There are more than hundreds and even thousands of books published every day, but there is not as much really good literature as we would like, particularly in business, entrepreneurship, marketing, management, and others.
Almost every successful businessman considers it important and necessary to publish a book with useful tips for aspiring entrepreneurs or to publish his success story.
It’s not that it’s uninteresting or of no value at all, it’s that more often than not these books contain the same truths and advice repeated from book to book.
Today we will look at 10 of the most famous and most useful books on business and entrepreneurship that have not only stood the test of time, but have also helped many entrepreneurs build the right business concept and lead their company to success.
Today, these books have become desktop books for a large number of successful people.
“Rules for playing without rules,” Christina Comaford-Lynch
An ordinary American woman, Christina Comaford-Lynch, who went from being an ordinary Microsoft employee to a person with the status of a “millionaire” without relying on family ties or belonging to a certain social class. Newsweek magazine called Christina “a person you can and want to do business with,” Bill Gates called her “a trailblazer,” and Bill Clint expressed his gratitude for “nurturing America’s entrepreneurship.”
In her book “Rules for playing without rules” Christina describes her life experience, her mistakes and discoveries. Over the years, the author of the book has gambled with business, created companies and “juggled” them, put everything at stake and failed more than once.
“Rules for Playing Without Rules” is not a luscious success story, it is an ironic book written by a man with a good sense of humor who knows how to laugh at himself.
The book will help every entrepreneur discover new ways of managing a company, non-standard approaches to expanding connections and creating interesting projects. You will get a huge baggage of not only theoretical but also practical knowledge. There are no dry facts and reasoning in the book, it is written in a fascinating and unusual form.
“An easy way to stop being late,” Diane De Lonzor
If your Achilles heel is unpunctuality, and constant tardiness is wreaking havoc in your life and upsetting your professional and personal relationships with people, then the book “The Easy Way to Stop Being Late” is a “magical and welcome cure”.
In the past, the author of the publication, Diana De Lonzor is a full-fledged member of the society of unpunctual people. However, studying the works of a huge number of famous psychologists and her own research of the problem helped her to find out the reasons for constant lateness and to cope with this problem.
“Easy Way to Stop Being Late” is an invaluable recipe that allows everyone to self-organize their lives, overcome psychological barriers, become punctual and responsible.
This is the only book on the subject of tardiness that is concise and practical.
“Naked Business,” Richard Branson
“Naked Business” by Richard Branson is an indispensable board book for every aspiring entrepreneur, allowing not only to get valuable business advice, but also to be charged with positive energy, confidence, motivation and inspiration.
The author devoted the book to his own history of Virgin’s creation, as well as to the rules of management and business conduct.
“Naked Business” is a candid story of not only the success but also the failures of Branson’s company. Here you will find invaluable advice from the author and quotes from his notebook.
Richard Branson is one of the few people who managed to make a real breakthrough in business and earn $2.6 billion.
The book Naked Business – allows you to gain valuable insights as well as enjoyment from reading.
“The Essential Book of the Business Founder,” Noam Wasserman
Noam Wasserman’s book is devoted to a lot of stories of famous entrepreneurs, analyzed almost “to the bone”. Noam Wasserman is a renowned researcher and lecturer at Harvard Business School, who has devoted more than 10 years of his life to studying the stories of startups in various business fields.
In reading this book, many entrepreneurs and business people will find many detailed mistakes that they have made many times in their own experience and paid a “considerable price” for.
The book deals with the main problem of most startups – the “unformed team”, which is a very important stage in the process of creating and developing a new business. “Problematic relationships within the team” become the most frequent cause of a company’s crisis, and often lead to its collapse.
“The Business Founder’s Essential Book” is a unique systematic solution to building a new business on a solid and solid foundation and increasing its chances of success.
“From Good to Great,” Jim Collins
Jim Collins is a world-renowned business consultant for his writings on management.
In From Good to Great, Jim addresses the core problem with many companies – “they become quite good, but they don’t become great”.
In the book he analyzed the experience of companies that became “great” and outstanding: Gillette, Philip Morris, Circuit City, Kimberly-Clark, Fannie Mae, Abbott, Walgreens, Kroger, Pitney Bowes, Wells Fargo. These companies have held their high market positions for over 15 years. A $1 investment made in these companies would have increased exactly 471 times in 35 years.
The author also examines what conditions and factors are necessary for companies to make the transition “from good to great”.
The consistent implementation of the core concepts and original ideas that Collins and his team of researchers outline in the book will help virtually any company make this fundamental leap forward and achieve outstanding results.
“Guerrilla Marketing,” J. Conrad Levinson
Formerly the creative director of the Leo Burnett Advertising Company, Jay Conrad Levinson once created a unique take on the famous “Marlboro Cowboy.”
Today, Levinson is the head of the Guerrilla Marketing Association, a world-renowned and distinguished business consultant.
In his publication Guerrilla Marketing, he not only reveals the basics of guerrilla marketing, which has so far remained an undiscovered area for domestic entrepreneurship, but also shares the rules, techniques and secrets of success.
For those companies whose marketing budget is modest and not expressed in millions, this book is a “treasure trove” of useful and effective ideas for business promotion, more than once tested in practice.
Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing is the book that started it all and because of which Levinson can rightfully bear the title of “father” of guerrilla marketing.
“Selling the Unseen,” Harry Beckwith
Marketing of services is one of the unusually complex branches of professional activity. The main difference between a service and a product is that you cannot touch it or see it. And the complexity lies in the ways of promoting and stimulating sales of an “invisible” product.
In Selling the Unseen, Harry Beckwith shares his seminal 25 years of experience working with thousands of entrepreneurs and business people.
The book delivers not only important marketing insights, but also examines valuable case studies of large companies such as Citicorp and Federal Express, as well as smaller businesses.
“Selling the unseen” is practical advice and easy to implement in practice promotion techniques in the field of marketing services. The book will be of interest not only to marketers and entrepreneurs, but also to students and university professors.
“Delivering Happiness. From Zero to a Billion,” Tony Shaye
The book “Delivering Happiness. From Zero to Billion” is the autobiography of a bright young businessman of our time – Tony Shay.
The story of the formation and development of his outstanding company Zappos, whose capital has grown from zero to a billion dollars in ten years of existence.
The peculiarities of the book is that the author does not just set out dry facts and advice on the development of the company, but tells how to build a business that will “bring happiness” not only to its owners and employees of the company, but also to the consumer.
Zappos’ legendary “commandments,” curiosities, trials and errors are collected in one edition.
The book will “bring happiness” to every reader, it will be especially interesting and useful for business owners and business executives who strive to achieve success.
“Purple Cow,” Seth Godin.
Imagine a purple cow among a herd of ordinary white, black and brown cows. An animal with such an atypical coloring will definitely stand out from the rest, and effortlessly.
The book “Purple Cow” by author Seth Godin talks about how not to waste huge amounts of money on advertising to grab the attention of your target consumers, how to stand out among your competitors and be remembered for a long time.
The book has collected over a hundred useful tips on how to make your all too ordinary product, extraordinary and out of the ordinary for free.
After reading this book, you will not only be able to look at your business from a different angle, but you will be able to create an outstanding product without the use of advertising gimmicks.
“Positioning. The Battle for Minds”, Jack Trout and Al Rice
“Positioning. Battle for minds” – an invaluable creation of Jack Trout and Al Rice, a legendary book that shook the entire world of business and entrepreneurship, and forever overthrew the established axioms of the advertising business.
This book has become a real “bible” of many marketing and advertising specialists, entrepreneurs and businessmen.
The invaluable knowledge and practical recommendations collected in the publication have enabled hundreds of companies around the world to achieve unprecedented success.
The book “Positioning. The Battle for Minds” analyzes the tremendous marketing failures and phenomenal success of major companies over the past two decades.
In addition, the updated edition contains practical marketing recommendations relating directly to the domestic business world, written by Alexey Suhenko (official representative of Trout&Partners) in consultation with Jack Trout.
Of course, the books presented above are not a complete list of useful business literature, we tried only to highlight the really useful books to read. You can add to our collection and share your experience by leaving a comment.
