Play Bigger. How pirates, dreamers, and innovators create and dominate markets. Alan Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead.   2016.  ISBN 9780062407610.   This book was referenced in Traversing the Traction Gap so I had to read it.  It is very good and specifically addresses category creation, which is something that wildly successful companies do over and over. The authors take you through a proven  methodology of becoming a category kind. ( For many types to organizations and individuals). You will appreciate the highly specific and recognizable examples used by the authors.  Unlike other books in this genre , it has the benefits of depth and thought coming from the experiences of four individuals.  It could be a life changing book for executives and individuals.  But you need to want to be more than better, you want to be recognized as different  ( Apple is not just better, it is different)

Finders & Keepers. How the world’s most powerful customer is changing everything. Rob Schlyecher.2015. ISBN 9780994059307. The book is an application of work by Christopher Norton and the authors company Spring Advertising on the market vertical called the New Economic Order, or as the author calls it Finders. Finders are less than half the population, yet control 75% of the discretionary spending.  Keepers (bargain hunters, sit on their wallets and thus have a very small part of the spending).  If your product is too often all about the price ( Cars, real estate, commodities) then you are talking ot the Keepers. In other word, a race to the bottom.  Finders are foodies, love the artisan, look for out of the way shops,  love the authentic experience. Finders will often pay full retail as they respect the product value. Eg Lululemon, Subaru, iPhone, Trader Joe’s, Brew pubs, Vinyl records.  Keepers love WalMart. The premise is very easy to grasp, but the application can be difficult if your company is not Finder friendly or oriented.  Worthwhile book to read, and clearly written ( They must write good copy at Spring) . Every marketer should read this one., if only for the fascinating case studies.

The New Rules of Lead Generation. Proven strategies to maximize marketing roi. David T. Scott. 2013. ISBN 9780814432617.  The author is certainly very experienced in this role and topic.   His point of view is measurement and so he gives a great baseline education for applying measurement to the suite of marketing tools available.   He says this book is for companies that have whole teams to execute on sales and marketing and I tend to agree.  Most small companies  are really resource constrained.   That said, his first five chapters are some of the best setup for any marketing team I have found so far. He brings a refreshing and pragmatic view to how sales and marketing should work together.   He has a little something for everyone on these chapters and the ideas work.  In his ending chapters he talks about some good tools, however this is the only flaw in the book as time is not kind to this type of example as some of the tools discussed are no longer available.  I enjoyed how he differentiates between the high value  marketing generated leads and lesser value sales generated leads.  Good cross country air flight read – Easy to read style as well.

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Highly Recommended. Harnessing the power of word of mouth and social media to build your brand and your business. Paul M. Rand. 2014. ISBN 9780071816212.  I first read Paul’s work when he came out talking about Word of Mouth marketing and his message was clear and powerful.  This book takes it to another level . He has now worked with so many companies on this that the examples just fill the pages on how to do this well. He covers the field from marketing, selling, customer service and HR  This book will make a believer of the most obdurate Luddite.  Should be part of  the C -Suite reading.

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Maximize Your Social. A one-stop guide to building a social media strategy for marketing and business success. Neil Schaffer. 2013. ISBN 9781118651186. I have been following Neil’s writings since the early days of social media and he never disappoints.  I am calling this the state of the art book on social media . Its practical and thorough, with a good strategic focus. He takes you deep into how to make the best use of the tools and then how to organize yourself and your company on getting the work done well.Its a book for the beginner through to the polished professional – you will all get something valuable from it. At Rocket Builders we advocate a unified voice to all your communication traditional through to social. Neil has a very clear explanation on how to do that.  He surprised me with his chapter on G+, its the 2nd largest social network , but it goes way beyond that with its implications on SEO.  I spent an hour re-jigging my corporate and  personal g+ sites and I am just getting going, following his ideas.  As well he makes a compelling argument about expanding our use of YouTube,   it is the second largest search engine.  y eyes were opened wrto Instagram since the no of mobile content consumers continues to grow rapidly. Several of his points are echoing what was said in the Connected book.  This is a valuable book for any business person, plus it is a pleasure to read it.

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Maximum Success With LinkedIn. Dan Sherman. 2013. ISBN 9780071812337. LinkedIn is always evolving and it must be difficult to keep up. One thing I do is monitor Dan Sherman’s writing as he works as hard as anyone to stay on top of lInkedin and help you monetize it. I learned some new ways for amping up the SEO of your profile as well as the TopLinked groups which exist so you can really add to your contact lists.  Well organized and easy to read this is a book for the beginner to the advanced user.

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Start-up CEO’s Marketing Manual. Guy Smith,. 2012. ISBN 9780983240730.  Guy has an excellent blog http://www.siliconstrat.com/blog/,  from which Rocket Builders has pulled many gems over the years.  Our good friend, David Greer, alerted us that Guy had published this book.  This is the real thing folks. There is not a wasted word or diagram in it.  The book’s realistic market is just about any CEO we have every worked with.   Guy clears away the confusion and lets the CEO in on what he/she really needs to know about marketing , and how to see if his dept is getting him where he needs to be.  A short book, clearly written, you can read it on a 2 hr plane ride – but you should re read it on the way back and each year as well.  This is an essential part of a CEOs’ toolkit.

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Inside Apple. How America’s most advanced- and secretive – company really works. Adam Lashinsky. 2012. ISBN 9781455512171. (e-book).  Unlike the recent  Steve Jobs bio, this is a fact filled book on the company and the players (as well as Steve Jobs)  that should be on every Apple shareholder and traders reading list. The author is a long time Fortune reporter ( a magazine that Steve Jobs often favored with information over others). You will learn more about the inner workings, strengths and above all the culture of Apple.  As a journalist, Lashinsky writes clear concise copy making the book a good read.   He succeeds in helping pull back the veil in this company.  Highly recommended.

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Image by Cristiano Betta via Flickr

The Now Revolution. 7 Shifts to make your business faster, smarter, and more social. Jay Baer & Amber Naslund.  2011. ISBN 9780470923276.  This book has been sitting waiting for me to get to it and I am glad I finally did.  It is a mix of an analysis of what the world is like now plus some serious do it now tips.  Some key takeaways:

• The transition from 50 to 100 employees has big impacts on holding onto the company culture
• If your company is not already “social” in its culture you will have a reduced chance of success in the social media space.
• There are quickly changing requirements for the talent you need in your company, what worked before will not work now in your hiring process.
• You need an army to use social media – starting with a heavy emphasis on customer service, and empowering many many employees to contribute to your social media initiatives.
• You need to use a new telephone to listen for buyer, customer, competitor  and employee “keywords” .
• How you respond to this challenge and how you measure results requires some serious analysis – its not  something you hand off to an intern.

Very cool use of QR/ tagging codes in the book, making it more interactive.  Check it out at nowrevolutionbook.com. As ever, some of the Microsoft stuff does not play nice with Android, ie when they send you to a document and not a webpage.

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The End of Business as Usual. Brian Solis.  2012. ISBN 9781118171561.   This is the epitome of a very current marketing academic book that is eminently practical.  This does not make it an easy read because Brian is concise and direct in his analysis and expects the reader to do some work as well.  The book is full of aha moments, and my Kindle highlights are legion.  This is the book for you if you are a current practicing marketer and or academic.  I especially appreciated that Brian was able to skillfully weave the entire marketing skill set into all aspects of the company.   If you want to learn and earn in this space, you will need to read this book.  Full disclosure- I bought this book and it is on all my Kindles.   Check out his terrific blog http://www.briansolis.com/

Image via Wikipedia

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