Selling The Dream [Paperback]

Kawasaki, a writer, consultant, entrepreneur, and former product manager for Apple Computers, offers a new selling concept that he calls "evangelism." He defines this as "the process of convincing people to believe in your product or idea as much as you do." Drawing on his own experiences promoting the Macintosh computer and the case studies of both profit and nonprofit organizations, Kawasaki analyzes the characteristics of successful evangelists. Among them are: MaryAnne Schreder's Centre for Living and Dying, Mary Furlong's SeniorNet, Anna Roddick's The Body Shop, and Bob Hall, manager of product planning research for Mazda. Kawasaki presents guidelines for finding a cause, preparing a plan, writing promotional material, and recruiting and training. Appendixes include the Macintosh's original product introduction plan, a bibliography, and a list of sources. This is recommended for public and academic collections who should also own Kawasaki's The Macintosh Way (Scott, Foresman, 1989).
- Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Jamaica, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Clearly expresses what it took us years of mistakes to learn. I would have paid many times the cover price to read it ten years ago." -- Steve Jobs, president, NeXT Computer

Guy Kawasaki's phenomenal success at Apple Computer and as a start-up entrepreneur was the result of an innovative approach to sales, marketing, and management called evangelism. Evangelism means convincing people to believe in your product or ideas as much as you do, by using fervor, zeal, guts, and cunning to mobilize your customers and staff into becoming as passionate about a cause as you are.

Selling the Dream is a handbook and workbook for putting evangelism into action. Kawasaki charts a complete blueprint for the beginning evangelist that covers such topics as how to define a cause (whether it is a business, like Windham Hill Records or the Body Shop, or a public interest concern, like the National Audubon Society or Mothers Against Drunk Driving), how to identify good and bad enemies, how to deliver an effective presentation, and how to find, train, and recruit new evangelists. One of the highlights of the book is a short course in developing an evangelistic business plan, illustrated by the complete, original Macintosh Product Introduction Plan.

Selling the Dream will teach you how to become a raging, inexorable thunder lizard of an evangelist -- a leader whose words will never fall on deaf ears again.

Guy Kawasaki, author of The Macintosh Way, is the former director of software product management at Apple Computer, Inc. He later started a Macintosh software company and is currently a marketing consultant and columnist for MacUser Magazine. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of California at Los Angeles.