Books
Author(s): Aubrey C. Daniels
Suggested by: Verne Harnish
Category: Entrepreneurship
Description:
The classic bestseller on performance management is updated to reflect changes in today's working environment. When an employer needs to know how to gain maximum performance from employees, renowned behavioral psychologist--Aubrey Daniels is the man to consult. What has made Daniels the man with the answers? His ability to apply scientifically based behavioral stimuli to the workplace while making it fun at the same time.
Now Daniels updates his ground-breaking book with the latest and best motivational methods, perfected at such companies as Xerox, 3M, and Kodak. All-new material shows how to: create effective recognition and rewards systems in line with today's employees want; Stimulate innovations and creativity in new and exciting ways; overcome problems associated with poorly educated workers; motivate young employees from the minute they join the workforce.
Author(s): Verne Harnish
Suggested by: Verne Harnish
Category: Business
Description:
Decisions equal success-nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive-they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension. What made Apple's board bring back Steve Jobs to the company? How did Johnson & Johnson decide to recall every bottle of Tylenol after a poisoning scare that involved only a small batch of the drug? What made Henry Ford decide to double the wages of his autoworkers, and how did that change the American economy for the next century?
Here management consultant Verne Harnish, the CEO of Gazelles, and Fortune's editors provide the background stories behind the greatest business decisions of all time. In this fully original book, you'll get a glimpse into the thought processes leading up to these groundbreaking moments and will learn how the decisions have shaped the thinking of today's top leaders. The book also contains an insightful foreword by management guru Jim Collins, the author of Built To Last and Good To Great, which explains the importance of decision making in creating a successful company.
ADVANCED PRAISE FOR FORTUNE Greatest Business Decisions
"CEOs make thousands of decisions every year, but only a few of them have dramatic impact on a company's brand, performance, and culture. IBM knows something about those types of 'big bets.' This book is a concise look at some of those big decisions and the C-suite moves that separated winners from the competition." - Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman and former CEO, IBM
"A great resouce! Learning about how others make great decisions can help you make great decisions! A fascinating, practical history that can change the way that you make decisions. Required reading for decison-makers- at all levels!" - Marshall Goldsmith, named the No. 1 Leadership Thinker in the World by Thinkers50, is a consultant and author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
"When you look at the best business decisions that have been made throughout the years, a clear pattern emerges: The best decisions require not only great insight, but courage and commitment as well. The greatest business leaders are the ones who focus their energy not solely on profits, but on improving people's lives. These important lessons from our past, which this book brings to light, are more relevant than ever today." - Bill Ford, Executive Chairman, Ford Motor.
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Author(s): David Meerman Scott
Suggested by: Verne Harnish
Category: Marketing
Description:
David Meerman Scotts marketing bible has become a modern day business classic. This is the book every ambitious, forward-thinking, progressive marketer or publicist has at the front of their shelf. Business communication has changed over the recent years. Creative ad copy is no longer enough. The New Rules of Marketing and PR has brought thousands of marketers up to speed on the changing requirements of promoting products or services in the new digital age. This is a one-of-a-kind, pioneering guide, offering a step-by-step action plan for harnessing the power of the Internet to communicate with buyers directly, raise online visibility, and increase sales. Its about getting the right message to the right people at the right time - for a fraction of the cost of a big-budget advertising campaign. This new, updated edition includes:* A new introduction discussing recent changes to the world of marketing and PR* A brand new chapter on mobile marketing* An additional chapter on real-time marketing and PR* Updated information on how to measure the success of your campaigns* A range of new tools* Fresh case studies
Author(s): Robert H. Bloom
Suggested by: Verne Harnish
Category: Business
Description:
Robert H. Bloom has discovered that every enterprise has at least one strategic asset-one existing strength-that can form the foundation for future growth. He calls this an Inside Advantage. This strength usually lies unrecognized in an activity the business is currently performing or in a concept or an idea that the business already owns. Finding this hidden potential and becoming well known for it will grow the business.
This strategy reflects Bloom's 45 years of experience in growing businesses and brands of every size and type, including famous companies such as Southwest Airlines, T-Mobile, T.G.I. Friday's, Zales, Nestle, and L'Oreal, as well as not-so-famous B2B firms, not-for-profit organizations, and start-ups.
Now, through his Growth Discovery Process, he is making his strategy available to all people who know their craft but don't know how to craft a growth strategy.
Bloom's process is a plain-language path of discovery with only four steps. Whether you are a business leader, a manager, or an entrepreneur, this Growth Discovery Process will enable you to gain a profound insight into the core values of your enterprise. It will guide you to a clear understanding of who your customers are and what your special offerings to those customers should be. Finally, the process will stimulate a host of ideas-what Bloom calls Imaginative Acts-for highlighting your Inside Advantage and making it well known to current and prospective customers.
Doing what you're good at and doing it better than anyone else will create growth. The Inside Advantage will help you capture that magic moment when customers will select your product or service over those of your competitors.
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Author(s): Frances Frei and Anne Morriss
Suggested by: Verne Harnish
Category: Customer Relations
Description:
Most companies treat service as a low-priority business operation, keeping it out of the spotlight until a customer complains. Then service gets to make a brief appearance - for as long as it takes to calm the customer down and fix whatever foul-up jeopardized the relationship.
In Uncommon Service, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss show how, in a volatile economy where the old rules of strategic advantage no longer hold true, service must become a competitive weapon, not a damage-control function. That means weaving service tightly into every core decision your company makes.
The authors reveal a transformed view of service, presenting an operating model built on tough choices organizations must make:
- How do customers define "excellence" in your offering? Is it convenience? Friendliness? Flexible choices? Price?
- How will you get paid for that excellence? Will you charge customers more? Get them to handle more service tasks themselves?
- How will you empower your employees to deliver excellence? What will your recruiting, selection, training, and job design practices look like? What about your organizational culture?
- How will you get your customers to behave? For example, what do you need to do to get them to treat your employees with respect? Do you need to make it easier for them to use new technology?
Practical and engaging, Uncommon Service makes a powerful case for a new and systematic approach to service as a means of boosting productivity, profitability, and competitive advantage.
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Author(s): John Mullins
Suggested by: Verne Harnish
Category: Business
Description:
Who needs investors?
More than two generations ago, the venture capital community - VCs, business angels, incubators and others - convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. They did so for good reasons: the sometimes astonishing returns they've delivered to their investors and the astonishingly large companies that their ecosystem has created.
But the vast majority of fast-growing companies never take any venture capital. So where does the money come from to start and grow their companies? From a much more agreeable and hospitable source, their customers. That's exactly what Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Banana Republic's Mel and Patricia Ziegler did to get their companies up and running and turn them into iconic brands.
In The Customer Funded Business, best-selling author John Mullins uncovers five novel approaches that scrappy and innovative 21st century entrepreneurs working in companies large and small have ingeniously adapted from their predecessors like Dell, Gates, and the Zieglers:
- Matchmaker models (Airbnb)
- Pay-in-advance models (Threadless)
- Subscription models (TutorVista)
- Scarcity models (Vente Privee)
- Service-to-product models (GoViral)
Through the captivating stories of these and other inspiring companies from around the world, Mullins brings to life the five models and identifies the questions that angel or other investors will - and should! - ask of entrepreneurs or corporate innovators seeking to apply them. Drawing on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and investors who have actually put these models to use, Mullins goes on to address the key implementation issues that characterize each of the models: when to apply them, how best to apply them, and the pitfalls to watch out for.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur lacking the start-up capital you need, an early-stage entrepreneur trying to get your cash-starved venture into take-off mode, an intrapreneur seeking funding within an established company, or an angel investor or mentor who supports high-potential ventures, this book offers the most sure-footed path to starting, financing, or growing your venture.
John Mullins is the author of The New Business Road Test and, with Randy Komisar, the widely acclaimed Getting to Plan B.
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Author(s): Neil Pasricha
Suggested by: Ronald Walla
Category: Business
Description:
What's the formula for a happy life?
Neil Pasricha is a Harvard MBA, a Walmart executive, a New York Times-bestselling author, and a husband and dad. After selling more than a million copies of his Book of Awesome series, he now shifts his focus from observation to application.
In The Happiness Equation, Pasricha illustrates how to want nothing, do anything, and have everything. If that sounds like a contradiction, you simply haven't unlocked the 9 Secrets to Happiness.
Each secret takes a common ideal, flips it on its head, and casts it in a completely new light. Pasricha then goes a step further by providing step-by-step guidelines and hand-drawn scribbles that illustrate exactly how to apply each secret to live a happier life today.
Controversial? Maybe. Counterintuitive? Definitely.
The Happiness Equation will teach you such principles as:
- Why success doesn't lead to happiness
- How to make more money than a Harvard MBA
- Why multitasking is a myth
- How eliminating options leads to more choice
The Happiness Equation is a book that will change how you think about everything-your time, your career, your relationships, your family, and, ultimately, of course, your happiness.
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Author(s): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith, Trish Papadakos
Suggested by: Ronald Walla
Category: Marketing & Sales
Description:
Value Proposition Design helps you tackle the core challenge of every business - creating compelling products and services customers want to buy. This highly practical book, paired with its online companion, will teach you the processes and tools you need to create products that sell.
Using the same stunning visual format as the authors' global bestseller, Business Model Generation, this sequel explains how to use the "Value Proposition Canvas" to design, test, create, and manage products and services customers actually want.
Value Proposition Design is for anyone who has been frustrated by new product meetings based on hunches and intuitions; it's for anyone who has watched an expensive new product launch fail in the market. The book will help you understand the patterns of great value propositions, get closer to customers, and avoid wasting time with ideas that won't work. You'll learn the simple process of designing and testing value propositions, that perfectly match customers' needs and desires.
In addition the book gives you exclusive access to an online companion on Strategyzer.com. You will be able to assess your work, learn from peers, and download pdfs, checklists, and more.
Value Proposition Design is an essential companion to the "Business Model Canvas" from Business Model Generation, a tool embraced globally by startups and large corporations such as MasterCard, 3M, Coca Cola, GE, Fujitsu, LEGO, Colgate-Palmolive, and many more. Value Proposition Design gives you a proven methodology for success, with value propositions that sell, embedded in profitable business models.
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Author(s): Tim Clark, Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur
Suggested by: Ronald Walla
Category: Business
Description:
The global bestseller Business Model Generation introduced a unique visual way to summarize and creatively brainstorm any business or product idea on a single sheet of paper. Business Model You uses the same powerful one-page tool to teach readers how to draw "personal business models," which reveal new ways their skills can be adapted to the changing needs of the marketplace to reveal new, more satisfying, career and life possibilities. Produced by the same team that created Business Model Generation, this book is based on the Business Model Canvas methodology, which has quickly emerged as the world's leading business model description and innovation technique.
This book shows readers how to:
- Understand business model thinking and diagram their current personal business model
- Understand the value of their skills in the marketplace and define their purpose
- Articulate a vision for change
- Create a new personal business model harmonized with that vision, and most important, test and implement the new model
When you implement the one-page tool from Business Model You, you create a game-changing business model for your life and career.
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Author(s): Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur
Suggested by: Ronald Walla
Category: Management & Leadership
Description:
Business Model Generation is a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers striving to defy outmoded business models and design tomorrow's enterprises. If your organization needs to adapt to harsh new realities, but you don't yet have a strategy that will get you out in front of your competitors, you need Business Model Generation
Co-created by 470 "Business Model Canvas" practitioners from 45 countries, the book features a beautiful, highly visual, 4-color design that takes powerful strategic ideas and tools, and makes them easy to implement in your organization. It explains the most common Business Model patterns, based on concepts from leading business thinkers, and helps you reinterpret them for your own context. You will learn how to systematically understand, design, and implement a game-changing business model--or analyze and renovate an old one. Along the way, you'll understand at a much deeper level your customers, distribution channels, partners, revenue streams, costs, and your core value proposition.
Business Model Generation features practical innovation techniques used today by leading consultants and companies worldwide, including 3M, Ericsson, Capgemini, Deloitte, and others. Designed for doers, it is for those ready to abandon outmoded thinking and embrace new models of value creation: for executives, consultants, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all organizations. If you're ready to change the rules, you belong to "the business model generation!"
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