BY RICH BROOKS
There are business books that teach you how to balance your ledger, hire the right people, and manage your cash flow. These aren’t those books.
These are the books that open your mind to new ways of doing business. Take a look at these 13 mind-blowing business books and add your own suggestions on what was left out.
Having never taken a business class in college I find that I read and listen to a lot of business books to round out my education. The books usually aren’t “How to Manage Your Cash Flow” but rather get me to rethink the way I run my business, which–despite no business classes or diploma–continues to be in business 13 plus years after I started it.
In that time, here are 13 of the books that had the biggest impact on how I run my business :
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink: If you supervise anyone in your business, this book is a must read. It shows that what science knows about motivation, business isn’t putting into practice. In fact, many of the incentives we create can actually de-motivate our employees. If you create an incentive program that provides financial rewards for work that your employees already enjoy, expect the results to be negative. You’ve just destroyed their internal motivation. Also important (and well documented within the book) is that internally motivated people succeed more often than externally motivated people; they last longer and do better work. Think about that when you’re hiring your next employee.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip & Dan Heath: This is an essential read for anyone not in a managerial position. In fact, this is a book that targets people who can’t force others to change their way. With an easy-to-understand and implement model of the rider, the elephant and the path, the Heath brothers do it again by showing us how to motivate people who can’t be forced into action. There are great examples in the book from the world of commerce and non-profit work. If you have to deal with clients (and who doesn’t), this book shows you how you can influence them to behave in a desired way if you engage the “rider” (intellect), the “elephant” (id or emotion), and make the “path” as clear and easy to follow as possible.
Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan & Julien Smith: There are plenty of social media books that are out-of-date before they even hit Amazon or your local bookstore, but Brogan & Smith avoid this trap by talking more about strategy than specific platforms…something that will continue to provide value as long as people are doing business with people, no matter what the medium is.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: Talk about timeless, there are few books that have the shelf-life (no pun intended) of Dale Carnegie’s classic. I mean, with all the recent talk about the importance of influence, I’m surprised this book isn’t quoted from more often. For years I avoided this book, thinking it was out-of-date and held little insight into the modern world. However, it’s the only book on this list I’ve read and listened to the audiobook (twice.) There’s not a business person in the world who wouldn’t be more successful by picking up How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin: This book literally changed my life and the way I do business. I didn’t really know who Seth Godin was (although I recognized his bald head) when I downloaded this book off Audible, but I still remember when I fired it up for the first time on my iPod as I mowed the lawn that day. My neighbors must have thought I was crazy with the number of times I slapped my forehead in a moment that was a mash-up of “of course,” “how obvious”, and “why didn’t I realize that before.” It’s driven the way we market our own company and how we help other companies reach their audience.
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presenting Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds: This is the book that I’ve read most recently, and I’m glad I did. I can’t remember which of the many business books I read referenced/recommended this book…I believe it was mentioned a couple of times. I received it while I was in the middle of giving the same presentation in a series of marketing lectures over 5 days. I promised myself I wouldn’t look at it until the series was over, because I was afraid it would cause me to change my presentation. Boy, was I right. I broke my own rule and ended up working in the hotel room until past 2 in the morning revamping my presentation as much as I could, and getting up a 6 the next morning to practice the new version. For anyone who has to present any information before a group and has been using PowerPoint or Keynote as a crutch, grab a copy of this book.
Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner: Okay, I’m cheating: these are two books. However, if you’ve read them, they’re both basically the same: they pull in different examples to show how people respond to incentives, but not always in the way we expect. These books work well with anything written by Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink or Chip & Dan Heath. However, as I read them, I was constantly making notes on what our company was offering to prospects and even current clients in the way of incentives (planned or otherwise), and whether they were having the intended results. I think the books are eye-opening in terms of forcing us to take a closer look at how our offerings affect our customers, vendors and employees.
The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century by Thomas L. Friedman: This book had been given to me by a customer of mine and it sat on my shelf for over a year. It looked boring. It looked like it was geared towards big business. I don’t know what made me give in and take the plunge, but after the first chapter I was hooked. Friedman’s guide in India offers to do his taxes. Friedman gently rebuffs the man, explaining that he’s happy with his accountant back in the states. The guide says, “oh, then chances are I’m already doing your taxes.” Once you realizes that U.S. tax returns can be outsourced the world really does become flat. I finished the book that week.
Crush It! Why NOW is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk: Vaynerchuk is a force of nature, and that comes through in this quick read book. Part inspirational, part autobiographical, you can see how in this new era there’s nothing holding you back from success except hard work and leveraging the tools that are at our disposal. Vaynerchuk shows you how to brand yourself no matter where your passion lies: how to create great content, how to distribute that content, and how to succeed. If you’re still struggling with how all this social media “stuff” can help you out, this is the book to pick up.
The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss: According to Ferriss, some of the themes in his book came from reading the World is Flat. There’s an excellent chapter on outsourcing, including a funny bit about a journalist who outsourced his love life (emails and flowers to the wife and such) to India, only to find out they did a better job of managing his relationships than he did. On a more serious note, although I never expect to be working just 4 hours a week, (what would I do with my time), there are great insights in how to fire bad clients, remove mind-numbing drudgery from your day, and free up your time for more creative work and/or play. Even if you only take a fraction of Ferriss’s advice (which is how I played it), you’ll find yourself in a better place.
Shogun by James Clavells: I read once that in a survey of CEO’s favorite business books only one book was mentioned twice: this one. It’s a great read and it does show how leaders can influence/manipulate people to achieve goals.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: In this very influential and even more controversial book, Rand paints a dystopian alternate universe of a world where government regulation has crippled the country and the world. I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say this book rewired my brain in college. Unfortunately, the epic story in this huge tome is somewhat hampered by mediocre writing skills and characters who could only be generously described as two-dimensional.
The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham: I wanted to have at least one book that was dedicated to small business and the entrepreneurial spirit. This last book was in a close race with
Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham. However, The Knack has some priceless stories and advice that can’t be overlooked. It’s a collection of advice and anecdotes on how to start, grow and possibly sell a business by someone who’s been there (and a co-author who helps write his columns.) A lot of these stories have been told before in Brodsky’s column for Inc. magazine, but if you haven’t read them all, this book does a great job of curating them and putting them together in an order that would help any small business owner grow their business.
The beauty of this list is that I get to leave off a whole bunch of mind-blowing business books that you can’t believe didn’t make the list. Please feel free to start all suggestions with “I can’t believe you left off…”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rich Brooks is founder and president of flyte new media, a Web design, and Internet marketing firm in Portland, Maine. His monthly flyte log email newsletter and company blog focus on Web marketing topics such as search engine optimization, blogs, social media, email marketing, and building Web sites that sell.
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