People often ask me what I read. I read everything, voraciously. I still read the Wall Street Journal every day. And in addition to several magazine subscriptions, I have over 20 Google Alerts coming to me on different subjects every week. As I teach several entrepreneur courses at San Diego State University, I am constantly reviewing both textbooks and trade books written by either subject-matter experts or industry experts. I feel we can never give up on acquiring knowledge, and knowledge can best be acquired through either reading or doing.
There are books that have definitely had an impact on me and I consider them valuable, not just for entrepreneurship but also for understanding all those other elements that go into building a brand and a great company. I share them with you here.
Brand Gap, by Marty Neumeier. If you are an entrepreneur, you will need to understand what your company stands for and how it will be viewed and felt by your customers. I spent a good part of my life supporting, marketing, or creating brands. And it’s not exactly the same thing as creating a company. While you can see the company, you really can’t “see” the soul of a brand. That’s because it’s what your customers feel about your product that is most important. It’s a great book that every entrepreneur should read before considering a name, logo, marketing message, or website.
Business Model Generation, by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. This book was introduced to me by another professor at San Diego State University in 2011. The power and simplicity of generating and iterating a business model, with customers, to the point of failure as rapidly as possible, caused me to completely change my line of thinking as regards business plans. I now encourage potential entrepreneurs to forget writing a business plan and to use the business model canvas tool in this book. Period.
Don’t Make Me Think, by Steve Krug. As an entrepreneur, chances are you will need to know a little bit about good user interface design, whether you’re dealing with a website, a mobile application, or anything else involving interaction with a customer. This book was written by a designer for marketers, but every entrepreneur should read it as well. It will allow you to have intelligent conversations with user- interface designers and keep you from making big mistakes that could dramatically impact your company’s revenue. Great book that is simply written with lots of pictures and examples.
E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber. This book seems simple in its premise, but really helps entrepreneurs understand how they can ruin their new business. Its shows entrepreneurs what their role is in the company, particularly what they are good at and what they are not good at. It’s a solid read if you are considering becoming an entrepreneur or an entrepreneur struggling with your responsibilities in your current start-up.
Founders at Work, by Jessica Livingston. Entrepreneurs should read this book just so you understand that nothing goes exactly as planned in a start-up company. And to adopt a philosophy of being ready to pivot based on listening to the marketplace and customers. Having helped launch Yahoo! and Amazon.com in the very early days, I can tell you we were constantly changing and revising our plans. By reading how some other well-known start-ups had major issues and pivots may give you a little reassurance before you descend into the chaos of a start-up.
How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. My first mentor must have noticed my complete lack of communication skills and networking grace. Not only did he make me read the book but he also sent me to a six-week class. It changed my life on how I communicate and network with people.
Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, by Al Reis and Jack Trout. Most people never really understand how marketing, positioning, and branding actually work. This book does a great job of helping you to understand that it’s not what you actually say or show to customers that matters. It’s what you make customers feel. And their chapter about how to create a new category ladder in a competitive marketplace is invaluable to an entrepreneur.
Search Engine Marketing Inc., by Mike Moran and Bill Hunt. In meeting with a CEO/founder of a search engine marketing start-up in late 2008, I noticed he had a stack of more than 100 copies of this book behind his company’s reception desk. I asked the CEO why he had so many copies of the book. He told me that every single employee, vendor, partner, board member, and adviser was given a copy of this book. He called it the bible for understanding search-engine optimization. He was right. Every entrepreneur will be impacted by search-engine results and needs to read this book before doing anything online.
Spin Selling, by Neil Rackham. Early in my marketing career, my second mentor took me aside one day and said quite bluntly, “You don’t know how to sell.” Then he did something amazing. He sent me to a weekend seminar on spin selling and it changed my life. I began to see my family, friends, clients, and professional associates differently. As an entrepreneur, your ability to understand multiple people types and to really grasp the difference between wants and needs is critical. This book will help you become so much better at getting people to want to buy from you, as opposed to your selling them something.
Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. As a marketing expert, I learned how important it was to have your new product or service focused initially on a group of early adopters or influencers, and that they would influence others to consider purchasing the product. Reading this book gave me additional insights into what has to happen, to whom, in order to create a “tipping point” in the market, the place where the product or service takes off. Companies like Google and Facebook, both of whom did no marketing in the early days, benefited from understanding how targeting early influencers could really drive market adoption of a product or service—to the point where mass-market users learned about the product with essentially no marketing. Good book to read, as it will help you understand the ecosystem of potential users in a marketplace and how to create a potential tipping point.