Pop!: Stand Out in Any Crowd

This is a book to use, not a book to read. Sam Horn tells you early on that the book has two purposes. It will help you quickly capture interest and it will help you "break out, not blend in." But that will happen only if you pick a project or idea and then apply the suggestions in the book to improving it and creating a message with POP. POP stands for Purposeful, Original and Pithy. The book is organized around those three standards. First comes Purposeful. To help you boil your idea down to its essence the author asks you to answer the 9W questions about it. Answering those questions give you a foundation to build on. In fact, you'll find yourself going back to those nine questions and your answers time and again. You'll probably change some of your answers. That's a very good thing. The second, and largest main section helps you make your communication Original. The ideas here will help you turn your idea around so you can see it from the others side and massage it into different forms. You'll learn about the power of alliteration, doing your own take on common sayings, advertising slogans and pop culture phrases. The third section has ideas for helping you be Pithy. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "pithy" as: "having substance and point - tersely cogent." If it's short and carries a big message, it's pithy. This was the most helpful section for me. You'll learn how to use alliteration, rhythm and rhyme to make your statement more powerful and more memorable. I've seen all this before, but never in a single place. The book closes with "Seven Secrets to Keep Their Interest Once You've Got It." This seems to me like a bunch of good ideas that were too good to leave out, but didn't fit anywhere else. I got incredible value by working through the exercises as I went. As advertised, they helped me craft a POP statement. More importantly, for me, this was a powerful exercise in understanding my business offering and what is unique about it. I recommend this book to you if you want to craft POP statements that present you or your business or idea to others. I also recommend it if you want exercises that will help you think creatively about what you do. I've been a professional speaker and writer now for over a quarter century. I found help and ideas here that will help me tell my story and the story of my business more effectively. So will you.

Do you want a great "pitch" that makes people laugh, say "wow!", or remember you forever? Would you like to have a fun, simple and effective way to explain what you do in 30 seconds or less? Have you ever stared at the ceiling at 3am, racking your brain to come up with the perfect name for your book, business, or event? If so, this book is for you! POP! is brilliant! Even devout Sam Horn fans will be blown away by her latest work, and the bottom line results it will create for their business. POP! provides fun, easy, and immediately useful systems to create catchy, memorable, and effective taglines, titles, networking pitches, business names, etc. Horn reminds us that we get less than 60 seconds to capture a potential client's interest, and teaches us exactly how to do so. If you read this book and implement the ideas, it WILL change how you think about marketing your business, it WILL make you stand out and be remembered, and it WILL make others talk about your business long after you've left the room. POP! is the best book I've ever read on the topic of "sell-yourself" marketing -- it's jam-packed with real ideas that are fun and easy to act on. A great offering for traditionally "hard to describe" niches, products, or professions.

Getting ready for a trip and looking for a light, fun read, I picked up Sam's book off of the B & N table. What a delightful book this is! Sam has much to say about branding, marketing and selling "You." Whether she believes that the people we're selling to don't have much time, or they don't have a long attention span, I don't know. But, she emphasizes the first impression, the first 30 seconds of a conversation, the first "hook." So, her book is a cornucupia of tips and tricks to "hook" them before you say "hello." I will recommend this book to my "Toastmasters" group, where a lot of great speeches are given, but not much thought is given to creative titles or creative intros. If you give speeches, write short articles or write a blog, get this book immediately.

If you are consistently meeting new people either at a Chamber of Commerce, Association Event or Business Breakfast, you MUST read this book. I have always found myself admiring the witty and memberable elevator pitches that I hear and thinking to myself "How did they come up with that?" After reading Ms. Horn's book, ideas began flowing like never before. What I like best is her structured approach to being creative. Follow the rules and "poof" - you've just created a memerable tagline that would make even the highest-priced New York ad agencies want to hire you. A great investment!!

Most business books promise the reader millions in new found wealth and fail to deliver even a crusty cold pizza. Horn, on the other hand, has given the world a refreshingly brilliant book in POP without one platitude. Horn teaches you how to BRAND. How to stand out from the crowd in every way....how to be unique in your industry, your profession and your message. She educates you. Talent is not enough in today's competitive environment. And she is right. How many talented people do you know? As Horn says in her book, "We are one of many." So she edifies ways to stand out from the crowd...concepts you would never think of that are BRILLIANT. At least I never thought of them before. She spends time on how to craft unique slogans, capture conversational catch phrases, how to be relevant. Think about all the information available to us today. With our busy lives what information do we actually remember? What was it about Freakanomics or Jerry Maquire that kept people talking? Horn teaches you to employ the techniques from both---and in the process how you can go from ordinary to EXTRAORDINARY. If this book was $250.00 it would be a steal. Horn is a brilliant sage. A master at knowing what it takes to succeed in today's global competitive marketplace!