Initial Launch Release

New Book Shows Business Managers, Entrepreneurs,
and Aspiring Entrepreneurs How to "Find the Money."

Jamestown, RI—June 28, 2004—A new book, written by a veteran of roiling technical and consumer marketplaces, reveals a proven step-by-step revenue generation system for people wrestling with falling sales, career changes, and product obsolescence.

Rivers of Revenue will empower those who want to successfully sell their ideas, skills, products, or services. Whether they own a company, work in a company, or are thinking of starting a company, readers will discover Rivers of Revenue to be an educational, energizing, and life-changing tool.

The book's author, revenue generation consultant Kristin Zhivago, is known as a strong, quiet voice, and an expert on customer behavior. "No one is better at understanding how customers think," notes Jeffrey Tarter, editor of Softletter, the IT industry's leading newsletter. For 35 years, Zhivago has been helping company owners increase their revenues in the world's toughest, fastest-moving markets- from technology to travel. As a monthly columnist and contributor to business publications since 1985, she has authored hundreds of articles and is a worldwide speaker on the subject of successful and ethical revenue generation.

Rivers of Revenue revolutionizes the revenue-generating procedure by turning the traditional selling process on its head. Instead of focusing on selling from the seller's perspective, it evaluates selling from the customer's point of view, as a buying process.

"People love to buy things," Zhivago says. "Even during the worst recessions, money is still flowing. The world's banks still process trillions of dollars a day. People always have needs, and they are ready to pay for solutions. The most successful sellers are the ones who make it easy for people to buy what they want."

"Sellers who depend on the usual marketing and selling methods make it difficult for people to buy," she continues. "They are their own worst enemies-because they don't understand what their customers are thinking and doing. They are unable to tell, in advance, which vehicles will reach their customers and which messages will appeal.

"The sellers then become easy prey for fast-talking sales and marketing experts, who are good at selling to sellers, but not good at selling the seller's buyers. They recommend and create campaigns-costing sellers billions of dollars a year-that are mostly ignored by customers searching for that type of solution. When customers do notice the pushy messages, or when they are forced to interact with in-your-face salespeople, they are not encouraged to buy. They are deterred."

A seller following Zhivago's revenue-generating system will allocate appropriate funds in the marketing budget for each step of the buying process, so that no stage is short-changed. First-of-their-kind budget allocation templates in the book will keep business managers and entrepreneurs from wasting precious marketing resources on campaigns that will not increase their sales. "They won't have to guess what will work," says Zhivago. "They will know what will work."

Rivers of Revenue teaches readers how to interview prospective and existing customers so they will reveal what they're looking for, how they look for it, the tradeoffs they're willing to make, the other approvers involved in the decision, the questions they will ask during their buying process, and the level of performance they expect from the product being sold. Readers will learn how to help customers through each step of their buying process. By understanding how to "reverse engineer" a successful sale, they will then be able to "manufacture" sales in quantity.

"When you start with a successful sale and work backwards, your path becomes crystal clear," Zhivago says. "Customers asked in the right way will tell you exactly what they want to buy, the messages that will appeal to them, and how they want you to sell to them."

Zhivago notes that the same principle applies to career advancement. "Before you can meet customer needs, you have to be able to 'sell' your CEO on taking customer-centric action. In a sense, your CEO is your first customer." Zhivago shows readers how to come up with solutions that accomplish the CEO's goals while generating more income for the company. People who satisfy the CEO and the company's customers become respected and powerful players in their organizations.

Zhivago teaches that there are two distinct stages in every buying decision: Desire and Scrutiny. A buyer shifts from Desire to Scrutiny when it's time to stop shopping and actually buy. The dreamy, romantic window-shopper suddenly becomes a flinty-eyed investigator who must be completely convinced that the product or service will meet expectations.

Among the many innovative concepts detailed in Rivers of Revenue is that all products and services can be classified into one of four Buyer Scrutiny categories: Light, Medium, Heavy and Intense. "A product with a simple buying process is a Light Scrutiny product. A complex, high-ticket item is a Heavy Scrutiny product," explains Zhivago. "Each type of product requires a completely different strategy to support the buying process to its completion. If any step of the buying process is unsupported by the seller, the customer will scratch that possibility off the list and continue to look elsewhere."

Anyone with a dream—whether it's the desire to climb the corporate ladder, start a business, create more revenues for an existing business, or simply make the world a better place—will benefit from this book. The perspective and methods described can be applied to any situation where success depends on achieving "buy in" by another human being.

Rivers of Revenue starts out with a short and simple fable about three families living on the River of Revenue, harvesting money every day. One day, the River dries up. How each of them handles this situation provides valuable insight into the right and wrong ways to face a changing market, and sets the stage for the real-world methodology in the rest of the book.

Masterful storytelling ability brings Zhivago's concepts to life in a powerful and illuminating way. Readers will be amazed at the "take away" value of each page in this revolutionary book. They will understand-and be able to implement-methods that bring them financial rewards by meeting customer needs, ethically and cost-effectively.

Rivers of Revenue will be available July 2004 at a price of $24.95. The book is 336 pages.