Walk Your Talk: Grow Your Business Faster Through Successful Cross-Promotional Partnerships

Kare Anderson
Spiral Publishing
ISBN 978-0890877425
Reviewed by Kathleen Dowdell for Reader Views (01/07)

In a book that promotes strengthening relationships through a “people come first” approach, Kare Anderson’s “Walk Your Talk” is all about growing your business through successful partnerships. In our ever-changing global economy, it is important for business owners to form alliances in the market. By cross-promoting your promotional resources, everyone gets visibility at a fraction of the expense and keeps customers coming back.

The book is broken into two sections, “Part One: a new approach to choosing and working with partners,” and “Part Two: practical walk your talk cross-promotional ideas.” Within these two parts are 15 chapters of practical advice on how to cross-promote in order to grow your business faster and more profitable. Full of information, checklists and exercises, this book is useful for business owners and managers.

Fourteen clearly designed steps teach how to turn mutual markets into mutual benefits and ultimately, potential clients, without competing with those mutual markets. There is a lot of work to be done in these fourteen steps if you truly want to understand the market, the competition, and the direction of your business. Working from “the inside out” allows you to give back to the community which in turn will promote your business even more. A promotional approach is a win-win situation for all.

Inexpensive and sometimes a free way of cross-promoting your business is through the local media. Newspapers will often write press releases and feature stories for free through its staff reporters or letters to the editor. Neighborhood newspapers, weekly shoppers, or a personal newsletter can promote a business with little expense yet it is an effective way to reach a vast amount of readers. Other ways of promoting are through celebrities, events, making your business a local attraction, and speaking engagements.

Anderson’s creative ideas of promoting genuine core values and authentic and honest relationships are innovative, considering the book was written in 1994, but its ideas apply today. The book ends by reiterating that customer service is the strongest, least expensive tool that you can use to promote your business. By knowing what your customers want and expect, you can stay on top of the ever changing environment by anticipating and fulfilling their needs. By providing an out of the ordinary service, a customer will easily remember the satisfaction that he or she received.

I would recommend “Walk Your Talk” for business owners who have reached a plateau in their marketing approaches. This book would be useful for established business owners who already have a successful business but want to step up to the next level in marketing by using creative, unlimited methods to help them expand into untapped markets.

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