Recommended Business Books

The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary

Joseph Michelli
How did Starbucks turn a cup of coffee into a worldwide business phenomenon? With unique access to Starbucks personnel and resources, Michelli isolated the 5 key leadership principles that transformed an ordinary idea into an extraordinary experience.  Michelli reveals how you can follow the Starbucks way to: reach out to entire communities, listen to individual workers and consumers, seize growth opportunities in every market, & custom-design a truly satisfying experience that benefits everyone involved.  A must-read!


Save $5 - CBA Member 75053: $19– Click to add to shopping cart
Non-member 75053N: $24– Click to add to shopping cart

Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate Customer Experience

Pamela Danziger
Danziger, author and nationally renowned consumer insights expert reveals the next major shopping trend: The shopper's experience.  Consumer research is made actionable through specific retailing strategies that turns shopping from a chore to a pleasurable and memorable experience for the customer.  Written for retailers large and small, Shopping will educate you on the motivations, desires, and passions of shoppers, and how to put these insights to work to transform your store into a retail experience shoppers will love.


Save $5 - CBA Member 75057: $20– Click to add to shopping cart
Non-member 75057N: $25– Click to add to shopping cart

Citizen Marketers : When People Are the Message

Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba
McConnell & Huba popularized the term "customer evangelists" in their first book Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force. In this follow up work they explore the ramifications of today's burgeoning social media. As everyday people create content on behalf of companies, brands or products they are turning traditional notions of media and marketing upside down. What are they saying about you? How can you tap into this new world of information sharing? Read the book for many examples and case studies, then build a strategy for you business!


Save $5 - CBA Member 75052: $10– Click to add to shopping cart
Non-member 75052N: $15– Click to add to shopping cart

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping

Paco Underhill
A witty, and eye-opening report on the ever-evolving consumer culture and the method underlying our madness when it comes to shopping. It's based on hard data gleaned from thousands of hours of field research in malls, department stores, and supermarkets across the USA. In Paco's quest to discover what makes the contemporary consumer tick, he explains shopping phenomena that often go unnoticed by retailers and shoppers alike.
Featured in the Prospective Retailer Seminar and PCR Module 8: Merchandising & Display.


Save $5 - CBA Member 75047: $10– Click to add to shopping cart
Non-member 75047N: $15– Click to add to shopping cart

Call of the Mall
Paco Underhill
Best-selling "retail anthropologist" Paco Underhill has a genius for retail and has run hundreds of research assignments in malls across the country. He has visited them, observed his fellow mall-ers, looked for his car in mammoth parking lots, chatted up the staffers, hunted for jeans with adolescent girls, and gone anniversary shopping with guys. The result is a bright, ironic, funny, and shrewd portrait of the mall. Call of the Mall examines how we use the mall, what it means, why it works when it does, and why it sometimes doesn't. Visiting the mall with Underhill is a surprising and insightful tour through the American crossroads. Why We Buy changed the way we watch ourselves shop. Call of the Mall will deepen our understanding of how we live, work, play, and spend.


Save $5 - CBA Member 75041: $10– Click to add to shopping cart
Non-member 75041N: $15– Click to add to shopping cart

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
David Allen
In today's world, yesterday's methods just don't work. Veteran coach and management consultant David Allen shares his breakthrough methods for stress-free performance.  Allen's premise is simple: our productivity is directly proportional to our ability to relax.  Only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective results and unleash our creative potential.  This book can transform the way you work and live, showing you how to pick up the pace without wearing yourself down.


Save $5 - CBA Member 75055: $10– Click to add to shopping cart
Non-member 75055N: $15– Click to add to shopping cart

The Myth of Excellence

Fred Crawford & Ryan Mathews
More retail consolidation, an uncertain economy, and rapidly changing consumer attitudes and behaviors make retail land seem full of giants. But Ryan Mathews has discovered through years of consumer research that it’s a myth retailers have to be excellent at everything to thrive, including: price, product, service, access, and experience. He told the 2002 Future of the Industry audience that Christian retailers and suppliers are particularly well-positioned to meet consumers where they are: looking for values more than value and wanting honest, fair stores to do business with. This book reveals the compelling reasons why. A foundational book for many of the CBA retail training programs. A must-read!