Ok folks, this is our list of the best books ever… just imported from our archives so it’s in the database now. Topics range from design to business and from marketing to psychology. Frankly, these are the books we share with our friends and clients when an appropriate situation arises. Check back often as we love to read new things and add books regularily.
You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar: The Sandler Sales Institute’s 7-Step System for Successful Selling
– New!
We can’t recommend this book enough. Get it if you want to be great at sales and want to learn an excellent sales style. "…uses examples of successful and unsuccessful sales to illustrate Sandler’s ideas on turning ordinary salespeople into crack sales reps who can control any situation." I would highly recommend getting a sales coach from Sandler to help you "practice."
Webmonkey article: Search Engine Optimization on Google
Here’s a terrific article about how Google works and what you need to do to achieve higher rankings on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.
The Tipping Point
The premise of this book is that there are three different types of people. They are connectors, mavens, and salesmen. The connectors are people who collect people. They know people and are able to connect people and ideas and can’t stop telling you about the people they know. A maven is a person who collects information. These are the type of people who know everything about different product lines, they remember every little detail about things and cannot stop telling you about their latest find. The last set of people are the salesmen and they’re the people who have an uncanny ability to sell things. Quite a good read, highly recommended.
The Creative Business Guide to Running A Graphic Design Business
I’ve only read half of this book so far yet it is near the top of my list when it comes to design business advice.
The Business Side of Creativity
A design business guide for creative’s.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing : Violate Them at Your Own Risk
This is a straightforward and insightful book about the twenty two laws of marketing that Al Ries and Jack Trout have personally identified. I’m sure there are more.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand
This book takes a few well known brands and tears them apart revealing the key aspects of their brands, and how they got there.
Brain Surgery for Suits: 56 things every account person should know
This book is for project managers or anyone who works with clients on a frequent basis. Written by Robert Solomon, this book outlines the key things you should know before you get into the consulting services industry.
Pour Your Heart Into It, How Starbucks Built A Company One Cup at a Time
The story from Howard Schultz, Chairman and CEO of Starbucks, of how a coffee giant was born. Learn the fascinating tale and story behind the making of a cultural icon. If you have time, read this review as well for more details about the book.
Jack: Straight from the Gut
An interesting look at the man who ran General Electric for twenty years. He reinvented GE by integrating new and innovative practices.
The E-Myth Revisited
A book that helps to explain how to grow your business. If you are wondering how to take your business from just a single person to an entity with multiple faces, this might be the book for you. Buy it at Amazon.com or read a review here.
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
An easy read. This book highlights some of the more obvious keys to leadership and unlike some other books in this category, it succeeds by continually building upon the other laws.
What They Don’t Teach You At Harvard Business School
Teaches some of the principle keys to business for both seasoned execs and high school grads alike.
Creative Company : How St. Luke’s Became ‘the Ad Agency to End All Ad Agencies’
This is a book every person should read who is in the creative business, whether it be advertising or marketing or technology consulting. This book is especially suited for CEO’s and Principles of design firms who want to grow. Visit St. Lukes on the web at www.stlukes.co.uk and check out the Fast Company article. This one is better.
The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from Ideo, America’s Leading Design Firm
Written by Tom Kelley of IDEO, this book is fantastic for people and companies who are interested in expanding their creative output. Besides showcasing some of the neat products that IDEO has developed, Tom goes in depth to uncover the process IDEO uses to design and build great products. To learn more about the book, visit the books web site at theartofinnovation.com.
The Goal : A Process of Ongoing Improvement
I listened to the Audio-Book version of this novel, which has multiple voices and characters throughout. I can’t imagine reading it… GET THE AUDIO version. It will help you to identify bottlenecks in your business.
Why We Buy
Written by Paco Underhill, read an interview (best sentence from the interview: Underhill: It’s a challenging question. Some of it is letting her know the age-appropriateness of stuff. Letting her know the sales rankings for computer games helps, too. One of the reasons online retailers such as Amazon.com have succeeded is that other retailers have dropped the ball in terms of generating purchase confidence at the point of sale.) and hear audio samples online. More about the book and Read a chat at ABCNews.com. Don’t forget to check out Envirosell.com which is Underhill’s company. Read chapter 1 of the book.
The Corporate Coach
While this book is over eight years old, it is still a good read. It tells the story about how one person turned a retail store around from being in debt, to profitable.