The Hero Business

Imagine your office, bitten by a radioactive spider.That's The Hero Business, a comic chronicling the day-to-day adventures of an agency that caters exclusively to superheroes (and their super-egos). In season three, all the power plays come crashing down! Can the staff put a pin in their personal problems long enough to defeat the final boss? This collection features eight storylines, guest comics, secret sketches and more!

Lying in the field behind my grandfather's house in the Hill Country, one hot summer night, I waited on his get-home whistle. It might've seemed late to a ten-year-old, but probably wasn't more than an hour after sunset. Lying on the ground, my battered hat for a pillow, I searched the sky for any of the constellations I'd seen in the book my grandfather'd carried out from town. The charts printed on the crisp pages couldn't begin to describe the mass of lights above me, no more than the swirling green constellations of the last of the season's fireflies blinking through the tops of the grass...Lying behind my grandfather's house, over thirty years ago now, watching the stars wheel across the sky, I felt at peace with the world. In all fields since, from elephant grass in Vietnam to scrubby deserts in New Mexico, covered in mud & dust & the blood of friends and enemies, rained on & fired on & shit on, in rice paddies & cotton fields & mine fields, I've never had that feeling again...

A young boy plans to become a hero, and he does--in an unexpected way.

Veteran entrepreneur and former Kodak CMO, Jeffrey Hayzlett knows what it takes to go from zero to hero in a world where every leader, business, and brand is held accountable by their customers and employees. Designed to challenge readers to examine their own values and behaviors, The Hero Factor shines a light on what happens to companies when their values no longer align with their mission and helps them transform their organizations as they learn to live the values they preach.

Most companies today are firmly on the social and environmental issues ‘bandwagon’, like bees around a honey pot, from plastic in oceans through to diversity. As a result, people are increasingly distrustful of these efforts which they view as cheap marketing stunts meant to wow people into buying more. "Try to fly like a superman, and you will come down like a tin of soup." Market economists have long told us that we’re driven only by money and status, but the inherent human truth that cuts across age, culture and gender uncovers a stronger force: we wish to be in charge of our own lives and our own happiness. Through extensive growth and affinity research, world-renowned purpose-pioneer, Thomas Kolster, uncovers a simple answer that is key to driving marketing growth in the 21st century: if you put people in control of the marketing mix, from products to promotion, they can grow and in turn grow your organisation. This book explains the meteoric rise of a company like AirBnB, how a 20-something Swede, Maria de la Croix, built a global coffee empire like Wheelys in just a few years, and how a group of friends hanging out in a bar in Melbourne created one of the largest global non-profits fighting for men’s health, Movember – and how you can empower people to do the same. Today’s power no longer rests in the hands of the privileged few, but in the talented many. It is time for you to unleash that power, in numbers. Drawing on top-line marketing case studies and in-depth interviews, Kolster demonstrates how people are truly motivated to act when they’re in charge of their own life and happiness. ‘Who can you help me become?’ is the one essential question you need to be asking and acting on to chart a new course for your organisation, changing behaviours at scale and unlocking sustainable growth that benefits all.

Fad-Free Strategy provides a ground-breaking approach to making better business strategy decisions: more efficient, open to out-of-the-box opportunities and evidence-based. Most strategy books focus on Grand Strategy, the process that leads to high-level recommendations or, more accurately, hypotheses about where and how to compete. While this book briefly covers critical Grand Strategy practices, it deep dives into Operational Strategy, the process of validation, adaptation and possible rejection of those hypotheses. Operational Strategy is based on an in-depth understanding of customer preferences and anticipating the choices they make. Those choices rather than managers’ ambitions determine whether a strategy will generate the aspired financial results. The book explains, by means of detailed real-world cases across industries, how to generate validated solutions to any strategic problem such as: how to enter successfully into new markets, either as an innovator or as a latecomer? How to defend one’s position against aggressive new entrants? Or how to sustain margins when price is the only thing customers seem to care about? This remarkable book contains expert advice from accomplished strategic advisors and thought leaders Daniel Deneffe and Herman Vantrappen. Fad Free Strategy will be a useful tool for smart business executives at mainstream companies who are disappointed with strategy fads and simplistic solutions based on cherry-picked, anecdotal evidence from today’s hero companies. It will also appeal to economics faculty members teaching graduate courses in business strategy who are looking for an economics-based strategy textbook that is both rigorous and comprehensive. The book’s core ideas have been taught successfully in continuing and executive education programs at Harvard University and Hult International Business School.

New Friday is proud to present The HERO BUSINESS! Bill Walko's critically acclaimed series collected into one oversized format! Imagine your office, bitten by a radioactive spider. That's The Hero Business, a comic chronicling the day to day adventures of an agency that caters exclusively to superheroes (and their super-egos). Because with great power comes great market-ability!

Growing your network with like-minded, successful people -- both at your level and above -- is the single best thing you can do to improve your brand, grow your business, and craft the life you desire.This actionable book will help you not only meet your heroes, but also lay the foundation of a mutually beneficial relationship that lasts.