Two good reads: I Love You More Than My Dog and Don’t Mess With The Logo

Books can be like buses. The ones you want are conspicuous by their absence, and then two that you want come along at the same time.

Here are two recommended reads from us here at smith+co , both of which are just published.

I Love You More Than My Dog

Jeanne Bliss is the author of Chief Customer Officer, having honed her own senior level ‘customer officer’  skills at Lands’ End, Microsoft, Mazda, Coldwell Bankers and Allstate. Her latest book looks at how to become a beloved company. At the core of I Love You More Than My Dog is Jeanne’s central premise that “Your decisions reveal who you are and what you value“. In the book, Jeanne says that there are five decisions that dictate whether you can become a loved company like IKEA or Virgin…or not. Beloved companies, says Jean, decide:

1. to believe in people: “We trust our customers. We trust those who serve them.”

2. with clarity of purpose: “We are clear on what our unique promise is to customers.”

3. to be real: “The relationship isn’t between big company and small customer. It’s between people who have the same values, with customers gravitating to the particular personality of your organization.”

4. to be there for customers. “Each experience must earn the right for the customer to return.”

5.  to say sorry: “To apologize well and repair the damage to the emotional connection with customers is a hallmark of companies we love.”

You can download the first chapter of Jeanne’s book from her website CustomerBliss.

Don’t Mess With The Logo

Then there’s the latest book from our own Andy Milligan of smith+co. Don’t Mess With The Logo, written by Andy and Jon Edge, sets out to provide a non-jargon guide to how to create, build, protect and develop your brand.

It looks at how to revive a tired brand, when and when not to ‘mess with the logo’ and at how to ‘deliver’ the brand experience. Andy says there are ten laws for better branding. He’ll be explaining what they are in a blog post here soon.

Don’t Mess With The Logo: The Straight-Talker’s Bible of Branding , is available on Amazon and in all good book stores.