There are a few classic sales books and tapes that we recommend you review during your business-planning phase: Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Bible; Mark McCormick’s What They Didn’t Teach You at Harvard Business School; Harvey MacKay’s Swim with the Sharks; and Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal. And of course this very book. Although some of the content in these books are pure ego (other than this one), you will also find a lot of usable information throughout.
Another book, which is treated as a bible in some business circles and is a favorite of ours, is In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters. The essential message of Peter’s book is to focus on people, customers, and action with “constant incremental improvement” as a primary theme, much like kaizen, the popular Japanese management concept discussed more in Chapter 3.
Among other powerful ideas, Peters stresses that your entire proactive business team adds little bits of value into your business continuously and doesn’t ever rest on its laurels.
In his book, the former McKinsey & Company partner also describes the firm’s 7-S model for business: structure, strategy, systems, style of management, skills (corporate strengths), staff, and shared values.
We also recommend reading other professional business classics that have truly helped form the foundation of the American economy: See www.uflib.ufl.edu/cm/business/books/classbks.htm for some excellent resources.
Besides tried and true business authors, we recommend you review the media and participate with emerging business minds, which can often be found online in blogs or linked to various forums and sites, like YouTube, Technorati and LinkedIn.
To further your progress even more, take speed-reading courses so you can learn how to triple the speed at which you can consume valuable information.
