Our Books on Relationship Business

Everyone Is A Customer
Everyone Is A Customer: A Proven Method for Measuring the Value of Every Relationship in the Era of Collaborative Business (Dearborn Trade, 2002) presents a clear and crisp framework for understanding and leveraging every business relationship to its fullest, while allocating resources to those relationships best able to provide mutual strategic and financial benefit.

Download a Book Excerpt
Download an excerpt from Everyone Is A Customer (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader - click here to download). From the book:

"Collaboration is right at the leading edge of a new way of doing business. There's a massive need for education, there's a need for leadership, a need for companies to stand up and build the relationships that will create their vision for the future." - Travis White, Ph.D., former vice president of strategic planning, J.D. Edwards & Co.

"Many companies are realizing that the relentless forces driving collaborative business - customer-driven markets, smarter applications of business technology, and a relentless drive for innovation - are too powerful to ignore, and they're trying to jump in any way they can. Shuman and Twombly's book can give those companies - as well as those that have yet to take the plunge - not only the broad perspectives they'll need to make it work, but also a set of tactical and tangible tools that'll help them measure their progress against their objectives. A significant part of the book's value comes from the authors' refusal to get sucked into specious concepts with no basis in reality, and their insistence on tying new ways of thinking and behaving to measurable, quantifiable success."
- Bob Evans, Editor-In-Chief, InformationWeek, Senior Vice President, CMP Media

"Just when I was beginning to think 'business book' was an oxymoron, Everyone is a Customer lands on my desk. This is the real thing: a substantive, useful guide to rethinking the true value of business relationships. Chapter Three - exploring how to monetize all of your company's relationships - is worth the price of admission all by itself." - George Gendron, Editor-In-Chief, Inc.

"As the web of the extended enterprise increases in complexity, managers and entrepreneurs need more than good instinct to conduct business relationships profitably. Everyone Is A Customer provides a smart, practical framework and tools that we can use today for measuring and extracting fair value from the relationships we rely on to meet our business goals." - Gregory K. Ericksen, Global Director, Entrepreneur Of The Year, Ernst & Young

"In an era of uncertainty, economic turmoil and global unrest the greatest asset of any business or business person is the Relationship. Rich in ideas, tactics and actions Everyone Is A Customer delivers a clear and crisp framework for understanding and leveraging every business relationship to its fullest. Jan and Jeff have become masters of effectively communicating the essentials of business success and choreographing the road map to business opportunity." - Thomas M. Koulopoulos, President, Delphi Group, Author of X-economy

Collaborative Communities
Collaborative Communities: Partnering for Profit in the Networked Economy (Dearborn Trade, 2001) explains in detail how to build the seamless alliance of competencies best able to satisfy today's knowledgeable and powerful customers. The Collaborative Community is the value creation process for a networked economy.

"Simply put: you can't go it alone. So tear down your old ways of business thinking and get set to team up with your most powerful collaborator yet: your customer. Collaborative Communities provides a clear-eyed roadmap for the next phase of the networked economy."
- James Daly, Editor In Chief, Business 2.0

"The book's understanding of how to build and run a truly customer-oriented business has been a staple in our culture and the basis for our success."
- Eliot Tatelman, President, Jordan's Furniture, a division of Berkshire Hathaway

"Collaborative Communities provides a deep insight into the implications of technology on business models in the 21st century without dragging you through the nuts and bolts of technology. It's well done and a great read."
- George Conrades, Chairman and CEO, Akamai Technologies, Inc.

The Rhythm of Business
The Rhythm of Business: The Key to Building and Running Successful Companies (Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998) introduces the systematic approach to developing intuitive thinking and applying the natural, iterative development process all businesses and all entrepreneurs go through to succeed.

"Simply revolutionary! The Rhythm of Business is one of the rare business books that understands the soul of a revolutionary idea."
- Faith Popcorn, Author, EVEolution: The Eight Truths of Marketing to Women

"Many of the other books on this subject have been written in a manner twice removed from the reality of how business creation actually happens. Shuman, by contrast, really knows directly how it works, and communicates that in an engaging, easy-to-read, and highly energizing fashion."
- Adrian Slywotzky, Author, How Digital is Your Business, Vice President, Mercer Management Consulting

"Jeffrey Shuman has taken what was once the realm of instinct and intuition and put it in a framework that anyone can understand and follow. … Very few business books deliver on what they promise. The Rhythm of Business is one of those few."
- Judy George, Chairman & CEO, Domain, Author, The Intuitive Businesswoman