My comprehensive list of the best business books, sorted by category.

M

mike.davis

I constantly search for the most recommended / highest rated business books and have sorted them into categories in my amazon wish list. I’ve made my way through a lot of these and plan on reading the rest as soon as possible. I would highly recommend using amazon wish list for keeping track of books.

I truly believe reading as much as you can and applying it to real-world business situations is the most valuable thing you can do for your business.


The categories are as follows (control F to find);


-Customer Service
-Sales
-Retail
-Biographies
-Management and Leadership
-Strategy, Innovation & Business Philosophy.
-Productivity & Effectiveness
-Books about Particular Businesses.
-General Business Books
-Marketing and Advertising
-Entrepreneurship
-Communication
-Personal Development
-Finance and Accounting
-Economics & Investing


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Customer Service


The finishing Touch: How to Build World-Class Customer Service. By Tony. Cram

The One Minute Manager: Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service. By Kenneth Blanchard

Five Star Service: How to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service. By Michael Heppell

The Buzz: 50 Little Things That Make a Big Difference to Serve Your Customers. By David Freemantle

Secret Service: License to Thrill Your Customers. By Colin Turner



Sales

How to sell through Networking and referrals (financial times) by Andy Lopata

The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge your business with relentless focus on 12 key strategies. By Chet Holmes

How I raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling. By Frank Bettger

Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods and Techniques Used By Top Salespeople Everywhere. By Brian Tracy

Brilliant Selling: What The Best Sales People Know, Do And Say. By Jeremy Cassell

The Greatest Salesman In the World. By Og Mandino

The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource. By Jeffrey Gitomer




Retail


Smart Retail: Practical Winning Ideas and Strategies from the most successful Retailers in the world. By Richard Hammond.

Visual Merchandising: Window and In-store Displays For Retail. By Tony Morgan

Brand Sense: Sensory Secrets Behind The Stuff We Buy. By Martin Lindstrom

Why We Buy: The Science Of Shopping. By Paco Underhill



Biographies


Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography. By Walter Isaacson (not out yet)

Sam Walton: Made In America, My Story. By Sam Walton

Grinding it out: The making of McDonalds. By Ray Kroc

Top Man: How Phillip Green Built His High Street Empire. By Stewart Lansley

Losing My Virginity: The Autobiography. By Richard Branson

Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?: How I turned Around IBM. By Louis Gerstner

I’d Like the world to buy a coke: The Life And Leadership Of Roberto Goizueta. By Davis Greising

Iacocca. By Leo Iacocca

Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun?: How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire. By Reginald F. Lewis

An Enterprising Life: Jay Van Andel. By Jay Van Andel

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. By Alice Schroeder

Buffett: The Biography. By Roger Lowenstein

I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59. By Douglas Edwards

The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford And The American Century. By Steven Watts

The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made And Gave Away A Fortune. By Conor O’Clery

Gerald Ratner: The rise And Fall… And Rise Again. By Gerald Ratner


A Book About Innocent: Our Story And Some Things We’ve Learned. By Innocent.

Howard Hughes: My Story. By Howard Hughes

Two Tycoons: Personal Memoir Of Jack Cotton And Charles Clore. By Charles Gordon

The House OF Rothschild: Money’s Prophets 1798-1848. By Niall Ferguson

The First Tycoon: The epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. By T.J Stiles

Gerald Ronson: Leading From The Front. By Gerald Ronson



Management & Leadership


Leadership: Plain and Simple (Financial Times Series). By Steve Radcliffe

The Five Dysfunctions of a team: A leadership Fable. By Patrick M. Lencioni

Now, Discover Your Strenghts: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage. By Marcus Buckingham

How To Lead: What You Actually Need To Do to Manage, Lead And Succeed. By Jo Owen

The Secret Laws Of Management: The 40 Essential Truths for Managers. By Stuart Wyatt

Key Management Models: The 60+ Models Every Manager Needs to Know (financial times series). By Marcel Van Assen

The One Minute Manager. By Kenneth Blanchard

The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company. By Bill Capodagli

On Becoming A Leader: The Leadership Classic. By Warren G. Bennis

The Halo Effect: and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers. Phil Rosenzweig

The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manafacturer. By Jeffrey Liker

The Future Of Management. By Gary Hamel

Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead With Emotional Intelligence. By Daniel Goleman
 
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mike.davis

Strategy, Innovation & Business Philosophy.


Made to stick why some ideas survive and others die by Dan Heath

Switch: How to change things when change is hard by Chip Heath

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies By James C Collins.

The Magic of Thinking Big By David J. Schwartz

Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap and others don’t. By James C. Collins

Think and Grow Rich. By Napoleon Hill

The Way To Wealth. By Benjamin Franklin

The Star Principle: How It Can Make You Rich. By Richard Koch

Liquid Thinking: Inspirational Lessons from the World’s Great Achievers. By Damian Hughes

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business By Being Remarkable. By Seth Godin

Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World. By Seena Sharp

The Dilbert Principle. By Scott Adams

The Peter Principle. By Laurence J. Peter

The Effective Executive. By Peter Drucker

ReWork. By Jason Fried

How To Be Rich. By J.Paul Getty

How to be a complete and utter failure at life, work & everything: 44 steps to lasting underachievement. By Steve McDermott

In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies. By Robert H Waterman Jr

How To Get Rich. By Felix Dennis

Outliers: The Story of Success. By Malcolm Gladwell

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. By Stephen Covey



Productivity & Effectiveness.


The 4-Hour Workweek By Timothy Ferriss

Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. By Daniel H. Pink

Do it Tomorrow and other secrets of time management. By Mark Foster

Do It! Or Ditch It. By Bev James

Getting Things Done: The Art Of Stress-Free Productivity. By David Allen

Eat that frog. 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done In Less Time. By Brian Tracy

Get Off Your Arse. By Brad Burton




Books about Particular Businesses.

Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft: 200 years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalry. By Debroah Cadbury

Inside The Magic Kingdom: Sevem Keys to Disney’s Success. By Thomas Connellan

Visa: The Power of an idea. By Paul Chutkow

The PayPal Wars: Battles With eBay, the Media, the Mafia and the Rest of Planet Earth. By Eric M. Jackson

Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew the Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion. By Bernie Marcus.

The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World Of Hershey and Mars. By Joel Brenner

Apple Confidential: The Real Story of Apple Computer Inc. By Owen Linzmayer

Maverick: The success Story behind the world’s most unusual workplace. By Ricardo Semler

Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce and Culture. By Taylor Clark

The Story of Green & Black’s: How two Entrepreneurs turned an ethical idea into a business success. By Josephine Fairley

Innocent: The Inside Story of Innocent Told from the Outside. By John Simmons

How They Started: How 30 Good Ideas Became Great Businesses. By David Lester

How They Started In Tough Times. By David Lester
 
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mike.davis

General Business Books.


Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All time: 20 Inspiring tales of Entrepreneurs who changed the way we live and do business. By Forbes

Winning: The Ultimate Business How-to Book. By Jack Welch

The 2,000 Percent Solution. By Donald Mitchell

The Perfect Business. By M leboeuf




Marketing and Advertising


Ogilvy on Advertising by David Ogilvy

The Advertising Concept Book: Think Now, Design Later. By Pete Barry

Chasing The Chasm. By Geoffrey A Moore

Duct Tape Marketing. By John Jantsch




Entrepreneurship



Innovation and Entrepreneurship. By Peter Drucker

The E-Myth Enterprise: How to Turn a Great Idea Into A thriving Business. By Michael E. Gerber

E-Myth Revisited: Why most small businesses don't work and what to do about it. By Michael E. Gerber




Communication


Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and delivery. by Garr Reynolds

On Writing Well. by William Zinsser



Personal Development (Self-Improvement)


How to Win Friends And Influence People. By Dale Carnegie

10 Days to Faster Reading. by Princeton Language Institute

The Personal MBA: A world-class Business Education in a single Volume. By Josh Kaufman

Personal Development for smart people: The conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth. By Steve Pavlina

The Personal MBA: Master the art of business. By Josh Kaufman

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. By Robert Cialdini

The Power Of Charm: How to win anyone over in any situation. By Brian Tracy

Natural Born Winners: How to Achieve Happiness And Personal Fulfillment. By Robin Sieger

Become A Key Person Of Influence. By Daniel Preistley

Getting To Yes: Negotiating an Agreement Without Giving In. By Roger Fisher



Finance & Accounting


Accounting Made Simple: Accounting Explained in 100 pages or less. By Mike Piper

The Ecology of Commerce: A declaration of Sustainabillity. By Paul Hawken

Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the rich Teach Their Kids About Money That The Poor And Middle Class Do Not. By Robert Kiyosaki


Rich Dad, Poor Dad 2: Cash Flow Quadrant. By Robert Kiyosaki



Economics & Investing


Freakonomics By Steven D. Levitt

More Money Than God. By Sebastian Mallaby

The Tycoons: How Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould and J.P Morgan Invented the American Super economy. By Charles Morris

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. By Michael Lewis


Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. By Edwin Lefevre

This time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Carmen M. Reinhart

Drug Crazy: How we Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out. By Mike Gray

Come Into My Trading Room: A Complete Guide to Trading. Alexander Elder

Wealth Mechanic. By Max Eames

Economyths. By David Orrell.

Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science. By Charles Wheelan


50 Economics Ideas: You really need to know. By Edmund Conway


Student to CEO: 97 Ways to influence your way to the top in Banking and Finance. By Simon Dixon

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. By Peter Fisher

How and Economy Grows and Why It Crashes. By Peter Schiff

The Little Book of Commonsense Investing. By John Bogle

The Essential Buffett: Timeless Principles for the New Economy. By Robert Hagstorm

The 3+1 Plan: The Insiders Way to Achieve Financial Freedom. By Brett Alegre-Wood


The Naked Trader. By Robbie Burns

Ponzi Cheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend. By Mitchell Zuckoff

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the rise of modern finance. By Ron Chernow
 
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Lucan Unlordly

Free Member
Feb 24, 2009
3,961
994
One book missing, a must read that is lifestyle/business related....

'How to stop worrying and start living' by Dale Carnegie

I have a signwritten panel in my workshop taken from the book that reads..

'I had the blues because I had no shoes, until upon the street I met a man who had no feet... COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS NOT YOUR TROUBLES'

'Farmer' Carnegie was off to get a small loan from the bank that would see him through a few weeks of hardship as the crops had failed. He was close to Bankruptcy and on the floor. He passed a war veteran who was using a skateboard, his legs having been blown off during the war. 'What a lovely day said the veteran'............ So bouyed by the invalids attitude he realised his own troubles were nothing in comparison, went to the bank and asked fo enough money to take his business into the future.
 
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