Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been intrigued by how people make decisions and why the words we use can significantly impact those decisions. After years of conducting customer research and writing marketing messages for clients, my interest in finding and delivering compelling messages at just the right time to the right audience has only grown. I’ve poured my experience in the online marketing trenches into my book, Finding the Right Message, where I reference more than one of the authors on my recommendation list.
Whether you’re trying to sell a software solution or a new energy drink, you need to determine your product’s positioning so you deliver the most compelling messages to the right audience. April Dunford walks you through her tried and tested positioning process while peppering in humorous personal stories and anecdotes. I love this book as much for the priceless business content as for April’s wit.
You know your product is awesome—but does anybody else? Forget everything you thought you knew about positioning. Successfully connecting your product with consumers isn’t a matter of following trends, comparing yourself to the competition or trying to attract the widest customer base.
So what is it? April Dunford, positioning guru and tech exec, will enlighten you.
Her new book, Obviously Awesome, shows you how to find your product’s “secret sauce”—and then sell that sauce to those who crave it. Having spent years as a startup executive (with 16 product launches under her belt) and a consultant (who’s worked on dozens…
The more I learn about the brain, the more I want to dig in and discover more. Why do we procrastinate? Why do people buy things? Why do some people naturally seem to have more influence than others? As an applied behavioral economist, I love unlocking these topics weekly on The Brainy Business podcast (where each person on this list has been a guest) and sharing those insights with the world. Three of the most downloaded episodes (in over 300) featured increasing influence (and authors showcased here), a key factor of being more impactful in life and at work. Enjoy your newfound influence!
Do you ever feel like everyone is watching you? What about all those other times when you feel like a fly on the wall – observing while not being noticed? Which is true? Are we invisible or is the world critiquing our every move?
It turns out…people notice us much more than we think (and, much less than we think). And as tends to happen with brain tricks, it is the opposite of how we think it should work. Once you understand this, you can easily leverage those insights to increase your influence.
As Vanessa shares in this great book, even being in the audience at a presentation can impact what the speaker says and how their own perspectives will change. Great news for the introverts – silent influence is real.
Whether attending a meeting, sharing a post online or mustering the nerve to ask for a favour, we often assume our actions, input and requests will be overlooked or rejected. However, as behavioural psychologist Vanessa K. Bohns reveals, people see us, listen to us and agree to do things for us much more than we realise.
In You Have More Influence Than You Think, Bohns draws from original research to illustrate why we fail to recognise the influence we have already and how that lack of awareness can lead us to miss opportunities or accidentally misuse our power. She offers…
Kurt Mortensen is an international authority on charisma, negotiation, and influence. Kurt has spent over 20 years researching influence, leadership, sales, persuasive presentations, and he teaches at the university level. Kurt is the author of Persuasion IQ, Laws of Charisma, and the best-selling book Maximum Influence. His books have been translated into 28 languages. He is also the host of the popular podcast Maximize Your Influence. Mortensen teaches that professional success, personal relationships, and leadership all depend on the ability to persuade, influence, and motivate others. The key is to get others to want to do, what you want them to do and like doing it.
I love the science behind influence and changing minds. This Harvard professor and psychologist shares the science and gets into the nitty gritty of shifting someone’s beliefs. I love to geek out on the studies and charts that are shared in this book. He provides a process for persuasion and how to influence in stages. He helps us realize we all persuade and influence every day and in every career.
Think about the last time you tried to change someone's mind about something important: a voter's political beliefs; a customer's favorite brand; a spouse's decorating taste. Chances are you weren't successful in shifting that person's beliefs in any way. In his book, Changing Minds, Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner explains what happens during the course of changing a mind -- and offers ways to influence that process. Remember that we don't change our minds overnight, it happens in gradual stages that can be powerfully influenced along the way. This book provides insights that can broaden our horizons and shape our lives.
I have worked with startups since 2000, when I joined ShareBuilder, ultimately sold to Capital One in a $9.5 billion deal – one of my five successful startup exits to date. I am currently an officer of seven startups. Startups drive global job creation and problem-solving innovation. But 90% fail, often for preventable reasons. I am helping entrepreneurs beat those odds. I wrote Startup Law and Fundraising to help entrepreneurs build on a solid foundation, avoid common legal and regulatory mistakes, and fund their vision. My books are used globally in law and MBA schools, and I speak constantly on entrepreneurship-related topics, including recently to groups in Istanbul, Ramallah, and Tehran.
Pitch Anything is an established work in the pitching and negotiation book categories. It is not perfect, but it is one of the best books for introducing entrepreneurs to the importance of pitching, selling, and negotiating persuasively. Entrepreneurs must pitch to attract co-founders and early team members, to obtain early stage funding, to close customers and other commercial partners, to close later stage funding rounds, and, ultimately, to go public or exit in a sale. While Pitch Anything is a good book, the brashness of some of its advice, particularly around what Klaff calls “frames,” do not fit all persons or situations. Some contexts require full-on Machiavellian tactics; others warrant more of a “Winning Friends and Influencing People” approach. Nonetheless, it is useful to understand which situation you are in and the available plays to run.
Armed with those caveats, I suggest readers of Pitch Anything read Chapter…
Gold Medal Winner--Tops Sales World's Best Sales and Marketing Book
"Fast, fun and immensely practical." -JOE SULLIVAN, Founder, Flextronics
"Move over Neil Strauss and game theory. Pitch Anything reveals the next big thing in social dynamics: game for business." -JOSH WHITFORD, Founder, Echelon Media
"What do supermodels and venture capitalists have in common?They hear hundreds of pitches a year. Pitch Anything makes sure you get the nod (or wink) you deserve." -RALPH CRAM, Investor
"Pitch Anything offers a new method that will differentiate you from the rest of the pack." -JASON JONES, Senior Vice President, Jones Lang LaSalle
Being an author on speaking and a professional speaker / facilitator I've always relied on stories and anecdotes to make a point. This book, flush with great real life examples confirmed that if you can tag a good story to your message it sticks much better. It also shows how every great company needs their story to be told. It's also a fun read.
How did an American immigrant without a college education go from Venice Beach T-shirt vendor to television's most successful producer? How did a timid pastor's son surmount a paralysing fear of public speaking to sell out Yankee Stadium, twice? How did the city of Tokyo create a PowerPoint stunning enough to win them the chance to host the Olympics?
They told brilliant stories.
Whether your goal is to sell, educate, fundraise or entertain, your story is your most valuable asset: 'a strategic tool with irresistible power', according to the New York Times. Stories inspire; they persuade; they galvanize movements and…
I started my adult life as a bouncer and a school teacher. A few years later, I was running one of the most well-known email marketing agencies in the industry. The reason this happened is because I dedicated my life to becoming a master copywriter. Learning how to write copy was the key that unlocked a level of freedom I didn’t know existed, both personal and financial. It’s also allowed me to write two bestselling books on email marketing, work with 250+ brands, and coach 2,200+ students around the world. I hope this list helps you take your writing skills up a notch.
This book was a roller coaster ride. Although I don’t think the word “copywriting” is mentioned a single time throughout, I think it’s one of the best copywriting books ever written. Oren is a master of pitching, usually through presentations. I love the system he lays out in this book and I use it every single day at my email marketing agency. The biggest win I ever got was understanding his concept of the “Flash Roll.” I probably owe at least $500,000 in client work from understanding this 30-second script.
This book will change the way you think about persuasion, and have you closing deals in no time.
These days, it's just not enough to make a great pitch. Over decades of being marketed, pitched, sold (and lied) to, we've grown resistant to sales persuasion. The moment we feel pressured to buy, we pull away. And if we're told what to think, our defences go up.
That's why Oren Klaff, bestselling author of Pitch Anything, has devised a new approach to persuasion based on a simple insight: everyone trusts their own ideas. Instead of pushing your idea on your buyer,…
I’m a professional keynote speaker and author that has studied the pillars of high performance for most of my life. This journey started through basketball, as I was able to work with, work alongside, and observe many of the game’s top players and coaches and witness firsthand the disciplines, rituals, and routines they modeled in pursuit of optimal performance on and off the court. That transitioned into the business world where I not only watched these foundational principles be applied by executives and entrepreneurs… but I applied them to my own life and business as well.
The brilliance of Exactly What to Say is in its brevity and simplicity. It was built on the premise that when you ‘change your words you change your world’ and how what we say heavily impacts our ability to influence others. It is full of practical, actionable concepts on word choice and phrasing that can be implemented immediately by anyone looking to the effectiveness of their communication. While this book is a quick read–it is incredibly profound and powerful.
Often the decision between a customer choosing you over someone like you is your ability to know exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make it count. Phil M. Jones has trained more than two million people across five continents and over fifty countries in the lost art of spoken communication. In Exactly What to Say, he delivers the tactics you need to get more of what you want.
The more I learn about the brain, the more I want to dig in and discover more. Why do we procrastinate? Why do people buy things? Why do some people love unlocking these topics weekly on The Brainy Business podcast (where each person on this list has been a guest) and sharing those insights with the world? When it comes to selling and buying in a brainy way, behavioral economics is the best way to get there, and these books are all a great first step into learning what behavioral science is, how the brain really works, and up-leveling your brand.
No list on behavior, sales, and brand messaging would be complete without including Robert Cialdini on the list. Concepts like social proof, scarcity, and reciprocity are key for getting customers to buy in on your product or service before they even get to the buying moment.
If you are one of the millions of people who has already read Influence, his other book Pre-Suasion is amazing as well and so helpful for brands!
The foundational and wildly popular go-to resource for influence and persuasion-a renowned international bestseller, with over 5 million copies sold-now revised adding: new research, new insights, new examples, and online applications.
In the new edition of this highly acclaimed bestseller, Robert Cialdini-New York Times bestselling author of Pre-Suasion and the seminal expert in the fields of influence and persuasion-explains the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business and everyday settings. Using memorable stories and relatable examples, Cialdini makes this crucially important subject surprisingly easy. With Cialdini as a guide, you don't have…
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always been intrigued by how people make decisions and why the words we use can significantly impact those decisions. After years of conducting customer research and writing marketing messages for clients, my interest in finding and delivering compelling messages at just the right time to the right audience has only grown. I’ve poured my experience in the online marketing trenches into my book, Finding the Right Message, where I reference more than one of the authors on my recommendation list.
Decades old, this book continues to be one of the most important resources for creating and delivering effective messages in marketing. Eugene Schwartz is one of the godfathers of direct advertising whose insights about understanding your customer’s state of awareness have been invaluable to countless marketers and copywriters. The examples he shares may be dated, but the advice remains relevant.
We live in the age of selfies, when it’s easy to snap a picture of ourselves in the day-to-day activities of our lives. But a deeper and far more satisfying journey is to take a selfie of our inner selves to better understand who we are, what we want, and how to get it. I’ve spent a lifetime on this journey. Self discovery and self understanding, and through them self-empowerment, these are the essence of my work. As a #1 bestselling author, my purpose is to help others discover their purpose, and live it. The five books I’ve recommended here have helped me greatly along that path.
Entire industries exist to manipulate us based on characteristics of human psychology that nature has programmed into us. An important part of knowing ourselves is to know these characteristics and understand how to use them for our benefit, instead of the benefit of those who would use our human nature against us.
Influence: Science and Practice is an examination of the psychology of compliance (i.e. uncovering which factors cause a person to say "yes" to another's request).
Written in a narrative style combined with scholarly research, Cialdini combines evidence from experimental work with the techniques and strategies he gathered while working as a salesperson, fundraiser, advertiser, and in other positions inside organizations that commonly use compliance tactics to get us to say "yes." Widely used in classes, as well as sold to people operating successfully in the business world, the eagerly awaited revision of Influence reminds the reader of the power of…
