Book review: It's Not Who You Know -- It's Who Knows You

FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm honored to say that I know the author, David Avrin, and that it is my pleasure to review his book. I purchased my review copy (i.e., no galley or comp copy for review) and I think that anyone that knows me, David included, knows that I'm always tougher on people that I know.

This book is about promotion. About tactics and techniques to leverage your brand, your company's brand, yourself to the top of people's minds. David Avrin, the author, says it best: "This book is an unapologetic homage to the power of using creative promotion to attract customers, build your business, and support your families." Ok, he said it better than me.

If you do not have a PR strategy for yourself or your business, this is likely the book for you. However, I will warn you that it is not a comprehensive, step-by-step, spoon-fed, detailed PR strategy guide; I'm sure there are other books for that. What you get with Avrin's book is an easily read, easily consumed strategic basis for a workable PR and marketing strategy.

Avrin covers topics that I found interesting such as representing yourself during air travel (I'm totally guilty of having gone the extremely casual comfort, stick my earphones in my ears immediately route), doing memorable things during conferences and tradeshows, and some interesting tactics for positioning yourself as an expert to the media (did you know that proactive could be a wrong strategy when dealing with the media?). Additionally, for those of you that are unfamiliar with effective web and social networking strategies for promoting yourself or your business and for tracking your web presence, you will find the information in Avrin's book extraordinarily useful.

The idea point breaks in Avrin's book are not big -- I like that. Many business authors feel as though they absolutely have to cram in as much supporting material as possible in between idea points, creating extremely long chapters and, while that is sometimes effective, depending on the subject matter, by keeping the breaks short and the ideas succinct, Avrin's book is easy to read, easy to skip around in, and very easy to use for future reference.

Be visible. That's a big, overriding point in the book and, indeed, why Avrin likely brands himself as "The Visibility Coach". Examples of this range from ideas as simple to producing a large banner to advertise the re-opening of a restaurant to ensuring that you're the one person that actually stands up and asks a question at the end of a presentation/speech when everyone else is sitting, staring at their feet. As Avrin says: "The greatest enemy of success in business is anonymity. Speak up . . . In a flat sea of competitors, it takes very little to stand out and be noticed. Stand out. Be noticed."

There are numerous real-world examples that Avrin ties in throughout the book, but not so many as to be overwhelming -- a few examples to drive the point home and then he moves on to the next point. For those of you that are fans of skipping to the ends of chapters or idea points in the hopes that there is a summary sentence or two, you will be happy to know that each idea point ends with a "The Visibility Coach says:" followed by a short idea point summary.

Thankfully all books are not equally (read the book for more on "All things being equal") and so I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in promoting themselves and their business.

Kindle version available.

Link -- Amazon

Link -- Kindle version

Link -- Visibility Coach main page

PS -- I went to buy some copies of this for some folks today at Barnes and Noble and have come to find that it is mostly sold out in Denver; it is the #1 business book this week in Denver.

PPS -- I'm a proud member of the Homecoming Project and have been for years without actually having a name for it; read the book and join the Project.