Rise of the Data Cloud


Frank Slootman - 2020
    

Scientific Advertising


Claude C. Hopkins - 1923
    The author of Scientific Advertising, Claude C. Hopkins, is well known as the father of modern advertising techniques, and this book has been widely used by students of advertising and marketing. This book covers many important aspects of advertising including how advertising laws are established, mail order advertising, headlines, psychology, strategy, budgeting, and more advanced subjects like negative advertising and how to test an advertising campaign.

Non-Invasive Data Governance: The Path of Least Resistance and Greatest Success


Robert Seiner - 2014
    Data Governance should not be about command-and-control, yet at times could become invasive or threatening to the work, people and culture of an organization. Non-Invasive Data Governance™ focuses on formalizing existing accountability for the management of data and improving formal communications, protection, and quality efforts through effective stewarding of data resources. Non-Invasive Data Governance will provide you with a complete set of tools to help you deliver a successful data governance program. Learn how: Steward responsibilities can be identified and recognized, formalized, and engaged according to their existing responsibility rather than being assigned or handed to people as more work. Governance of information can be applied to existing policies, standard operating procedures, practices, and methodologies, rather than being introduced or emphasized as new processes or methods. Governance of information can support all data integration, risk management, business intelligence and master data management activities rather than imposing inconsistent rigor to these initiatives. A practical and non-threatening approach can be applied to governing information and promoting stewardship of data as a cross-organization asset. Best practices and key concepts of this non-threatening approach can be communicated effectively to leverage strengths and address opportunities to improve.

The Customer Rules: The 39 Essential Rules for Delivering Sensational Service


Lee Cockerell - 2013
    Lee Cockerell knows that success in business – any business - depends upon winning and keeping customers.In 39 digestible, bite-sized chapters, Lee shares everything he has learned in his 40+ year career in the hospitality industry about creating an environment that keeps customers coming back for more. Here, Lee not only shows why the customer always rules, but also the Rules for serving customers so well they'll never want to do business with anyone but you. For example:Rule #1: Customer Service Is Not a DepartmentRule #3: Great Service Follows the Laws of Gravity Rule #5: Ask Yourself "What Would Mom Do?"Rule #19: Be a Copycat Rule #25. Treat Every Customer like a RegularRule #39: Don’t Try Too HardAs simple as they are profound, these principles have been shown to work in companies as large as Disney and as small as a local coffee shop; from businesses selling cutting-edge technologies like computer tablets to those selling products as timeless as shoes and handbags; at corporations as long-standing as Ford Motors and those as nascent as a brand new start-up.  And they have been proven indispensible at all levels of a company, from managers responsible for hiring and training employees, setting policies and procedures, and shaping the company culture to front line staff who deal directly with clients and customersChock-full of universal advice, applicable online and off, The Customer Rules is the essential handbook for service excellence everywhere.

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels


Michael D. Watkins - 2003
    In this updated and expanded 10th anniversary edition, internationally known leadership transition expert Michael D. Watkins gives you the keys to successfully negotiating your next move—whether you’re onboarding into a new company, being promoted internally, or embarking on an international assignment.In The First 90 Days, Watkins outlines proven strategies that will dramatically shorten the time it takes to reach what he calls the "breakeven point" when your organization needs you as much as you need the job. This new edition includes a substantial new preface by the author on the new definition of a career as a series of transitions; and notes the growing need for effective and repeatable skills for moving through these changes. As well, updated statistics and new tools make this book more reader-friendly and useful than ever.As hundreds of thousands of readers already know, The First 90 Days is a road map for taking charge quickly and effectively during critical career transition periods—whether you are a first-time manager, a mid-career professional on your way up, or a newly minted CEO.

Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most


Douglas Stone - 1999
    Based on fifteen years of research at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Difficult Conversations walks you through a step-by-step proven approach to having your toughest conversations with less stress and more success. You will learn: -- how to start the conversation without defensiveness-- why what is not said is as important as what is-- ways of keeping and regaining your balance in the face of attacks and accusations-- how to decipher the underlying structure of every difficult conversationFilled with examples from everyday life, Difficult Conversations will help you on your job, at home, or out of the world. It is a book you will turn to again and again for advice, practical skills, and reassurance.

The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone's Mind


Jonah Berger - 2020
    Marketers want to change their customers’ minds and leaders want to change organizations. Start-ups want to change industries and nonprofits want to change the world. But change is hard. Often, we persuade and pressure and push, but nothing moves. Could there be a better way?This book takes a different approach. Successful change agents know it’s not about pushing harder, or providing more information, it’s about being a catalyst. Catalysts remove roadblocks and reduce the barriers to change. Instead of asking, “How could I change someone’s mind?” they ask a different question: “Why haven’t they changed already? What’s stopping them?”The Catalyst identifies the key barriers to change and how to mitigate them. You’ll learn how catalysts change minds in the toughest of situations: how hostage negotiators get people to come out with their hands up and how marketers get new products to catch on, how leaders transform organizational culture and how activists ignite social movements, how substance abuse counselors get addicts to realize they have a problem, and how political canvassers change deeply rooted political beliefs.This book is designed for anyone who wants to catalyze change. It provides a powerful way of thinking and a range of techniques that can lead to extraordinary results. Whether you’re trying to change one person, transform an organization, or shift the way an entire industry does business, this book will teach you how to become a catalyst.

High Growth Handbook


Elad Gil - 2018
    Across all of these break-out companies, a set of common patterns has evolved into a repeatable playbook that Gil has codified in High Growth Handbook. Covering key topics including the role of the CEO, managing your board, recruiting and managing an executive team, M&A, IPOs and late stage funding rounds, and interspersed with over a dozen interviews with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley including Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Marc Andreessen (Andreessen Horowitz), and Aaron Levie (Box), High Growth Handbook presents crystal clear guidance for navigating the most complex challenges that confront leaders and operators in high-growth startups. In what Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn and co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers The Alliance and The Startup of You calls "a trenchant guide," High Growth Handbook is the playbook for turning a startup into a unicorn. "Elad Gil is one of Silicon Valley's seriously knowledgeable and battle-tested players. If you want the chance to turn your startup into the next Google or Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in the growth of these companies." - Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers "The Alliance" and "The Startup of You," and host of the podcast Masters of Scale "Elad eschews trite management aphorisms in favor of pragmatic and straight-shooting insights on complex topics like managing a board of directors, executing functional re-organizations with as little trauma as possible, and everything in-between." - Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter and serial entrepreneur "Elad first invested in Airbnb when we were less than 10 people and provided early advice on scaling the company. This book shares these learnings for the next generation of entrepreneurs." - Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder of Airbnb, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chairman of Airbnb China "Elad jam-packs every useful lesson about building and scaling companies into a single, digestible book. My only gripe is that he didn't write this when we were in the early days of Box as it would have saved my ass countless times." -Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box "Armed with observations gathered scaling some of the most successful and important companies of Silicon Valley, Elad has no-nonsense, highly applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial garage to the next stage and beyond." - Max Levchin, cofounder and CEO of Affirm, cofounder and CTO of PayPal "Elad is one of the most experienced operators in Silicon Valley having seen numerous companies hit their inflection point. His advice has been key for Coinbase as we go through hypergrowth, from hiring executives to improving M&A." - Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase"Elad is one of the best connected and respected early stage investors in the Valley - he invested in Minted when we had fewer than 50 employees and his advice was critical to us in growing our business to where we are now, in the low hundreds of millions in sales. In his book, he crystallizes all of these learnings for the next generation of companies."-Mariam Naficy, cofounder and CEO of Minted

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.

New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development


Mike Weinberg - 2012
    Packed with tested strategies and anecdotes, New Sales. Simplified. offers a proven formula for prospecting, developing, and closing deals.With refreshing honesty and some much-needed humor, sales expert Mike Weinberg examines the critical mistakes made by most salespeople and executives, then provides tips to help you achieve the opposite results.In New Sales. Simplified., you will learn how to:Identify a strategic list of genuine prospectsDraft a compelling, customer focused “sales story”Perfect the proactive telephone call to get face to face with more prospectsUse email, voicemail, and social media to your advantagePrepare for and structure a winning sales callMake time in your calendar for business development activitiesNew Sales. Simplified. is about overcoming and even preventing buyers’ anti salesperson reflex by establishing trust. This book will help you choose the right targets and build a winning plan to pursue them.Named by Hubpot as a Top 20 Sales Book of All Time, this easy-to-follow guide will remove the mystery surrounding prospecting and have you ramping up for new business.

Conversations That Win the Complex Sale: Using Power Messaging to Create More Opportunities, Differentiate Your Solutions, and Close More Deals: Using Power Messaging to Create More Opportunities, Differentiate Your Solutions, and Close More Deals


Erik Peterson - 2011
    We believe the concepts are core to engaging in customer conversations that are focused on their outcomes and what they want to achieve."-Karen Quintos, CMO and SVP, Dell Inc."The concepts outlined in this book are critical skills to building a world-class presales organization."-Ken Hamel, Senior Vice President, Global Solutions and Presales, SAP"Our new messaging, using the approaches presented in this book, is great and is being widely used by our sales team. We've never had a year end sales meeting with content that was met with such widespread acceptance and enthusiasm."-Jerry D. Cline, Senior Vice President, Retail Sales and Marketing, AmerisourceBergen Drug Company"The best salespeople sit across the table and make change easy for their customer by creating a succinct story and vision for what to change, how to change it, and how it will impact customer results. An enterprise focus on sales messaging, using the concepts in this book, is the hidden secret to driving incremental sales productivity and overwhelming customer success!"-Ken Powell, Vice President, Worldwide Sales Enablement, ADP"The Power Messaging techniques in this book are the foundation of how our marketing team creates our sales messages, as well as the process our field sales teams use for delivering that message in a unique and compelling way. At Kronos our results are a reflection of the power of the tool."-Aron Ain, CEO, KronosAbout the Book: In today's highly competitive world of complex sales, commoditization of your brand is one of the greatest dangers. You must differentiate yourself from the competition-or you will lose out. And the way to do that is through customer engagement. Rather than sell your own corporate story and brand message, you need to tell customers their story-the one in which they are the heroes and they achieve success.Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer have been developing and honing their Power Messaging sales technique for more than 20 years, and now they reveal all their secrets in Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.Presenting a catalog of facts or playing 20 questions with prospective customers is the surest way to lose the sale. Peterson and Riesterer provide the tools you need to recraft your message into a compelling story that wins more deals.With Conversations That Win the Complex Sale, you'll learn how to:Differentiate yourself from the competition by finding your "Value Wedge" Avoid parity in your value propositions by creating "Power Positions" Create a message that can literally double the number of deals you close Spike customer attention and create "Wow" in your conversations Prove all your claims without resorting to lists of boring facts and statistics Your competitors are out there telling their own corporate story-a story customers don't want to hear. Now is the time to seize the moment. This book is the one and only source you need to reframe your sales story and turn the tables on the competition by fully engaging their would-be customers.Conversations That Win the Complex Sale helps you create and deliver messages that customers care about, giving your brand the clear edge in today's crowded markets.

Out of the Crisis


W. Edwards Deming - 1982
    Long-term commitment to new learning and new philosophy is required of any management that seeks transformation. The timid and the fainthearted, and the people that expect quick results, are doomed to disappointment.According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.Previously published by MIT-CAES

The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future


Chris Guillebeau - 2012
      Still in his early thirties, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck.  Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.    There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful.  Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do.  You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you're sure it's successful.   In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies.  In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.   Here, finally, distilled into one easy-to-use guide, are the most valuable lessons from those who’ve learned how to turn what they do into a gateway to self-fulfillment.  It’s all about finding the intersection between your “expertise” – even if you don’t consider it such -- and what other people will pay for.  You don’t need an MBA, a business plan or even employees.  All you need is a product or service that springs from what you love to do anyway, people willing to pay, and a way to get paid.   Not content to talk in generalities, Chris tells you exactly how many dollars his group of unexpected entrepreneurs required to get their projects up and running; what these individuals did in the first weeks and months to generate significant cash; some of the key mistakes they made along the way, and the crucial insights that made the business stick.  Among Chris’s key principles: if you’re good at one thing, you’re probably good at something else; never teach a man to fish – sell him the fish instead; and in the battle between planning and action, action wins.   In ancient times, people who were dissatisfied with their lives dreamed of finding magic lamps, buried treasure, or streets paved with gold.  Today, we know that it’s up to us to change our lives.  And the best part is, if we change our own life, we can help others change theirs.  This remarkable book will start you on your way.

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.

Find Your Yellow Tux: How to Be Successful by Standing Out


Jesse Cole - 2017
    Start standing out. Whether in school, factories, or corporate offices, people are in a mad rush to the middle, going about their business and fitting in. The problem is, while you may feel as if you’re doing your own thing, you’re not—you’re doing what’s expected of you. To stand out, take whatever you think is normal, and do the exact opposite. In Find Your Yellow Tux, Jesse Cole, in-demand speaker and baseball ringleader, shares how you can achieve amazing things by doing the unexpected. Using examples from his life and the lives of his heroes—P. T. Barnum, Walt Disney, and MLB owner Bill Veeck—Cole shows how to reinvigorate your goals, reignite your passions, and excel in business and beyond. The time to break the mold is now—with Find Your Yellow Tux, you'll discover how to find joy and success in everything you do.