If you don’t already have an MBA, don’t bother to go to school for years to get one. Just read the new book Business.


I kid, of course – mostly. Actually, since Business clocks in at 2,172 pages, it might take you years to read it, so the investment in time is about the same. But on the cost front, Business, at $59.95, wins hands down over our institutes of higher learning. (I’ve seen the book at Sam’s Club, so perhaps you can shave a few bucks off that price if there’s a warehouse retailer in your area. Be sure, though, to employ the team-lift approach to get it into your cart.)

Billed as “the ultimate resource,” the book surely comes close to that hype. It boasts over 200 contributors, 2.5 million words of text, 700 illustrations, and 150 maps. It’s organized into seven sections: Best Practice presents essays from business writers and practitioners on an array of topics, from turnaround strategies to creating powerful brands; Management Checklists and Actionlists gets more hands-on, presenting brief but dense how-tos on business tasks like conducting an information audit, setting up a grievance procedure, and outsourcing Web site operations; Management Library summarizes what the editors feel are the most influential business books of all time (staples like The Art of War and The Prince are included, as are newer works like The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning and The Borderless World); Business Thinkers and Management Giants contains summaries of the careers and thoughts of legends like Henry Ford, Sam Walton, and W. Edwards Deming; and three final reference sections that include a dictionary, a world business almanac, and a list of business information sources (no mention of Quirk’s in the marketing research section...an oversight I’m sure will be corrected in the next edition).

Nothing is covered in extraordinary detail but the book avoids a Cliffs Notes-type feel through copious cross-referencing of other sources in the book, on the Web, and in other published forms. Readers can also sign up to receive regular e-mails containing new and updated material.

As a standard business reference, I doubt there’s anything else like it.

The psychology of spending

My second selection this month, Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need, is not the story of my life as a consumer but rather a collection of insights from a veteran researcher on all the forces that assert themselves during the purchase process. Author Pamela Danziger draws from years of experience conducting focus groups and surveys with consumers to give marketers the inside scoop on the psychology of spending.

There are no real surprises here — we all know emotion is a big driver of the purchase process, for example — but Danziger does a nice job of explaining when, where and how factors like emotion come into play (the chapter on the “justifiers” that give consumers permission to buy is especially good). And she keeps things on a real-world level without falling into psychobabble or getting too abstract.

Examining American Latinos

I’ll close with a look at Marketing to American Latinos, Part 2 by Isabel Valdes. Part 1, published in 2000, introduced and defined the U.S. Hispanic consumer and gave some interesting case studies on companies that attempted to reach out to this market. Part 2 has additional real-world examples (with brands like Oscar Mayer, Alka-Seltzer and McDonald’s) and makes excellent use of data from the ACNielsen Homescan Hispanic panel to show what Latinos buy. But the most valuable aspects of both books are the author’s detailed explanations of why they buy and how to reach them.

Companies seeking guidance on how to begin a relationship with Hispanic consumers or improve an existing one should look no further than this fine two-part series.

Business – The Ultimate Resource (2,172 pages, $59.95) is published by Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Mass. (www.perseusbooks.com).

Why People Buy Things They Don’t Need (224 pages, $34.95), by Pamela N. Danziger, is published by Paramount Market Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y. (www.paramountbooks.com).

Marketing to American Latinos – Part 2 (352 pages, $54.95), by M. Isabel Valdes, is published by Paramount Market Publishing, Ithaca, N.Y. (http://www.paramountbooks.com).