The Business Growth Blog by Rob Cuesta

UBC7: Stuck for ideas? Read this!

I’ve been reading. It’ll be no great shock to anyone who knows me or indeed who has followed this blog over the years. The fact is, the demise of Borders merely made way for more time sitting in Costa downloading ebooks to the Kindle app on my iPad rather than sitting in Starbucks leafing through paper books 

But my latest read has been a “real” book. With hard covers no less!

More reviews

Loved this review of my new book, "More Clients, More Money, More Fun" - hadn't thought of it being ` "must read" :) http://tinyurl.com/5ven9wl

Changes

I've made a few alterations to the blog. FIrst off, you may have noticed the change of title - this is now The Business Growth Blog, reflecting the fact that personal branding is a tool for achiving just that: business growth. The content of the blog will also broaden to reflect this new focus.

Second, I've added a new Amazon bookstore in the links on the left hand side. I realised that a lot of my readers are in the US, so I've created a bookstore on Amazon.com alongside the existing Amazon.co.uk store. So now, if you're visiting from the US feel free to visit the new store.

OK, it's 1.24 am here - time this blogger was off to sleep!

Do Your Targets Hear The Sizzle?

There's an old advertising adage that says "Sell the sizzle not the steak". In recent years, it's been distorted and misapplied by less scrupulous ad-men, to become "sell the sizzle, and forget the steak". marketers have taken products with little or no real value to the consumer and hyped them up just to increase the price. It's the basic premise behind the book "Never Mind the Sizzle...Where's the Sausage?" which I reviewed last year.

Of course, one of the common misconceptions people have about personal branding - and branding in general - is that it's ALL about the sizzle, so I thought this afternoon I'd look at the world of sizzle and steaks.

The name's Bond, James Bond...

I remember the first time I heard that line. I was four years old, sitting in a darkened cinema watching a rerun of Goldfinger (my parents were pretty liberal when it came to things like that, and we knew the manager of the cinema).

For two hours I sat, transfixed as 007 battled the bad guys, got the girl and saved the world. Without knowing it, though, it set the tone for many aspects of my life over the years since then.

Where's the Sausage?

It's been a while since I posted a book review, but don't let that fool you into thinking I've been avoiding Borders. My latest acquisition is a slim book, one of those 'business fables' that set out to teach some principle of business through a story. Some of these books can be very badly written - I'll gladly share some of the howlers I've read with you if you drop me a line. Others are actually a good book to read in their own right. Fortunately, 'Where's The Sausage?' by David Taylor (of BrandGym fame) is one of those books that falls right into the second category.

My online personal branding bookstore

I was doing my regular 'self-google' the other day, and just for laughs I decided to carry on past the first 3 pages. I was delighted to discover that people have been tagging my online bookstore at Amazon on Del.icio.us and other social bookmarking sites, and sharing it with their friends as a site worth visiting. Thanks for the support folks :) it encourages me to keep reading and keep bringing you my the picks of current personal branding-related books.

It's here!

OK, if you've read my blog for a while now, you know that I'm an avid book reader. So I was really excited the other day when a package I'd been waiting for for quite some time finally arrived. Inside was a copy of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand (or HERE if you're in the US), hot off the presses.

New personal branding book store opens its virtual doors

If you've read more than a couple of my posts, you'll have picked up on my love of books. I am an avid reader, particularly in the areas of branding, business and personal development, and I've decided to share the benefits of my extensive reading with my subscribers.

Book Review: Transparency Edge

Well it's been a while since my last post, and this is another book review. Now, I hadn't intended this blog to be a book review site, but given my twin addictions to Starbucks and Borders (which I've alluded to in past posts) it was inevitable that books were going to feature heavily.

Anyway, I recently picked up a book that isn't actually 'new' as such - it was first published in 2003 - but the topic is just as relevant now as then. The book is Transparency Edge: How Credibility Can Make or Break You in Business by Barbara Pagano, Elizabeth Pagano, and Stephen C. Lundin. It caught my attention because, as a consultant, I have always been respected for what one of my past managers described as 'intellectual honesty' - the courage to tell a client that they are wrong, and the refusal to write a report that rubberstamped a decision I didn't agree with. At times this has seemed a career limiting move, so it was interesting to see a book that highlighted the business advantages of honesty and transparency.