Top 8 Books to Read as You Grow Your Business
Helpful Tools for Makers, Service Providers and Food Creators
As an entrepreneur it’s hard to find time to improve your business skills and grow as a leader. We want to make sure that when you do have a moment to sit down and read or listen to an audio book that it’s time well spent. If you are building your business, check out these books at your local library, using the free Libby App or find them at your local bookstore.
Book 1: BE 2.0 by Jim Collins & Bill Lazier
What You’ll Learn About: Company Values, Purpose, Vision, Mission
Learn how to create a business that not only survives its infancy but thrives and changes your community for the better. Filled with examples from recognizable brands.
Book 2: Profit First by Mike Michaelowicz
What You’ll Learn About: cash management solutions, making your business profitable, managing finances
Learn how to transform your business from a cash-eating monster to develop profitable cash flows. Provides insights for simplifying accounting, setting up your banking to work for you and how to achieve long-term financial growth.
Book 3: Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski
What You’ll Learn About: Mental Health, Wellness, Resilience, Personal Development, Leadership
Learn what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation, how to manage the “monitor” in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration and why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnout.
Book 4: The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist
What You’ll Learn About: Examine your attitudes and relationship toward earning money, finance, sales
Examine your attitude towards money—earning it, spending it, and giving it away to gain insights into your life, values, and the essence of prosperity. Through personal stories and practical advice, Twist demonstrates how we can replace feelings of scarcity, guilt, and burden with experiences of sufficiency, freedom, and purpose.
Book 5: Dare to Lead by Brene Brown
What You’ll Learn About: Personal Development, Setting Boundaries, Providing Feedback, Living Your Values, Leadership, Wellness, Resiliency
Provides insights into how to be a strong business leader by learning how to navigate tough conversations, take responsibility, live out your personal and business values, and bravely tackle challenges with courage.
Book 6: This I Know by Terry O’Reilly
What You’ll Learn About: Marketing & Brand Building
Learn how a little business can compete with the big guy by understanding what business you’re really in, the benefits of counterintuitive thinking and knowing an opportunity when you see one. Understand the fundamentals of good marketing strategy and building the relationships that turn good marketing into great results, no matter how big or small your budget.
Book 7: Made to Stick: Why Some ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip & Dan Heath
What You’ll Learn About: Marketing
Explains ways to make ideas stickier, such as applying the “human scale principle,” using the “Velcro Theory of Memory,” and creating “curiosity gaps.”
Book 8: Story Wars by Jonah Sachs
What You’ll Learn About: Marketing, Brand Storytelling
Learn how to use storytelling and storytelling techniques to build a memorable brand.
