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Brick No122: Your 8 favourite business books
By Matt Weston, Tuesday 21 December 2004 As I mentioned on Friday, today marks the last brick of the year. No123 will be with you on Friday 7 January. But before I bid 2004 a teary farewell, I wanted to give you something to keep busy with. A couple of weeks ago, when the remaining shopping days were in double figures, and when winter was less wintry, I asked you to send over your favourite small business books. The remit was broader than Santa's shoulders. You could nominate new, old, reprinted, UK, non-UK, hardback, or paperback books. And your nominations came in thick, fast and eclectic. I've managed to whittle down a very long list to a sort of short list. And yep, that meant weeding out a couple of authors who tried to nominate their own books. And nope, I'm not naming names, at least not this time. Enough ado. The shorter today's intro, the more books I can list. Just don't let reading business books get in the way of spending quality time with your quality loved ones. PS: I've said this before, but the links simply take you through to Amazon where you can read more about each title and what others think. You can lead them off now, Rudolph . . . (1) "Anyone Can Do It: Building Coffee Republic From Our Kitchen Table" by Sahar Hashemi & Bobby Hashemi. The most nominated book on this list. Easy-to-read yet dense with first-hand anecdotes. IMHO the best chapter is the one on business plans which includes the Hashemis' own flawed first- attempt. "The best by a mile for a long time," chips in Andy Holding. (2) "The Art Of The Start" by Guy Kawasaki. Deborah Boyer got in the first of many nominations for this, Kawasaki's second book. GK is founder of venture capital firm Garage.com ("we startup startups"). You can download a taster at or order the hardback at Amazon. (3) "Free Prize Inside!" by Seth Godin. A good job I bought the hardback. The most thumbed book of my year by far. Godin wowed many of you with his pdf "The Bootstrapper's Bible" - over 1,000 of you downloaded it from the link I gave you in Brick No113 (no longer fr*e). Nobody should be allowed to have anything to do with marketing until they have read pages 131 to 172 of this book. That's the big three I'd say. But bubbling under . . . (4) "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber. You might be shocked that I'm including this. After all, I slated Gerber here in Brick No97 and (ahem) here in Brick No98. But you kept voting for this. And who am I to argue with more than one million copies sold (even though I am always right). (5) "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. Andy Bell of Mint Digital is a Krug-fan. He (SK not AB) was the star of October's brick on website usability "The less your prospect has to think, the better." Too right, Steve . . . (6) "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Dr Robert Cialdini. Alex Smith first put this my way in June. The result of years of study into what influences who, and why, this is dripping with colourful examples (like the "canned laughter" experiments I talked over last Tuesday). A couple I haven't read, but that come highly-praised . . . (7) "Authentic Business: How To Make A Living By Being Yourself" by Neil Crofts Vicky Stephens was the first of many to throw her hat in the ring for this. Apparently Crofts is penning a follow up to be published next year. But in the meantime . . . (8) "Hug Your Customers, Love The Results" by Jack Mitchell Rachel Collinson says this is "the best book on customer service I've ever read . . . there's one caveat: if you read this book, you will notice bad customer service everywhere you look. I now find myself telling restaurant managers, train operators, booksellers etc ad nauseam, how to improve their service." And we've got room at the inn for just one more . . . (9) "Better Business Magazine" I concede: this is a non-book. But, in my opinion, if you take out a subscription to Better Business Magazine you won't spend a better penny next year. (I wrote more about it in Brick No66.) I know Andrew and Sophie (the publisher/ editor-in-chief) personally and they've agreed a 33% discount for you. Remember to sign up: back to top |
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