Business Books

3 Brilliant Books Which Will Transform Your Business

By admin ⋅ November 6, 2008 ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Having read a ton of business books over the past few years, I noticed that they fall into three main types. Knowing which is which can help you grow your knowledge in a very balanced way, and by not overloading on certain types of business book you can be sure that you’re covering all the bases.

First, there are quite obvious ‘roadmaps’ which involve step-by-step instructions to setting up a business and being successful. These are great because they provide you with a list of all the different things you have to remember, but they often fall down somewhat by being overly simple.

Second, there are books which address the ‘attitude’ needed to get started, keep going, and, um, keep going some more. These are often awe-inspiring, but sometimes give you the feeling that you should stop and wonder if you are right to be taking it all in. What if all the positive reinforcement is just a load of baloney?

Third, there are the ‘biographies and autobiographies’, from which you normally have to extract the lessons yourself. These are great because they show that all the stuff you’ve been reading from the other two categories is actually possible. Someone actually went out there and did something great, just like you are trying to as well.

They may not have read any of these books (and in the cases of older autobiographies they most probably didn’t), but you should be able to hear when the things you’ve been learning about resonate in the real-life story of someone great who succeeded before you. Business biographies and autobiographies are sometimes criticized for being exaggerated - but this often only highlights to serve the lessons which are being illustrated.

Here, then, are the 3 business books which I keep coming back to - and which I believe have the power to transform any business:

The Closers

If you’ve ever wanted to get into the mind of one of those hardcore, slick, 80s American salesmen you always promised you’d never turn into (like you could have if you wanted to), then check this out. This is subtitled ‘The Closer’s Bible’, and it covers all the technical aspects of closing sales.

Be warned, though - this book is all about seeing the prospect as an adversary who needs to be conquered. If you find yourself using words like ‘collaboration’, ‘teamwork’ and ‘partnership’ a lot, and you’re always aiming for a ‘win-win’ , get a glimpse into the dark side of how others play the game by reading this book.

How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors : Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee

This is a great book if you’re tired at getting beaten over the head to offer lower prices and bigger discounts to ‘potential customers’ who don’t end up buying your products or services anyway. Sound familiar? Yep, me too. It also explains why you shouldn’t waste any of your time with so-called ‘price buyers’…as well as how to identify them and how to get away from them.

Better, though, it explains that if you’re selling at a 35% gross margin you would have to sell almost twice as much stuff if you dropped your prices by just 10%, and it clarifies this apparently counterintuitive fact so clearly that you will never feel comfortable caving in on price again.

This will drive you to justify your standard pricing with confidence - and best of all, this book even tells you exactly what to say!

Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur’s Soul: Advice and Inspiration on Fulfilling Dreams (Chicken Soup for the Soul)

When you find that you’ve spent an hour feeling that you’re losing your motivation, reach for this book. It’s full of very short stories of normal people going through exactly what you’re doing, but when you get to the end of each story you discover that in most cases the company they built turned out to be a massive one you know well.

The great thing about this book is that it makes you realize that all those faceless, anonymous, successful companies out there all started in the same place - with a real person going through the same steps you’re going through to get it off the ground.

To see the link between what you are doing and what the end result looks like is truly inspirational, and this book can really help you get back on track. Each story takes less than 5 minutes to read, and each one should get you fired up about getting back to building your business.

These 3 books are ones which I come back to time and time again - and if you want to get energized about your business again then you will be well rewarded if you read these titles.

Happy reading!