Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream: The Scoop on Increasing Profit by Differentiating Your Company Through Strategy and Talent

I had to read this book for school and figured it would be just another boring required book to read but I actually really liked it! I have suggested it to many people who own their own business! It not only covers all the topics well, it has an example to follow along with throughout the entire book to show how to implement everything it teaches! I would suggest getting to know the characters names right away or you will be confused later in the book...take notes if you need to. It seems like in the beginning you won't need to know them to understand the example story but you do. I would HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone who owns their own business!

I really enjoyed reading this book and learning about Steve's suggestions about how to grow and develop your business through differentiation. The free assessments that are provided in the book are extremely beneficial. Steve recently came in and spoke to our class and helped us to interpret our assessment results, and it was tremendously beneficial. I now feel like I can understand myself better and how I best operate in a business or team setting. This book is a great investment and the assessments are definitely worthwhile!

I am a believer and have purchased many copies to share with my clients as gifts. Steve and his The Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream process is like no other because it offers organizations an approach to wrap their talent around their strategy. I have seen first-hand the impact of implementing both of these key fundamentals and how it has increased sales and profitability in several organizations.The process works! I continue to refer Steve and his team into my clients as a tremendous resource for the success of their business.Diane Biersteker, President/OwnerHuman Resources Consulting, LLC

Really clear and helpful book with lots of great ideas. Plenty of practical tips to increase effectiveness of any business.

So helpful! The assessment was right on the nose and cleared up a lot! Learned a lot from this book! Highly recommend!

Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream is a practical guide to creating the best organization possible. It is insightful, easy to read, and will help your company grow!

I didn'l like it. Reading this book is like if you were reading a consulting brochure!!! Some references and nothing more

You must differentiate yourself from your competitors; in order to thrive in good times and bad, you must go beyond the regular, expected offerings that everybody else in your business has, according to Steve Van Remortel in this book. If your clients see no difference between your offerings and those of your competitors, you will be left competing on price.The author's strategic planning process revolves around five fundamental features:* Differentiation: Deliver what the author describes as a "competence", which consistently makes your customers choose you over your competitors* Tangible value: Consistently reinforce the tangible value, in dollars, that your competence delivers to customers* Talent management: Have a system for identifying, selecting, developing and retaining the skills sets necessary for delivering your competence* Tactical/departmental plans: Develop action plans for each department of your organisation* Plan execution: A plan execution program ensures the accountability and discipline necessary to bring plans to realityAccording to the author, fewer than 10% of organisations that develop an annual business plan are able clearly to define how they will differentiate themselves from competitors. Is it even possible for most businesses to differentiate themselves? The ones that try often make spurious claims to being the "best" or "most experienced" in the district/state/world, often supported by reference to "awards" won. But what clients and customers are really seeking is something that will be of value to them, because the goods or services are provided in a uniquely helpful way.Most businesses give up on the idea of finding a true point of differentiation, just as most businesses that do formal planning fail to execute the plans in an accountable manner. Nonetheless, some firms do manage to achieve a clear and sustainable differentiation, leading to significant profitability. This book provides a helpful process for identifying a unique organisational "competence" and using that as the basis of strategic planning. A lot of research, creativity and soul-searching is still required, but the author's process helps to make the steps manageable.The book has a companion website which provides numerous worksheets and resources that can be used in the strategic planning process, including some online behavioural and skills assessments that are available free to purchasers of the book and can be used to help team members better understand and interact with each other.While I did not find the book to be an irresistible page-turner, and many of the steps involved in the author's process are pretty much the same as those in everyone else's strategic planning process, I think there are sufficient unique features of the book, particularly in the area of identifying a unique organisational "competence" as a basis for differentiation, to make the book a very worthwhile purchase for organisational leaders, and there is compelling value in the free extras available via the companion website.

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Great Book. Very praktical. Steve Shows how to Combine Strategie wirh Talentmanagement for longterm SUCCESS in every Company.Steve is also a professionell speaker. !