Press Buzz

Review: “Marketing Book of The Year”

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:03:14 +0000

Douglas Karr of MarketingTechblog.com writes:

“After reading the book, I was so excited that I requested a box of the books and I’ve been giving them to other marketing bloggers. So far, the response has been absolutely unanimous - this is my Marketing Book of the Year!”

See complete review

Marketing Edge Interviews James Connor about Buddhist Principles in Marketing

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:54:21 +0000

James Connor has been living a double life for 12 years as an Advertising Agency CEO by day and a Buddhist Lama in training by night. This remarkable interview by Albert Maruggi at Marketing Edge reveals how James has been secretly using ancient wisdom to help The James Group’s clients be more successful.

You’ll want to listen to this Marketing Edge Podcast interviewing James Connor

James Connor is the author of a new marketing book, The Perfection of Marketing. In this marketing book, that covers all the best practices in marketing, James explains how every mistake in business comes down to one: seeing things from the company’s perspective, instead of from the customers. The book reveals the detailed marketing playbook of The James Group and was written specifically for businesses under 500 employees.

The Perfection of Marketing is essentially James Connor’s farewell to business, as he will be leaving in 2010 to undertake a three-year silent meditation retreat that is the culmination of his Buddhist training.

The James Group will continue on under the leadership of Creative Director, Paul Blakely and Enda McShane, who are the new owners of the business.

Perfection of Marketing Workshop Draws Executives

admin — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:40:42 +0000

The recession may be in full swing, but one segment of business is still pushing ahead. Small and midsized executives are responding to James Connor’s positive message from The Perfection of Marketing Workshop on how to grow their businesses and save the economy.

“We do not have a single client in recession,” James Connor said, “they’ve learned the three main best practices for building a brand and growing a business. They are making more money and employing more people.”

ROI Marketing at Perfection of Marketing Workshop

“If just one in ten of the 27 million businesses in America with under 500 employees learns how to perfect their marketing and grows by just one person—that will create 2.5 million jobs and erase the job loses of 2008.”

The next Perfection of Marketing workshop will be held in New York City, Wednesday, January 14th, 2008. For more information of the workshop visit: http://www.perfectionofmarketing.com/workshops.php#f1

Perfection of Marketing Podcast Ranked Top New Podcast on iTunes

admin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:28:16 +0000

Audio excerpts from the new marketing book, The Perfection of Marketing by James Connor edged other podcasts to become the number one podcast on Apple’s iTunes’s new and notable Management and Marketing section. Additionally The Perfection of Marketing podcast is currently ranked #3 on the new and notable Business section of iTunes between Bloomberg News, BBC, and The New York Times.

So why is this independent podcast catching on in an arena recently dominated by large networks? The answer may be found in the audience and user reviews The Perfection of Marketing podcast is gathering. Reviews from mostly small business owners describe James Connor as being able to cut through all the marketing jargon and useless information to focus on the key practical ideas that small business owners can actually use immediately.

While many of major news channels are dominated by reports of financial woes of large U.S. companies, most have forgotten two important facts: businesses with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of the 27.2 million businesses in America.1 And businesses with fewer than 20 employees are 65% of the companies in America.2 These are the companies that will have save the United States from a long recession.

The Perfection of Marketing podcast appears to be touching a nerve with small and midsized business owners with the entrepreneurial courage to grow their businesses in challenging times. This podcast’s success shows the promise of the podcast medium to bring independent voices to the forefront, even in business. The Perfection of Marketing podcast on iTunes is available at: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=295653447

Non-iTunes users can listen on their desktops or access the feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThePerfectionOfMarketingByJamesConnor

1 Sources: U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training Administration; U.S.Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census; U.S. Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2007 Data.

2 SBA. 2006 Data.

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admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:18:22 +0000

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admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:05:23 +0000

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Book Summary

admin — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:30:12 +0000

The Perfection of Marketing puts you in the room with James Connor, a leading brand expert, to hear the exact advice he has given to over 200 CEOs on the most efficient methods to build their brands and increase marketing ROI.

The result is a groundbreaking work, bringing the branding best practices utilized by Fortune 1000 companies to the middle market. James Connor has crafted a surprisingly efficient process based on what he calls the Sales Moment to create a method anyone can implement for spectacular marketing results.

Culminating from 12 years of work, these best practices are battle-tested for small and midsize businesses. This practical guide gives you the detailed playbook run by The James Group, a branding and full-service advertising agency in New York City, which has made more money for 95% of their clients.

Skillfully written in a narrative style, this book is a must-have for any CEO who wants to grow a company. With a summary and key questions at the end of each chapter, The Perfection of Marketing provides a clear path to marketing success.

James Connor knows his audience. The CEOs of small and midsize businesses are bootstrappers and entrepreneurs, often in a family-run businesses, and not groomed in corporate culture. These driven individuals made it without MBAs or other fancy degrees. Mostly, they mistrust marketing. Unfortunately, their lack of experience with branding best practices often becomes the Achilles’ heel that keeps a good business from becoming great.

James Connor speaks to these CEOs in a direct way-rooted in logic, process, and real world experience.

Author Bio

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:43:49 +0000

James Connor is the CEO and founder of The James Group, a brand strategy and full - service advertising agency in New York City, serving midsize business clients nationally. For 12 years, James honed The Perfection of Marketing process and oversaw the creation of over 70 brands, including category leaders GarageTek, Thinkfun, TransparentValue, and WQIS. He is well regarded as a speaker on brand marketing.

James meditates daily and in the evening teaches Buddhist philosophy for the Asian Classics Institute, primarily in New York City and the Hamptons.

You can reach him at The James Group’s website, www.thejamesgroup.com, or at jamesconnor@thejamesgroup.com.

Author Q&A: An Interview with James Connor, author of The Perfection of Marketing

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:36:14 +0000


1. James, what did you set out to accomplish with this book and do you feel you’ve done it?
I wanted to do two things. Take something as mysterious and unpredictable as marketing and clarify it into simple repeatable steps that every company should follow to create predictable marketing results After testing and perfecting the process over 12 years, I wanted to pass the process on to others to help their businesses grow more effectively. Everyone will benefit when companies can tell their story more effectively and stop wasting marketing dollars
2. The book is a narrative between you and a CEO, VP of Marketing, and CFO. Is this based on an actual client or are the characters fictional?
I wanted to create a marketing book that was a page-turner. Story and plot makes it fun to read. The characters are composites of the over 200 CEOs, VP’s of Marketing, and CFOs I’ve advised over 12 years. There isn’t a single word said in the book that someone didn’t say to me many times. So people will find the concerns and marketing advice ring true. Each of my clients thinks the characters are really them, but in truth, they are composites.
3. You say that your process is based on best practices. Can you explain how you arrived at them?
Sure. Working backwards. The Perfection of Marketing is the detailed playbook run by my branding and advertising agency, The James Group, that has made more money for 95% of our clients over 12 years. We failed when we skipped one of these steps. So we know now what not to leave out. The best practices were arrived at by studying the marketing of successful companies; meditating on them to create the most efficient processes; then testing them again and again.
4. Does this process only apply to midsized companies? And can you define what constitutes a midsized business?
The Perfection of Marketing processes would be true for any company. However, the book has been tailored to small and midsized companies as 99.9% of businesses in America are under 500 employees.
The James Group specializes in businesses that are $5-100 million in sales. This is typically what we think of as a midsized business. However, we have taken on the occasional start-up company and The Perfection of Marketing worked for them as well. For example, we worked on a start-up, TransparentValue, that went on to form a robust partnership with Dow Jones and recently received $500M from Guggenheim Partners.
5. You have coined the term Sales Moment. Can you tell us how you arrived at it and how knowing the Sales Moment can make these companies more money?
There are 100 things that you can say about any company or product, but only one of them makes the sale. I’ve seen this from meditating for over 10 years. The mind thinks in pictures. Before making any choice, a little movie or story plays in your mind about what result will come from that choice. We always choose the image that we believe will bring us the most happiness. We are bliss seekers; pain avoiders. The string of mental images isn’t important. What’s important, is that last mental image that spurs you to act. If a company can understand what their Sales Moment is, they can discard all the noise. Simply focus on conveying that Sales Moment in all marketing to dramatically increase sales.
6. What are the big ideas in this book?
There are three big ideas. The Sales Moment, which is focusing on the movie of unmet needs that trigger a sale, and forgetting the rest of the noise that gets in the way of a sale Rolling out the brand by seeing everything from your customer’s perspective How to do return on investment marketing using the lifetime value of a customer, which is applying the classic NPV formula (Net Present Value) to marketing
7. What is unique about your process and do you think that the CEO’s of these businesses can do it on their own after reading your book?
The Perfection of Marketing is the first book to consolidate all the best practices of marketing into three simple steps that any CEO can implement to build their company’s brand and drive sales. My father and grandfather were West Point graduates and career Army officers. From the time I was able to walk, they drilled into me, you are either trained or not trained. Anyone who studies The Perfection of Marketing can consider themselves trained. They will know what to give up and what to take up in their marketing.
8. From your experience, what is the biggest mistake that midsized businesses make?
They don’t understand the lifetime value of their customer, so they can’t do consistent return on investment marketing. They usually undervalue their customer significantly, which means they underspend on their marketing, stunting growth and leaving huge amounts of money on the table.
9. What is the most important thing you’ve learned from running your company for the last 12 years?
Every mistake in business, every mistake in marketing, boils down to one. Seeing the world from your perspective and not from the customers. There’s a beautiful teaching from the Buddhist Master Shantideva, who’s name means Angel of Peace. He says: “All the suffering in the world comes from taking care of yourself. All the happiness in world comes from taking care of others.” I’ve seen and experienced the truth of this again and again. Companies need to market from their customer’s perspective not their own. I applied this principle to every technique in The Perfection of Marketing. It’s the wisdom and only reason that these techniques consistently work.
10. You talk about the three engines of a business, can you explain them briefly and discuss why the third one often goes uncultivated?
Any business whether it’s business to consumer, business to business, business to government, or even a non-profit, has three engines of business. There’s Operations, Finance, and Brand Marketing. Businesses exist because someone had a vision for how to provide a product or service in a unique unmet way to others. That’s Operations.
Then, they discover they can’t be in business very long unless they understand Finance. So they bring in someone or acquire the skills to learn the true costs of goods sold and how to make a profit. They dabble a little in Marketing, lose money, and conclude that Marketing doesn’t work for their business. They just go back to doing what they are good at, perfecting Operations. This is human nature: we do what we are good at and avoid what we are bad at.
Most businesses are limping along on only two engines: Operations and Finance. Good businesses don’t become great businesses until they kick in that third engine of business, Brand Marketing, which is what The Perfection of Marketing is all about.
To schedule a time to speak with James Connor, author of The Perfection of Marketing contact jamesconnor@thejamesgroup.com

The Perfection of Marketing: New Book by James Connor Reveals Complete Brand Playbook Used by Successful NYC Advertising Agency to Create Category-Leading Brands

admin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:10:23 +0000

“The techniques in this book helped us become the undisputed national leader in our category. I’ve read a lot of marketing books. This one has the clearest, most definitive methodology for building a brand and increasing sales.”
- Marc Shuman, founder and CEO, GarageTek

The goal was audacious. Test and consolidate all the best practices of marketing into a simple set of instructions any company could follow to dramatically improve marketing results. Add to it insights on how the human mind works gained from years of study and daily meditation of ancient Buddhist texts and the result is a groundbreaking business book called The Perfection of Marketing.

“This book is all the best practices of marketing in three simple steps,” said James Connor, author of The Perfection of Marketing. Every business should be using these marketing techniques to prevent wasting marketing dollars. I felt I had to reveal our methods.”

James Connor has crafted a surprisingly efficient process based on what he calls the Sales Moment to create a method anyone can implement for spectacular marketing results. Culminating from 12 years of work, The Perfection of Marketing reveals the detailed playbook run by The James Group, a successful branding and full-service advertising agency in New York City, which has made more money for 95% of their clients.

This is the debut work from James Connor, the CEO of The James Group, who honed The Perfection of Marketing process while overseeing the creation of over 70 brands, including category leaders GarageTek, Thinkfun, TransparentValue, and WQIS (The Water Quality Insurance Syndicate).

The Perfection of Marketing retails for $24.95 and is available January 9, 2009 through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Starting October 27, 2008, a special Management Team Package of three books for the price of one is available at the book’s website, www.perfectionofmarketing.com, to jumpstart word of mouth about the book prior to retail launch. The Perfection of Marketing should be read by any CEO, Marketing Officer, or CFO who wants greater return on investment from their marketing dollars.

The book’s website also offers the first four chapters of The Perfection of Marketing for free via electronic pdf. And an audio podcast of these chapters is now available in the podcast section of the iTunes Store.

About James Connor
James Connor is the CEO and founder of The James Group, a brand strategy and full-service advertising agency in New York City, serving midsize business clients nationally. For 12 years, James honed The Perfection of Marketing process and oversaw the creation of over 70 brands, including category leaders GarageTek, Thinkfun, TransparentValue, and WQIS. He is well regarded as a speaker on brand marketing.

James meditates daily and in the evening teaches Buddhist philosophy for the Asian Classics Institute, primarily in New York City and the Hamptons.To learn more, visit www.perfectionofmarketing.com

The Perfection of Marketing
The CEO’s Guide to Building a Brand and Driving Sales in Three Steps by James Connor

Available January 2009 - $24.95 - Hardcover - ISBN: 978-0-9765469-3-1
Diamond Cutter Press - Distributed by National Book Network