Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media


Brittany Hennessy - 2018
    . .Every one of your favorite influencers started with zero followers and had to make a lot of mistakes to get where they are today--earning more money each year than their parents made in the last decade. But to become a top creator, you need to understand the strategies behind the Insta-ready lifestyle . . .As nightlife blogger, then social media strategist, and now Senior Director of Influencer Strategy and Talent Partnerships at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, Brittany Hennessy has seen the role of influencers evolve and expand into something that few could have imagined when social media first emerged. She has unrivaled insight into where the branded content industry was, where it is, and where it's going. In this book she'll reveal how to:*Build an audience and keep them engaged *Package your brand and pitch your favorite companies *Monetize your influence and figure out how much to charge Plus tips on: *Landing an agent *Getting on the radar of your favorite sites *Praising a brand without alienating their competitorsWhether you're just starting out or you're ready for bigger campaigns, Hennessy guides you through core influencer principles. From creating content worth double tapping and using hashtags to get discovered, to understanding FTC rules and delivering metrics, she'll show you how to elevate your profile, embrace your edge, and make money--all while doing what you love.

The Startup Playbook: Founder-To-Founder Advice from Two Startup Veterans


Rajat Bhargava - 2020
    You'll find a collection of the major lessons and shortcuts we've learned that will shift the odds in your favor. We're sharing our tips, secrets, and advice in a frank, founder-to-founder discussion with you.We make no bones about our bias. We're on your side, the founder's side. While venture capitalists, investors, and accelerators/incubators can add great value in the startup ecosystem, this book isn't about their points of view. We'll tell you where our interests as founders diverge from those on the other side of the table--investors, bankers, advisors, board members, and others--and what to do when that happens. The Startup Playbook is not a recipe, it's not a template, it's not a list of tasks to do. It's our insider's guide to starting a company and running it successfully in those critical early months. Between us, we've started over a dozen high-tech software companies and raised over $500 million in investment capital. We've acquired over thirty-five companies, had three of our startups go public, sold six of them, and we made billions of dollars for shareholders. We've also invested in over eighty startups, advised and mentored over two hundred companies and actively worked with venture capitalists (VCs), incubators, and accelerators to help launch many other new startups.We've had plenty of failures, too. And we've probably learned more from those than from the successes. We share those lessons as well. The Startup Playbook is full of our advice, guidance, do's, and don'ts from our years of experience as founders many times. We want to share our hard-earned knowledge with you to make success easier for you to achieve."This book is extraordinarily fresh and exciting. In an accessible, straight talk fashion, this book is a manual, and an inspiration. The Startup Playbook is smart and avoids the 'I am so smart' over-writing endemic to the genre. Read this as it is presented. You'll be doing yourself a tremendous favor."-- Amazon Reviewer

Get Backed: Craft Your Story, Build the Perfect Pitch Deck, and Launch the Venture of Your Dreams


Evan Baehr - 2015
    It’s a handbook for anyone who has an idea and needs to build relationships to get it off the ground. Over the last 3 years, entrepreneurs Evan Loomis and Evan Baehr have raised over $45 million for their own ventures, including the second largest round on the fundraising platform AngelList. In Get Backed, they show you exactly what they and dozens of others did to raise money -- even the mistakes they made -- uncovering the secrets of the world’s best storytellers, fundraisers, and startup accelerators. Get trained in “the friendship loop”, a step-by-step process that can be used to meet and build relationships with anyone, from investors to potential cofounders. They also show you how to create a pitch deck, building off the actual examples of 15 ventures that have raised over $150 million. Get Backed won't just show you exactly what it takes to get funded, it will give you the tools to make any idea a reality.

Tested Advertising Methods


John Caples - 1980
    There is also new information useful to smaller businesses.

The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation


Matthew Dixon - 2011
    The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them. The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades.Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one-the Challenger- delivers consistently high performance.Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale.The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force. The authors explain how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers' expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

Your Move: The Underdog's Guide to Building Your Business


Ramit Sethi - 2017
     This no-nonsense guide distills the most important lessons Sethi learned building his dorm room blog into an 8-figure-a-year company. If you want to build a business that makes you an extra 5-figures a month, this book will show you how. Inside you’ll discover: The 3 Rules of Money (any business that breaks these is doomed to fail) How to tell if a business will profitable in under 45 minutes How to find your first 5 customers — and just how critical these first 5 are Growing from $300 to $10,000 a month The truth about passive income and what it takes to really automate a business And so much more... What people are saying about Ramit Sethi Ramit Sethi is on the short list of people I respect in the world of finance. Ramit built his personal finance blog up to more than 1 million+ readers per month, and has turned it into a revenue generating monster and a growing business…” – Tim Ferriss, Author of The 4-Hour Workweek He is Generation Y’s favorite personal finance adviser. His message: Motivation isn’t enough. Develop a system, and get over yourself. – Fortune Ramit is a trainer. He’ll make you hustle. – James Altucher What Ramit’s students are saying “Before this, I barely had the confidence to call myself a business owner … Now, in just 5 months, I made $30,000. I finally consider this a real business.” – Heidi Marie, Sew Heidi “I went from no business, no idea — nothing — to having my first launch in 3 months. With only an email list of 340 people, I made $1,749 in 3 days. [Ramit’s work] changed my life.” – Alice Bush, Alice’s Lifestyle “The freedom is incredible … I was driving to New York and spent the entire day in the car. When I got to the hotel, I realized I made 5 sales while we were driving. That’s $1,500 in revenue.” – Danny Margulies, Freelance To Win

Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness


Jeffrey Gitomer - 2004
    This, he says, is "all that matters," and his latest book aims to demystify buying principles for salespeople. From the red cloth cover to the small trim size to the amusing (but not cloying) cartoons on almost every page, this is an appealing and accessible book. The author is obviously enthusiastic, if not manic, about sales, and though some of his mantras verge on hokey, much of his prose is straightforward and realistic. Each chapter includes a mini table of contents, pull quotes and takeaway sound bites, examples of typical whines from salespeople (e.g., "the client said they spent their whole budget") paired with a positive response (e.g., "Decision makers make the budget. Non-decision makers spend the budget"), and plenty of advice and ideas that can be taken in and studied as a whole or referred to at random for inspiration. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review This isn't just a red book; it's a Red Bull of high-energy sales tips & counsel. -- David Dorsey, The Wall Street Journal (May 3rd 2006) See all Editorial Reviews -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Product Details Hardcover: 220 pages Publisher: Bard Press; 1st edition (September 25, 2004) Language: English ISBN-10: 1885167601 ISBN-13: 978-1885167606 Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die


Chip Heath - 2006
    Meanwhile, people with important ideas--entrepreneurs, teachers, politicians, and journalists--struggle to make them "stick."In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that stick and explain ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the human scale principle, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating curiosity gaps. Along the way, we discover that sticky messages of all kinds--from the infamous "kidney theft ring" hoax to a coach's lessons on sportsmanship to a vision for a new product at Sony--draw their power from the same six traits.Made to Stick will transform the way you communicate. It's a fast-paced tour of success stories (and failures): the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who drank a glass of bacteria to prove a point about stomach ulcers; the charities who make use of the Mother Teresa Effect; the elementary-school teacher whose simulation actually prevented racial prejudice.Provocative, eye-opening, and often surprisingly funny, Made to Stick shows us the vital principles of winning ideas--and tells us how we can apply these rules to making our own messages stick.

Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition


Jay Abraham - 2000
    Using clear examples from his own experience, Jay explains just how easy it can be to find and/or create new opportunities for wealth-building in any existing business, enterprise, or venture.And just how easy can it be? One entrepreneur took the concept of the ballpoint pen and refined it into a mulimillion-dollar idea: roll-on deodorant. Fred Smith of Federal Express took the methods that banks use for clearing checks to develop an overnight delivery company that has revolutionized the way we do business. Now, what have you seen-- or are going to see-- that you could take and turn to your advantage?In Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition, the program focuses on helping you spot the hidden assets, overlooked opportunities, and untapped resources around you, and gives you, and gives you fresh eyes with which to see and capitalize on them. You'll also learn how to adapt and apply these tools to your unique circumstances to maximize your income, influence, power, and success.

The Burned-Out Blogger's Guide to PR


Jason Kincaid - 2014
    Meanwhile, countless entrepreneurs shot themselves in the foot with basic PR mistakes — spending far too much money hiring the wrong sort of PR people. The goal of this book is simple: to save entrepreneurs from the overpriced and ineffective PR gurus of the world — and to give them the tools they need to take on the media themselves (or at least, to hire someone who doesn't stink).

Value-Based Fees: How to Charge - and Get - What You're Worth (The Ultimate Consultant Series)


Alan Weiss - 2002
    Unlike the contingency fees of attorneys, Weiss explains, his technique is about establishing a win-win dynamic with clients, while accommodating buyers' egos that "you get what you pay for." Filled with stories of successful consultants, sample proposals, letters of agreement, and other practical tools, Value-Based Fees' pragmatic advice includes:Step-by-step guidance on how to establish value-based fees How to create the "good deal" dynamic in client relationships Sixty ways to raise fees and increase profits immediately How to prevent and rebut fee objections How to use retainers wisely How to develop fee progression strategies How to make money while you sleep, eat, and play! Value-Based Fees clearly explains how to charge for your value--and get--what you're worth, providing the kind of nontheoretical, pragmatic advice that will help to improve any consultant's practice immediately.

KNOWN: The Handbook for Building and Unleashing Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age


Mark W. Schaefer - 2017
    Those who are known get the customers, the better jobs, and the invitations to exclusive opportunities. But can anybody become known? In this path-finding book, author Mark Schaefer provides a step-by-step plan followed by the most successful people in diverse careers like banking, education, real estate, construction, fashion, and more. With amazing case studies, dozens of exercises, and inspiring stories, KNOWN is the first book its kind, providing a path to personal business success in the digital age.

Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You at Business School


Richard Branson - 2012
    From his top tips on succeeding in business to some hard-hitting opinions on the global finance crisis, this book brings together his best advice on all things business.It's business school, the Branson way.

Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself


Erik Deckers - 2010
    It shows how to integrate online and offline networking to supercharge both personal and professional connections.

Trump: The Art of the Deal


Donald J. Trump - 1987
    I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump  Here is Trump in action—how he runs his business and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and changes the face of the New York City skyline. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated eleven guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest deals; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur and an unprecedented education in the practice of deal-making. It’s the most streetwise business book there is—and the ultimate read for anyone interested in achieving money and success, and knowing the man behind the spotlight.