Book Smarts

Not all business and marketing books are created equal.  Some are much better than others!  You can learn a great deal from the right book.  The wrong one can cause you to make some huge mistakes.

I read some amazing books last year.  Each one helped me improve my business in some way.  I highly recommend them to anyone seeking to gain some "book smarts" about the business world!

1.  The Celebrity Experience: Insider Secrets to Delivering Red Carpet Customer Service - Donna Cutting:  Although this book is a few years old, it is still relevant.  Good customer service will always be a key to growing your business.  The stories Donna tells really illustrate how any business can give red carpet customer service.

2.  21 Ways to Make Money Speaking - Felicia Slattery:  I've been speaking publicly in some form for many years and yet even I found some ideas I had never thought of.  If you want to make public speaking part of your business, then you need to buy this book. 

3.  How to Get on the News without Committing Murder - Beverly Mahone:  Bev is a PR genius.  If you want to stand out from your competitors, this book will show you how to use the media to get noticed.

4.  Facebook Marketing All-in-One For Dummies - Amy Porterfield, Phyllis Khare, and Andrea Vahl:  Everything you need to know to succeed in marketing on Facebook.  

5.   $ell More eBook$: How to increase sales and Amazon rankings using Kindle Direct Publishing - Laura Dobbins and Lucinda Sue Crosby:  If you sell ebooks, you should read this book.  All the information you need on how to market your books online and how to successfully use KDP to increase your book sales.

6.  Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling - Michael Port:  Full of advice and hands-on exercises that will help you fill your business with leads and then turn those leads into long-term clients.

7. Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (And Other Social Networks) - Dave Kerpen:  There's a right way and a wrong way to use social media.  This book will teach you how to do it right. 

8.  Red Fire Branding: Creating a Hot Personal Brand so that Customers Choose You! - Liz Goodgold:  Your brand is more than your logo or your tagline.  It's your overall image.  This book will help you create a red hot brand for your business. 

9.  It's Not About You, It's About Bacon: Relationship Marketing in a Social Media World - Brian Basilico:   It's Not About You, It's About Bacon explains networking in all its forms. Not just social media. Face-to-face networking. Blogging. Websites. But don't worry all of you Facebook fanatics and Twitter addicts. Brian devotes entire chapters to each of these, as well as LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. And yes, he even tells you why-to (and how-to) use YouTube.