Books

What People Want
Terry R. Bacon

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Some managers get it—most don’t. What People Want offers original research and practical advice on what today’s employees really want from a boss.

Interweaving interesting and often surprising insights from his original research, Terry Bacon lays out a set of proven best practices that focus on the seven needs that matter most to co-workers, peers, and direct reports: trust, challenge, self-worth, competence, appreciation, excitement, and an ability to develop and sustain an identity of merit. With dozens of real-world examples, sample dialogue, and nearly 200 tips and techniques, What People Want also offers a variety of tools to help managers address their own needs for personal and psychological space, work-life balance, and advice on how to avoid such bad behaviors as bullying and intimidation, which can demotivate staff and damage the organization. Dr. Bacon offers hundreds of tips and insights in What People Want including:


Powerful Proposals
David G. Pugh & Terry R. Bacon

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How does a company consistently win more business than its rivals? A key factor is the ability to create proposals that outshine those from even the strongest competitors. Powerful Proposals: How to Give Your Business the Winning Edge helps businesses maximize the selling power of their proposals, with proven strategies for going beyond “this is what we do” documents in favor of customer centered proposals that highlight the tangible benefits your company offers. This powerful process offers tools and techniques that will let any firm:

Powerful Proposals takes readers step by step through designing executive summaries, writing themes, and generating the text. There is also valuable information on strategy, graphics, callouts and other visual elements.

The Behavioral Advantage
Terry R. Bacon & David G. Pugh

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The Behavioral Advantage: What the Smartest, Most Successful Companies Do Differently to Win in the B2B Arena is the sequel to one of the Best Career Books of 2003—Winning Behavior. Winning Behavior first introduced the concept of behavioral differentiation in the business-to-client relationship. Now the authors, Terry Bacon and David Pugh, address the complexities of differentiation by behavior in the B2B arena.

The Behavioral Advantage reveals how exceptional B2B companies go beyond traditional business excellence metrics and outbehave their competition in four key areas: operationally, interpersonally, exceptionally, and symbolically.

If every touch point between you and your potential customer—every phone call, e-mail and meeting, every proposal, negotiation and decision—is strategically timed, flawlessly executed, and done with the customer as top priority, you will have outplayed your competitors by outbehaving them. And you will have earned the trust, respect, loyalty, and business of another valuable customer.

Adaptive Coaching
Terry R. Bacon & Karen I. Spear

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The idea for Adaptive Coaching originated in the authors’ experiences as coaches and teachers of coaching and the research base that developed out of our practice. Our twenty-five years of coaching practice, and our research on coaching, told us that most coaching clients were dissatisfied with the coaching they were receiving.

What we have observed reveals a huge gap between what companies and clients expect from coaching and what it actually does for them. As a result, a work devoted to adaptive coaching is long overdue.

Too many books on coaching offer simplistic views of the nature of human change and development, promote quick fixes, or make exaggerated claims about what coaching can accomplish. This book explores coaching from the client’s perspective and helps coaches understand how to adapt their coaching approach and methods to the needs, wants, and preferences of the people they are coaching.

Winning Behavior
Terry R. Bacon & David G. Pugh

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Nationally syndicated career advice columnist Joyce Lain Kennedy selects Winning Behavior to be on "The Best Career Books of 2003" list.

" This business book for companies has strong crossover impact on individual behavior, identifying behaviors that help the reader stand out from the crowd."
-Joyce Lain Kennedy

Winning Behavior: What the Smartest, Most Successful Companies Do Differently draws from almost 50 years of experience in helping clients win work. And in today's flat markets, where market forces are at work to move competitors to commodity and pricing through the floor, the last major frontier of differentiation in client relations isn't technical or capabilities based, it's behavioral.

Being competitive today (and tomorrow) requires more than talent and a track record. Those are the marketplace's minimal requirements for entry. To be truly differentiated and, therefore, fully competitive, you have to outbehave the competition in ways the market and specific clients will value.

Selling to Major Accounts
Terry R. Bacon

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In most businesses, 80% of the revenue comes from 20% of the customers. Management of these key accounts demands discipline, direction, and purpose. Account managers and salespeople must be able to identify and capture key opportunities and use a systematic approach to growing the accounts. Here's where they'll find the powerful tools, processes, and techniques to succeed.

Selling to Major Accounts is full of practical, proven approaches to account management. Loaded with examples, tables, charts, checklists, and real-life case studies from the author's vast consulting experience, it shows how to: