Are you looking for some great books to read this summer? I’ve got you covered! The following is a list of books I highly recommend. Plus, I’m sharing interviews with the authors on She Talks Business all summer long. If you’re like me and love reading a good book, you can’t go wrong with any of the following.
Here are six books you’ll love:
- Big Little Breakthroughs by Josh Linkner
- On Purpose by Tanya Dalton
- How to Write Useful Books by Rob Fitzpatrick
- Onboarding Matters by Donna Weber
- Right on the Money by Colleen Francis
- Masterful Marketing by Alan Weiss & Lisa Larter
1. Big Little Breakthroughs
This book, written by Josh Linkner, was originally pitched to me by his publisher to read in Thought Readers. I receive a fair number of requests to feature books in our business book club, so I am very discerning about which books I actually choose. If a book can’t hold my attention, it’s not for our community.
I skeptically picked up this book but quickly found myself falling in love with how Josh writes. He is a master storyteller who shares real-life examples of how everyday people (including a criminal) have used small innovations to drive oversized results. When you read this book, you will fall in love with the idea of small experiments and start to believe you really can do big things.
This book inspired me to empower members of my team to embrace tiny experiments to help us improve the way we do things. When I interviewed Josh, I found that he was equally as interesting and informative as his book.
So, if you’re looking to inspire your innovation muscle and find ways to think differently, this is a book you want in your collection.
- You can buy Big Little Breakthroughs here.
- Listen to Josh on She Talks Business here.
- Want to learn more about Josh? Visit his website here.
2. On Purpose
This book, written by a friend and colleague of mine, Tanya Dalton, exceeded my expectations. There’s this thing that happens when you know someone—at least for me there is. It’s a fear that when you start to read their book, you won’t like it as much as you like them. But nothing could be further from the truth when I read On Purpose. To say I like Tanya is an understatement. To say I loved and adored reading her book and bought copies and gave them away would be telling you the truth.
Tanya has a way of helping you sift through the clutter in life that prevents us from reaching our goals and prioritizing what matters most to us. She writes in a relatable and funny manner, uses visuals in a way that adds depth and clarity, and frankly, gave me author envy. When I grow up, I want to write books like she does—her book is that good. Every chapter in her book starts with the word “choose” because in life, we really do have more power to choose than we realize. I love the stories, metaphors, and easily-applied principles that Tanya shares in this book.
One part I underlined and starred in the book is the chapter called “Choosing to Release Your Fears” is, “We have to believe that we are worthy: worthy of the good, worthy of the respect, worthy of making the attempt. Because even when we fail, we learn. When we fail because we never try, we gain nothing at all. If you aren’t failing from time to time, you are failing.”
This book will make you laugh, make you cry (Tanya shares a deeply personal story that will make you love her for being honest and vulnerable), and it will make you want to choose to live a life that really is on purpose.
- You can buy the book here.
- Episode 67 of She Talks Business is all about Tanya and her book, listen here.
- You can learn more about Tanya here.
3. Write Useful Books
If you’ve ever wanted to write a book or learn how to create six figures in passive income from writing useful books, this book will delight and inspire you. Rob Fitzpatrick is a heck of a nice guy and he is ridiculously generous in everything he shares in his book.
I love that this book really is useful—it’s like a paint-by-numbers approach to writing a good book that you can self-publish and make great money from. I love his chapter breakdown and the fact that he has sub-points for every chapter. It just makes the book super easy to read and navigate. I hate it when chapters don’t have easy breaks that allow you to pause your reading. Notably, this book is not only useful, but it’s also easy to read.
The book is also smart. The way Rob teaches you to involve your reader from the start, and how to seek out and get feedback that makes your book better is nothing short of brilliant. He will also show you how writing a book can easily come from what you teach – think workshop turned book in an easy-to-do manner.
Lastly, this book is only 126 pages long, and as he says on page 55, “A book should be as long as is necessary to convincingly deliver on its promise, but never any longer.”
You’ll enjoy my conversation with Rob where you’ll see what a down-to-earth person he is. He really is dedicated to creating value for others by writing useful books and you’ll see how you can apply his easygoing nature to do the same when you read this book.
- Buy the book here.
- Listen to him on an upcoming episode of She Talks Business here.
- You can learn more about Rob here.
(I love that he is using Circle for this site. That’s what we use for The Strategy Lab in case you were wondering.)
4. Onboarding Matters
Donna Weber is a client of mine. I picked up a copy of her book because I wanted to browse through it to understand her work better. Doing so would allow me to offer her more aligned marketing and business advice. When I started to read the book, I kept emailing her saying, “Donna, your book is really good! I mean it, it is really, really, really good.”
This book lives up to its subtitle, “How Successful Companies Transform New Customers Into Loyal Champions” and then some. Donna walks you through her Six Stages of Orchestrated Onboarding, but she does so in such a way that you actually feel like you can do what she is suggesting you do to not only attract and convert customers but keep them and have them love doing business with you.
A few years ago, I read Joey Coleman’s book, How to Never Lose a Customer Again and I loved it but… It was a lot to implement and my experience of him personally was that he didn’t practice what he preached. Donna however takes a slice of how to keep customers, onboarding, and makes the process one that every company who aspires to keep customers should adopt.
What I love about this book is the ease at which Donna can transfer an idea to an action you can take. I have this book sitting on my shelf as a project for my own business. I’m investing in her Masterclass for one of my team members and we are committed to implementing her Orchestrated Onboarding™ process to its fullest.
If you read and implement even one idea from this book, your return on investment has the potential to be massive.
- Order the book here!
- Don’t miss the upcoming episode of She Talks Business with Donna here.
- You can learn more about Donna here.
5. Right On The Money
Have you ever heard the expression “You’re leaving money on the table?” That is exactly how I felt after reading Colleen Francis’s new book, Right On The Money. I’ve known Colleen for close to a decade, she is a client, colleague, and friend of mine and I am shocked at how little I really knew about her sales mastery.
Whether you think you suck at or are good at selling, this book will open your eyes to how to really master the art of selling so you can maximize your sales opportunities. Colleen offers a fresh new approach to selling – we live in a buy-from, not a sell-to economy—and anyone who is in sales needs to fundamentally understand this shift in order to sell better and sell more.
Your buyers have different expectations than they did a decade ago (heck even a year ago – note she rewrote the original manuscript for this book due to COVID). If you’re not prepared to meet those expectations and respond in a timely fashion, you could be leaving money on the table instead of being right on the money.
This book made me rethink many things in my own business. But the most valuable part for me was likely the way she describes managing your pipeline so you can confidently predict your future revenues and ways to expand business with existing clients. She also describes how to clinically know what it takes (based on data, not gut instinct) to reach your sales goals each year.
I’ve been selling things to people since the age of 13. As a result, I consider myself a pretty good salesperson. I finished this book feeling uber optimistic about the future and my own capacity to learn and do better in sales. I can assure you that you will find incredible value in this book.
- Start reading Right On The Money by ordering your copy here.
- Tune in to her on an upcoming episode of She Talks Business here.
- Click here to learn more about Colleen.
6. Masterful Marketing
It didn’t seem right to wrap up the second season of a Summer of Reading without having a conversation with Alan Weiss about our upcoming book, Masterful Marketing.
Masterful Marketing is a fresh new look at what it really takes to be masterful in your marketing. In this book, you’ll learn to prioritize what really matters. You will learn how to avoid the trends that will send you down rabbit holes, and therefore, approach marketing as something that is about the value you give to others, versus something you do to get.
Over the next eight weeks post this interview, Alan and I will dive into concepts from our book. We will discuss real-life examples of marketing done well, and sadly marketing gone sideways. One thing you should know is everything you do is marketing. Whether it is a conversation at a party, a networking event, a blog you wrote, a book you authored, or something you shared on social media—it all counts. The most masterful marketers know this and they also know that a spray and pray approach to marketing will leave them feeling tired and depleted.
You must know what works and do more of that, and you must have a volume of marketing that makes you ubiquitous and consistent enough that you remain top of mind. Our book will show you how to truly be masterful.
- Pre-order Masterful Marketing here.
- Join us and listen to this interview on an upcoming episode of She Talks Business on Monday, August 1st.
- Want to learn more about Alan? Visit his website here.
Comment and tell me which episode of Summer of Reading you are looking forward to the most!
