A CEO Only Does Three Things: Finding Your Focus in the C-Suite


Trey Taylor - 2020
    Many owners and CEOs think they have to be involved in every aspect of their business. They spend valuable brainpower on low-priority decisions. Before long, they're overworked and burned out.Instead of doing everything, it's time to focus on the right things.A CEO Only Does Three Things zeroes in on the three pillars of business: culture, people, and numbers. Steeped in twenty-plus years of practical knowledge, training, and consulting with some of the world's largest companies, this indispensable guide shows how to articulate the right culture for your business, hire people with the right mindsets, and inspire your teams to produce optimal results.Hundreds of CEOs have used Taylor's methods to create fulfilled, efficient, professional lives, and you can join them. Learn how to focus on the work you love-and avoid CEO burnout.

Marketing to Millennials: Reach the Largest and Most Influential Generation of Consumers Ever


Jeff Fromm - 2013
    Companies that think winning their business is a simple matter of creating a Twitter account and applying outdated notions of "cool" to their advertising are due for a rude awakening. "Marketing to Millennials "is both an enlightening look at this generation of consumers and a practical plan for earning their trust and loyalty. Based on original market research, the book reveals the eight attitudes shared by most Millennials, as well as the new rules for engaging them successfully. Millennials: - Value social networking and aren't shy about sharing opinions - Refuse to remain passive consumers--they expect to participate in product development and marketing - Demand authenticity and transparency - Are highly influential--swaying parents "and" peers - Are not all alike--understanding key segments is invaluable Featuring expert interviews and profiles of brands doing Millennial marketing right, this eye-opening book is the key to persuading the customers who will determine the bottom line for decades to come.

The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking


Mikael Krogerus - 2011
    

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't


James C. Collins - 2001
    The findings will surprise many readers and, quite frankly, upset others.The ChallengeBuilt 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? The StudyFor 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 StandardsUsing tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The ComparisonsThe research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? The FindingsThe findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include:Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness.The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence.A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology.The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap.

Wait, How Do I Write This Email?: Game-Changing Templates for Networking and the Job Search


Danny Rubin - 2015
    You think: "How do I begin? And what's the best way to make my point?" In his comprehensive guide, career expert Danny Rubin provides more than 100 critical email and document templates for networking and the job search. With each template, Danny saves you time and takes the stress out of professional email writing. Page after page, Danny offers detailed instructions for networking (ex: how to contact an alum from your school) and the job search (ex: how to apply even if the company has no openings at the time). He also includes smart LinkedIn templates, memorable handwritten notes, the outline for a powerful one-page resume and a fresh cover letter strategy with a focus on storytelling.Wait, How Do I Write This Email? is a must-have resource for college students, recent grads, entrepreneurs, people who make a late-stage career change and anyone else who needs to "get out there" and form new business relationships.---Danny Rubin is a communications expert who teaches college students, recent grads and working professionals the power of strong writing and networking skills. Danny believes improved writing skills can unlock doors and start conversations that may transform your career. He's also the author of 25 Things Every Young Professional Should Know by Age 25. You can find more of Danny's insights on his blog, News To Live By, which highlights the career advice "hidden" in the day's top stories. Follow him on Twitter at @DannyHRubin.

Unconscious Branding: How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing


Douglas Van Praet - 2012
    If consumers make decisions unconsciously, why do we persist in asking them directly through traditional marketing research why they do what they do? They simply can't tell us because they don't really know. Before marketers develop strategies, they need to recognize that consumers have strategies too . . .human strategies, not consumer strategies. We need to go beyond asking why, and begin to ask how, behavior change occurs. Here, author DouglasVan Praet takes the most brilliant and revolutionary concepts from cognitive science and applies them to how we market, advertise, and consume in the modern digital age. Van Praet simplifies the most complex object in the known universe - the human brain - into seven codified actionable steps to behavior change. These steps are illustrated using real world examples from advertising, marketing, media and business to consciously unravel what brilliant marketers and ad practitioners have long done intuitively, deconstructing the real story behind some of the greatest marketing and business successes in recent history, such as Nike's "Just Do It" campaign; "Got Milk?"; Wendy's "Where's the Beef?";and the infamous Volkswagen "Punch Buggy" launch as well as their beloved "The Force" (Mini Darth Vader) Super Bowl commercial.

Branding: In Five and a Half Steps


Michael Johnson - 2016
    His studio, johnson banks, is responsible for the rebranding of many notable clients, including Virgin Atlantic, Think London, BFI, Christian Aid, and MORE TH>N, and he has garnered a plethora of awards in the process.In Branding, Johnson strips everyday brands down to their basic components, with case studies that enable us to understand why we select one product or service over another and allow us to comprehend how seemingly subtle influences can affect key life decisions. The first part of the book shows how the birth of a brand begins not with finding a solution but rather with identifying the correct question—the missing gap in the market—to which an answer is needed. Johnson proceeds to unveil hidden elements involved in creating a successful brand—from the strapline that gives the brand a narrative and a purpose to clever uses of typography that unite design and language.With more than 1,000 vibrant illustrations showcasing the world’s most successful corporate identities, as well as generic templates enabling you to create your own brand or ad with ease, Branding explores every step of the development process required to create the simplest and most immediately compelling brands.

Hoopla


Crispin Porter Bogusky - 2006
    They launched the Mini car craze in America, took on Big Tobacco in the controversial Truth campaign, sexed up Virgin Airlines, and made Burger King sizzle once again. And they did it with bold publicity stunts, infectious viral marketing strategies, funny masks, folding paper, outrageous Internet hoaxes, and a weird, garter belt–wearing chicken who became a cultural sensation. And this random madness has a very sound method to it: Hoopla . In Hoopla , the secret inner workings of this freewheeling, break-the-mold idea factory are revealed for the first time. Veteran journalist Warren Berger, who has tracked and reported on the CP+B phenomenon over the past decade, fully examines and deconstructs the methods that lie behind the agency’s seeming madness, while the striking images throughout the book (captioned by the CP+B creative team) provide insights into the logic, intuition, mischief, and passion that leads to the creation of Hoopla . The result is a fascinating journey into a realm of unbridled creativity. See the madness. Read the method. Hoopla . Hoopla also includes practical, step-by-step advice on how to find and promote big ideas (even on a shoestring budget), and how to generate excitement and hype in today’s cluttered, noisy communications landscape. If you’re a marketer, a communicator of any type, or anyone who needs to get out a message and generate some buzz, Hoopla will change the way you think about the art of communication.

F#ck Content Marketing: Focus on Content Experience to Drive Demand, Revenue & Relationships


Randy Frisch - 2019
    Truly effective companies (and marketers) create content experiences, drawing the customer into an immersive infinite scroll that mirrors the consumer experience of Netflix, Spotify, and other billion-dollar brands.Randy Frisch will push you to rethink how you approach content for complex buyer journeys. The current mindset is all about volume-the more content created, the better. But the reality is that almost 70 percent of content created within an organization is never used, and there's little point investing in content marketing if you're not leveraging the assets you create.In this book, Frisch unpacks the Content Experience Framework, arming your organization to deliver personalized experiences that leverage your content to engage your audiences at scale-as well as identify and ramp up the key players in your organization who need to own this process.

Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity


Hugh MacLeod - 2009
    Those cartoons eventually led to a popular blog-gapingvoid.com-and a reputation for pithy insight and humor, in both words and pictures.MacLeod has opinions on everything from marketing to the meaning of life, but one of his main subjects is creativity. How do new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?Ignore Everybody expands on MacLeod's sharpest insights, wittiest cartoons, and most useful advice. For example:-Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will just make people like it less.-If your plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail. Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.-Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether. There's no point trying to do the same thing as 250,000 other young hopefuls, waiting for a miracle. All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one.-The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to be yours. The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.After learning MacLeod's forty keys to creativity, you will be ready to unlock your own brilliance and unleash it on the world.

Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters


Jon Acuff - 2013
    But three things have changed the path to success:Boomers are realizing that a lot of the things they were promised aren't going to materialize, and they have started second and third careers.Technology has given access to an unprecedented number of people who are building online empires and changing their lives in ways that would have been impossible years ago.The days of "success first, significance later," have ended.While none of the stages can be skipped, they can be shortened and accelerated. There are only two paths in life: average and awesome. The average path is easy because all you have to do is nothing. The awesome path is more challenging, because things like fear only bother you when you do work that matters. The good news is "Start" gives readers practical, actionable insights to be more awesome, more often.

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life


Twyla Tharp - 2003
    It is the product of preparation and effort, and it's within reach of everyone who wants to achieve it. All it takes is the willingness to make creativity a habit, an integral part of your life: In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative. In The Creative Habit, Tharp takes the lessons she has learned in her remarkable thirty-five-year career and shares them with you, whatever creative impulses you follow -- whether you are a painter, composer, writer, director, choreographer, or, for that matter, a businessperson working on a deal, a chef developing a new dish, a mother wanting her child to see the world anew. When Tharp is at a creative dead end, she relies on a lifetime of exercises to help her get out of the rut, and The Creative Habit contains more than thirty of them to ease the fears of anyone facing a blank beginning and to open the mind to new possibilities. Tharp's exercises are practical and immediately doable -- for the novice or expert. In "Where's Your Pencil?" she reminds us to observe the world -- and get it down on paper. In "Coins and Chaos," she provides the simplest of mental games to restore order and peace. In "Do a Verb," she turns your mind and body into coworkers. In "Build a Bridge to the Next Day," she shows how to clean your cluttered mind overnight. To Tharp, sustained creativity begins with rituals, self-knowledge, harnessing your memories, and organizing your materials (so no insight is ever lost). Along the way she leads you by the hand through the painful first steps of scratching for ideas, finding the spine of your work, and getting out of ruts into productive grooves. In her creative realm, optimism rules. An empty room, a bare desk, a blank canvas can be energizing, not demoralizing. And in this inventive, encouraging book, Twyla Tharp shows us how to take a deep breath and begin!

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant


W. Chan Kim - 1994
    They have fought for competitive advantage, battled over market share, and struggled for differentiation. Yet, as this influential and immensely popular book shows, these hallmarks of competitive strategy are not the way to create profitable growth in the future.In the international bestseller Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne argue that cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves (spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that lasting success comes not from battling competitors, but from creating "blue oceans"—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth. Such strategic moves, which the authors call “value innovation,” create powerful leaps in value that often render rivals obsolete for more than a decade.Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any company can use to create and capture their own blue oceans. A landmark work that upends traditional thinking about strategy, this bestselling business book charts a bold new path to winning the future.

The 4-Hour Workweek


Timothy Ferriss - 2007
    Depending on when you ask this controversial Princeton University guest lecturer, he might answer: "I race motorcycles in Europe." "I ski in the Andes." "I scuba dive in Panama." "I dance tango in Buenos Aires." He has spent more than five years learning the secrets of the New Rich, a fast-growing subculture who has abandoned the "deferred-life plan" and instead mastered the new currencies-time and mobility-to create luxury lifestyles in the here and now. Whether you are an overworked employee or an entrepreneur trapped in your own business, this book is the compass for a new and revolutionary world.Join Tim Ferriss as he teaches you:- How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want?- How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs?- How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist?- How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and freuent "mini-retirements"?- What the crucial difference is between absolute and relative income?- How to train your boss to value performance over presence, or kill your job (or company) if it's beyond repair?- What automated cash-flow "muses" are and how to create one in 2 to 4 weeks?- How to cultivate selective ignorance-and create time-with a low-information diet?- What the management secrets of Remote Control CEOs are?- How to get free housing worldwide and airfare at 50-80% off?- How to fill the void and create a meaningful life after removing work and the office

Be Your Own Brand: A Breakthrough Formula for Standing Out from the Crowd


David McNally - 2002
    Rather, it is a process of discovering who you really are and what you aspire to be. The hallmark insight of this new edition is that the best way to establish a strong and memorable brand is to make a positive difference in the lives of others through making lasting impressions that build trusting relationships. McNally and Speak take you through the process of identifying the key components of your brand, conveying that brand to the world, checking how closely your brand aligns with important relationships in your life--particularly the one with your employer--and assessing your progress along the way. This thoroughly revised and updated edition features new material on how to use social media to build a powerful personal brand and case studies of individuals whose personal brands have changed the world.