Recommended by: WiseSuit Staff  

"A successful company usually starts out highly focused on an individual product, service or market. Over time, the company becomes unfocused. It offers too many products and services for too many markets at too many different price levels. It loses its sense of direction. It doesn't know where it's going or why. Its mission statement loses its meaning." - Al Ries, Focus

Diversification and brand or line extension have been the choice growth tools for many an executive over the years. In Focus, Al Ries, one of the world's most recognized marketing strategists, asks the executive to get rid of these notions and concentrate on a clear and competitive focus.

Ries explains how in a world where, in the name of expansion, so many companies are engaged in ventures that waste precious resources on multiple business ideas, winners focus on core products. He offers concrete examples and advice on how to own a specific category in the mind of the customer.

Volvo owns safety. Levi's owns blue jeans. FedEx owns overnight. What does your company own? What word comes to the customer's mind when your company name is mentioned? If you don't know, you'd better find out. Better yet, you'd better place the word you want in the customer's mind. Let Ries show you how.

Reviews:

"Focus is another serving of Ries' business wisdom." - Herbert D. Kelleher, Chairman, President, CEO, Southwest Airlines Co.

"A very important book... Next time your company is tempted to broaden or diversify, I guarantee you will think twice." - Philip Kotler, S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Managament

"A new standard for corporate competitiveness... indispensable to companies large and small." - Anthony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within

About the Author:

Al Ries is one of the world's best-known marketing strategists. His previous books, written with Jack Trout, include The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Bottom-Up Marketing, Marketing Warfare, and Positioning. He works in Roswell, Georgia with his daughter, Laura Ries, who did the research for this book. Their firm, Ries & Ries, does consulting work to many Fortune 500 companies.

Category:  Marketing