In this post, I’ll share 9 business books that helped me with online marketing and entrepreneurship. I’ll show you what I’ve learned from them and how they might help you.
Before I started this website I created an app, worked as a freelance copywriter, worked as a freelance film editor and even helped with creating a dating company. Each of these endeavors forced me to gain knowledge to be successful. I learned a lot from courses, peers, and mentors, but to this day I got the most out of books. Books helped me not only from an educational standpoint but also from a psychological standpoint and the knowledge is still a huge asset when it comes to bringing this website to the point of real digital success.
This is why I want to share with you my top 9 books that can help you on your journey to attain real digital success.
So here are my…
9 Business Books That’ll Help With Gaining Real Digital Success
1. The 7 habits of highly effective people — Steven Covey
Theme: Self and business management
The most important thing I’ve learned about managing a business is that it isn’t possible if you can’t manage yourself. Your choices can have a domino effect that can heavily influence the success of your business. I used to be a model of inconsistency and it affected my business a lot. Even a little thing as staying up too late would have a domino fact which caused me to wake up later, which affected my work because I had to rush all my daily tasks, I didn’t have any time for myself at the end of the day, and couldn’t properly plan my next day which set it up for disaster. A wrong choice can do a lot of damage.
This book will help you prevent making these kinds of mistakes. It’ll help you define what exactly you want to do with your life and teach you what habits and mindsets you have to take on to raise the chances of succeeding.
2. The Power of Less — Leo Babauta
Theme: Productivity
When I studied at university it always took me twice the time to finish things as all the other students. This came with a lot of sleepless nights, stress and missing a lot of deadlines. I knew it had something to do with my process when tackling assignments so I became obsessed with productivity and one of the books I read was the power of less by Leo Babauta.
The power of less talks about bringing minimalism to productivity. It’s about prioritizing the tasks that will bring about the most value and cutting of tasks that don’t really have an impact on the big scale. The power of less is a short read but very practical. The moment you finish reading it you’ll know exactly what you need to do to make a big impact and what you need to cut out not to waste any time. This is the perfect book to start with when you’re struggling with being productive.
3. The Lean Startup — Eric Ries
Theme: Entrepreneurship
A few years ago I decided I wanted to make an app that functioned as a platform for starting entrepreneurs to barter their services which could save them money and time. I didn’t know where to begin so a friend of mine who already had an app based on cultivating habits up and running advised me to read the book the lean startup written by Eric Ries.
Just like with the power of less, the lean startup strives to make the process of building a business simple and understandable and it teaches you to test, evaluate and if needed to change your idea to raise your chances of success.
It’s the perfect book to read when you have an idea but you’re not quite sure how to go about executing. The best way to describe it is that it’s a blueprint to learning how to create a startup while creating it at the same time,
4. Mastery — Robert Greene
Theme: The process of developing a skillset
Aside from the technical process of building a business, there’s also a process you have to go through as an individual. Robert Greene talks about this process in his book mastery. In this book, Robert dissects the path someone has to take to acquire and master a skill. In a lot of ways building an online business and mastering a skill are exactly the same. You could make a very good argument that building a business is a skill too. You’ll learn things like how to get adequate mentors, how to deal with struggles, how to cut the learning curve and other things. Although it’s not a motivational book it has prevented me from quitting my first website at least three times because it showed me that frustration, doubt, and fear are part of the process.
5. Jab, jab, jab, jab, Right hook — Gary Vaynerchuk
Theme: The mentality and practicality behind content marketing
You can create a website and have the best offers or products for sale but if nobody knows about them you’re only wasting money paying for your website, hosting and making products. You need attention and this is why jab, jab, jab, jab, right hook is the perfect book to learn how to do this with the help of content marketing.
Gary Vaynerchuk calls himself an attention day trader. Where ever the attention of possible clients is he’ll be there to do business. Right now all attention is on social media so he turned himself into a social media expert. In jab, jab, jab, jab, right hook Gary Vaynerchuk talks about things like:
- The mentality behind doing business on social media ( Give in order to receive)
- The importance of context when it comes to providing value
- The difference in “Rules” between the social platforms when it comes to content marketing
- Practical case studies that show how to do proper content for the 5 biggest social media platforms
- and much more.
6. Tested Advertising Methods — John Caples
Theme: Sales Psychology And Writing
So you’ve read jab, jab, jab, jab right hook, you did some marketing courses, you know how to consistently get numerous people to your website but what happens after they arrive on your website? This is what tested copywriting is about. It will teach you how to spur website visitors into action. This can be to buy a product, leave their email, become a subscriber or any other action you want them to take.
Based on psychological concepts “Tested copywriting” teaches you how to communicate with your website visitors in such a way that you create interest, gain trust and effectively guide them to the end result you want to have. You’ll learn the basics of copywriting, they’ll show you different case studies and the psychology behind all the methods they’re using.
The content of the book is pretty old and some small parts are a little dated but 95% is relevant and can take your business to the next level.
7. Cashvertising — Drew Eric Whitman
Theme: Sales Psychology And Writing
Just like tested copywriting, cashvertising is a book that explains how to write copy that spurs your readers into action. The difference between this and tested copywriting and the reason I put it on the list is that they take more time explaining why certain things work and they have this huge checklist you can always look back to, to see if your copy is at the level it should be. I regularly look at it when I write sales letters so I’m certain the letter contains every element needed to spur my website visitors into action.
8. Relentless — Tim Grover
Theme: Mental toughness
If you’re just starting online marketing and have a brand new website this book will help out a lot. While elements of the book mastery will make you accept that negative feelings are a part of the journey, this book will help you stay “honest” when it comes to your work. Tim Grover helped athletes with the mental side of sports. He’s helped people like Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, and other athletes reach levels they previously thought weren’t possible to achieve.
In his book, he talks about people he calls Coolers, Closer & Cleaners. Coolers are good at what they do, Closers are great at what they do and Cleaners are unstoppable. This book will take you into the mind of a cleaner and will show you how to develop the cleaner in you.
9. Rich dad, Poor Dad — Robert Kiyosaki
Theme: Entrepreneurship
Rich dad, poor dad is without a doubt a game changer. It’s the book that inspired me to look at entrepreneurship in a way where money should eventually work for me instead of me working for money. You always hear this saying about making money work for you but I never knew how to approach doing that and what mind shift you have to make to succeed in it.
Robert Kiyosaki not only tells you how to do that but he also gives multiple examples from his own life making it that much easier for you to understand.
That’s all for now.
See you at the next post!
