No matter where you’re at in your business, it’s safe to say that you aspire to success. Whether you run a small business with fewer than 10 employees, or you’ve scaled your company to practically runs itself, your ultimate bottom line is the same: manage and lead a successful business.
The most successful people in business constantly challenge the way they think, then stand on the shoulders of giants as they formulate new ideas and achieve greatness.
Are you ready to challenge your own way of thinking on your way to improving your business? These 8 books by top business moguls will give you plenty of fodder to do just that.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, & Others Don’t by Jim Collins
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.
But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness?For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?
…The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice.…”Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, “fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.”
Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blancard and Sheldon Bowles
Written in the parable style of The One Minute Manager, Raving Fans uses a brilliantly simple and charming story to teach how to define a vision, learn what a customer really wants, institute effective systems, and make Raving Fan Service a constant feature–not just another program of the month.
America is in the midst of a service crisis that has left a wake of disillusioned customers from coast to coast. Raving Fans includes startling new tips and innovative techniques that can help anyone create a revolution in any workplace–and turn their customers into raving, spending fans.
Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss
“For the last two years, I’ve interviewed more than 200 world-class performers for my podcast, The Tim Ferriss Show. The guests range from super celebs (Jamie Foxx, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.) and athletes (icons of powerlifting, gymnastics, surfing, etc.) to legendary Special Operations commanders and black-market biochemists. For most of my guests, it’s the first time they’ve agreed to a two to three hour interview…
This book contains the distilled tools, tactics, and ‘inside baseball’ you won’t find anywhere else. It also includes new tips from past guests and life lessons from new ‘guests’ you haven’t met.
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
The most famous of all teachers of success spent a fortune and the better part of a lifetime of effort to produce the Law of Success philosophy that forms the basis of his books and that is so powerfully summarized and explained for the general public in this book.
In Think and Grow Rich, Hill draws on stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaires of his generation to illustrate his principles. This book will teach you the secrets that could bring you a fortune. It will show you not only what to do but how to do it. Once you learn and apply the simple, basic techniques revealed here, you will have mastered the secret of true and lasting success.
Crush it! Why NOW is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuck
In Crush It!, online marketing trailblazer Gary Vaynerchuk tells business owners what they need to do to boost their sales using the internet—just as he has done to build his family’s wine store from a $4 million business to a $60 million one. Crush It! will show readers how to find their passion, then step by step how to turn it into a flourishing, monetized business.
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
The Tipping Point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. Just as a single sick person can start an epidemic of the flu, so too can a small but precisely targeted push cause a fashion trend, the popularity of a new product, or a drop in the crime rate. This widely acclaimed bestseller, in which Malcolm Gladwell explores and brilliantly illuminates the tipping point phenomenon, is already changing the way people throughout the world think about selling products and disseminating ideas.
How to Win Friends & Influence People in the Digital Age by Dale Carnegie and Associates
Dale Carnegie’s time-tested advice has carried millions upon millions of readers for more than seventy-five years up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. Now the first and best book of its kind has been rebooted to tame the complexities of modern times and will teach you how to communicate with diplomacy and tact, capitalize on a solid network, make people like you, project your message widely and clearly, be a more effective leader, increase your ability to get things done, and optimize the power of digital tools.
Dale Carnegie’s commonsense approach to communicating has endured for a century, touching millions and millions of readers. The only diploma that hangs in Warren Buffett’s office is his certificate from Dale Carnegie Training. Lee Lacocca credits Carnegie for giving him the courage to speak in public. Dilbert creator Scott Adams called Carnegie’s teachings “life-changing.” To demonstrate the lasting relevancy of his tools, Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., has reimagined his prescriptions and his advice for our difficult digital age. We may communicate today with different tools and with greater speed, but Carnegie’s advice on how to communicate, lead, and work efficiently remains priceless across the ages.
Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it.
Start with Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
