Stop Being the Best Kept Secret by Curt Anderson A Book Review by Dave

Over the years I have read many, many business books. Definitely not every business book, but certainly enough to understand that the majority of them are just a regurgitation of others from a decade or two prior. There is useful information to be found in some of these books, but as my career progresses, blog posts, technical white papers, and just normal experimenting have eaten up more and more of my time.

I have a couple of authors that I’ll pick up a new book they come out with no questions asked, but these are the exception to the rule. Over the years, I have gotten to the point where I find it more important to find the blue waters beyond these books, rather than to follow the latest “guru.” You’re much more likely to find me rereading Tom Peters than picking up a new release.

This all changed when my friend, Curt Anderson, announced that he was writing an eBook over the course of the lockdown. Curt is the king of eCommerce, not necessarily selling bajillions of his own widgets, but enabling others to harness the power of the internet.

I know what you’re thinking.
“Dave are you really going to talk about eCommerce?”
Yes . .  . and No.

Let me be entirely transparent: the goal of this post is to get you to buy Curt’s book, Stop Being the Best Kept Secret. Not only is it well-written and informative, it costs less than one of your fancy coffee drinks.

This book is a fantastic tool if you are looking to take your manufacturing facility online. Want to try and sell on the World Wide Web? There are a series of step by step guides that can help you. Curt covers everything from your eCommerce plugin information (website stuff) to bringing on a web designer and marketing team.

Let me be clear, remove the word “eCommerce” and this is a fantastic guide for anyone looking to build a website for their company. In fact, the only person who wouldn’t be interested in reading this is a Marketing Consultant who charges thousands for very similar information. Simply put, this book is extremely empowering.

Dave’s Key Takeaways

There are a couple of key ideas discussed in the book that I believe are exceptionally important. I holistically agree with all of these things, and you can regularly hear me harping on them in my conversations with clients and colleagues alike.

1. Webpressions: You get one shot at a first impression. Make it count. If your website does not represent your best self, then you’re doing yourself a disservice.
2. Lean Startup: This is a term coined by Eric Ries, and a really good book in it’s own right. Conceptually, we should do everything we can to “show” a final product, and then let the market tell us if we got it right.
3. Grounding Straps: Curt gives a great example of grounding straps, telling us how with a few pictures, a couple of videos, and a configurator, companies are able to offer diverse made-to-order products without maintaining huge inventory.
4. The Way It’s Always Been: Anyone who has read this blog knows how much I abhor this principle. Here in our new COVID-19 reality, doing things how they’ve always been done is a self-inflicted death sentence for our businesses. We can choose to change, grow, and find new opportunities… Or we can choose to die and fail. 

Read more about that: Insert blog post here.

Have I convinced you yet? Good! Go buy Curt’s eBook, it’s worth its weight in gold:

Still looking for more guidance from the expert himself? Connect with Curt and if he can’t help you, I’m sure he can point you in the correct direction. Looking for something that isn’t quite eCommerce, be it a product, a project, or initiative? As always, you can reach out to me [email protected], and I’ll see if we can find a way to work together. 

I’ve got a couple more book reviews coming down the line, but if you want to hear more of my thoughts on this specifically,  please drop me a comment and let me know.