Well, let's reflect on some of the other reviews: this book is clearly not a textbook-style manual filled with loads of technical, detailed solutions, analysis and case studies. This is a book of principles; a re-orienter, a tool that makes marketers stop and re-think everything. It serves mainly to prepare people to start off on the right foot.
There's a lot of indignant "no duh!" complaining going on by some reviewers here who feel that Stevens' main point - that marketing that doesn't more than pay for itself is a waste of money - is totally obvious to anyone doing business today. While it should be, it clearly isn't. All of us know of examples of companies, maybe even the ones we're working for, doing exactly the kinds of things Stevens singles out here as big no-nos. The question might be: if we all know this stuff already, if it's so obvious, why aren't we doing it? Or, as Stevens would say, "Why does our marketing still suck?" So I don't buy for a second the idea that Stevens is just wasting our time here.
All in all I found the book a great way to start a marketing effort, something worth reading before any hard decisions are made.
Having said that, I still have some reservations regarding the long-term implications on society that would result if American-style capitalists like Stevens got their way and we all started doing business as he suggests. For example, he talks at one point about how the majority of sales staff on any given company's sales team simply can't sell, and that this is obviously a problem faced by every business. He offers one solution: fire all the lousy salespeople on your team and go steal the best from your competitors.
Not only is this not physically possible (remember, he is advocating all of his advice should be the norm in business, that we ALL should be doing this) since if all of our sales staff is mostly lousy, there aren't enough of these 'best' salespeople to go around if we all tried to hire them away from our competitors, so what's left as a solution?
This book is filled with aggressive demands that we should accept nothing less than soaring sales, soaring profits - that every action we take should more than pay for itself. Nowhere does Stevens suggest that, since we are all on the same planet, and since there is only so much of everything to go around, we just might do well to be a little more realistic about the growth, and sustainability of growth, in business. Stevens' point of view is typical of the kind of shortsighted American madness that unfortunately has knock-on effects outside American soil. It isn't only an American problem to be certain, but Americans are simply best at this kind of selfishness, this narrow-minded attitude about why we are in business in the first place, as if it is simply a contest that we can all step away from when the game is over.
But these concerns are outside the focus of the book. Anyway, a good mantra book for marketing!