Know thy competition.. Find out better and more useful ways of conducting business... Get ideas or just get inspired! This is why we have, in association with amazon.com (the best bookseller on the Internet), developed this bookstore. All of the following books have been read by our Associates, and are recommended by them.

We will continue to update this book listing to keep it as current as possible. Please note that if you wish to purchase any of our recommended books listed below, simply click on the book itself or the "Order Now" button, and you will be redirected to amazon.com to finish your purchase on their secure server. It's easy... fast... quick... and a better bargain than going to a real bookstore.

MORE SUGGESTIONS TO COME!
Bookmark this page for future reference.

OUR TEAM PICK OF THE MONTH...


Jobtalk

Landscape Professionals—At $39.99, Tex-Mex Communication's new product, Jobtalk, is one of the most economical and easy solutions to help landscapers give instructions in Spanish to Hispanic employees. Hispanic employees are willing to work hard and want to do a good job—all they need are clear instructions. Everyone wins when supervisors are able to give instructions in English and Spanish. Morale is improved. Productivity increases. Mistakes decrease. This is a low-cost high-return investment that pays for itself in one use.

Jobtalk includes a home study manual, a pocket field-guide to take on jobsites and an audio CD to hear the pronunciations of landscapers most commonly used words and phrases in the green industry. If you are looking for a tool that can make an immediate difference with how your foreman/supervisors communicate with their Hispanic workforce, Jobtalk is it!

Change can be a blessing or a curse, depending on your perspective. The message of Who Moved My Cheese? is that all can come to see it as a blessing, if they understand the nature of cheese and the role it plays in their lives. Who Moved My Cheese? is a parable that takes place in a maze. Four beings live in that maze: Sniff and Scurry are mice--nonanalytical and nonjudgmental, they just want cheese and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Hem and Haw are "little people," mouse-size humans who have an entirely different relationship with cheese. It's not just sustenance to them; it's their self-image. Their lives and belief systems are built around the cheese they've found. Most of us reading the story will see the cheese as something related to our livelihoods--our jobs, our career paths, the industries we work in--although it can stand for anything, from health to relationships. The point of the story is that we have to be alert to changes in the cheese, and be prepared to go running off in search of new sources of cheese when the cheese we have runs out. Dr. Johnson, coauthor of The "One Minute Manager" and many other books, presents this parable to business, church groups, schools, military organizations--anyplace where you find people who may fear or resist change. And although more analytical and skeptical readers may find the tale a little too simplistic, its beauty is that it sums up all natural history in just 94 pages: Things change. They always have changed and always will change. And while there's no single way to deal with change, the consequence of pretending change won't happen is always the same: The cheese runs out.

In an effort to determine why people buy, Paco Underhill and his detailed-oriented band of retail researchers have camped out in stores over the course of 20 years, dedicating their lives to the "science of shopping." Armed with an array of video equipment, store maps, and customer-profile sheets, Underhill and his consulting firm, Envirosell, have observed over 900 aspects of interaction between shopper and store. They've discovered that men who take jeans into fitting rooms are more likely to buy than females (65 percent vs. 25 percent). They've learned how the "butt-brush factor" (bumped from behind, shoppers become irritated and move elsewhere) makes women avoid narrow aisles. They've quantified the importance of shopping baskets; contact between employees and shoppers; the "transition zone" (the area just inside the store's entrance); and "circulation patterns" (how shoppers move throughout a store). And they've explored the relationship between a customer's amenability and profitability, learning how good stores capitalize on a shopper's unspoken inclinations and desires. Underhill, whose clients include McDonald's, Starbucks, Estee Lauder, and Blockbuster, stocks Why We Buy with a wealth of retail insights, showing how men are beginning to shop like women, and how women have changed the way supermarkets are laid out. He also looks to the future, projecting massive retail opportunities with an aging baby-boom population and predicting how online retailing will affect shopping malls. This lighthearted look at shopping is highly recommended to anyone who buys or sells.