8 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read (& Reread) in 2021
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been a business owner. With each passing year, there is so much more knowledge needed to remain a competitive and viable business in today’s global economy. New challenges appear every day and you need to learn and figure out how to solve them.
Because here’s the truth. Every entrepreneur is a life-long learner. You don’t have a choice.
Here is our list of the Top 8 Books that every entrepreneur, new and old should take time to read/reread (or listen to!) in the immediate future:
1. BUILDING A STORYBRAND: CLARIFY YOUR MESSAGE SO CUSTOMERS WILL LISTEN BY DONALD MILLER (2017)
If you use the wrong words to talk about your product, nobody will buy it. Marketers and business owners struggle to effectively connect with their customers, costing them and their companies millions in lost revenue. Today, more than half-a-million business leaders have touted the power of the StoryBrand Framework, created by New York Times bestselling author and marketing expert Donald Miller. Without a clear, distinct message, customers will not understand what you can do for them and are unwilling to engage, causing you to lose potential sales, opportunities for customer engagement, and much more.In this book, he shares the proven system he has created to help you engage and truly influence customers.
In this book, Miller teaches marketers and business owners to use the seven universal elements of powerful stories to improve how they connect with customers and grow their businesses.
The seven universal story points all humans respond to;
The real reason customers make purchases;
How to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and
How to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media.
We guarantee that this book will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.
Purchase Here.
2. HOW I BUILT THIS: THE UNEXPECTED PATHS TO SUCCESS FROM THE WORLD’S MOST INSPIRING ENTREPRENEURS BY GUY RAZ (2020)
Based on the highly acclaimed NPR podcast, How I Built This with Guy Raz, this book offers priceless insights and inspiration from the world’s top entrepreneurs on how to start, launch, and build a successful venture.
Award-winning journalist and NPR host Guy Raz has interviewed more than 200 highly successful entrepreneurs to uncover amazing true stories like these. In How I Built This, he shares tips for every entrepreneur’s journey: from the early days of formulating your idea, to raising money and recruiting employees, to fending off competitors, to finally paying yourself a real salary. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of starting their own business or wondered how trailblazing entrepreneurs made their own dreams a reality.
Purchase Here.
3. UNCLONED BY AUDRIA RICHMOND (2020)
UnCloned Marketing delivers a comprehensive blueprint for creating cash-generating marketing campaigns. In this book, marketing and launch strategist Audria Richmond reveals the exact proven framework that her marketing firm uses to disrupt industries and drive sales.
Complete with kick-butt advice, repeatable, step-by-step strategies and proven case studies from popular brands, this book will help you to master marketing like the pros. Whether it's just you and a laptop or you're running a large team, by the end of this book you'll know exactly how to:
Establish yourself as an authority
Create offers your audience can't wait to buy
Structure and launch an out-of-the-box marketing campaign from start to finish
Wow new clients and customers after the sale to position them for their next purchase
This one is sure to transform the way you think of market campaigning forever!
Purchase Here.
4. THE 4-HOUR WORKWEEK BY TIM FERRISS (2009)
Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, The 4-Hour Workweek boasts itself to be the blueprint. This step-by-step guide teaches you A LOT including:
• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”
The new expanded edition of Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek includes:
• More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point
• Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal
• How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times
• The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either
Purchase Here.
5. BUSINESS MADE SIMPLE BY DONALD MILLER (2021)
Again, Donald Miller knows that business is more than just a good idea made profitable – it’s a system of unspoken rules, rarely taught by MBA schools. If you are attempting to profitably grow your business or career, you need elite business knowledge—knowledge that creates tangible value.
Even if you had the time, access, or money to attend a Top 20 business school, you would still be missing the practical knowledge that propels the best and brightest forward. However, there is another way to achieve this insider skill development, which can both drastically improve your career earnings and the satisfaction of achieving your goals.
Donald Miller wrote Business Made Simple to teach others what it takes to grow your career and create a company that is healthy and profitable.
His short, daily entries and accompanying videos will add enormous value to your business and the organization you work for. In this book, a sixty-day guide, readers will be introduced to the nine areas where truly successful leaders and their businesses excel:
Character: What kind of person succeeds in business?
Leadership: How do you unite a team around a mission?
Personal Productivity: How can you get more done in less time?
Messaging: Why aren’t customers paying more attention?
Marketing: How do I build a sales funnel?
Business Strategy: How does a business really work?
Execution: How can we get things done?
Sales: How do I close more sales?
Management: What does a good manager do?
Business Made Simple is the must-have guide for anyone who feels lost or overwhelmed by the modern business climate, even if they attended business school. Learn what the most successful business leaders have known for years through the simple but effective secrets shared in these pages.
Purchase Here.
6. THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE: POWERFUL LESSONS IN PERSONAL CHANGE BY STEPHEN COVEY (2004)
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, Covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service, and human dignity--principles that give us the security to adapt to change and the wisdom and power to take advantage of the opportunities that change creates.
Purchase Here.
7. START WITH WHY BY SIMON SINEK (2011)
Start with Why is an A to Z on how leaders inspire people to take action. In 2009, Simon Sinek started a movement to help people become more inspired at work, and in turn inspire their colleagues and customers. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, including more than 28 million who’ve watched his TED Talk based on START WITH WHY -- the third most popular TED video of all time.
Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over? People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with WHY. They realized that people won't truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the WHY behind it. START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who've had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way -- and it's the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
Purchase Here:
8. GET GOOD WITH MONEY: TEN SIMPLE STEPS TO BECOMING FINANCIALLY WHOLE BY TIFFANY ALICHE (2021)
Tiffany Aliche was a successful pre-school teacher with a healthy nest egg when a recession and advice from a shady advisor put her out of a job and into a huge financial hole. As she began to chart the path to her own financial rescue, the outline of her ten-step formula for attaining both financial security and peace of mind began to take shape. These principles have now helped more than one million women worldwide save and pay off millions in debt, and begin planning for a richer life.
Revealing this practical ten-step process for the first time in its entirety, Get Good with Money introduces the powerful concept of building wealth through financial wholeness: a realistic, achievable, and energizing alternative to get-rich-quick and over-complicated money management systems. With helpful checklists, worksheets, a tool kit of resources, and advanced advice from experts who Tiffany herself relies on (her “Budgetnista Boosters”), Get Good with Money gets crystal clear on the short-term actions that lead to long-term goals, including:
• A simple technique to determine your baseline or “noodle budget,” examine and systemize your expenses, and lay out a plan that allows you to say yes to your dreams.
• An assessment tool that helps you understand whether you have a “don't make enough” problem or a “spend too much” issue—as well as ways to fix both.
• Best practices for saving for a rainy day (aka job loss), a big-ticket item (a house, a trip, a car), and money that can be invested for your future.
• Detailed advice and action steps for taking charge of your credit score, maximizing bill-paying automation, savings and investing, and calculating your life, disability, and property insurance needs.
• Ways to protect your beneficiaries' future, and ensure that your financial wishes will stand the test of time.
An invaluable guide to cultivating good financial habits and making your money work for you, Get Good with Money will help you build a solid foundation for your life (and legacy) that’s rich in every way.
Purchase Here.
There it is! Eight books guaranteed to transform your mindset and your money. Anyone of these will dramatically change how you do business and consequently, change how you live.