For almost 5,000 years, our forefathers have been composing books. These books have been passed down through the generations, capturing knowledge and wisdom.
If you’re looking for a solution to an issue, chances are someone has previously gone through it and recorded their findings and ideas in a book.
Why waste time and money attempting to learn by trial and error? Gain knowledge from someone who has years of experience in the field and use it to your advantage.
While lectures, seminars, and training sessions may be tempting, books are the most accessible and affordable method to begin learning.
These are some of the most informative books to read before you launch, whether you’re an ambitious tech entrepreneur or an artisan trying to market your work. Just a reminder that the books listed are not in any particular order.
Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer
To be able to share your passion, every entrepreneur should have the persuasiveness of a salesperson, whether it’s selling products to customers or selling a vision to your staff.
Take Gitomer’s book as a guide to knowing the nuts and bolts of the industrial sales process in order to accomplish this. This Little Red Book of Selling is little, so it’ll be a quick read for the less enthusiastic readers.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
In his National Bestseller, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Blink, dives into the eccentricities of famous figures in search of their common features. The truth is that there is no arcane secret to true commercial success; all you have to do is keep doing what you love, over and over again. To become an expert in any profession, you should put in at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Some Don’t by Jim Collins
This is a book about tenacity and how to build long-lasting businesses. Look no further than Jim Collins’ Good to Great for an in-depth explanation of how the management hierarchy should be constructed. Collins and his colleagues developed concepts that will enlighten imaginative minds through study into organizations such as Coca-Cola, Intel, and General Electric.
Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Rework is fantastic because it will show you how to do business in the simplest way possible, and it is unlike any other business book you’ll come across. Whether you believe it or not, authors Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson will tell you why writing a proper business plan is pointless, why seeking external investors is unnecessary, and why ignoring competition increases your chances of success.
This book will show you how simple it is to venture out on your own, thanks to its basic guidance and welcoming manner.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
Zero to One, written by the CEO of Paypal, offers a positive outlook on America’s future advancement as well as a new way of thinking about innovation: it all starts with learning to ask the questions that lead to finding value in unexpected places.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
Whether you like it or not, you’ll spend the remainder of your career working in groups. Lencioni weaves his lessons into the story of a failing Silicon Valley corporation and its surprise pick for a new CEO: an old-school manager who had resigned from traditional manufacturing at the age of 55 two years before.
This book demonstrates how an astute leader can reassemble a disjointed team and bring the people together to form a great and powerful one.
Grit by Angela Duckworth
Even if you’re not in the business world, you’ll find this book inspiring. The same technique applies to everybody who wants to succeed, whether they are a teacher, a doctor, an athlete, a parent, or a student.
Duckworth, now a renowned researcher and professor, recounts her early eye-opening experiences in teaching, business advising, and neurology, which led her to the conclusion that what truly drives success is a unique blend of passion and long-term endurance, rather than “genius.”
Importance of Reading Business Books
- Business Acumen: If there’s one thing that business books will always provide you, it’s business acumen. They’ll teach you the basic business principles you’ll need to communicate effectively with other businesspeople. Reading broadly will expose you to concepts that you are unfamiliar with.
- One of the benefits of reading business books is that they tell you stories that provide you context for the issues and possibilities you face. The context and stories can open your mind to new possibilities, some of which you may not have thought of before. Some business books offer frameworks for considering options and making decisions.
- Mindset: Your mindset, or belief system, is a stumbling block to your company success. You can infect yourself with empowered beliefs by reading business biographies (and other biographies). You can pick up on their beliefs that led them to see things that others couldn’t. Grit, determination, tenacity, and resourcefulness are all attributes that you can invariably pick up on from them.
- Business has its own vocabulary, even though some detractors complain that too much of it is jargon. You must be able to speak in the language being used if you are going to interact with other business people. If you’re sitting in a boardroom and someone asks you about your CAGR, you’ll want to know what that means.
- Lessons: If someone tells you that placing their hand in the fire burned it, you don’t have to do the same to learn for yourself. You don’t have to go through the same misery as the individual who warns you about a potential risk.
