25 Must read books for bloggers who want to succeed (and WHY!)
Being in business can be…well…busy.
Between the whole content-creation, administrative-doing-tasks, paying-your-taxes, marketing-for-sales, executing-awesome-customer-service, and everything-else-oh-my-goodness-that-I-need-to-do-today, you can get swept away.
So busy that you forget to take time for education.
One of the best ways to receive education is by seeking out good, quality, and to-the-point resources such as books or audiobooks. By setting aside a certain amount of hours a week for diving into these low-cost and highly-effective educational resources can catapult your success in business. This list, with the accompanying links, also provides quick tidbits on what I took away from each.
Influence, the classic book on persuasion, explains the psychology of why people say “yes”—and how to apply these understandings. Psychological strategies for maximizing sales and customer services.
Jeff teaches the methodology and process for developing a launch sequence for a product, service, or educational course. This helped me to create a successful and powerful launch strategy for online course enrollments for optimal success.
The Likeability Factor by Tim Sanders
Who doesn’t want to be liked right? Well, this book helped me to learn traits to adopt that allows me to be liked by the people I want to like me, while still qualifying my non-customers ahead of time.
How the World Sees You by Sally Hogshead
Sally Hogshead believes the greatest value you can add is to become more of yourself. I developed a strategy to insert more of me into my business marketing for customer connection.
In studying the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way-and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does. I adopted some of these strategies into my marketing plan and interactions with other influencers.
The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk
The Thank You Economy is the way we communicate, the way we buy and sell, and the way businesses and consumers interact online and offline. It has helped to develop customer service strategies for repeat customers.
Whether you’re selling ideas to investors, pitching a client for new business, or even negotiating for a higher salary, Pitch Anything will transform the way you position your ideas. This has led to high-success in collaborations with other professionals.
Gary Vaynerchuk shows you how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. That’s pretty self-explanatory if you’re reading this!
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
For more than sixty years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this book has carried thousands of now famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. And I can see why! My personal take away was how to handle people – such as customers, other influencers, and interpersonal relationships.
Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders
This book is a bit of a departure from some of the other ones on this list, as it teaches how to be perceived as generous. My thing is, I am very generous in my customer service and life – but often times that generosity isn’t seen. So my goal with this book was to ensure it was seen as an element of my business and personality.
The Laundry List by Rachel Brenke
Shameless plug for my own book but, honestly, I go back to the foundational strategies I teach in this book when I’m becoming overwhelmed and overloaded balancing business and home.
Duct Tape Selling by John Jantsch
Let’s face it, as a small business owner, you are really in the business of marketing. The problem for most small business owners is that they suffer from “marketing idea of the week” syndrome instead of implementing a systematic approach to the problem of small business marketing. This book helped me to scale back on the “many marketing ideas” I constantly have and to get laser focused.
The $100 Startup by Chris Gillibeau
Chris Guillebeau shows you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning, and purpose – and earn a good living. I enjoyed this book mostly because it was filled with case-studies that were less theory and more real life.
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk
When managers and marketers outline their social media strategies, they plan for the “right hook”—their next sale or campaign that’s going to knock out the competition. It is easy to fall into a rut of the same ol’ marketing, this book helped me to remind me to find my “right hook” in my strategy and how to do it methodically.
Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker
Entrepreneurs often suffer from ”superhero syndrome”—the misconception that to be successful, they must do everything themselves. Not only are they the boss, but also the salesperson, HR manager, copywriter, operations manager, online marketing guru, and so much more. It’s no wonder why so many people give up the dream of starting a business—it’s just too much for one person to handle. Chris Ducker hit me in the gut hard and set me up for successful hiring. I was in the market for a full-time employee to manage operations and the rest of the team- he helped me to see how to find this person, as well as what expectations to have.
Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
Book Yourself Solid, Second Edition reveals why self-promotion is a critical factor to success, giving you a unique perspective that makes this guide much more than an ordinary “how to” manual for getting more clients and raising a business profile. This book gave me the confidence to be self-promotional without the worry of being stuck on myself. If I don’t sell myself, who will?
This book introduces startup founders and employees to the “Bullseye Framework,” a five-step process successful companies use to get traction. This framework helps founders find the marketing channel that will be key to unlocking the next stage of growth. This book helped to facilitate the brainstorming method to get to the next stage of growth needed for my business. The process is methodical and led to way more ideas than I can execute but helped to narrow down on a key few to get to that next stage.
What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You’ll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you. As a mom of five, I have this down pretty good but there is always room to be more productive. I took 3 key strategies out of this to maximize time in my day.
Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
This book does exactly what the title says. Gets you thinking, so you can grow to be rich. I was skeptical at first over this financial book but through it I found myself developing a definitive purpose and getting more focused on my path in multiple areas of the business. It also helped me to deal with the adversity of other issues and people in business and life.
“Embrace the importance of now, and refuse to allow the lull of comfort, fear, familiarity, and ego to prevent you from taking action on your ambitions…The cost of inaction is vast. Don’t go to your grave with your best work inside of you. Choose to die empty.” Drop the mic.
Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It – Griffin, Jill
Management consultant Griffin here addresses the failure of the “market share” theory. Presenting case studies-Home Depot’s customer intimacy standard; Sharp Electronics’ sales doctor approach-she stresses the need to develop customer loyalty programs. Griffin deftly examines pricing, value, customers’ purchasing cycles, positioning and targeting to create repeat purchasers. I was seeking ways to bring back purchasers, and she gave a plethora of ideas to implement to get them to come back. And it is working!
Accidental Branding by David Vinjamuri
Accidental Branding tells the story of seven “accidental” brands and how their founders beat bigger competitors by breaking the standard rules of marketing. Successful brands like Burt’s Bees, J. Peterman, and Clif Bar reveal how doing things differently can lead to big-time success. If you’re an entrepreneur or a marketer, this guide will show you how to build stronger brands. While reading this book my brand was already solid, but there’s always faults and cracks in any brand. The real-life case-studies in this book helped to make the theories from this book, and others, more concrete and be developed into a plan.
Made To Stick by Chip Heath + Dan Heath
This book outlines the critical aspects to creating an idea that sticks. My products and services are on an “as-needed” basis but the elements outlined in this book helped to develop ideas to make sure the brand-sticks to become the first-referral on consumers minds.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel (Or the Insta-summary here)
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places. It kicked me in the butt to remind me to do something new, not rehash what has already been done.
It’s Not How Good You Are It’s How Good You Want To Be – Paul Arden
This book provides a unique insight into the world of advertising and is a quirky compilation of quotes, facts, pictures, wit and wisdom, packed into easy-to-digest, bite-sized spreads. It was a quick and inspirational read that helped to ease myself into education on marketing without having to feel it was ‘heavy’, like most other books.
Disclaimer: All books linked in this blog post are Amazon affiliate links, but I wouldn’t include them if I didn’t believe in them!
