The 48 Laws of Power


Robert Greene - 1998
    Barnum. Some laws teach the need for prudence (“Law 1: Never Outshine the Master”), others teach the value of confidence (“Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness”), and many recommend absolute self-preservation (“Law 15: Crush Your Enemy Totally”). Every law, though, has one thing in common: an interest in total domination. In a bold and arresting two-color package, The 48 Laws of Power is ideal whether your aim is conquest, self-defense, or simply to understand the rules of the game.

From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue


Aaron Ross - 2016
    It's not about privileges, luck, or working harder. There's a template that the world's fastest growing companies follow to achieve and sustain much, much faster growth.From Impossible to Inevitable details the hypergrowth playbook of companies like the record-breaking Zenefits (which skyrocketed from $1 million to $100 million in two years), Salesforce.com (the fastest growing multibillion dollar software company), and EchoSign--aka Adobe Document Services--(which catapulted from $0 to $144 million in seven years). Whether you have a $1 billion or a $100,000 business, you can use the same insights as these notable companies to learn what it really takes to break your own revenue records. For instance, one of the authors shows how he grew his income from $67,000 to $720,000 in four years while maintaining a 20-30 hour work week and welcoming a new child--nine times.This book shows you how to surpass plateaus and get off of the up-and-down revenue rollercoaster by answering three questions about growing revenue to tens times its size:Why aren't you growing faster? What does it take to get to hypergrowth? How do you sustain growth? This powerful, effective book provides a template for you to kick off your biggest growth spurt yet. This template includes The 7 Ingredients Of Hypergrowth: You're not ready to grow until you Nail a Niche.Overnight success is a fairy tale. You're not going to be magically discovered. You need sustainable systems that Create Predictable Pipeline.Growth exposes your weaknesses and it will cause more problems than it solves--until you Make Sales Scalable.It's hard to build a big business out of small deals. Figure out how to Double Your Dealsize.It'll take years longer than you want, but don't quit too soon. Make sure you can Do the Time.Your people are renting, not owning their jobs. Develop a culture of initiative, not adequacy by Embracing Employee Ownership.Employees, you are too accepting of "reality" and too eager to quit. You can Define Your Destiny to make a difference, for yourself and your company, no matter what you do or where you work. The authors take each ingredient and break it down into specific steps to guide you through implementation. From Impossible to Inevitable helps you take impossible goals and turn them into inevitable successes for your business and team. You will achieve success even bigger than you can imagine from where you're sitting today.

Ultimate Sales Machine


Chet Holmes - 2007
    And his advice starts with one simple concept: focus! Instead of trying to master four thousand strategies to improve your business, zero in on the few essential skill areas that make the big difference. Too many managers jump at every new trend, but don’t stick with any of them. Instead, says Holmes, focus on twelve critical areas of improvement—one at a time—and practice them over and over with pigheaded discipline. The Ultimate Sales Machine shows you how to tune up and soup up virtually every part of your business by spending just an hour per week on each impact area you want to improve. Like a tennis player who hits nothing but backhands for a few hours a week to perfect his game, you can systematically improve each key area. Holmes offers proven strategies for: • Management: Teach your people how to work smarter, not harder • Marketing: Get more bang from your Web site, advertising, trade shows, and public relations • Sales: Perfect every sales interaction by working on sales, not just in sales The Ultimate Sales Machine will put you and your company on a path to success and help you stay there!

Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love


Richard Sheridan - 2013
    . . joy. As a package-delivery person once remarked, “I don’t know what you do, but whatever it is, I want to work here.”Every year, thousands of visitors come from around the world to visit Menlo Innovations, a small software company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They make the trek not to learn about technology but to witness a radically different approach to company culture.CEO and “Chief Storyteller” Rich Sheridan removed the fear and ambiguity that typically make a workplace miserable. His own experience in the software industry taught him that, for many, work was marked by long hours and mismanaged projects with low-quality results. There had to be a better way.With joy as the explicit goal, Sheridan and his team changed everything about how the company was run. They established a shared belief system that supports working in pairs and embraces making mistakes, all while fostering dignity for the team.The results blew away all expectations. Menlo has won numerous growth awards and was named an Inc. magazine “audacious small company.” It has tripled its physical office three times and produced products that dominate markets for its clients.Joy, Inc. offers an inside look at how Sheridan and Menlo created a joyful culture, and shows how any organization can follow their methods for a more passionate team and sustainable, profitable results. Sheridan also shows how to run smarter meetings and build cultural training into your hiring process.Joy, Inc. offers an inspirational blueprint for readers in any field who want a committed, energizing atmosphere at work—leading to sustainable business results.

Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond


Deepak Malhotra - 2007
    Drawing on decades of behavioral research plus the experience of thousands of business clients, the authors take the mystery out of preparing for and executing negotiations—whether they involve multimillion-dollar deals or improving your next salary offer.What sets negotiation geniuses apart? They are the men and women who know how to:•Identify negotiation opportunities where others see no room for discussion•Discover the truth even when the other side wants to conceal it•Negotiate successfully from a position of weakness•Defuse threats, ultimatums, lies, and other hardball tactics•Overcome resistance and “sell” proposals using proven influence tactics•Negotiate ethically and create trusting relationships—along with great deals•Recognize when the best move is to walk away•And much, much moreThis book gets “down and dirty.” It gives you detailed strategies—including talking points—that work in the real world even when the other side is hostile, unethical, or more powerful. When you finish it, you will already have an action plan for your next negotiation. You will know what to do and why. You will also begin building your own reputation as a negotiation genius.

Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency


Tom DeMarco - 2001
    That principle is the value of slack, the degree of freedom in a company that allows it to change. Implementing slack could be as simple as adding an assistant to a department and letting high-priced talent spend less time at the photocopier and more time making key decisions, or it could mean designing workloads that allow people room to think, innovate, and reinvent themselves. It means embracing risk, eliminating fear, and knowing when to go slow. Slack allows for change, fosters creativity, promotes quality, and, above all, produces growth. With an approach that works for new- and old-economy companies alike, this revolutionary handbook debunks commonly held assumptions about real-world management, and gives you and your company a brand-new model for achieving and maintaining true effectiveness.

Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising


Ryan Holiday - 2013
    A new generation of multibillion dollar brands have been built without spending a dime on traditional marketing techniques. No press releases, no PR firm, and no billboards in Times Square.It wasn’t luck that took them from tiny start-ups to massive success. They have a new strategy, called Growth Hacking. And it works.In this e-special, bestselling author Ryan Holiday shows how the marketing game has changed forever. He explains the growth hacker mindset and provides a new set of rules—critical information whether you’re an aspiring marketer, an entrepreneur, or a Fortune 500 senior executive.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion


Robert B. Cialdini - 1984
    Dr. Robert Cialdini is the seminal expert in the rapidly expanding field of influence and persuasion. His thirty-five years of rigorous, evidence-based research along with a three-year program of study on what moves people to change behavior has resulted in this highly acclaimed book.You'll learn the six universal principles, how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and how to defend yourself against them. Perfect for people in all walks of life, the principles of Influence will move you toward profound personal change and act as a driving force for your success.

Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations


Dan Ariely - 2016
    Every day we work hard to motivate ourselves, the people we live with, the people who work for and do business with us. In this way, much of what we do can be defined as being "motivators." From the boardroom to the living room, our role as motivators is complex, and the more we try to motivate partners and children, friends and coworkers, the clearer it becomes that the story of motivation is far more intricate and fascinating than we've assumed. Payoff investigates the true nature of motivation, our partial blindness to the way it works, and how we can bridge this gap. With studies that range from Intel to a kindergarten classroom, Ariely digs deep to find the root of motivation--how it works and how we can use this knowledge to approach important choices in our own lives. Along the way, he explores intriguing questions such as: Can giving employees bonuses harm productivity? Why is trust so crucial for successful motivation? What are our misconceptions about how to value our work? How does your sense of your mortality impact your motivation?

Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders


L. David Marquet - 2013
    As newly appointed captain of the USS Santa Fe, a nuclear-powered submarine, he was responsible for more than a hundred sailors, deep in the sea. In this high-stress environment, where there is no margin for error, it was crucial his men did their job and did it well.But the ship was dogged by poor morale, poor performance, and the worst retention in the fleet. Marquet acted like any other captain until, one day, he unknowingly gave an impossible order, and his crew tried to follow it anyway. When he asked why the order wasn't challenged, the answer was "Because you told me to." Marquet realized he was leading in a culture of followers, and they were all in danger unless they fundamentally changed the way they did things. That's when Marquet took matters into his own hands and pushed for leadership at every level. Turn the Ship Around! is the true story of how the Santa Fe skyrocketed from worst to first in the fleet by challenging the U.S. Navy's traditional leader-follower approach. Struggling against his own instincts to take control, he instead achieved the vastly more powerful model of giving control. Before long, each member of Marquet's crew became a leader and assumed responsibility for everything he did, from clerical tasks to crucial combat decisions. The crew became fully engaged, contributing their full intellectual capacity every day, and the Santa Fe started winning awards and promoting a highly disproportionate number of officers to submarine command.No matter your business or position, you can apply Marquet's radical guidelines to turn your own ship around. The payoff: a workplace where everyone around you is taking responsibility for their actions, where people are healthier and happier, where everyone is a leader.

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It


Chris Voss - 2016
    Never Split the Difference takes you inside his world of high-stakes negotiations, revealing the nine key principles that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed when it mattered the most – when people’s lives were at stake.Rooted in the real-life experiences of an intelligence professional at the top of his game, Never Split the Difference will give you the competitive edge in any discussion.

Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster


Alistair Croll - 2013
    Lean Analytics steers you in the right direction.This book shows you how to validate your initial idea, find the right customers, decide what to build, how to monetize your business, and how to spread the word. Packed with more than thirty case studies and insights from over a hundred business experts, Lean Analytics provides you with hard-won, real-world information no entrepreneur can afford to go without.Understand Lean Startup, analytics fundamentals, and the data-driven mindsetLook at six sample business models and how they map to new ventures of all sizesFind the One Metric That Matters to youLearn how to draw a line in the sand, so you’ll know it’s time to move forwardApply Lean Analytics principles to large enterprises and established products

Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent


Sydney Finkelstein - 2016
    But below the surface, they share a common approach to finding, nurturing, leading, and even letting go of great people. The way they deal with talent makes them not merely success stories, not merely organization builders, but what Sydney Finkelstein calls superbosses. They’ve all transformed entire industries.

It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be


Paul Arden - 2003
    If you want to succeed in life or business, this book is a must.

The Greatest Salesman in the World


Og Mandino - 1968
    If Mandino's suggested reading structure is followed, it would take about 10 months to read the book.What you are today is not important... for in this  runaway bestseller you will learn how to change your life by applying the secrets you are about to  discover in the ancient scrolls.