In order to fully reveal their potential and become successful, businesspeople and entrepreneurs need to constantly learn and keep abreast of modern approaches and trends in marketing, planning, creativity, etc. Learn how to grow your business from grain and avoid mistakes from the very beginning or improve existing business processes from professional business trainers, economists, and business strategists.
If You’re in a Dogfight, Become a Cat by Leonard Sherman
Sometimes it seems to you that you have been in business for so long that you know everything about it. But here’s this usual problem – interest in your products is gradually waning, and your strategies no longer work as effectively as you would like. While your competing companies are trying to drown each other, do not get involved in competition with them. Instead, the author encourages business owners and managers to focus on other, equally important things.
For example, constantly look for opportunities to implement innovations your customers will love. Also, special attention should be paid to differentiating products or services from similar products and services of your competitors. Your company’s internal workflows and resources must be synchronized and executed for specific purposes.
After reading this book, you can learn modern strategies for successful long-term development and slightly deviate from the classic approaches many businesses are turning to. Being a cat in a pack of dogs often means being ahead of the curve.
Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking by Michael Michalko
World-renowned creative thinking expert Michael Michalko shares a selection of creative thinking techniques with his readers. You probably know the phrase, all ingenious is simple, but how to make that very brilliant thought come to you? Contrary to popular belief, genius can be developed in oneself, as well as creativity, and this can be done with the help of a person’s hard work on themselves.
The book offers many exercises by repeating which you can develop non-standard thinking that is so necessary for businesspeople. In addition to the techniques themselves, it also captures stories from the life of real people that the author shares with his readers. If you want to not only motivate yourself but also immediately put into practice everything you learned about and start generating ideas, this book is for you.
The Lean Startup. How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
In this book, you can learn more about the popular Lean Startup methodology. The ideas presented here are suitable for both small and large businesses. It is impossible to create a product right away that will be perfect and mega-successful; on the other hand, you can test ideas step by step and quickly adjust your business model without making a big investment right away. Only when your idea is supported by real facts will you need to act more decisively.
The author advises moving away from an intuitive approach to processes to more accurate methods. In his opinion, relying on forecasting is a sure way to failure since startups, firstly, are born in conditions of uncertainty. And secondly, developers and business owners need to respond in a timely manner to user feedback. Thus, entrepreneurs will be able to avoid the risk of losing a lot of money and efforts to create a failed product.
Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
This short book tells briefly and meaningfully about the main thing – how to rethink business, discarding various prejudices imposed by the business community. The authors of the book are business owners themselves and, through their own experience, prove to the curious reader how they can make a business profitable by circumventing outdated norms. You can read about how to approach the creation of an idea and evolve, reflect with the authors on the topic of workaholism, productivity, the issue of hiring employees and their number, and many other things relevant to businesspeople.
The Snowball System by Mo Bunnell
This book will be very useful for those who work directly with clients and think about how to make them become regular customers. It is the perfect guide for entrepreneurs in sales and other industries where business development is built on customer loyalty. You will learn how to build a database of satisfied customers who will come back to you, again and again, using valid and scientifically proven tools to increase revenue, as well as increase customer loyalty. If running your business has become difficult for you, using the advice in this book, you will soon be able to watch as it begins to develop and grow like a snowball.
As you can see, business literature allows you to expand your horizons, get practical and free advice from the authors of world bestsellers who, through trial and error, were able to derive some formulas for success. Of course, the path of each entrepreneur and their business is different in one aspect or another, but still, you can note many ideas and strategies for your activity.
