The Ten Day MBA: A Step-by-Step Guide to Mastering the Skills Taught in America's Top Business Schools

by Steven A. Silbiger

Overview

An updated and revised edition of the essential and enduring bestseller, incorporating the latest theories and topics taught at America’s top business schools.

In this new, fully revised and completely updated edition of the internationally popular guide, author Steven Silbiger distills the lessons of the best business school courses taught at America’s most prestigious and influential universities, including Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the University of Virginia, to help anyone in any field become more skilled, forward-thinking, and successful in business.

Along with the lasting concepts that have made this book a bestseller, including marketing, finance, and strategy, this fifth edition features sections on:

• Crypto currency
• Artificial intelligence
• The gig economy
• Remote work
• Agile methodologies
• Environmental, social, and governance (ESG)

As well as updated examples and material reflecting corporate culture and economic change.

Accompanied by illustrations throughout, and with research straight from the notes of real students attending top MBA programs today, Silbiger distills these complex topics into accessible lessons—giving you the tools you need to get ahead in business and in life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061793172
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	450
Sales rank:	395,690
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Steven Silbiger, MBA, CPA, is chief marketing officer and co-founder of Top Dog Direct and an expert with a gift for communicating sophisticated financial business issues in the clearest manner possible. More than 650,000 copies of his acclaimed The Ten-Day MBA have been sold to date. A top-ten graduate of the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia, Silbiger lives in Philadelphia and New York with his family.

Read an Excerpt

The Ten-Day MBA 3rd Ed.
A Step-By-Step Guide To Mastering The Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools

Chapter One

Marketing

Marketing Topics:

The 7 Steps of Marketing Strategy Development

The Buying Process

Segmentation

Product Life Cycle

Perceptual Mapping

Margins

The Marketing Mix and the 4 P's

Positioning

Distribution Channels

Advertising

Promotions

Pricing

Marketing Economics

A scene from the boardroom of Acme Corporation:

Director: Every time we do our annual review of our execu-tives' salaries, I cringe when I think that we are paying more to Jim Mooney, our vice-president of marketing fromOhio State, than to our company's president, Hank Bufford from Harvard. I just don't understand it.

Chairman of the board: What don't you understand? With-out Jim's sales we wouldn't need a president-or anyone else for that matter!

Marketers see the world like the chairman of Acme. As renowned Professor Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School at Northwestern teaches, marketing comes first. Marketing integratesall the functions of a business and speaks directly to the customer through advertising, salespeople, and other marketing activities.

Marketing is a special blend of art and science. There is a great deal to be learned in marketing classes, but no amount of schooling can teach you the experience, the intuition, and thecreativity to be a truly gifted marketer. That's why those with the gift are so highly paid. Formal education can only provide MBAs with a frameworkand a vocabulary to tacklemarketing challenges. And that is the goal of this chapter and of the numerous expensive executive seminars conducted by the leading business schools.

The top schools prepare their students for executive marketing positions-in spite of the fact that their first jobs will likely be as lowly brand assistants at large food or soap companies.Therefore, the core curriculum stresses the development of full-fledged marketing strategies instead of the technical expertise needed on an entry-level job out of MBA school.

Numbers-oriented students tend to view marketing as one of the "soft" MBA disciplines. In fact, marketers use many quantitative or "scientific" techniques to develop and evaluatestrategies. The "art" of marketing is trying to create and implement a winning marketing plan. There are literally an infinite number of possibilities that may work. McDonald's, BurgerKing, Wendy's, Hardee's, and White Castle successfully sell burgers, but they all do it in different ways. Because there are no "right" answers, marketing classes can provide studentswith either an opportunity to show their individual flair, or many hours of frustration as they try to come up with creative ideas. Marketing was my favorite subject. It was fun cookingup ideas for discussion. My B-school buddies still kid me about the time I proposed to the class that Frank Perdue introduce a gourmet chicken hot dog.

The Marketing Strategys Process

The marketing process is a circular function. Marketing plans undergo many changes until all the parts are internally consistent and mutually supportive of the objectives. All aspectsof a proposal need to work together to make sense. It is very easy to get one part right, but an internally consistent and mutually supportive marketing plan is a great accomplishment.It's a seven-part process.

1. Consumer Analysis

2. Market Analysis

3. Review of the Competition and Self

4. Review of the Distribution Channels

5. Development of a "Preliminary" Marketing Mix

6. Evaluation of the Economics

7. Revision and Extension of Steps 1-6 until a consistent plan emerges...

The Ten-Day MBA 3rd Ed.
A Step-By-Step Guide To Mastering The Skills Taught In America's Top Business Schools. Copyright © by Steven Silbiger. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.