Now you can find business literature for all tastes: biographies of businessmen, stories of famous companies, management, and marketing guides, and tips on managing processes and personal growth.
Some people see books as recipes for success and try to apply all the recommendations, while others do not see any benefit in them, as it is impossible to repeat someone else’s experience. The truth is somewhere in the middle: business books are useful, but they won’t help you create a profitable company as easy as creating a bet login.
And it is equally important to choose and read only the best business books – those that will help avoid mistakes at the start lay the right foundation for a business project, and reach profitability faster.
The Goal. A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Eliyahu Goldratt)
Eliyahu Goldratt is an Israeli physicist, economist, and author of a popular management method called “theory of constraints. In 1984, Goldratt laid out the principles of his theory in a production novel, The Goal, which is still a bestseller in business literature.
The Goal is the story of a factory director who is on the verge of closure. The hero enlists the help of a physicist he knows who knows how to set up controls in any system. Under his guidance, the director finds and fixes the problems that hinder production: improper distribution of work duties, outdated accounting principles, inefficient work of the marketing department.
Goldratt describes in detail and step by step the essence of his method of management, which consists in detecting and eliminating the weaknesses of the system.
Customers for Life: How to Turn that One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer (Carl Sewell, Paul Brown)
Carl Sewell is the owner of one of the largest and most successful auto dealership chains in the United States. He co-authored with professional writer Paul Brown the book “Customers for Life,” which has become the go-to book for millions of entrepreneurs and managers around the world.
It’s a practical guide to working with customers and improving service. Sewell is convinced that it is necessary to build long-term relationships with customers. It is constant, not one-time customers who bring the greatest profits.
The book offers advice on how to understand people’s desires, build service strategies, organize feedback and motivate customers to come back.
Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman)
Thinking, Fast and Slow is a best-selling book by psychologist Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize for his application of psychological techniques to economics. Kahneman’s research refutes the conventional wisdom that one usually thinks straight when making a decision or forming a judgment about something. In fact, the brain is constantly making logical errors.
The book explains how thinking works. It consists of two systems. The first operates on the subconscious and thinks quickly, intuitively, but not always correctly. The second turns on consciously and relies on logic, but requires effort and time, which the brain saves. So, the second system often agrees with the first without double-checking. Sometimes this leads to wrong or suboptimal decisions in areas that require logic and precise calculations: e.g., economics or business.
Daniel Kahneman discusses the thinking errors that exist and how to overcome them.
The Lean Startup. How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create (Eric Ries)
The author of the book is American business consultant and blogger Eric Ries, who has both positive and negative experiences of creating startups. After analyzing his mistakes and his achievements, Ries created the Lean Startup methodology, which is now successfully applied all over the world.
At the heart of Ries’s idea is the rule of thrift. It’s important to constantly reduce the inefficient use of resources and time, to get rid of waste and useless activity. Every part of the business plan should first be tested and tested for value and only then fully implemented. The book describes in detail and with examples how to apply this principle in practice. In parallel, Ries gives recommendations on marketing, general business strategy, and sales.