You Must Read …


I love Mark Stevens' Your Marketing Sucks. (I admit it, I start by loving the title.) Clear language. Strong point of view. Actionable as the dickens. And ... extreme. (My favorite word.) "Extreme Marketing" is the author's mantra. Book came at the perfect time for me. I'm having a knock-down, drag-out tiff with the CEO of a mid-size company over whether or not he needs a fulltime CMO/Chief Marketing Officer. I say yes ... unequivocally. He says "others" (unspecified) can "pick up pieces of your precious marketing thing." I say he's full of crap. I am a champion of inspired, intense, radical marketing—for the one-person accountancy, or mega-corp. I have at least one surprisingly new convert-ally: GE CEO Jeff Immelt just hired that firm's first "CMO." Hooray. (And ... 'bout time.)