A person or a business can do everything right and still struggle to move to the next level simply because it doesn't stand out from the crowd. Sam Horn opens with a great example of this from American Idol. Judge Simon Cowell told an eliminated contestant, "You have a good voice and you're a nice guy. You just didn't do the one thing necessary to go through to the next round. You didn't stand out from the crowd."
How does an average, hard-working person stand out? POP! answers that question with plenty of approaches to help a person be purposeful, original, and pithy. (Notice this makes up POP?) This means whatever you use needs to accomplish its purpose, be different and short, yet meaningful.
The challenge of a how-to book is to teach a new skill and help the reader apply and remember that new skill. Not an easy task. Horn's conversational writing style, coupled with real-life examples and exercises for each covered technique, drills the message in the reader's head for better use and retention.
The book's organization makes it possible to try different techniques and move on when one doesn't work. I didn't feel pressure to read the book in order. The book succeeds for those who want to skip around and those who must start on page 1 and finish on page 256.
Bold headers divide the book's sections for easier scanning and reading. The busiest professional can read one section to learn something new and then read another section the next time five minutes open up.
I've read many articles and tips on how to come up with names, slogans, and other wordy things. Horn introduces a few more creative ways to brainstorm names that I hadn't considered before. One strategy is to try using onomatopoeias. Words like "quack," "bang," and "click" are onomatopoeic words. "Yahoo!" too, but that's not how the founders came up with its name. They used another technique as explained in the book.
We can use these strategies almost anywhere in our personal and professional lives - from making presentations and naming products, companies, and books to marketing and phrases. Seriously, just about anyone can get a bang from this poppin' book.
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