The 10-Second Internet Manager: Survive, Thrive, and Drive Your Company in the Information Age

by Mark Breier, Armin A. Brott Narrated by Mark Breier

Overview

All managers today are Internet managers, whether they're ready to admit it or not.**It doesn't matter if their business is large or small, old economy or new. In a faster, electronic, and more direct economy, every manager needs help. And here it is. The 10-Second Internet Manager offers quick, no-nonsense tips, tactics, and strategies for succeeding fast in the Internet age from Mark Breier, an on-line expert willing to share the practical lessons he learned as an executive on the front lines of the e-commerce wars.

The 10-Second Internet Manager will show you how to improve productivity and accelerate growth. You'll learn how to use e-mail to keep everyone connected (and when to get up from your desk and go have a talk); how to use the Internet to get a quick customer response to your product, your plan, or even your business model; how to build teams now and how to make sure they're moving forward instead of just around; and how to make effective meetings produce results that contribute to your bottom line.

Best of all, Breier offers proven methods for finding, hiring, and keeping the best and fastest employees -- the ones who can make or break a manager's efforts. And, for all those folks who are jumping into the deep end of the pool -- launching their own dot-com ventures -- Breier even offers advice on the care and feeding of venture capitalists and the joys of 24/7 exhaustion.

The One-Minute Manager changed the world by showing managers how to get the most out of a minute. But in an Internet-speed economy, who has a minute to spare? The 10-Second Internet Manager shows you how to launch your team or your company into the Internet age.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Shaving 50 seconds off the standard Kenneth Blanchard set in his 1982 bestseller, Brier offers "a nice, thin book... about what I've learned in my years of running full-throttle in the fast lane of the I-way. It's a road, sadly, where my old friend The One Minute Manager would probably be found facedown with tire tracks up his back." An e-commerce consultant, Breier has served his time in the Internet salt mines as director of marketing at Amazon and CEO of Beyond.com. He understands how the Internet's "mind-boggling pace" has transformed business, and he also knows firsthand that customers want more, better, faster. Though somewhat flippant, Brier's seven tenets--act fast and act smart; e-mail morning, noon and night; make feedback your friend; make your meetings effective; etc.--are sound principles for any competitive business. His advice is particularly good when it clearly comes from his own experiences. For example, he suggests having "power coffees, not power lunches or breakfasts." Meeting over coffee may be in keeping with the recent trend toward lighter meals, but the real benefit is that "you can have three or four power coffees in the time it would take you to do one breakfast or lunch." Breier also recommends that managers check their e-mail several times a day and respond to it quickly, whether replying directly to the sender or by forwarding the message to someone else. Perhaps his most useful tidbit is to clearly spell out the subject of each e-mail to insure an immediate response (e.g., "the future of our relationship"). Filled with snappy tips and a perceptive overview of how successful online companies operate, this is sure to become one of the more popular takes on management in today's Internet economy. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Business 2.0

The books ideas about customer service and employee feedback are creative and easily implemented. The authors also offer solutions to positioning your company on the Web. This is not simply a book of rules, however, it's more like advice from a big brother.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169241693
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	09/05/2000
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

I do everything fast. I think fast. I talk fast. I play fast. I make decisions fast. I always have. Then I came to work in and run an Internet company, the fastest—and fastest-changing—thing around. That meant I had to hire fast, buy companies fast, change strategies fast, put out fires fast, and push people to do things they never thought they could—and to do them faster than they ever could have dreamed.

When I was first out of college, I remember picking up a book called The One Minute Manager. I liked it a lot. I was running my own business, a party- and event-planning company called Amazing Events. We did things like arrange for a chorus of tap-dancing pickles to greet the U.S.S. Coral Sea, courtesy of the admiral's wife. Or, as a corporate party gag, chip a golf ball into a board meeting, then send a golfer, a caddy, a television announcer, and a course marshal in after it.

But back to The One Minute Manager. I was really impressed with the book's simple, commonsense approach (and given its enduring sales record, I'm clearly not alone). Over the years I've recommended the book to lots of people. But recently I was telling a colleague about it when I suddenly realized I'd completely forgotten the details of the book's message. I could still remember the main points: that managers can and should act quickly and at the same time value their people. But the subtleties had faded from my memory. I decided to reread the book.

I ordered a copy and enjoyed a pleasant surge of nostalgia as I held the familiar, compact volume in my hand. But within minutes of starting to read, I found myself getting incredibly impatient at the author's leisurely strollthrough the book's key points. Frustrated, I put the book down. Working in the Internet world had so completely rewired my mind that I'd actually believed The One Minute Manager was a book I could read in one minute. The problem, I realized, is that the way things are going these days, it's hard for me to find a free minute.

Internet companies expand at a mind-boggling pace. They're full of super-motivated people who generate three times as many ideas as any company could possibly handle. Internet customers demand more and better and faster every single day, and companies are trying to build and maintain a technology war chest in a world where technology is a moving target, evolving every day.

I also didn't have a free minute because I would get dozens of calls, e-mails, letters, and requests every hour: old friends would see me interviewed on television and want to get together; there were invitations to attend Internet conferences and trade association meetings; businessmen from China were coming through town and top media executives supposedly wanted to thank me for advertising on their networks but really just wanted to pick my brain about what is all this Internet stuff anyway? I would get a half-dozen calls a month from someone who wanted to buy us or wanted us to buy them, and it would be impolite of me not to speak with CEOs running Fortune 500-size companies who were gnashing their molars into powder over Internet stock market valuations. And then, of course, there were the reporters, politicians, nonprofit groups, and business school students who wanted to set up interviews.

Sometimes they wanted juicy insights about Amazon.com, where I used to be vice president of marketing. Sometimes they wanted feedback on the deal du jour making the headlines that had to do with Internet stocks or software wars. But the majority of the time they would want to know: What's the secret of being an Internet CEO? What's the Internet going to look like in six months? How can they get a copy of the secret to-do list that will enable them to finally jump off the Old Economy steamer and kick up some spray in an I-way speedboat? In short, they wanted to know where they can get some magic dust. You know, the stuff you add water to, stir, and—poof!—you've got a popular Internet company.

Believe me, if I could give them some, I'd do it in a heartbeat; it would save me a lot of time. But starting and running a successful Internet company isn't about secret lists or magic dust. The new economy requires new skills and new mind-sets. At the same time, though, the stunning successes of Amazon.com, eBay, AOL, and others were based on classic business execution: caring about customers, serving needs, and building brand loyalty. The difference is that it all has to happen at warp speed.

So here's a nice, thin book—the closest thing I have to magic dust—about what I've learned in my years of running full-throttle in the fast lane of the I-way. It's a road, sadly, where my old friend The One Minute Manager would probably be found facedown with tire tracks up his back. It's a fate the book certainly doesn't deserve: I agree completely that the best minute a manager can spend is with people. But what do you do when you don't have a free minute? That's why you need to learn to be The 10-Second Internet Manager.

In truth, we really could have left "Internet" out of the title and called this The 10-Second Manager. Industry evangelists are fond of saying lately that success in business isn't about being the smartest or having the best technology (although that certainly won't hurt). More than ever before, success is about speed. It's about thriving in a world where things are changing at the speed of light. And that rule applies to every business. So whether you're running a company that's based in cyberspace or firmly anchored in bricks and mortar, or whether you're about to go public or you're the head of the PTA at your kids' school, The 10-Second Internet Manager will give you the tools you need to act smart and act fast.
The Magic Dust

Here's what The 10-Second Internet Manager will teach you. If you don't have time to read the rest of this introduction, just read the stuff in boldface.

1.Act fast and act smart. Your edge against bigger and better-funded competitors is speed. Use it or lose everything. If you're going to do this, though, you're going to have to learn to "will" your company forward, shaving time off every task possible.

2.E-mail morning, noon, and night. Talk in between. E-mail is the oxygen of the Internet. But used badly, it can smother recipients and slow down an entire company. Using e-mail effectively is what separates the savvy manager from those who don't get it.

3.Make feedback your friend. The biggest problems most businesses suffer are from not listening to customers, not focusing on customer service, and not working hard to understand what customers want. Appreciating customers is one of the secrets to marketing success—whether on the Internet or anywhere else. The Internet offers tremendous opportunities to solicit and receive customer feedback. But ignoring it opens the doors to faster-moving, customer-focused outfits who will eat your lunch.

4.Make your meetings effective. Meetings are the bane of many employees' work lives: too much time, too much discussion and not enough action, too little respect, too much finger-pointing, too many late arrivers, and too many people who talk too much and don't stick to the point. No manager who wants to succeed in the Internet age can afford this kind of dead-end meeting.

5.Make your brand matter. Building a consistent, recognizable brand image on the Internet is crucial. And creating and securing a brand identity starts with the business proposition itself. To become the authority, the go-to, the "verb" for your category, every decision has to be made with brand in mind.

6.Survive in the investment jungle. Internet CEOs are constantly going through the ritual of pitching to investors who have the power to add and subtract billions to the company's valuation. To succeed in the Internet world you have to know how to deal with the fleecers, the youngsters, the cynics, and the investment gods.

7.        Have fun. Work should be fun, rewarding, and empowering. But over time, obsessed workaholics will burn out. So subdivide your company into impassioned teams, celebrate successes frequently, and build a "work hard, play hard" culture. You'll reap major benefits in energy, creativity, and productivity.

The tips you'll see in each chapter are just the beginning! Visit www.10secondmanager.com to see more tips on how to succeed in the Information Age. Share your own insights with fellow readers.


From the Audio Cassette (Unabridged) edition.

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