Best Practices are Stupid. 40 ways to out-innovate the competition. Stephen M. Shapiro. 2011. ISBN 9781591843856. A small but powerful book that leaders will need to have on their bookshelf. The author knows this topic ans is able to deliver the 40 tips concisely with impact. I have used a few of the ideas already and they really did “cut through” the fog.  Lots of resources on his website http://www.steveshapiro.com/best-practices-are-stupid/innovationtools/ as well as a blog on the topic.  You can also get the first five chapters as a sample.  Buying the book is a bit of a challenge but it is worth the search. Good stuff for a three hour flight.  I loved it that using best practices is the cost of playing the game- not what you need to win. His sections on game play are worth the price of the book

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The Joshua Principal. Leadership secrets of selling. Tony J. Hughes.   2013. ISBN 9780646503409.  This could be a nomination for b2b sales book of the year.  The author uses a story to communicate the growth of individual sales skills and attitudes.  Thus it is a very readable and easily digested text.  However I only recommend this book to the serious salesperson determined to be in the top 5% – if you have not the ambition nor aptitude to do the work , go back to the football game.   The premise is bang on and supremely current.   The process is easy to remember and straightforward to learn.  I would recommend this book to all sales schools that want to turn out high performers.  Perfect for a cross country plane ride.

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Here’s a way to use  Kickstarter to get something admirable done.  Sharon Drew Morgen has written ground breaking books on sales that allow the thoughtful sales person to see the system behind buyer behavior, usually well before the buyer sees it, and to then work through her change management process to have dramatic system  impacts on the buyer and seller.  Now she is turning her considerable talents towards listening with her new book, Did You Really Say What I think I Heard?   I know her book will be completely different from anything written on listening today.

Her Kickstarter campaign will be an interactive experience with Sharon Drew  where your support will also give you access to one of the most fertile management minds today. You really can not afford to miss this opportunity.

Check out the campaign and video here

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Hedge Hogs: The Cowboy Traders Behind Wall Street’s Largest Hedge Fund Disaster. Barbara T. Dreyfuss. 2013. ISBN  78-1400068395.

Guest post by Nora McCalluum , Senior Wealth Advisor, Portfolio Manager, ScotiaMcLeod.

Thank you for passing along the book Hedge Hogs  to me. I read it this weekend. What an interesting illustration of the personalities of the people who have caused so much damage and pain to so many people.

Makes me wonder if hedge fund traders need to have some (substantial!)degree of sociopathic tendencies.

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Whiteboard Selling. Empowering sales through visuals. Corey Sommers , David Jenkins. 2013. ISBN 9781118379769.  Good line in the book – Why try to improve your PowerPoint? That is putting lipstick on the pig, lets just fry up some bacon!   The two authors make a compelling case for killing  the PowerPoint and getting good at white-boarding your solutions in sales calls.   This rings true for us as we work to help sales teams simplify things for their buyers – when all too often they just add our material to an an already bulging PPoint deck!   The analyses and use cases are terrific and the test is easy to read.  Top performers will grab this book  and make their sales callas even more productive.   Terrific tool and something every b2b salesperson should have.

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Video Marketing for the rest of us. How to create amazing video in less than 10 minutes a day. Mike Shreeve. 2013.  Kindle book.  Mike contacted me to read this book and boy am I glad I did!  This is a quick and easy read yet it contains so many time and effort saving tips on how to get great quality videos up on YouTube and then how to make best use of YouTube and other social media sites  to drive quality traffic to your site.    There is  much quality content here for anyone who is really on top of content marketing and is now moving to putting up video.  Every content marketer should have this book.

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The Sales Magnet. How to get more customers without cold calling.  Kendra Lee. 2013.  ISBN 9780985782917.  A very good book for the experienced salesperson who want/needs to crank their efforts up  a big notch. This approach toward regular campaigns and lead generation efforts works as we  have been using similar efforts for a dozen years.  I appreciate her realistic view – if there are no leads in the sales funnel and marketing is ineffective – you have to call – but you also have to do this  method if you want your life to improve.   Many sales people have been classed as not that organized and tactics driven, however my experience has been that any sales person will find this approach as patently obvious.   As well,  if you think you are one of the “past it ” generation that has not adopted LinkedIn and other tools into your sales bag, she gives you an easy way to start to adopt it.   One caveat  not every salesperson is adept at writing good content – and if you are one of those you can learn to be better as the author gives useful templates on how to do it.  When you start, I would getting some  hard hitting copy advice from a real writer – if you do that you will reap a great harvest in sales leads. One of my colleagues calls this  “a paint by numbers” way to be successful  Good resource site http://www.thesalesmagnet.com/

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Sidetracked. Why our decisions get derailed and how we can stick with the plan. Francesca Gino. 2013.ISBN 139781422142691. The author is a colleague of Dan Ariely, so if you have read his books a few of the experiments are repeated here, but along the lines of  Predictably Irrational there are many more experiments here that are new and fascinating.  The author is very insightful and asks very good questions.   She comes up with nine rules to live by in order to get done what you intend to get done.

Be aware of:

1. Your surroundings
2. Your emotions
3. Zooming out not just focusing in
4. The other persons point of view
5. What bonds to question
6. Checking reference points
7. Considering the source
8. Investigating and questioning your frame
9. how to make your standards shine.

Clearly written and well edited,  this book flows so nicely you may,  like me,  read it in one sitting. Good book for that five hour flight across country. It brings insight into so many of our decisions.

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