No B.S. Guide to Brand-Building by Direct Response

The Ultimate No Holds Barred Plan to Creating and Profiting from a Powerful Brand Without Buying It

By: Dan S. Kennedy, Forrest Walden - contributor, Jim Cavale - contributor

Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne

Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are urged to avoid the two biggest branding mistakes they can make - first, investing in building their brand in ways that copycat big-name companies, and second, struggling to build a brand sensitive to everyone and anyone, rather than focusing on those who are spending with them.

Led by Dan S. Kennedy, with the support of Forrest Walden and Jim Cavale, the co-founders of Iron Tribe Fitness, and other marketing/branding vets including Bill Gough, the number-one marketing adviser to Allstate agents; Steve Adams, CEO of a chain of 21 retail stores and an e-commerce business, and Nick Nanton, of the Dicks-Nanton Celebrity Branding Agency, entrepreneurs learn how to develop and gain profit from their personal or business brand-without corporate-sized investment. Mastering Kennedy's branding truths and utilizing proven direct-response advertising and marketing methods, entrepreneurs create their own brand tribe - customers who believe in, buy, and promote their brand.

Truths and tactics are illustrated with case studies, examples and insights from other well-known brands.

©2014 Entrepreneur Media, Inc. (P)2018 Gildan Media

Life and Brand transforming Strategies

The practical Strategies in this Audio will transform your Life, create your Brand and your Legacy if persistently followed by you. 🙂

Great listen

You get exactly what you are told you will get, nothing more, nothing less. Straight to the point, one sided arguments, no fluff.

Book was easy to listen to

Being a sales guy and listening to this book peeled a few layers of the "MARKETING ONION" back for me.

Priceless

Honestly, had to write this review and give it five stars just because it’s worth 10 stars. can I see people who are two unintelligent to understand the basics of what he saying to implement giving these books one stars. just from Dan Kennedy I was able to pull millions of dollars from the Internet by keeping things simple and direct

Racist & Sexist

The information in this book isn't just outdated and irrelevant. Its outright offensive, racist and sexist. Written in a way that only someone from the 1950s would think appropriate. According to Dan Kennedy, it is the white man who faces the most difficult challenges in the business industry and everyone else gets an easy ride.... And that's really just the tip of the iceberg of the problematic things written in this book. It's so cringy. Especially the part where the author advises lying to get sales and admits that that's how he achieved his own "success". This book represents the essence of what unethical bad business is.

Terrible waste of time, this is the epitome of anecdotal BS

I do not know what these positive reviews are listening to. This book is filled with anecdotes without any attempt to abstract the one off successes into principles or systems or even tactics that you can implement in a different context. There are no takeaways, few explanations of jargon, and a smug built in assumption that you’ve read at least half a dozen other “No BS titles”.

The book does provide the strategy of writing a book so you seem like an expert without being one and at least they practice what they preach.

Don't waste your time on this book

I purchased this book under the impression that it was written by Dan. Kennedy, but it was not the case.

Why use few words when many will do?

I agree with the author's premise that direct marketing in the way he suggests is a superior approach. However, what could easily be described in less than three chapters the author turns into War and Peace. While the book provides useful information, getting that information is made painful by dragging the reader through the weeds and endless upsell pitches. This book is itself an advertisment more interested in your next purchase than providing value via the purchase you just made.

Too much B.S.

Maybe I missed something after listening to the whole book, but there isn’t really anything detailed around actionable brand building steps. The author of the book (not Dan Kennedy from what I can tell - but an associate) details some case studies with braid, meaningless pronouncements and an emphasis on Kennedy’s conferences, preferred CRM/SaaS systems etc.
There are better books on branding than this one - don’t waste your time.

Inspiration and Sales but no practical implementation

First, this book is not written by Dan Kennedy. It is written by two gym owners, who have actually in the past years had a decline in business. Their gym model, closely mimics that of CrossFit, they have just branded and franchised it, and their gyms have severely decreased since the writing of this book. There was even a franchise in my city. They close down several years ago. Secondly, it’s story after story of what they did and how Dan Kennedy helped them, but no practical implementation steps on how to do anything. Unfortunately, it’s one of those books that leaves you hanging and hoping the next chapter actually has implementation steps, but it never does. On a good note, I did glean some useful ideas and principles, and the narration is good.