Latest Review by Carl Brookins

This review is from: Taking the Mystery Out of Business (Paperback)

The author debuted her first mystery fiction novel, "Second Time Around," in 2010. Now she's drawn on her years in business and training, as well as her understanding of the language and structure of genre fiction to put together a brief but complete handbook for almost anyone at any level of business activity.

Whether one is a COO, a CEO of a multi-layered organization, or a single entrepreneur, this slender volume has sage advice and clear understanding of both the limitations and the values of this kind of self-help effort. Written in a breezy direct style, the work offers frank direct ideas that, if taken in the heartfelt manner in which they are presented, can lead to successful business undertaking. Moreover, if it should be widely adopted, one might discover a plethora of business success driving our current recessionary circumstances into oblivion.

At first blush I didn't see how this slender book would be of much use to authors in the Crime Fiction community. But developments in publishing and rereading now lead me to suggest there are several fundamental aspects business here addressed which would be of considerable benefit to independent publishers and authors.
You can find Carl Brookins' other Amazon reviews here:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A1GPD5JPCFSB9E/ref=cm_cr_pr_pdp

Rotten Apples

My word for the day is ROTTEN.

Why? Because that's the first "R" word I thought of. Not because I'm negative, mind you, but because it brings to mind something I said to someone today when we were talking about salesmanship.

I've been in sales practically my entire life. And one of the things a lot of salespeople think is absolutely necessary in sales is to quote "apples for apples" when trying to win a customer from a competitor.

Personally, I hate the theory and think it's a bunch of crap. Someone (I think it's Jeffrey Gitomer) has this to say about the apples-to-apples mentality: "What if the other guy's apple is ROTTEN?"

HELLO! If someone is unhappy with his service provider, and he's shopping, something is clearly wrong with the relationship. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean the service provider must be the person with the "issue;" we've all had customers we'd like to give away... But it's a red flag.

I believe in giving my customers what they're looking for and it's seldom the exact same thing someone else has given them. Apples are okay; rotten apples are not.