Barrie O. Pettman

Self‐development: the nine basic skills for business success

A self‐help guide to achieving success in business. Directed more towards the self‐employed, it is relevant to other managers in organizations. Divided into clear sections on creativity and dealing with change; importance of clear goal setting; developing winning business and marketing strategies; negotiating skills; leadership; financial skills; and time management.

Implement a winning marketing strategy

Asks which orders you would like to win and states that the answer lies in marketing and satisfying customers, with profit as a pleasant potential result. Suggests that companies should refocus their priorities, placing customers and improvements to customers’ lives at the forefront of any and all activity. Talks about specialization, competitive advantage, segmentation, customer characteristics, customer needs, product range, joint marketing, opportunity gaps, advertising and marketing. Concludes that successful business people are those who can identify the benefit that they sell which improves their customers’ lives.

Creating more time

Lists a number of points on how to manage activities to create more time – setting goals, believing that you manage your time well, setting good time management as a goal, being honest with yourself, setting priorities, continuing self‐development, making lists, making plans, identifying common time wasters, organizing workspace, delegating, taking risks with time, reading, identifying and focusing on key result areas, eradicating procrastination, holding effective meetings, reducing interruptions, developing blocks of time for specific tasks, batching tasks, finishing one job before starting another, and memorising the slogans supplied at the end of the article.