A. Draves and Julie Coates
Comments: How 75% of our life is changing between 2000 and 2020; what a Nine Shift is; the nine major shifts occurring right now. This is a must read for every specialty bicycle retailer and channel supplier.
The customer-centric store: Delivering the total experience
An IBM Institute for Business Value executive brief, 2005 www.ibm.com
Comments: The best research report we have found on what the customer-centric retail store is, and how to develop it.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
By Malcolm Gladwell
Comments: The defining work on word-of-mouth marketing and how to make it work for you.
The Innovator's Dilemma
By Clayton M. Christensen
Comments: Why good companies and good managers fail in the marketplace. Should be required reading for channel suppliers.
The Innovator's Solution: Creating And Sustaining Successful Growth
By Clayton M. Christensen
Comments: How to create and sustain a successful company. Should be required reading for channel suppliers and retailers.
Time: The New Currency
A JWT Study, Winter 2005
Comments: A growing issue for marketers will be not the cost of products in cash, but rather the cost (or benefit) in time. Consumers will be unwilling to shop at retailers or purchase products that aren't perceived as repaying their time investment.
Trading Up: The New American Luxury
By Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske
Comments: A must read for every specialty bicycle retailer and channel supplier. This book is the bible on the consumer trading-up and trading-down phenomenon in today's complex marketplace. Great insights on how shoppers think and behave.
Trading Up: Why Consumers Want New Luxury Goods - and How Companies Create Them
By Michael J. Silverstein and Neil Fiske
Comments: A great companion to the first edition, and contains updates and new information on New Luxury consumers and companies. More great insights on how shoppers think and behave.
Why We Buy
By Paco Underhill
Comments: This is the defining work on retail shopping, and Underhill is a master of his very specialized area of anthropological study - how American consumers shop!
Why Service Stinks...and Exactly What to Do About It!
By T. Scott Gross
Comments: The author, who is recognized as a leading expert on Customer Service, based this book on some serious research that uncovers the reality of poor service, and also the origins of great service.
When Customers Talk…Turn What They Tell You into Sales
By T. Scott Gross
Comments: The author partnered with BIGresearch to ask 100,000 customers what they think about products and customer service. Well, customers are angry and fed up! This book shows and tells us how to ask, and really listen, and act on what customers tell us it will take to make them happy!
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