I have heard these questions hundreds of times over the seven years I’ve spent teaching Effective Product Marketing – which companies are market-driven? Or the one that’s harder to answer – how can I convince my sales and development-driven company that we need to change?

I can finally point to the book that answers both of these questions. Ten days from now, on Friday, June 27, bookstores will begin shipping “Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs.” The authors are my friends over at Pragmatic Marketing, Craig Stull (CEO/founder) and Phil Myers (President), plus David Meerman Scott, viral marketing strategist and acclaimed author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR. The result is excellent – they balance lots of stories with “pragmatic” advice about how successful companies tune in to the needs of buyers to create and market products and services that people want to buy.

For those of you who want to win over internal stakeholders about the importance of buyer personas, those practices are reinforced throughout Tuned In. Pragmatic also has a series of webinars on Tuned In practices, starting this Friday, June 20, with a session by Kristin Zhivago, author of Rivers of Revenue.

With all of these experts talking about buyer personas, I’m expecting lots of emails and comments about how your company is using them.