7 Practical Business Books That Will Give You an Edge
And speed up your growth as a creator
1. ‘The Art and Business of Online Writing’ by Nicholas Cole
This book is packed with practical guidelines and tips to help you move forward in your path as a writer.
My favorite part is when Nicholas Cole talks about the mentality you need to approach online writing in a winning game. He compares it to playing video-games. To be fair, it’s a comparison that can apply to most skills. But I still find it useful. It reminds me that the single article is irrelevant.
What matters is putting in the time. Whatever you do, the sheer repetition of the writing process will make you better.
You’ll get faster at creating new articles. And when you are faster, you have more time to optimize for quality.
Plus, in the book, he shares all the steps that bring you from an average writer to a relevant voice in your niche.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
You’ll be able to measure your progress along the way and understand on what you have to focus to speed up your growth.
The book contains also a lot of writing techniques. Most of them are usable, but I think they become practical only when you develop your experience as a writer. By then, you’ll probably have your own best practices.
2. ‘Launch’ by Jeff Walker
Eventually, you’ll want to launch a product. And then you’ll enjoy reading this book.
You’ll may find the specific launch formula repetitive and too predictable. I’m not convinced that these are actual issues, but you don’t have to follow Jeff Walker’s approach step-by-step.
What’s useful is to get the right thinking to plan a launch.
Even more important, you’ll get practical ideas on how to pre-launch a product that you don’t have created yet.
This is hands down the most important way to plan a new product.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
You will have a clear idea of what you need to sell online and understand how to launch a product.
3. ‘The Brain Audit’ by Sean D’Souza
This is one of the most common entry points to Sean D’Souza’s world.
If you like it, you’ll end up delving deeper, because he often shares original insights on various topics, including pricing, productivity, and writing.
Among the books in this article, this one is my favorite. ‘The Brain Audit’ gives you both marketing principles you can use in any email, or landing page you’ll ever write.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
I think the primary advantage is that it gives you a checklist of elements. When you want to sell something online, control that you have all these factors listed.
If you do, you are in a sound position. You may have to work on the specific wording, but you have what it takes to present an interesting offer to your leads.
4. ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini
In marketing, this is an absolute classic, maybe the classic.
Robert Cialdini is a psychologist, and he analyzed what makes people say “Yes” to an offer. And to collect data, he didn’t just run group tests. He worked as a salesman.
Through his research, he defined 7 principles that you need to keep in mind every time you try to sell anything online.
As a bonus, you’ll also become a more aware of your own bias when it comes to buy something.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
It’s much easier to think about any marketing activity when you have a clear idea of the basic mental process we all go through in front of an offer.
5. ‘The Automatic Customer’ by John Warrillow
When you don’t have any customers, you have 2 connected dreams:
- Get customers
- Get customers that pay every month
That’s why from the big corp like Apple down to the tiny part-time creators, we all try to create some kind of membership.
It isn’t a magical Holy Grail that solves all problems, but if you can create one, you should. And this book helps you in the process.
The technical part today is trivial, with platforms like Gumroad and Patreon. What’s hard is getting new subscribers, or giving people something they want to subscribe to.
In this book, you’ll find a thorough analysis of the topic to understand how to think about it in the most productive way.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
The theory is useful, but what I liked the most was to read the examples of different memberships. It helped me a lot when I was setting up my membership service.
6. ‘Invisible Selling Machine’ Ryan Deyss
I’m fond of this book because it’s the one that gave me the ropes of email marketing.
If you’re a beginner and you want to make money online, this is a must read. It makes it too easy. But it still helps you set up your email marketing system in the right way.
It shows you how you can use emails to connect with your subscribers, keep them engaged, convert them into buyers and even make them recurring buyers.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
You’ll get a full overview of how you have to accompany your email subscribers through the buyer journey.
7. ‘This Book Will Teach You How To Write Better’ by Neville Medhora
This is a crash course on how to write copy. It will hammer in your mind what gets people’s attention and what doesn’t. A formula to craft your sales messages and little tricks that make your copy stand out.
The great advantage you’ll get by reading it
I think you can make the read even faster and focus on the first 2 chapters. They will highlight the most common mistakes that we commit when writing copy.
Fix those, and you already have a head start.