Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

As a small business owner, what kind of book would you like to read?

Do you like to read Seth Godin books such as Purple Cow?

Books that document and explain other company successes?

Wondering what the SUN community looks for.


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Shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you`ll be amongst the stars. - B. Sigel

Here are some recent or current topics:

• creating and fostering uniqueness (Purple Cow, Blue Ocean Strategy)
• branding is high on my list (22 Immutable Laws of Branding, Origin of Brands, POP!)
• marketing (Tipping Point, Your Marketing Sucks)
  
• stories about other food industry startups (Ben & Jerry, Newman`s Own)
• startups in general (The Art of the Start, Bootstrapping)
• recently reread some books I bought about 15 years ago (The Goal, Theory of Constraints and others by Elihu Goldratt) I had no idea then that I would have a factory today.
  

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Wow! A factory, huh? That is mega success in my head. What does your factory produce?

So what have you read in the books, nuggets, that are worth gold to you and your business?

With me, it`s that success takes work and diligence. There are products that claim they teach shortcuts or what not, but the world spins the opposite direction.

These nuggets... simple, yet truly profound.


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Shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you`ll be amongst the stars. - B. Sigel

I like biographies of people who`ve overcome great odds and succeeded. They can be fiction as well, for example the Horatio Hornblower books from long ago.

I find that although life brings us to places where we need new knowledge, the more inspiring books tend to be about examples. It`s that old thing that if someone else has done it, then it`s clearly not impossible.

I also think that the single biggest obstacle to anyone contemplating a new business is the belief and surrounding drone of people saying it`s impossible, it can`t happen, won`t happen, they`re nuts, "you`d have to be crazy to try to start a business doing that!" And so, books that demonstrate the "impossible" odds others faced, then how they succeeded----those are the books I enjoy.

I`m addicted to business books.  A few of my favorites are:

The Innovator`s Solution - An incredible strategy book about being disruptive.  Its focus is on what businesses can do to keep themselves ahead of the game, covering topics such as growth rates, money, management, structure, etc.  The lessons are very applicable to new businesses.  It is much more in-depth than books like Blue Ocean Strategy, of which it shares certain ideas and that I also enjoyed.  (I have not read The Innovator`s Dilemma which focuses more on what current businesses can do to compete against highly innovative companies.)

Integrity - A great book about leadership.  Written by a psychologist/corporate adviser, it says a lot about what it takes as a person to lead and make the right decisions.  It really makes you look at yourself.  I like that personal growth stuff.

The Tipping Point is a fave.  I really helped me think more about messages in business and how to spread the word with a hook.

Good to Great I read a few times.  It`s already become a classic read.

Some inspirational books that are at the top of my list are Raising the Bar, the story of Clif Bar.  It`s a great story about building a meaningful company and almost selling out to the big guys.  I also like Pour Your Heart Into It, the Starbucks story written by Howard Schultz.  And I am currently reading Titan, a very thick and comprehensive biography about John D. Rockefeller.  So far so good.

I favor books on odd subjects or books that present new perceptual structures for common subjects. The Blue Ocean strategy book was filled with absolutely useless junk but I liked the Tipping Point and Blink! very much. [ Blue Ocean thought that "their" method of comparing value curves was unique. So I had to laugh very very very hard at their supposed "unique common" sense approach. Blue oceans and red oceans? Did the authors bother to read anything Michael Porter and Tom Peters have written since 1979? Did the authors bother to mention that competitiveness and markets don`t work, not even remotely, in the ways they describe? BARF. A dangerous, waste of time book. ] 22 Immutable Laws of Branding is excellent.

Business consultants write a lot of books about their ideas. Before you read any book by a business consultant, you should be required to read Dangerous Company. I don`t tend to like books by consultants unless they are extremely well credentialed. A lot of the business books are written by consultants who have ruined, or participated in the ruin of, great companies. Just a comment.

I enjoyed Blue Ocean Strategy but it was also one of the first business books I read when I started picking up business books a few years back.  I wonder what my opinion of it would be if I read it now.  I favor books that are a little more technical and grounded in approach to the subject rather than theoretical (like colorful oceans).  That is why I recommended The Innovator`s Solution for a strategy read.

Dangerous Company looks like a good one.  I just put it on my book wish list.  As I`ve learned about business from reading and other people, I`ve often questioned the idea of business consultants anyway.  I mean, isn`t that what other execs, managers and boards of directors are for?  Want advice, go to your people!  If you have to rely on outside sources for advice, then it seems obvious that you can`t connect with your team.  Sure an outside opinion can be helpful but then again, consultants aren`t vested in the companies.

Back to books, I look forward to reading 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.  I`ve heard good stuff about it.

22 Immutable Laws = One of the best books on branding.

The problem with Blue Ocean Strategy is as follows.

1. Their "unique theory" rests of manipulating value curves, which are basically graphs of features. Think of a graphic equalizer on a stereo. The blue ocean authors think that creating your own blue ocean is as easy as pushing the knobs on a graphic equalizer until you have a unique value curve. Well, this is dangerous advice. Typically it`s very easy for a competitor to do the same thing. It just turns into a zero sum game. The fact of the matter is that you can operate profitably and gain share in a red ocean. Information supply was a red ocean owned by the newspapers ... until the Internet came along. And the Internet was the product of academic/government thinking, not business. There are lots external factors like this that make it very easy for someone to come along and invalidate your special value curve. A parameterized value curve *is* valuable but blue ocean spends no time talking about that.

 

Also, the simple linear graph is the wrong metaphor for outlining features in terms of value and weight because it really cannot represent the relationships between features, except simplistically. A directed acyclic graph [ a decision tree for example ]  is much better, and not much more complex than a standard graph.

I beg to differ.

I read Blue Ocean Strategy and I thought it was a very thorough read on examples of companies who did more than their competitors and succeeded. It might have been a reiteration of a book in the past but to be honest with you, mostly all books are like that, especially in a day and age of today.

The examples of NTT, Cirque Del Sol, and countless others were fabulous. Explained thoroughly and dissected for outsiders to see how they have accomplished what they have.

But hey, I just have a different opinion.

Craig, thanks for your input. I feel that I am in the same grounds as you. I like to read of how others did it because when I do that, I believe that I am able to also.

C`mon! More people should be commenting on this. I know all of us as entrepreneurs stay ahead of the game by reading.

What do you read?

And what would you like to read?


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Shoot for the moon because even if you miss, you`ll be amongst the stars. - B. Sigel