Read & Learn: My Top 14 Books.

I love reading. And learning.

The only ongoing regret is that I wish I could read faster, because I will never be able to read all the books that I would love to read, in my entire life.

All Leaders are Readers.

So many book have I read so far, that I thought of sharing my own top list of business-related books, hoping you'll find it useful for whatever business purpose you have in mind: driving more revenue, getting more direct bookings, saving costs, strategies, business models, and much more.

Please Note: many of the following books have nothing to do with the hotel industry, which is the very reason why I strongly suggest you to read them carefully: abstract yourself from the world you know and fit in, and you will realize how many opportunities stand out there in the other world.

Here's my top-14 sorted by category.

Oh, more thing: at the end, a little trick to speed up your reading process.

Marketing

• Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World (Gary Vaynerchuk).

Top notch! By far the best social-media marketing book I've read so far. The thing that I like the most is the countless amount of examples that follow each topic the author speaks about.

• Ca$hvertising (Drew Eric Whitman).

Even though it's not of the most recent books on Marketing, its principles are everlasting and will always be valid, no matter what will happen. The best part is about what the author called Life Force 8: the 8 biologically programmed desires each and every one of us shares and that function as triggers when we buy something.

• This is Marketing (Seth Godin).

Seth Godin doesn't need any presentation and I love how he gets into the psychology behind marketing.

• Sell Like Crazy (Sabri Suby).

An unexpected and positive surprise. I didn't know him until 8 months ago. Then I got targeted by one of his greatly done Facebook Ads and, well, he hooked me ??. He's the founder of one of the greatest Marketing companies in Australia (King Kong) and this book is an absolute must read. I especially appreciated how he managed to make things very easy to read, understand and put in practice.

• DotCom Secrets: The Underground Playbook For Growing Your Company Online... (Russel Brunson).

Do you know ClickFunnels? If you don't, you are missing out on an entire new world. In essence, you have a website, right? Ok, your website is dead. Yup, dead. And replaced by what's called Sales Funnel (or Marketing Funnel). Now, Brunson can be very extreme, and honestly I agree with him. But reading him can be very challenging for many.

• The Adweek Copywriting Handbook (Joseph Sugarman).

In my opinion Sugarman is one of the best Copywriters of our times.

Business Management

• Blue Ocean Strategy (W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne).

Probably the best business-related book I've ever read. I'm actually conducting a research and writing a case-study article on how the Blue Ocean Strategy applies to our dear Hotellerie. It's a massive work and I'll deliver it for free, so stay tuned, I'm half-way there ??.

In the meantime, read the book asap!

• Industry Rockstars (Kane Minkus).

I may be biased a bit, as Kane is one of my mentors. And, in full honesty, he's a business genius.

Mindset

You're probably wondering what does Mindset have to do with business, as it is usually a topic related to the personal-side of one's life.

The reality is, there is no such thing as personal or professional life, they are 2 sides of the same coin and the most important thing is that one supports the other.

• The Miracle Equation (Hal Elrod).

All you need to do to achieve whatever you want to achieve, in business or private life, can be summed up with these 2 things: unwavering faith and extraordinary effort.

I usually bridge this last part - extraordinary effort - with business: I learnt to stay away from those who promise results overnight, as if by magic, by simply implementing some tools (their tools) so that you can sit back, relax, and watch your business skyrocket.

Clearly there are better ways than others, but I'm a strong believer that there are no shortcuts.

• Think and Grow Rich (Napoleon Hill).

In a way, very similar to The Miracle Equation, but this one gets more into the psychological side of what drives poverty or prosperity in one's life.

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck (Mark Manson).

Seriously, how can someone not read a book with such a title? Despite how funny it sounds, it turned out to be a really well written book on how to master the art of letting go and surrendering. A must-read.

Hotel-related Books.

Not many, for 2 main reasons:

1. Simple as that, there are no many books around. I read almost everything I could about Revenue Management until a few years ago, a topic that I loved and still love very much. But recent books, I couldn't find any.
2. For what I said before. I prefer reading from other worlds, meaning other industries, as I find many more sources of inspiration.

There is though one I definitely suggest you reading:

• 300% More Direct Bookings in 30 Days (Jeremiah Magone)

Being myself a Direct-Booking Coach for hotels, I guess you're wondering why I would ever suggest you reading a book of a competitor.

Once again I have 2 reasons:

1. First and foremost, this is a great book. And I really mean it. Even though it's not very recent and some of the tools Jeremiah suggests to make use of are not available any longer, this is beyond a doubt a must-read. And since I'm sharing suggestions on books that I've found interesting and useful, fair enough, this one definitely deserves mention.
2. As weird as it may sound, I'm sincerely happy to compete with professionals like Jeremiah.

Instead, you know those how-to-get-blablabla type of posts you can find everywhere on the internet, where blablabla may vary from get more revenue, or boost your direct bookings, or compete with the OTAs and so on and so forth.

I read this kind of articles daily and I constantly end up reading posts of so-called experts who still talk about the importance of having a responsive website.

Every. Single. Day!! It's almost 2020 and we're forced to read what was already outdated 10 years ago.

Believe me, Jeremiah's book is a breath of fresh air and what he published 3 years ago is way better, interesting and up-to-date than most articles I read this morning in my Newsfeed.

In Italian...

... I usually read in English, but some books are only available in Italian and I wanted to post them too, as they are top notch. So, Italian friends, go for these:

• Zero Concorrenti: Come usare il brand positioning per differenziarti e farti cercare dai clienti (Marco Veglia).

Zero Concorrenti (meaning "No Competition") focuses on the power of Brand Positioning as the most powerful weapon to distinguish ourselves from others, even if these others do the exact same things.

• UX Writing: Micro testi, macro impatto (Serena Giust).

If you have followed my articles and posts, you should know how much passionate and attentive I am when it comes to UX- and Copy-Writing. This book, in full honesty, is not the best I read, but the author is a UX-Writer at Booking.com and it's interesting to see how important this topic is to them and how they make use of it.

Speed Up Your Reading.

Since I can't read more than I do, at least I need to optimize my time by avoiding to read something that I might end up not liking.

To do so, I use Blinkist.com.

It's a very interesting service that provides a 15-min summary of 3000+ books, divided by category, in text and audio.

Then, when I like something, I switch to Scribd.com, one of the world's biggest digital library and read (text) or listen to (audio) any book I want.

Even though I love printed books, digital makes it so practical and audiobooks are also great as they allow you to do other things at the same time.

Both Blinkist and Scribd come at a cost, but less than 10 bucks each for unlimited reading is a blessing.

What Did You Like Reading?

And you? Do you have suggestions on great books to read? Share here by commenting below or PM me.

Now I'm reading Crushing It (Gary Vaynerchuk), but looking for suggestions as to what next, so pls help! ??