The 12 Business Books of Christmas

I love to read, but I find business books are either really great or really bad. There just doesn’t seem to be any in the middle. However, when I find a great one, it makes up for four or five bad ones – the good ones have helped me so much throughout my career.

Below is my list of the twelve greatest business books of all time. I think I owe the continued success of my company and my ability to lead to each of them in some portion. If you are looking for a real New Year’s Resolution, you could do a lot worse than reading one of these books a month for the next year.

In fact, “David’s Dozen” is now going to be a challenge I will throw down to my clients and employees. Read all twelve and I will journey to you, wherever you are, and buy you a lunch where we can discuss the ideas presented in these twelve books.

Note: I am deliberately not putting a number or ranking next to each of these – they are all for different dimensions of success so some will naturally be more valuable to some and not others.

Turn The Ship Around

Author: L. David Marquette

Topic: Real Leadership

My summary: The experience and story of a naval captain who finds himself assigned to take over the worse performing submarine in the US Navy with almost no preparation of primary training. As a result, he has to rely on his crew and become a leader of leaders. Great lessons for anyone who wants to surround herself with a team of leaders.

How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success In Selling

Author: Frank Bettger

Topic: Sales

My Summary: When I was first starting out, a client of mine said he’d only met one billionaire in his life. He asked said billionaire what is one business book he should read. This is the book. Written almost 100 years ago, it is a classic. Nearly every sales book I have read since has only expanded upon the primary ideas presented in this book. It is motivational and it gave me the belief that I could succeed at a time when I had no idea how to sell.

Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Took Kit for Entrepreneurs

Author: Norm Brodsky

Topic: Entrepreneurship, Finance

My Summary: Every chapter of Norm’s book is a foundation of “how-to” based on his own experience. He is one of the few authors I’ve read that has the courage to admin is big mistakes in a way that is humble and therefore, allows people like me to learn from them before making the same mistake. This is a book I can go back to and re-read and draw different conclusions from every time I read it – there is a lot of great been-there, done-that experiences.

How Google Works

Author: Jonathan Rosenberg and Eric Schmidt

Topic: Culture, Management, Recruiting

My Summary: My sister used to work at Google and knew Jonathan Rosenberg. (He wrote a decent wise crack about my sister in one of the chapters) so I was able to verify the book was mostly frank, transparent real world stuff and not a lot of BS. The how to materials on recruiting and culture are some of my favorites. In addition, the book has shaped a lot of Motiv policies about working in the office (we are not a work-at-home company) as well as given me some pretty good tools for critical thinking and analysis.

Strategic Marketing Management

Editor: Robert J. Dolan

Topic: Marketing and Strategy

My Summary: This book is a collection of essays – some of which are really dense text, but all of which are highly useful. I can instantly tell the difference between people who have read this book and those that have not. There are timeless principals about being market oriented, segmentation, promotional messaging, pricing and market position. I read the book when I got out of college because a senior partner at a firm I worked for told me it was kind of like “Marketing’s Greatest Hits”.

Power Pricing

Authors: Robert J. Dolan and Hermann Simon

Topic: Marketing & Pricing

My Summary: Never buy sales and marketing consulting from the cheapest sales and marketing consultant and never buy a pricing book because it is the cheapest pricing book. I love this book’s cover – zeroing in on the books recommended price - $40.00. It is worth 1000’s of times the cost to anyone. Why? As chapter one points out, a 5% change in pricing can often increase your profits by 25-33% without a single dollar spent on R&D, Sales, Marketing or anything else. Pricing is in one’s head and a great analysis of pricing is one of the most powerful things a person can do.

Socratic Selling

Author: Kevin Daily

Topic: Sales

My Summary: I usually am most frustrated with business books about sales. They always seem too formulaic, gimmicky and insincere. This obscure book is not. It requires people to work hard at sales and come at it from the right mentality – prepared, thoughtful and motivated by helping people. I thank the stars it was on the shelf at the random bookstore I stopped into the first day I realized I needed to learn how to sell. It has been my trusted companion ever since.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Author: Ben Horowitz

Topic: Courage & Decision Making

My Summary: Any business book that kicks off each chapter with select gangsta rap lyrics is already on the right track with me. Ben Horowitz has a dual nature that makes him an effective “War Time” CEO and “Peace Time” CEO. This is a great book about mistakes, turn arounds, grit and determination. On at least three separate occasions that I have gone back to this book when in the middle of a crisis to get centered and focused on the things that matter. He is frank, honest and not afraid to tell you (now) about the desperate limits he has gone to in order to be a success. I run my 1:1 meetings using the his instructions verbatim and they are so much better then the garbage I used to do in a 1:1 meeting.

Antifragile

Author: Nassim Taleb

Topic: Risk

My Summary: Nassim Taleb is a bit arrogant, but rightfully so. This guy is a modern day scholar and genius. His insight into our brains ability to perceive risks at first had me doubting everything I did and everything I predicted. What I have come to learn is that there are strategies for dealing with the vast quantities of unknown future events that will throw a wrench in my life and with the right mindset and preparation, they can be dealt with, even if not anticipated. Really, any book by Nassim Taleb (Black Swan and Fooled By Randomness being the other two in the trilogy) is a solid winner and I endeavor to read anything he writes except his technical books on options trading.

If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Topic: Mentorship and Public Speaking

My Summary: This really is not a business book. I found it on Audible and it is a collection of short graduation day speeches made by author Kurt Vonnegut. Still, there are great lessons and wisdom in this book and I often play one of the speeches (read by Scott Brick, who does a great job on the audio recording) to my new recruits. There are really great insights into how to live a life worthwhile and build a career. It is touching, engaging and gives a great framework for how to give a speech. I have patterned a few of my own speeches from his style of his speech and I think they were the best I ever delivered.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Author: Robert Cialdini

Topic: Psychology and influence

My Summary: This book borders on the creepy, especially when used maliciously, which I have seen done. I prefer to think of it as a defensive book to prevent me or my clients from being manipulated by some of the most subtle influence tactics available – from how cults work to sales pitches and everything in between There is another book that came out 10 years later called “Pre-suasion” which is also excellent. That book is about the moments leading up to a decision and how those moments can grossly influence the decisions we make.

Tested Advertising Methods

Author: John Caples

Topic: Marketing & Promotion

My Summary: Sooner or later, I have to write an effective landing page, email or promotion. Testing Advertising Methods is a classic book with hard fought lessons from the pre-digital generation that I refer back to when I need to make it happen. It is old school – written in the 1960’s, and John Caples is from a generation that had it much harder than us when it comes to getting data that proves marketing’s effectiveness. He had to work tirelessly to build up the analytics needed to gain insight into what works and what does not. I think it forced him to think deeper and harder about what was happening with each ad, each piece of direct mail and the insights apply to the modern day with near perfect analogies.

My Challenge

So there you have it . . . David’s dozen.  It was hard to pair down and there are a lot of honorable mentions that are not on the list below (Good To Great, Rockefeller Habits, Who and Trusted Adviser all come to mind). My challenge stands from now until the end of 2019. If you are a Motiv client or employee, read these twelve books and email me. I will buy you lunch so we can discuss your ideas and insights on all twelve of them and we can share experiences, no matter where you are. Who says there is no such thing as a free lunch?

David Ewing is the CEO of Motiv, a company dedicated to transforming customer experience one client at a time. Motiv implements Oracle Customer Experience technology in ways that drive meaningful results to sales, marketing and service. Motiv is the largest Oracle exclusive, CEI Certified partner in the world. More information can be found at www.motivcx.com