The book "Small Business Marketing Toolkit" by Goldstein is one of those rare books that has essentially distilled all of the key point of marketing and related business into an easy to read and easy to absorb package. I am an entrepreneur and also teach entrepreneurship, and I have begun to refer to the content and approach of this book in both my work and academic lives. It cuts through all of the usual academic chatter and presents the most important points and insights in a clear and unencumbered way. I would highly recommend it to someone looking for these attributes in a book on this topic.

As a professional consultant (strategy, operations and growth) I have seen many young businesses longing for the real-world perspective Beth gives with her exercises and directions. This book provides the small business owner or "owner in startup mode" with a practical, hands-on `how-to-guide' to get their sales and marketing program (the engine for growth) off the ground and running fast. The pragmatic tools in the book and on the CD are an invaluable resource for beginners or those struggling to take their marketing efforts to the next level.

As a Director of Marketing for a small high tech start up firm, I'm always on the prowl for more practical and proven ideas on how to grow our business. I don't have alot of time to research new ideas but I found this book has done the research for me and I can implement some of these programs very quickly.

I found the section on quantifying the "lifetime value" of your customer particular helpful. The author takes you step by step (worksheet provided) on how to calculate the financial value of your current customer(s) and then through the process of calculating what happens if you increase the average value of the sale or frequency of the sale, and it s financial impact on your business. Things you think about but never really analyze on paper.

I also found the chapter on Surveys extremely helpful. The author provides you with everything you need to know about creating a survey (samples and worksheets included) and what to do with the data once you've collected your survey responses. Another reason to stay close to your customer.

This is a terrific book that presents many, many practical and useful ideas in one spot. And I always learn something from many of the stories in the book. The nice thing about this book is that I can implement many of the marketing programs one at a time and not feel like I have to do everything all at once. This has become my "marketing how-to" book and my reference guide.

I really like this work. I believe it's: 1) Practical, and one can apply/use the information immediately 2) Has real-life stories of entrepreneurs 3) Great interviews with experts in the field 4) A strong focus on sales and marketing and how they need to work together 5) An important focus on developing customer surveys...everything you need to know in order to develop your own and make sure the information is valuable and can help you make decisions 6) A CD-Rom is so well designed it makes it really easy to use the information in the book and apply it to your own business...whether it's still a concept or a business you've been running for years 7) A down to earth, easy to read format.

“Beth Goldstein has taken her years of real world experience and put it into a easy to read format. The conversational style mixed with simple frameworks and practical tips make this a must read for any small business owner. Many books for small business owners simply reuse tools for large company marketing- but this book presents examples, market research methods and customer analytics in a language and scale most appropriate for small firm owners. The market plan implementation is definitely a winner. All small business owners should own this practical and useful book.”