Resources

A comprehensive resource guide to topics and issues featured in the February edition of Inc. magazine.

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Resources is the Inc. guide to more information on subjects in this issue. This information is intended to help our readers; Inc. does not profit from the sale of any of the resources listed.

Blue Chips: What's in Store for Mobil? Check Your Local 5&10

For more curmudgeonly advice from Stanley Marcus on retailing, check out his book, The Viewpoints of Stanley Marcus: A 10-Year Perspective (University of North Texas Press, untpress@abn.unt.edu or 800-826-8911, 1995, $24.95). Marcus speaks with authority and candor. The chapters most relevant to retail service are "The Lost Art of Salesmanship," "Why Service Is Often So Bad," "My Father's Standards," "Another Good Lesson in Retailing," and "Think Like a Customer."

Obits: Boston Ad Agency Finds Cost of Doing Business Doesn't Add Up

The sad tale of the Burnieika Bearfield Emerson ad agency may have you examining your own collection practices more closely. If you don't like what you see, now's a good time to curl up with a good book such as Collect Those Debts! How to Get Your Money and Still Keep Your Customers (Self-Counsel Press, 800-663-3007, 1992, $8.95). The author, Timothy Paulsen, is a collection expert who offers a range of good ideas.

The Institute of Management and Administration publishes a 16-page monthly newsletter, Managing Credit Receivables and Collections, which includes advice from collection experts and describes effective strategies used by a variety of companies. The price, $199, may sound steep, but the newsletter is worthwhile. For information on ordering it, call 212-244-0360.

And, finally, to find out more about setting up accounts-receivable systems, check out finance editor Jill Andresky Fraser's column " Get Paid Promptly," in our November 1996 issue.

Managing: For Sale--Management Expertise from Small Companies

If you're considering spinning off your own consulting services, take a look at some of the resources recommended by those who have traveled that path before you.

Ed Laflamme recommends Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business, by Jay Conrad Levinson (Houghton Mifflin Co., 800-225-3362, 1993, $12.95), and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, by Al Ries and Jack Trout (HarperCollins, 800-242-7737, 1994, $13).

Ralph Stayer, in addition to suggesting the book he coauthored with James A. Belasco, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Warner Books, 212-522-7200, 1994, $13.99), also recommends Thinking in the Future Tense: Leadership Skills for the New Age, by Jennifer James (Simon & Schuster, 800-223-2336, 1996, $22.50), and Co-opetition, by Adam M. Brandenburger and Barry J. Nalebuff (Currency/Doubleday, 800-323-9872, 1996, $24.95). Stayer uses the latter all the time in his consulting work. There is much in Co-opetition that is applicable to small business, he says, especially regarding the value of products and services.

While ZingTrain's Maggie Bayless isn't willing to sell training materials directly to readers ("That's the course!"), the two books she most highly recommends from the course's reading list are The Empowered Manager, by Peter Block (Jossey-Bass, 800-956-7739, 1991, $20), and The Great Game of Business, by Jack Stack (Currency/Doubleday, 800-386-2752, 1992, $15). The latter is about Springfield Remanufacturing Co., which has spun off a new company to teach its own brand of open-book management.

Cover Story: The Start-up Factory

Much of Bill Gross's dogma on a company's need to find--and dominate--a narrow niche comes from the book Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends on It, by Al Ries (HarperCollins, 800-331-3761, 1996, $25). The most successful businesses, contends Ries, are those that tie their product to a single concept in the customer's mind: Volvo and safety; Federal Express and overnight; Prego and thick. The more specific the focus, says Gross, "the more everybody in the company can have every blood vessel in their body thinking about that focus." Gross's devotion to Ries and his sometime collaborator Jack Trout verges on scary. "I worship them now," he declares. "They're my religion."

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