Books I Have Read and Recommend to Improve Your Business

If you are looking for books to help you figure out how to use social media or to simply be more productive, I believe these books may prove to be useful.

Blogging/Writing

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income – As someone who maintains a blog, I am looking for ways to improve my blog and I thought what better way to find improvement tips than from folks who make money at it. I was right. In ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income*, there are a wealth of tips for putting together a better blog. Read more

On Your Mark – From First Word to First Draft in Six Weeks – At the 2015 ATD-ICE conference, I sat in on a presentation given by Cathy Fyock. She spoke about the importance of writing for your career. More importantly, she spoke about getting a book written in the shortest amount of time possible. As she noted in her presentation, she wanted to model that behavior and wrote her book, On Your Mark: From First Word to First Draft in Six Weeks*. Yes, she did it in six weeks. There is lots of good advice in this book. Read more

Dictate Your Book: How to Write Your Book Faster, Better, and Smarter – Recently, I finish reading a new book, and now, I’m putting what I learned into practice. The book is called Dictate Your Book: How To Write Your Book Faster, Better, and Smarter (Growth Hacking For Storytellers)*, written by Monica Leonelle. So right as I wrote this blog post, I actually spoke to you. Read more

5,000 Words Per Hour – Write Faster, Write Smarter: Write Faster, Write Smarter – If you are interested in writing, I think you’ll like this book. 5,000 Words Per Hour: Write Faster, Write Smarter* written by Chris Fox talks about being able to write faster which yields to more productivity as a writer. As a bonus, Fox also includes tools to help you keep track of your writing speed. Read more

How to Blog a Book – If you have been following my posts, especially, my book reviews, you will notice that I am interested in improving my ability to generate written content. One of my goals is to write a book. Right now, I have six ideas percolating but I need to knock one out. I think I have tripped upon a method to help make this possible. It is based on Nina Amir’s book, How to Blog a Book: Write, Publish, and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time*. Read more

APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur – How to Publish a Book – One of the things I have been interested in doing is writing and publishing a book. Until now, I always thought that publishing a book was just out of my grasp. After reading Guy Kawasaki and Shawn Welch’s book, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur-How to Publish a Book*, I believe it is something I can do. In fact, they have made the process so clear, I have already set out on my journey. Read more

Business

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself* – What if you created a business that automatically referred business to itself? What if we could get current customers to send new clients to our business? John Jantsch believes that this is not only possible but very much doable. In his book, The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself*, he provided guidance for creating a referral process within the business process. Read more.

Rework – The recommendation to read Rework* came to me through the Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast. It had been mentioned on a number of occasions and I thought I should take a look. After reading it, I can understand why many are recommending it. In this book, the authors, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson share the secrets of their successful company 37signals. I am very interested in how companies broke the code and became successful. I believe these lessons can be leveraged for my current work as well as non-profits I am engaged in. There are definitely lessons to be learned from this book. Read more

Permission Marketing -Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers – I cannot believe Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers is over 15 years old, and I had not read it. It is a book I believe every small business owner should read. At its core, it is about developing and nurturing relationships so they are eager to buy into your product. This book has a lot of overlap with the ideas of Referral Engine*. Rather than spend (waste) a lot of money advertising to people who may or may not be interested in your product, grow your lists of people who are actually interested in what you offer. Get to learn about those people and target your programming or products accordingly. Read more

Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable – If you want to stand out from the crowd, you cannot simply be very good. According to Seth Godin, you have to be remarkable. Godin offered this advice in his book, Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable*. As I write this post from my office at a community college in a small corner of New York, I am wondering what makes this college remarkable enough to distinguish itself from the hundreds of other community colleges across the nation. Read more

Obvious Adams – The Story of a Successful Businessman – While listening to another episode of Entrepreneurs on Fire, I learned about a book called Obvious Adams: The Story of a Successful Businessman*. It is a story of a successful businessman written by Robert R. Updegraff. During the podcast, they indicated that this was a very good book on marketing and that everyone should read it, so naturally, I did. Read more

Email Marketing

Email Marketing Demystified – Build a Massive Mailing List, Write Copy that Converts and Generate More Sales – While listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire I was introduced to another great book to read. This book discusses the importance of controlling your own email list. The book is called Email Marketing Demystified: Build a Massive Mailing List, Write Copy that Converts and Generate More Sales* and was written by Matthew Paulson. By maintaining his own email list and monetizing it, Paulson put together an annual revenue of $2.5 million. Got your attention? Read more

Productivity

Think & Grow Rich – I had first heard about this book while listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire. In fact, many of the guests indicated that this book significantly impacted their success. Naturally, I had to put it on my reading list. Because the book was written in 1937, it qualifies as my “book published before you were born” for the Modern Mrs. Darcey 2016 Reading Challenge. The book I am referring to is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. In this book, Hill shared the secrets to Andrew Carnegie’s success and wealth. For me, this book was about developing a success mindset. I found the book to be mesmerizing. Read more

The ONE Thing – The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results – What is the ONE thing you could do that will help you achieve your goals? This is what Gary Keller and Jay Papasan asked in their book, The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results*. Actually, they ask you to find the ONE Thing about many different topics. Always interested in how to get more out of my day, I always felt I was missing something. I discovered this book while listening to Entrepreneurs on Fire—a podcast focusing on entrepreneurs. This book helped me find a clearer path to my goals. I have already started to apply some of the lessons to my work and I am happy with the results. I also forewarned my team that we would be using some of these ideas to knock out some of our team goals. Read more

Start – Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters – Do you want to become awesome? Then start. Jon Acuff pointed out in his book, Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters*, that to move from average to awesome, you have to start. While you will not achieve awesome overnight, by starting you are on your way. Read more

The 5 A.M. Miracle – Dominate Your Day Before Breakfast – Based on a recommendation, once again from Entrepreneurs on Fire, I picked up the book The 5 A.M. Miracle: Dominate Your Day Before Breakfast* by Jeffrey Sanders. I have to say that I’m very pleased with the book. Basically, this one book pulls together everything that I’ve been trying to implement at my job all in one place. Almost all of the concepts are highlighted in this book. Read more

The 12 Week Year – Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do in 12 Months – I have been keenly interested in doing a better job managing all the different balls I have in the air. As a result, I have been reading a number of books like The 5 AM Miracle, and most recently, Brian Morgan and Michael Lennington’s book, The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months*. Each of these books focuses on a reduced schedule to plan and execute goals. I am using them to better plan my various lives—work, volunteer, and personal. Read more

The Webinar Manifesto – The purpose of The Webinar Manifesto* written by Matt Murdoch and Treion Muller is to encourage people to not create Webinars that suck. Or in their words, “We’re against Zombie webinars.” Read more

Show Your Work – I was totally jazzed about Jane Bozarth’s ASTD presentation called “Show your work” that the first thing I did when I got home was read her book called, surprisingly, Show Your Work*. This book mirrored the presentation quite well, yet it provided much more detail. The book is peppered with lots of examples of how to show your work in support of transparency in the workplace. Read more

The Checklist Manifesto – Every once in a while you run across a book that makes you think, “Why aren’t we doing this? Or why aren’t we doing this more?” The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right* by Atul Gawande is such a book. Gawande is a doctor on a mission, he wants to save lives. Gawande is looking for a solution to prevent simple mistakes as well as handle complexity. He advocates for the use of checklists as an organization and pre-planning tool. It is better to work out the issues before they are needed in an emergency. However, as Gawande points out, checklists are not only for medical emergency situations but also for routine tasks. Systems and processes have become complex enough that it is difficult for one person to keep track of all the steps in memory. Read more

Social Media

The Art of Social Media – Power Tips for Power Users – If you are interested in getting a jump on using social media for your business or non-profit, I would strongly recommend The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users* by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick. The authors have put together a book that is part to-do list and part resource guide. This should be your quick start guide. Read more

A World Gone Social – In their book, A World Gone Social: How Companies Must Adapt to Survive*, Ted Coin? and Mark Babbitt emphasized companies must move from an industrial age to a social age mentality. The manner in which the world communicates has significantly changed; however, most companies continue to operate as though nothing has changed to include my past and current employers. Read more

Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do: A Manager’s Guide to the Social Web – I am going to tell you about a book that I believe is extremely important to organizations and how we communicate and learn. This book is Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do: A Manager’s Guide to the Social Web* by Euan Semple. When I first looked at the title, I thought it was about how to use social media in the workplace, but I found it was more than that. It is about the importance of allowing employees to use social media tools to learn, collaborate, and share information. Read more

Social Media Mastery (A Daily Actions Guide) – While on my train trip across the states, I had an opportunity to read Social Media Mastery (Updated for 2016): 75+ Tips to Help you Expand your Reach, Build your Platform, and Establish your Online Authority (Daily Actions)* by Tara Ross. This was an enjoyable little book well suited for small business owners and beginners to social media. Read more

What the Plus!: Google+ for the Rest of Us – I just finished Guy Kawasaki’s book, What the Plus!: Google+ for the Rest of Us*. I picked up the book because I am interested in Google+, and I recently got newly excited about using it after watching a learn.extension.org presentation Google+ Quickstart with Stephen Judd. Read more.

Google Plus Marketing Made Easy: The Complete Guide to Getting More Traffic, More Customers and Building your Brand with Google+ – In an effort to learn more about Google+, I had picked up Ryan Bush?s book, Google Plus Marketing Made Easy: The Complete Guide to Getting More Traffic, More Customers and Building your Brand with Google+*. The book is a very quick read; each section is only a couple of pages. The information Bush provided is useful but not really unique. Read more.

Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything* – The title is a little deceptive because I believe this book would be enlightening for everyone interested in how to get the most out of Google+.* Read more.

Smart Social Media – Your Guide to Becoming a Highly Paid Social Media Manager – Just getting my new business off the ground, I thought I could benefit from all the advice I could get. Lasse Rouhiainen’s book, Smart Social Media: Your Guide To Becoming A Highly Paid Social Media Manager*, proved to have some gems hidden in it. I will capitalize on his advice as I develop a business to help others figure out how to leverage social media. Read more

Google+ Pro Tips – How to Bring Your Audience to Google+ – This book, Google+ Pro Tips – How to Bring Your Audience to Google+*, addresses building your Google+ audience and actually provides strategies you need to take external to Google+. Read more

Google+ Pro Tips – Strategies for Posting & Sharing on Google+ – Google+ Pro Tips: Strategies for Posting & Sharing on Google+* is another Stephan Hovnanian book. It is part of an informative series on how to get more out of Google+. Read more

Google+ Pro Tips – How to Get More Visibility on Google+ – Google+ Pro Tips – How to Get More Visibility on Google+* is the second one that I am reporting on. Personally, the more I participate on Google+, the more I want to understand how to get the most out of it. Hovnanian looks at Google+ from a business perspective. In this book, he listed the factors that help you to become found on Google+. Read more

Google+ Pro Tips: Managing Your Google+ Circles* – I downloaded a little book written by Stephan Hovnanian to my Kindle that focuses entirely on Google+ Circles. I have to say that I am very pleasantly pleased with the book. Even though I am quite familiar with Google+ and its Circles, I walked away with some new ideas that I plan to implement in the very near future. Read more

I will put together a page listing my recommendations, and I will continue to add to it. In the meantime, if you have some recommendations, please leave a comment or send me an email, and I will be happy to read it, review it, and recommend it.

• In the spirit of full disclosure, this is an affiliate link, which means that if you purchase this item through my link I will earn a commission. You will not pay more when buying a product through my link. I only recommend products & systems that I use and love myself, so I know you?ll be in good hands.
  Plus, when you order through my link, it helps me to continue to offer you lots of free stuff. 🙂 Thank you, in advance for your support!