THE BOOKS

LESSONS FOR BUSINESS — AND LIFE

Two books drawn from five decades of building businesses, navigating setbacks, and learning what truly shapes a meaningful life.

SUCCESS AND SELF-DISCOVERY

An Entrepreneur’s Memoir of Growth and Transformation

Millions of people are questioning the old rules about work, security, and success. Success and Self-Discovery tells the story of building a business, confronting setbacks, and learning that lasting success demands more than ambition — it demands clarity, resilience, and the willingness to think for yourself.

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WHAT READERS ARE SAYING

★★★★★

Exceptional and thoroughly reader-friendly in tone, style, organization and presentation. An impressive and unique blend of memoir and instructional reference, especially recommended for business management collections and supplemental MBA curriculum studies.

MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

★★★★★

Many people enter the corporate world, hate it, but never leave. Steve isn’t one of them: He chose entrepreneurship, and he shares the stories of his success in these pages. Perhaps his journey will bring courage to strike out on your own.

DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT

Bestselling author of 12 books including The New Rules of Marketing & PR

★★★★★

The lessons Stroum shares from his life and his business processes will be relatable and valuable. I found this book to feel instructive while remaining open and honest about what life actually looks like for someone who has chosen to make their own way.

WRITER’S DIGEST

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PUBLICITY, PERSUASION & LIFE

Practical lessons you can use in business — and in life.

Fifty years of experience. More than 100 thought-provoking essays.

We make important decisions every day. We sell ideas, influence others, judge opportunities, respond to setbacks, and try to distinguish good advice from bad. The better we understand what really drives people, business, and success, the better those decisions become.

Marketing strategist and Wall Street Journal bestselling author David Meerman Scott describes Stroum’s insights as “practical, honest, and hard-earned.”

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Publicity, Persuasion & Life brings together more than fifty years of lessons learned from building a business, advising entrepreneurs, working with hundreds of companies across many industries, and experiencing the successes, failures, setbacks, and unexpected moments that shape a career — and a life.

This isn’t simply a book about publicity or marketing. It is about how influence shapes our businesses, our relationships, our decisions, our everyday lives, and our futures.

Through more than 100 concise essays, Steven M. Stroum explores publicity and marketing, persuasion and influence, entrepreneurship and small business, work and success, personal growth, and the larger issues affecting the world around us.

YOU’LL DISCOVER PRACTICAL LESSONS ABOUT

Getting attention for a product, business, or idea without wasting money
Understanding how marketing, sales, and persuasion influence what we buy and believe
Recognizing opportunities — and knowing when to walk away
Making better business decisions based on experience rather than conventional wisdom
Dealing with mistakes, disappointments, setbacks, and change
Building relationships based on credibility, judgment, and trust
Defining success on your own terms rather than someone else’s
Applying lessons from business to the decisions that shape your life

Getting attention for a product, business, or idea without wasting money
Understanding how marketing, sales, and persuasion influence what we buy and believe
Recognizing opportunities — and knowing when to walk away
Making better business decisions based on experience rather than conventional wisdom
Dealing with mistakes, disappointments, setbacks, and change
Building relationships based on credibility, judgment, and trust
Defining success on your own terms rather than someone else’s
Applying lessons from business to the decisions that shape your life

Some essays offer strategies you can put to work immediately. Others challenge conventional thinking. Some may confirm lessons you’ve learned yourself. And a few may cause you to reconsider something you’ve believed for years.

You don’t have to be an entrepreneur, executive, or marketing professional to benefit from these lessons. If you sell, buy, persuade, negotiate, lead, make decisions, take risks, deal with people — or simply want to make better choices — there is something here for you.

Someone is always trying to tell you what to think and what to do, and Publicity, Persuasion & Life will help you recognize how they are trying to do it and will enable you to make better-informed decisions.

STEVEN M. STROUM