Jack Trout is president of Trout & Partners, one of the most prestigious marketing firms with headquarters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, USA and offices in 23 countries. Jack Trout manages and supervises a global network of experts that apply his concepts and develop his methodology around the world.
The firm has done work for AT&T, IBM, Burger King, Merrill Lynch, Xerox, Merck, Lotus, Ericsson, Tetra Pak, Repsol, Hewlett-Packard, Procter & Gamble, Southwest Airlines and other Fortune 500 companies.
Instrumental in developing the vital approach to marketing known as "positioning," he is responsible for some of the freshest ideas to be introduced into marketing thinking in the last decade.
Jack Trout started his business career in the advertising department of General Electric. From there he went on to become a divisional advertising manager at Uniroyal. Then he joined Al Ries in the advertising agency and marketing strategy firm where they worked together for over twenty-six years.
With Al Ries he co-authored the industry classic, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, which was published in 1980 by the McGraw-Hill Book Company and subsequently by Warner Books in paperback.
In 1985 Jack Trout and Al Ries wrote a second best-selling book entitled Marketing Warfare. Positioning and Marketing Warfare are now published in 14 languages. In 1988 Bottom-Up-Marketing was published. It became very popular as the "process" book as it completed what has become known as the "Trilogy" of marketing books.
In 1993 their book, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing quickly became the marketing bible. It outlined the basic reasons why marketing programs succeed or fail in the competitive nineties. Jack Trout closed the circle with the sequel to Positioning in 1995. Entitled The New Positioning it takes the world's No. 1 business strategy to a new level. It became a Business Week best-seller and has already been translated into 16 languages.
This was followed by The Power of Simplicity - A Management Guide To Cutting Through the Nonsense And Doing Things Right. It is a candid, unvarnished look at the foibles and complexities of business that get in the way of good decisions. This was followed by Differentiate or Die - Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition. It presents the keys to survival in a killer global economy. Up next was "Big Brands Big Trouble: Lessons Learned The Hard Way" published by John Wiley & Sons. This was followed by "Trout on Strategy" which was his book designed to bring CEO's up to date.
His latest book due out in the fall of 2008 is "In Search of the Obvious. The Antidote for Today's Marketing Mess".
Trout has done a wide range of seminars and lectures all over the world. They range from one-hour to one-day. And they can be tailored to match your requirements.
1. Positioning around the world.
This tracks "positioning stories" from countries all around the world and lays out the rules of marketing in terms of dealing with the minds of your customers and prospects. The mind is the ultimate battleground in all marketing wars.
2. Differentiate or Die.
This shows how you can and cannot differentiate yourself in our age of killer competition. A very popular lecture, it demonstrates that every product and service can be differentiated if you are willing to focus and sacrifice.
3. Marketing Warfare.
This presents the strategy of dealing with the competition in a highly competitive world. It lays out the strategic square and the four different types of warfare: Defensive, offensive, flanking and guerrilla.
These are presented in a PowerPoint format and include a number of case histories, which he attempts to tailor to the audience.