Book Review: Raving Fans

Side Reading: Raving Fans

While not part of the Personal MBA reading list, I recently attended a conference, hosted by my company, which focused primarily on Professional Services. As part of the theme of the event, all attendees received a copy of "Raving Fans" by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles.

This book might spark a few ideas for your business, however don't expect too much because the authors unfortunately fail dive deeply into any one topic. The book can be distilled down into 3 interrelated points:

• Decide what you want: Define your vision of your company's relationship with the customer.
  
• Discover what your customer wants: Figure out what your customer really wants
  
• Deliver the vision, plus 1 percent: You customer needs are most likely not static, so you need to consistently improve to maintain your lead

This is all fairly elementary, however it is the kind of stuff that we often take for granted. While I would not necessarily recommend this book to a friend, I would recommend as part of an introduction to the service business course.

Personally, I would have been disappointed overall, however our week long conference ended with a guest speaker from Ken Blanchard's consulting company which really let the material become more personal.