I’ve just finished reading Chronic Marketer by Brad Gosse. I’ll put my hand up straight away and say it was the cartoons on the sales pages that drew me in. I know, shallow.
Anyway, I ordered the book from Amazon and got stuck in. Brad has a certain, ahem, style. No holds barred and all that. Do not buy this book if easily offended, particularly by swearing. If, like me, you find it adds to the flavour (that’s ‘flavor‘ for US), then fill your boots and buy a copy!
It makes such a refreshing change for someone to be so open with their views, particularly when it comes to marketing online. To give you some idea, chapters include:
- Who’s In Your Corner
- Not Caring What People Think
- Personal Branding
- Train People To Deal With You
(rid yourself of the email curse!) - Dealing With Assholes
- Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Money
There are more ‘traditional’ chapter headings too, such as those dedicated to Outsourcing, Webinars and SEO etc.
It contains some fantastic insights to getting your business to where you’d like it to be and on your terms. I tend to worry too much about what other people might think. Brad makes it clear that you need to do what is right for you, your family and your business.
I won’t publish some of my more favourite quotes here (see comment above re: swearing!) but I did like in ‘Watch Out For Social Media Hippies’:
“There are no shortage of social media hippies with best selling books, huge Twitter following and a great stage presence…” Oh yes.
The singles bar/straight men metaphor in chapter 22 was another laugh out loud moment. For me, at least. 
This isn’t a book if you want nuts and bolts details on each and every topic. This is a book to make you think. It certainly got my brain going! Unusually for me, I managed to read the book cover-to-cover without nodding off once! I’ll certainly be reading again with much more use of my highlighter. Buy it.
