I read this book when it first was published; I must have been in high school at the time. After all these years--20? 30?--I'm still laughing!

As events would transpire, Mr. Della Femina and I ended up living in the same town. Okay, so maybe I live here and he owns it. My favorite reading in this town is the column that Jerry writes for the weekly newspaper...which he happens to own. I usually make copies of this column and send it to friends. Believe me, we all howl.

Considering his prominence in the place where we both live, there's not a month that passes that I don't tell somebody about this book. It was as interesting as it was funny, a primer on the advertising industry written by a man of integrity. (Did you hear the one about the time he got arrested for displaying pumpkins in front of the gourmet shop he owns? Seriously, folks....) Very simply, I think that Jerry Della Femina is a genius. Of course, I give Jerry full credit for the title of this memoir, both the way he crafted the phrase and the sentiment behind it.

A dear friend was doing a very important business deal with a prominent Japanese firm. He and his wife invited me to dinner to help entertain the company's rep on his trip to NYC. After they had invited me, they remembered my enthusiasm for this autobiography. Then, they started to worry that I was going to tell the client (who spoke perfect English) all about Jerry's book. They prevailed upon me to exercise restraint. It was difficult, but I held my tongue.

There are some books which, as a reader, one just can't understand why a publisher would let go out of print. As far as I'm concerned, WONDERFUL FOLKS heads my list.

Like the reviewer above, I read this book when I was in college and it's one of the reasons I'm an advertising copywriter today. Great anecdotes and the story of modern advertising during its formative years. I must have read this book some five times. Della Femina and George Lois are my heroes (Alas, Lois' The Art of Advertising is also out of print).

Jerry Della Femina claims advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. While I might dispute THAT statement a bit (I've been making similar claims about my own profession, journalism), Della Femina does make his point eloquently and elegantly. The book reads as if you were sitting in the room with the author and listening to him sharing great stories with you, and with you only. I have known most of the insides before, but still, the read was absolutely hilarious. And while I was laughing I almost didn't realize there is a serious message behind all this. What message? Read it and find out for yourselves.

Four months ago I was researching the powerful but totally underutilized marketing concept known as "word of mouth" on the Internet when I happened to land on Silverman's WEB site... He talked about the importance of "decision acceleration", speeding the sales decision making process, as a way of selling more and dominating your market. He talked about how this is done. I said to my self, "This is powerful stuff, I need to know more." I never heard of decision acceleration before but it totally made sense. I knew speed was vital to the success of many things from race car driving to computer processing to increasing the speed of flow of money in business. Why not accelerate the decision making process in the sales cycle? Silverman is on to something. I want to increase the sales decision velocity in my business and make more sales. I need to know how.

His WEB site told me a book on the subject was soon to be released and I could order it at Amazon.com. I didn't know exactly how word-of-mouth fit in to sales decision acceleration, but they were both things I need to know more about. I ordered the book immediately. I had to wait four months before it was released but the wait was worth every minute. I consider it the best book on the subject of word-of-mouth on the market today and I have read every word-of-mouth book currently in print. It is the only book I can hand to a business owner and say, "This is all you need to set up and run your own powerful word-of-mouth machine" This is very important because almost every business owner in the country will agree word-of-mouth is the most powerful form of marketing there is, but 95% of them do not have a clue how to set up and run a word-of-mouth program. Word-!!of-mouth is something that happens to them. They see it as a result, they don't understand how to set up and control the process. I have talked with hundreds of business owners and marketing managers on the subject. I know whereof I speak. Trust me, they don't know. If you want to set up a powerful word-of-mouth machine in your business, this book is for you.

Chapter 1 is entitled "Dominating Your Market by Shortening the Customer Decision Cycle". The decision acceleration aspect of the book makes it doubtfully powerful. I work exclusively with manufacturers. For them the decision making process, the decision to buy and try their product, takes anywhere from 3 months to a year to complete, and sometimes much longer. Of the average sales decision time in your company could be cut in half, you would double your marketing efficiency and you would sell twice as much product. Yes, you will sell a lot more, even if the ratio of yes to No decisions stays the same, which it won't if you apply the information in this book. The ration of Yes to No decisions will improve automatically just by increasing the speed of the decision.

Silverman's book will be important to my success even if I never apply one word of it to my own business. You see, I own a publicity firm which generates news articles and feature stories that support and increase word-of-mouth, among other things. I have a small potential market, since most business do not have a real word-of-mouth program or know how to build one. I deal with a very small group of enlightened business owners. If Silverman's book is read and applied broadly, it will expand my potential market tremendously. For selfish reasons I hope it becomes a best seller. Broad application of this book will also make the sales marketing process simpler and more efficient for anyone with a valuable product. So, for purely humanitarian reasons I hope this book becomes a best seller.

The information on how to increase the sales decision velocity alone is totally worth the price of the book. The word-of-mouth material in the book is the best I've ever seen. Buy the book. Apply the information. You will thank me and you will thank George Silverman.

It may be the case that this book is for an intermediate practitioner, as the anecdotes about different campaigns provide nice fodder for one's own ideas about pr. However, it ultimately falls short because there is little detail about the execution of each campaign. For example, in a multi-year campaign, exactly what did they do, whom did they contact, what did they say? Who said no and why? What did the press releases say? More disturbing than the glaring lack of sample press materials, the chapter that describes how further to make PR work for the clients is especially light on content. It seems aimed more at potential pr clients and not so much at a studying pr practitioner. This, of course, is in itself a brilliant pr move; while not advertising for the author's own service, it does build the perception of need in the potential client who may buy the book. If that is the case, then I am looking forward to Mr. Saffir's next book with more focus on specific technique behind the smart ideas.

Excellent book. It shows interesting PR-concepts that have been applied in the past. The books focuses rather on the concept and on the interdisciplinary interplay with other disciplines such as marketing, sales etc. It doesn't touch the down-to-earth work that's behind all the successes.

This is food for the practitioner at an intermediate level. Packed with case studies, experiences and real life tips, it shares valuable vision and opinions to help define the P/R discipline. Like a mentor, Saffir gives steps to mesh your P/R effort with any corporate structure and attitude. This book is not meant to cover all parts of P/R but has more meat and less fat than most.