Here are a collection of books that are important to me, and which I go back to regularly to remind myself of what I should be focusing on.
Inside the Tornado by Geoffrey A. Moore - His follow up to Crossing the Chasm. You can treat this as the definitive guide on strategy and focus. The case studies are from a while ago, but the niche marketing lessons are universal.
Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants by Jay Conrad Levinson and Michael W. McLaughlin - Guerrilla Marketing is the term and approach coined by Conrad Levinson for marketing strategies that rely on creativity, imagination, and energy, but zero or not much money. Blog marketing is an ideal example. This book has plenty of ideas and practical help for the business of a consulting practice.
Presentations Plus by David A. Peoples - The definitive guide to presenting. My edition is from 1988, when he presented at an IBM Agent’s conference. He is the best presenter I have ever seen, and his book is full of tips and techniques to spice up your approach. It comes from the era before PowerPoint, when we used to use foils and flip charts, but that is a good thing - we jump to the PP slides too quickly. One of the presentations he did was called 60 tips in 60 minutes. One of my friends, Nigel Henzell-Thomas, turned that in to a book called Supercharge Your selling (giving David due credit of course!).
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout - These guys write the best books on marketing. This book collects together the wisdom from their Positioning, Bottom-Up Marketing and Marketing Warfare and distils it in to a collection of laws. It doesn’t matter whether you are in the business of making cola, cars or consultancy, the laws of marketing still apply!
Differentiate or Die by Jack Trout with Steve Rivkin - An excellent treatise on how to make differntiation the cornerstone of your marketing. Very clear and concise and full of great examples. The back cover has testimonials from the likes of Dan Rather of CBS News to Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems.
World Class Selling by Jim Holden - This and Jim’s Power Base Selling are the best two books on sales. Teaching the importance of an organisation’s politics, a value based sales methodology, this shows you how to suceed in the competitive landscape.
Getting Things Done by David Allen - Subtitled “How to achieve stress-free productivity”. This book teaches you the “do it, delegate it, defer it, drop it” principle to emptying your in-tray. As well as containing great techniques for managing your work time, it properly addresses everything that is going on in your life. It is a great book, and there is a whole ecosystem of fans with advice and tools to help you implement this approach. Well worth it!
