Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your Small Business


Jay Conrad Levinson - 1984
    Based on hundreds of solid ideas that really work, Levinson’s philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it. In this completely updated and expanded fourth edition, Levinson offers a new arsenal of weaponry for small-business success including* strategies for marketing on the Internet (explaining when and precisely how to use it)* tips for using new technology, such as podcasting and automated marketing* programs for targeting prospects and cultivating repeat and referral business* management lessons in the age of telecommuting and freelance employeesGuerrilla Marketing is the entrepreneur’s marketing bible -- and the book every small-business owner should have on his or her shelf.

Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility


Patty McCord - 2018
    McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer. In her new book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, she shares what she learned there and elsewhere in Silicon Valley.McCord advocates practicing radical honesty in the workplace, saying good-bye to employees who don’t fit the company’s emerging needs, and motivating with challenging work, not promises, perks, and bonus plans. McCord argues that the old standbys of corporate HR―annual performance reviews, retention plans, employee empowerment and engagement programs―often end up being a colossal waste of time and resources. Her road-tested advice, offered with humor and irreverence, provides readers a different path for creating a culture of high performance and profitability.Powerful will change how you think about work and the way a business should be run.

Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production


James P. Womack - 1990
    It then identifies and describes the advantages of this system, which needs less of everything including time, human effort, inventories, and investment to produce products with fewer defects in smaller volumes at lower costs for fragmenting markets. The Machine That Changed the World even gave the system its name: lean.In the decade since its launch in the fall of 1990, The Machine That Changed the World has sold more than 600,000 copies in 11 languages and has introduced a whole generation of managers and engineers to lean thinking. No lean library is complete without this groundbreaking book."The fundamentals of this system are applicable to every industry across the globea[and] will have a profound effect on human society. It will truly change the world." - New York TimesPaperback / 1990 / 323 pages

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions


Dan Ariely - 2008
    We think we're making smart, rational choices. But are we?In a series of illuminating, often surprising experiments, MIT behavioral economist Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking research, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities.Not only do we make astonishingly simple mistakes every day, but we make the same "types" of mistakes, Ariely discovers. We consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. We fail to understand the profound effects of our emotions on what we want, and we overvalue what we already own. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable--making us "predictably" irrational.From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, Ariely explains how to break through these systematic patterns of thought to make better decisions. "Predictably Irrational" will change the way we interact with the world--one small decision at a time.

Executive Presence: What Nobody Ever Tells You about Getting Ahead


Sylvia Ann Hewlett - 2014
    You can have the experience and qualifications of a leader, but without executive presence, you won't advance. EP is an amalgam of qualities that true leaders exude, a presence that telegraphs you're in charge or deserve to be. Articulating those qualities isn't easy, however. Based on a nationwide survey of college graduates working across a range of sectors and occupations, Sylvia Hewlett and the Center for Talent Innovation discovered that EP is a dynamic, cohesive mix of appearance, communication, and gravitas. While these elements are not equal, to have true EP, you must know how to use all of them to your advantage. Filled with eye-opening insights, analysis, and practical advice for both men and women, mixed with illustrative examples from executives learning to use the EP, Executive Presence will help you make the leap from working like an executive to feeling like an executive.

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days


Jessica Livingston - 2001
    These people are celebrities now. What was it like when they were just a couple friends with an idea? Founders like Steve Wozniak (Apple), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Mitch Kapor (Lotus), Max Levchin (PayPal), and Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail) tell you in their own words about their surprising and often very funny discoveries as they learned how to build a company.Where did they get the ideas that made them rich? How did they convince investors to back them? What went wrong, and how did they recover?Nearly all technical people have thought of one day starting or working for a startup. For them, this book is the closest you can come to being a fly on the wall at a successful startup, to learn how it's done.But ultimately these interviews are required reading for anyone who wants to understand business, because startups are business reduced to its essence. The reason their founders become rich is that startups do what businesses do--create value--more intensively than almost any other part of the economy. How? What are the secrets that make successful startups so insanely productive? Read this book, and let the founders themselves tell you.

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products


Nir Eyal - 2013
    Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products reach their ultimate goal of bringing users back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder—not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behavior.Eyal provides readers with:• Practical insights to create user habits that stick.• Actionable steps for building products people love.• Fascinating examples from the iPhone to Twitter, Pinterest to the Bible App, and many other habit-forming products.

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All


Tom Kelley - 2013
     In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world's top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems.  It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.

You Only Have to Be Right Once: The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires


Randall Lane - 2014
    By 2012, it had become one of the top ten online destinations, drawing 170 million visitors. By 2013, Yahoo had acquired Tumblr for over $1 billion. Just like that, a kid who hadn’t even earned his high school diploma was worth over a quarter billion dollars. And he’s not the only one . . .Silicon Valley’s newest billionaires represent a unique and unconventional breed of entrepreneur: young, bold, and taking the world by storm with their extreme speed, insatiable hunger, and progressive leadership. These whiz kids (and, to be fair, a few adults) have the hottest companies in the world. They are all turning just one brilliant insight or hook into money at a rate never before seen in human history—creating companies that, even with no revenue, garner insane valuations.With unique insider access to the world’s most influential and wealthy entrepreneurs, Forbes has dug in to find what these super-entrepreneurs say about their own success. This book, introduced, edited, and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, is the first comprehensive look at who these instant tech billionaires are and how they achieved their quick wins. With sixteen illuminating pieces, including two never-before published features, we get behind-the-scenes examinations of the founders of Spotify, Airbnb, Tumblr, Twitter, and more, including:Elon Musk: The billionaire founder of Paypal, electric carmaker Tesla, and private space company SpaceX. His extreme ambition is matched by his preternatural engineering mind; no wonder he was the model for Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Iron Man.Evan Spiegel: The twenty-three-year old declined a $3 billion cash offer from Mark Zuckerberg, after making the mountain come to Mohammed (Snapchat’s HQ is in Los Angeles) —an unheard of request from a young gun to one of the biggest players in Silicon Valley. The story of Snapchat’s origin is even wilder than Facebook’s, but Spiegel’s ability to parlay infamy and popularity into revenue is still up in the air, even as Snapchat’s valuation continues to grow.Alex Karp: An eccentric philosopher with almost no tech background turned a Peter Thiel backed venture, Palantir, into a data-mining champion, with clients like the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA. Amid heated privacy concerns, Karp continues to grow Palantir like crazy, to $196 million in funding and an estimated $1 billion in contracts in 2014.You Only Have to Be Right Once is the definitive collection of everything we can learn from these incredible game changers and what their next moves spell for the future of business.

Will It Fly?: How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money


Pat Flynn - 2016
    A lack of proper validation kills more businesses than anything else. As Joel Barker says, “Speed is only useful if you’re running in the right direction.” Will It Fly? will help you make sure you are clear for takeoff. It answers questions like: - Does your business idea have merit? - Will it succeed in the market you’re trying to serve, or will it just be a waste of time and resources? - Is it a good idea for you? In other words, will it fly?Chock-full of practical suggestions you can apply to your business idea today, Will It Fly? combines action-based exercises and real-world case studies with anecdotes from the author’s personal experience of making money online, hosting successful podcasts, testing niche sites, and launching several online businesses.Will It Fly? will challenge you to think critically, act deliberately, and dare greatly. You can think of the book as your business flight manual, something you can refer to for honest and straight-forward advice as you begin to test your idea and build a business that takes off and soars.In five parts, Will It Fly? will guide you through the validation of your next business idea:- Part one, Mission Design, helps you make sure your target idea aligns with and supports your goals. - Part two, Development Lab, walks you through uncovering important details about your idea that you haven't even thought about. - Part three, Flight Planning, is all about assessing current market conditions. - Part four, Flight Simulator, focuses on the actual validating and testing of an idea with a small segment of a target market. - Finally, Part five, All Systems Go, is for final analysis to help you make sure your idea is one you are ready to move forward with.

Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used


Peter Block - 1987
    Using illustrative examples, case studies, and exercises, the author, one of the most important and well known in his field, offers his legendary warmth and insight throughout this much-awaited second edition. Anyone who must communicate in a professional context--and who doesn't?--will use the lessons taught in this book for years to come! "Who would have thought the 'consultant's bible' could be improved upon? Count on Peter Block--the consulting profession's very own revolutionary--to push us to confront and struggle with the paradoxes inherent in our work." --Candace Thompson, organization development consultant, First Chicago NBD--A Bank One Company "Block has distilled years of experience into a wise, down-to-earth, and eminently practical guide to excellence in consulting. If you are new to the practice, Flawless Consulting will chop years off your learning cycle. And even if you're an old pro, Block's insights will elevate you to new levels of effectiveness. Flawless Consulting is not simply about becoming a better consultant; it is about using consulting as a path toward becoming a better person." --Barry Oshry, president, Power & Systems, Inc.; author of Seeing Systems and Leading Systems

How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business


Douglas W. Hubbard - 1985
    Douglas Hubbard helps us create a path to know the answer to almost any question in business, in science, or in life . . . Hubbard helps us by showing us that when we seek metrics to solve problems, we are really trying to know something better than we know it now. How to Measure Anything provides just the tools most of us need to measure anything better, to gain that insight, to make progress, and to succeed." -Peter Tippett, PhD, M.D. Chief Technology Officer at CyberTrust and inventor of the first antivirus software "Doug Hubbard has provided an easy-to-read, demystifying explanation of how managers can inform themselves to make less risky, more profitable business decisions. We encourage our clients to try his powerful, practical techniques." -Peter Schay EVP and COO of The Advisory Council "As a reader you soon realize that actually everything can be measured while learning how to measure only what matters. This book cuts through conventional cliches and business rhetoric and offers practical steps to using measurements as a tool for better decision making. Hubbard bridges the gaps to make college statistics relevant and valuable for business decisions." -Ray Gilbert EVP Lucent "This book is remarkable in its range of measurement applications and its clarity of style. A must-read for every professional who has ever exclaimed, 'Sure, that concept is important, but can we measure it?'" -Dr. Jack Stenner Cofounder and CEO of MetraMetrics, Inc.

Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling


Edgar H. Schein - 2013
    But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.

Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours


Robert C. Pozen - 2012
    Pozen taught a full course load at Harvard Business School while serving as the full-time chairman of a global financial-services firm. He's written six books and hundreds of articles, raised a family with his wife of more than four decades, and served on many boards of local charities and public companies. Pozen is a prince of productivity, a man who has worked smarter and faster than almost everyone around him for more than forty years.In Extreme Productivity, Pozen reveals the secrets to workplace productivity and high performance. His book is for anyone feeling overwhelmed by an existing workload—facing myriad competing demands and multiple time-sensitive projects. Offering antidotes to a calendar full of boring meetings and a backlog of e-mails, Extreme Productivity explains how to determine your highest priorities and match them with how you actually spend your time.Pozen shows that in order to be truly productive, professionals must make a critical shift in their mind-set: from hours worked to results produced. He helps people at all stages of their careers read, write, and make presentations quicker and more effectively. He provides professionals with practical tips on how to efficiently use their time in the office—while leading full and productive personal lives as well.

What I Didn't Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World


Jay B. Barney - 2010
    He's a new MBA graduate who's landed a job with a strategy consultancy. His engagement team is on a mission: help HGS Inc., a specialty chemicals firm, define and execute a strategy for exploiting a textile technology the company developed.Justin and his team deploy state-of-the-art strategy tools to analyze the attractiveness of potential markets for the technology. But they soon realize the tools don't help them grapple with the human side of strategy--including political forces swirling within HGS. Everyone involved in the engagement is biased and insecure, brilliant and hardworking, selfish and lazy, loyal and dedicated.Justin and his cohorts aren't "real"--What I Didn't Learn in Business School is a business novel. But they're realistic: they're just like us. Their story reveals the limitations of strategy tools and demonstrates tactics for navigating the messy, human dynamics that can make or break a company's strategy efforts.This engaging book uses the power of story to present potent lessons for anyone seeking to excel at strategy management. It's a compelling read--whether you're an MBA grad struggling to apply what you learned or in the fray and eager to see what MBAs get wrong when they land in the real world.