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August 31, 2004

800CEORead: Great Plays in the Business of Business Books

Just had a great discussion with the Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten at 1-800-CEO-READ. Although of course we are a little self interested in doing the interview – given that we want to learn from the pros on how to sell our upcoming book – we have to declare that these guys are a great example of all the elements of the playbook. While this is a great story for the business book category it is also really illustrative for just about anyone dealing with an evolving and competitive market.

We talked to them about their strategy and how they got to it in playbook terms. Here’s a summary:

Marketing Playbook: How did you get into this business? What were the ABCs of your marketing playing field at the time?

800CEORead:
There are really two stories here. The first is how we entered the book business. The second is how we developed our specific play for entering the wild world of web book sales.

As you describe in your book, it’s important to look at the overall market and the three Cs (customers, competitors and your own competencies) of your category’s playing field. Back in 1983 when A. David Schwartz, owner of Milwaukee-based Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, asked me to explore the potential of the corporate book-buying market, I did just that.

Rather than hiring a market research firm, I talked directly to our potential customers – all the corporations I knew. I cold-called hundreds of companies. I would fill my car trunk with books and make road trips to businesses throughout Wisconsin. I could sell $1200 worth of books on a trip. In those days, that was huge.

We built our business through phone and fax sales. We built mailing lists by collecting business cards. It was really a ground up effort. As 800-CEO-READ grew, I began to looked at the competition and saw no normal bookseller was equipped to handle this corporate market. So next I looked to our own competencies and realized we needed to build something new, something special that would make this the core of our business. Thus our company was born.

Then in the 1990’s with the advent of the web and the emergence of Amazon as a new force in book retailing, we saw that we needed to reassess our playing field. If I were to describe our assessment at that time in your ABC or gap analysis terms it would be something like this:

• Customer Gap. A. Yes, our regular customers like us and we have done really well. B. But, more and more customers are going online. C. So, they need a way to get the same service we have provided with all the benefits of online/direct.

• Competitive Gap: A. Yes, Amazon is exploiting the web and its software to revolutionize and dominate the single book sale business online. B. But, they focus on offering every book in existence, and on using their platform to sell everything else too. C. So, they are not capable of selling business books in the special way that larger corporate buyers have come to expect.

So we saw the opportunity to adapt, learn from many of Amazon’s strengths but also to migrate our own special competencies in a way that took full advantage of the web and grow the business in a strong new way.

Marketing Playbook: So how did this affect your core strategy or Marketing Play?

800CEORead:
Well, here also there are really two stories. I guess you could describe our first strategy as a kind of stealth or niche play. We chose not to compete head on with either the biggest book retailers like Barnes and Noble or local community bookstores in their core foot traffic business or later with Amazon in its core single book sales business. We chose to focus and specialize on one area – business books, to businesses who wanted to buy many copies. We built a great reputation as a specialized alternative to these players.

But over time I think, while retaining this focus, we’ve also evolved into what you call a Platform.

We have and are actively building and supporting a healthy ecosystem of interested parties. Not just of our customers but also across the whole value chain of business books. With many customers, we use our platform to simply become their in-house, branded corporate/employee bookstore. It isn’t their core competency and it works out great for all parties involved. One of the other constituents that we address better than anyone is people like you, authors of business books. In a world of so many books and so much crowding in stores and online, authors have to do a lot more of their own work to get their book noticed and sold. They do their own speaking, they give workshops, they do their own tours, they drive demand with their own corporate friends and clients. All of which are special and unique to them and their relationships. And in each of these cases they can’t really rely on either someone like Amazon or their publisher to handle their special needs – like making sure that there are enough copies to be signed everywhere they speak or sending personalized notes or signed copies to the most influential buyers.

That’s where we come in. And authors love us for it. We also believe because of our focus on business books our influence in this category is of growing significance, whether in terms of our own “Jack Covert Selects” or the growing use of our best seller lists. All this reinforces what we see as a self sustaining and mutually reinforcing ecosystem in this truly dynamic category.

Marketing Playbook: This is a great example of Plays and their progression. Any highlights or secrets of how you executed these plays in your marketing efforts and campaigns.

800CEORead:
Yes. But we’re not telling.

Ok, look. It’s a competitive business so we like to play it pretty close to the chest. We are proud of our basic value proposition – kind of fits your rule of oxymoron – we offer the speed and selection of an online retailer with the personal touch and handling of your own book buying or selling agent. In terms of promotion stuff I will say we really think we do a great job on our site, in our PR and reviews, newsletters, and in our blog. These are important. More than that I will keep “stealthy.”

Marketing Playbook. Thanks so much. It’s a great model. Really appreciate you sharing it.

800CEORead:
Our pleasure. And lots of luck with your book.

Posted by johnza at August 31, 2004 09:53 PM

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