Books with author John Weber

The Growth Juice Book was written to help companies of any size to realize continuous growth of sales and profits. This book draws together Dr. Weber's time-tested growth planning principles and tools flowing from 30 years of helping over 200 major firms to achieve more regular, continuous growth of sales and profits. The book is written in ultra-fast, lively fashion, with 70 short, focused chapters including integrated examples, cartoons, and diagrams to help the reader to more easily understand and immediately apply all concepts and frameworks presented.The book starts (Chs 1-20) with fundamental concepts, frameworks and practical planning materials that provide the critical base and perspectives needed by any firm desiring to get on a consistent growth path. The second section of the book (Chs 21-60) is based on the common sense notion that sales and profit growth are achieved one profitable sale at a time. These chapters present a hands-on view of Solution Selling® -- an ultra-effective selling system used for training more than a million sales professionals in large and small companies around the globe. Characters introduced along the way provide a lively, entertaining story-line.The final section of the book (Cs 62-70) shows how to convert one profitable sale at a time into steady overall sales and profit growth. The step by step Solution Selling process enables sales management to continuously monitor the progress of every ongoing selling effort of each salesperson. At any given time, therefore, the sales management team can accurately project overall company sales for the current operating period. Even more importantly, that careful monitoring of individual selling efforts also alerts sales management as to when to feed more leads and both when and how to intervene to help move individual sales efforts forward.Combining the planning perspectives of the first section of the book with the example-focused coverage of the Solution Selling® process presented in the latter sections yields a proven formula for achieving continuous sales and profit growth.

On his thirteenth birthday, Homer learns that he’s an orphan. He was two and a half years old when Aaron and Linda Meiers got him off an orphan train that came through northwestern Iowa from New York City in 1929.Homer was devastated. His entire life he’d always thought that they were his real parents. They’d never given him any reason to think otherwise. Homer knew about orphans. They were kids no one wanted. How could he be one? How could that happen to him?Late the next night, he sneaked into his best friend Jamie Williams’s bedroom, woke and then convinced him to hop on a freight train with him that was going east to New York City on a quest to find his real parents and ask them why they didn’t want him. Jamie thought that was the craziest idea Homer ever had, but Jamie’s bond of friendship with Homer was so strong that he couldn’t let Homer go by himself. Jamie left a note for his parents and the boys walked to the railroad station in town.The boys climbed into a box car on a train that appeared to be going east to New York, but by morning it had turned south to Kansas City instead. When they were arrested by a railroad detective who then tried to assault them, they were rescued by a hobo named Smilin’ Jack who became their mentor and guide to New York. In Ohio, Smilin’ Jack died of a heart attack and Homer and Jamie had to finish Homer’s quest alone. Each step of the way, the boys were helped by a variety of people so that by the time they reached New York City, Homer had discovered what a family was and was ready to return to Iowa to his real family.

In September of 1930, Jamie learns there will be a new boy in the 7th grade at his one-room school in rural Iowa. From the beginning, Sam doesn't fit in and Jamie's best friend Homer immediately dislikes him. Jamie and Sam become friends and Jamie figures Sam seems different because he came from New York City. Jamie talks it over with his Grandpa, who is Jamie's closest confidant. When Jamie, Sam and Homer are caught in a whiteout blizzard and Sam digs a snow cave that saves their lives, they become fast friends. After the storm Jamie's grandpa goes to the hospital for tests and discovers that he has lung cancer and not much time left. After giving Jamie his precious harmonica, he dies on Christmas Eve. Jamie and Sam mourn together for hours that night and Jamie discovers Sam's secret. At Grandpa's funeral, Jamie plays his grandfather's harmonica to lead singing at the service.

Douglas and Scotty Melcher are exploring a mountain meadow in the Gallatin Valley north of Yellowstone National Park. When they’re caught in the open by a severe storm that unexpectedly blows in over the mountains, they desperately run trying to find shelter, but they’re much too far from home. They lean against a huge tree to rest and catch their breath and hear the voice of an old man telling them to come inside. Running around to the back of the tree, they find a triangular-shaped opening at the base of the trunk large enough for them to crawl inside the hollow tree. Safely inside, the tree talks to them so the boys become acquainted with the Ponderosa Pine tree and name him ‘Grandpa P’. While they wait out the storm, Grandpa P takes the boys back to 1932 Vermont where their Uncle Orville and Aunt Thelma teach them how to make maple syrup. They also meet their checker-playing cousin Jamie and his two younger twin brothers Ron and Russ and their huge dog, Bear. The boys enjoy finding out how maple syrup is made and while they do, they learn a great deal about how their Aunt and Uncle and their family get by during the Great Depression. But as the day slips by and it starts to get dark, they begin to worry. How will they find their way back to Montana and their own time?Maple Sugar Moon is the first of a series of novellas chronicling the adventures of Scotty and Douglas as Grandpa P sends them on journeys to different places and times. Each adventure will introduce middle school age readers to science and nature as the boys experience it with their Uncle Orville, Aunt Thelma and their family.

Twelve-year-old Jamie Williams’ nickname is ‘Lucky Thirteen’ because he has twelve older brothers and sisters; seven brothers and five sisters. All of his brothers and sisters had graduated from high school, gotten married and moved away so Jamie was the only sibling living with his mother and father and missed having his sisters around.Jamie’s father had been a coal miner in Kentucky and when he developed ‘black lung’ disease, he moved his family to northwest Iowa and now made a living repairing leather for the farmers’ workhorses in the area. All of Jamie’s brothers inherited their father’s ability to work with tools well, but not Jamie. When his father tried to teach to repair leather, he had one accident after another and his father had to give up. He couldn’t afford the doctor bills.On the first day of class in the fall, Jamie was walking to his one-room school when he heard music coming from the woods on an abandoned farm. When he investigated, he discovered a boy about his age, living in the root cellar and playing a homemade wooden willow whistle. The boy had come from Russia and had been separated from his parents in New York City when they got off the ship. He spoke no English and lived on the streets for months. When he came down with a fever, he was taken to an orphanage to recover. Since he was thought to be an orphan, he was taken to Iowa on an Orphan Train and placed with a farm family who abused him until he ran away.Jamie and Sasha become close friends and Jamie eventually talked Sasha into coming to school with him. There, Jamie discovered that Sasha was artistically and musically gifted. When Sasha came down with the flue, Jamie and his father rescued him from the root cellar and brought him home. While Sasha recovered, he made things that he gave to Jamie and his father and mother. He drew constantly, made wood carvings and things from pine cones, shells and other natural materials. Jamie’s greatest gift from Sasha was the knowledge of his father’s love.Jamie and Sasha grew closer than brothers and Jamie thought he would stay with him permanently, but Sasha wanted to find his parents and asked Jamie and his parents to help him. Jamie struggles with the conflict between helping Sasha find his parents or finding a way to keep Sasha with him. Which will Jamie choose?

They’re found in every town; people who just don’t fit in. They’re there, but unseen by the majority of other townspeople. In the summer of 1964, fourteen year-old Raymond William’s small town in the farming country of northwestern Illinois was no exception.There was Bud Barber, an old, old man and World War I veteran who had been gassed in France, damaging his vocal chords. Bud loved to talk, but because of his injury not one word could be understood. A dozen old men lived at the St. Jean Hotel and spent their days looking out the big front window at the railroad tracks. Every summer, the Green Giant canning company brought in black Jamaican farm workers to do the field work in order to can peas and corn grown on local farms. And Emil Zimmer who couldn’t read or write and trotted his red mare around town pulling his homemade wagon as he picked up discarded produce from the grocery stores to feed his menagerie of animals on his tiny farm at the edge of town. Finally, Gordy Jones, a World War II veteran who had received a serious head wound and was now unable to speak and his hands and legs were partially paralyzed and twisted.Raymond had just graduated from eighth grade and was planning to get ready for high school by spending the summer loafing in his tree house. His parents had other plans and arranged for him to work for his Aunt Beulah in her restaurant, Linton’s Café. So every morning and afternoon, he worked in the kitchen of Linton’s Café getting things ready for Aunt Beulah to cook. But from his first day, she gave Raymond hints that there might be something going on in town that she thought was important, but he didn’t know about. After a frustrating few weeks, but with the help of Bud and Emil, the accumulating puzzle of clues finally snapped together and Raymond saw that, unknown to most of the town, the unseen people were working together and being supported by a group led by his Aunt Beulah.When Frank Parker, a city council member and town trouble-maker and bully, tried to upset their system of helping the others, Raymond set out to organize the whole town to stop him. In the process, Raymond learned to see people from his heart for who they really were and not what they did seemed to be.

The Growth Juice Book was written to help companies realize continuous growth of sales and profits. The book starts with concepts, frameworks and practical planning perspectives that provide the base needed by any firm desiring to get on a consistent growth path. All materials presented here have been time tested through the author's growth planning consulting for scores of major firms. The second section is based on the common sense notion that sales and profit growth are achieved one profitable sale at a time. Enter Solution Selling® -- an ultra-effective selling system used for training more than a million sales professionals in large and small companies around the globe. Here the book provides a hands-on detailed review of all dimensions of the Solution Selling® process. Social media is fully integrated into this coverage of Solution Selling. The final section of the book overlays the Solution Selling® process with a sales management system that enables the conversion of one profitable sale at a time into consistent, long term sales and profit growth. Combining the planning perspectives detailed in the first section with the Solution Selling® process and sales management system yields an effective formula for achieving the goals of continuous sales and profit growth. The book is fast moving and easy to read as it features many (70) short, single concept chapters, highlighted by dozens of cartoons exemplifying principles as they are presented. To build and maintain interest, the various components of the Solution Selling® process and sales management system are presented in an actual selling scenario that includes many fun characters introduced along the way to provide a lively, entertaining story-line.

Homer abruptly finds out at age 13 that he's adopted when his gruff father, an Iowa farmer, announces it after dinner one night. Homer is crushed and decides he must find his real family who he learns were in New York City. On his way, he stops to tell his best friend, Jamie, who feels compelled to go along and keep Homer out of trouble. They hop a train and head east, only to run into danger the very next day. Narrowly escaping a brutal demise, they're befriended by Smilin' Jack, a hobo who takes them under his wing. After a series of misadventures and serious scrapes, Jamie falls ill and Homer takes him to the house of their friend Sam, a wealthy girl who had lived in their town but then was sent back East. Sam helps Jamie get the best medical care possible and lends support as Homer traces his origins to a church-run orphanage. As he adjusts to what he learns, his family in Iowa helps raise money for Jamie's experimental care, helping Homer at last know the true meaning of family.

The evils of greed and ambition overwhelm love, innocence, and the bonds of kinship in this dark tragedy, first presented circa 1613. John Webster's great Jacobean drama focuses on a secret marriage that strikes the disastrous spark to an inferno of violence. When the Duchess of Malfi marries Antonio, a household steward, her two fiendishly jealous brothers ― hoping to inherit her title and estates ― plant a household spy whose treachery leads to a bloody and horrifying climax. Often compared to Shakespeare in terms of his dynamic plots and poetic lyricism, Webster created radical, profoundly original works that feature shifting perspectives and thought-provoking challenges to conventional moral judgments. Required reading for courses in seventeenth-century English literature, this provocative masterpiece from the Golden Age of English drama will not only be welcomed by students and teachers of English literature but also a wide audience of general readers.

Jordan Gunn can't swim-at least he can't swim in the cold, dirty lake at summer camp. Fortunately, he meets Nick Dietrich, the waterfront director, who helps him overcome his fears and eventually have enough confidence to pass his swimming test and learn to kayak. Jordan's first relationship with Nick is that of hero-worship. When Jordan helps Nick rescue two of Jordan's friends from the lake at night, Jordan's hero-worship turns into a deep friendship. Later, Nick takes Jordan on his first whitewater kayak trip in northern Wisconsin on the Wolf River. Jordan discovers that it's much harder to kayak on a moving river than on a lake and he is terrified of the rushing water. Early in the trip, Nick is seriously injured in an accident that Jordan thinks he caused. Since Nick can no longer paddle, Jordan must overcome his fears of the water and paddle by himself almost twenty miles to the take-out point to get help to rescue Nick. After Nick is rescued, Jordan must confront his guilt and somehow maintain his friendship with Nick.

The evils of greed and ambition overwhelm love, innocence, and the bonds of kinship in this dark tragedy, first presented circa 1613. John Webster's great Jacobean drama focuses on a secret marriage that strikes the disastrous spark to an inferno of violence. When the Duchess of Malfi marries Antonio, a household steward, her two fiendishly jealous brothers ? hoping to inherit her title and estates ? plant a household spy whose treachery leads to a bloody and horrifying climax. Often compared to Shakespeare in terms of his dynamic plots and poetic lyricism, Webster created radical, profoundly original works that feature shifting perspectives and thought-provoking challenges to conventional moral judgments.