N.I.F.T.Y Marketing

A list of great books I read over the last ten years that will  influence me in the decade to come

Books for strategy development

1. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne 

 Stuck in a strategy slump?  Kim and Mauborgne offer an incredibly simply and effective way to size up a market and create sustainable differentiation.  I’ve successfully used their “strategy canvas” exercise with a team to determine where the competition plays and how we can chart a course to stand out in a crowded and confusing marketplace.

2. The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures

Dan Roam

I’ve  used the approach for solving problems Roam outlines over-and-over again. His theory is basic—but all good theories are—visualizing the problem leads to better solutions.  I keep a copy of his framework tacked up on my desk for constant reference.

3. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Al Ries and Jack Trout

A marketing classic.  Still relevant 20-years after it was first published.

4. Building Strong Brands

David A. Aaker

Aaker builds off the foundation from Reis and Trout.

5. Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Seth Godin

When I read this book, I had flashbacks to Blue Ocean Strategy.  Fundamentally, they’re saying much of the same.  Blue Ocean is more Business Strategy while Purple Cow has a tighter focus on marketing.  These books complement one another like cake and ice-cream.

Interactive Marketing

6. Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability

Steve Krug

Intuitive Web design isn’t necessarily intuitive. Krug provides sensible recommendations on improving user-experience.

 7.The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More

 Chris Anderson

The concept of the “long tail” isn’t novel—firms like Netflix recognized it long before Anderson, but Anderson is so incredibly perceptive in his analysis of this trend you still walk away from the book with gobs of insight and a sharper perspective of online retailing.

 Books to Build Better Teams

8. Gung-Ho! Turn On the People in Any Organization

Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles

Spirit of the Squirrel. Way of the Beaver.  Gift of the Goose.  Blanchard and Bowles tell an impactful story and provide salient messages for managers. If you seek to build a strong team or strengthen an existing one and haven’t read this book, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage. 

9.  Strength Finder 2.0

Tom Rath

Know thyself.  If you believe that a key element to building an efficient team is to first take inventory of your strengths and weaknesses, this is the book for you.  A combination book and online assessment, I walked away with a solid understanding of the fundamental skills

10. Yertle the Turtle

Dr. Seuss

Just because it’s a children’s story, doesn’t mean there isn’t value in adults reading it.  Someday I’d like to teach a management course and use children’s books as the required texts. The Emperor’s New Clothes and this story would certainly be on the syllabus. In Yertle the Turtle, Seuss offers a A timeless tale on the impact of ego-centric work environments.

Books That Inspired Me

11. With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln

Stephen B. Oates

Despite it being a work of non-fiction, the book reads like a novel with a vivid depiction of Lincoln’s public life.  If you want a real life example of a leader who kept it together in the face of tremendous obstacles—many of which go unmentioned in popular teaching, this is the book.

12. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

Stephen Ambrose

Undaunted Courage is to the American West as The Right Stuff was to the Space Program.  Makes a cross-country trip with the kids to the Grand Canyon look like child’s play.