The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List
Category: Commercialization
2007 Edition: Revised and Updated
by Josh Kaufman
Business schools don’t have a monopoly on worldly wisdom. If you're serious about learning advanced business principles, the Personal MBA can help. The Personal MBA recommended reading list is the tangible result of hundreds of hours of reading and research, and features only the very best books the business press has to offer. So skip the fancy diploma and $150,000 loan - you can get a world-class business education simply by reading these books.
To learn more about the Personal MBA, read the manifesto.
Choose Another Category:
Quick Start | Personal Effectiveness | Applied Psychology | Commercialization | Entrepreneurship
Management | Strategy | Analysis | Business History | Business Reference
The Entire List (Printable)
The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun
Project management is a core business skill that every successful business professional must learn. Unfortunately, most people learn it by managing projects without training or support, relying on mistakes and feedback to improve their skills. The Art of Project Management
Scott Berkun spent ten years in Microsoft working on complex projects like Internet Explorer, MSN, and Windows, and he has a knack for skipping the complicated jargon and convoluted methodologies that characterize most project management books. Instead, he breaks complex subjects down to the critical essentials and provides a copious amount of real-world examples, which makes this book very approachable and easy to understand.
Unlike the vast majority of project management texts, this book isn't designed to lead you towards PMI certification: it's designed to give you perspective and practical information that would take years to learn via the "school of hard knocks."
This book is particularly useful if you're developing software or working in a technology-oriented field, but Burkun's advice is applicable to all project managers, regardless of industry. While the vast majority of examples come from the IT industry, the leadership and management lessons presented in this book are universal to all projects and will be easily grasped by non-technical readers.
Product Design and Development by Karl Ulrich and Steven Eppinger
Have an idea for a product or service you want to make a reality? This book can help.
Creating and producing new products is a huge, complex, and critically important part of business, and Product Design and Development
In this text, Ulrich and Eppinger cover the most essential aspects of creating new products: project planning and management, resource allocation, consumer research, product specifications, concept generation / selection / testing, product architecture, design and aesthetics, prototyping, manufacturing, protecting intellectual property, financial modeling, and project evaluation.
If you have an idea about a product you want to bring into the world, be sure to pick up this book: it will give you a realistic overview of the entire design and development process, as well as help you avoid common pitfalls.
The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
This book is a must-read for anyone involved in designing a product. The Design of Everyday Things
A cognitive scientist by background, Norman is an advocate of what he calls "User-Centered Design": the process of designing from the perspective of the people who will actually be using the product. Through the use of hundreds of examples, you'll learn a great deal about how people actually interact with the objects around them, learn how to use new tools, and figure out what to do next when things don't work as expected.
This book is a broad introduction to the role design plays in our daily lives, a primer in how to notice good and bad design in the world around you, and a set of principles that will help you use your imagination, intuition, and experience to create products and services people enjoy using.
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu Goldratt
Sometimes the best way to learn about a subject is to observe a person while they're living it. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
As the narrative progresses, Goldratt and Cox use each event to teach you about operations management, systems thinking, asking good questions, analyzing constraints, managerial decision-making, and the inherently human nature of business. You'll be privy to Rogo's thoughts, questions, and hardships as he discovers that the way to save his plan is by abandoning old mental models and adopting a new ways of thinking.
Aside from the stellar content, the story is very engaging and memorable, which helps to reinforce the information presented in the book. Goldratt's "Theory of Constraints" would be easy to forget if presented in a dry academic manner, but watching it work makes it hard to forget. Who knew running a factory could be so captivating?
Lean Thinking by James Womack and Daniel Jones
In a few short decades, Toyota surpassed its competitors to become the largest and most successful automotive manufacturer in the world. This book is about how they did it. Lean Thinking
This book will teach you the basic concepts of lean production, as created and practiced by Toyota. You'll lean how to learn what your consumers perceive to be valuable, complete a “value stream” analysis of current operations, eliminate wasteful activities, build flexibility into your operations, and build a culture that relentlessly pursues operational perfection.
Lean Thinking is a great conceptual overview of lean production principles. Understanding the potential of lean systems can help you improve the operations of any business, large or small.
All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
Creating a product is only half of the battle - you have to sell it, too. In All Marketers Are Liars
As it turns out, good marketers aren't liars... they're excellent storytellers. People constantly tell themselves stories about what they need and why they buy. If you're able to understand your target market's needs and worldview, meet their need, and tell your story in a distinctive and memorable way that fits their worldview, you win.
Is popping the cork on a 1957 bottle of Dom Perignon a welcome experience or a waste of money? Are SUVs safer than compact cars, or gas-guzzling environmental nightmares? Will a bespoke suit that's hand-cut by a tailor who serves British royalty make you look more handsome? Are diamonds really better than moissanite? Once you go beyond the functional characteristics, you'll be amazed how much perception influences reality when it comes to products and services - there's value in the story that isn't present in the actual product.
In addition to marketing mental models, you'll pick up useful ideas like adoption curves, framing, cognitive dissonance, the attention economy, and the all-pervading power of expectations. You can read this book in an hour or so, but you'll be able to use the concepts it contains for decades to come.
Citizen Marketers by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba
In the olden days (i.e. everything before 1995), marketing was relatively straightforward. Brand managers largely controlled their marketing message: by creating national TV spots, designing magazine ads, working the press, and holding high-profile events, they wielded almost total control over their product's public image.
No more: the internet has shifted marketing power to the people. Citizen Marketers
One of the critical insights here is that you can no longer control the message: your customers have just as much influence over your image and reputation as you do. If you meet your customer's needs and exceed their expectations, you'll be publicly lauded. If you treat them poorly or deceive them, expect a harsh and public rebuke.
You'll learn about the four main types of "citizen marketers": Filters, Fanatics, Facilitators, and Firecrackers, which are useful archetypes for thinking about the value people create online. By way of example, the Personal MBA has elements of all four archetypes: I'm a Filter for the best business books, a Fanatic about the value of self-education, a Facilitator of discussion via the PMBA Member Forums, and the PMBA Manifesto is a Firecracker that's designed to attract massive amounts of attention very, very quickly.
Social media and user-generated content is still in its infancy and will change dramatically over time, but this book is the best way to will bring you up to speed on the current state of marketing and the role of consumers in shaping public perception of products and services.
Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got by Jay Abraham
Jay Abraham is a marketing legend for good reason - his advice works. If you want to attend one of his seminars, be prepared to pony up $20,000. If you don't want to spend $20,000, buy Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got
According to Mr. Abraham, there are only three fundamental ways to increase the profitability of your company: (1) increase the number of clients you serve; (2) maximize the size of each sale; (3) increase the number of purchases each client makes. If you combine these basic observations with the mindset that it's your moral duty to do everything in your power to serve your client's best interest, you're on the road to business success.
Ultimately, you receive money in exchange for providing value to others, so focusing squarely on ways to increase the amount of value you provide to your clients is fruitful territory for exploration. You must learn how to provide that value effectively, communicate that value in a distinctive and memorable way, overcome objections to purchase, and ensure your clients are absolutely satisfied with their purchase and are excited to buy again.
Major mental models include developing a Unique Selling Proposition, risk reversal, referral and affiliate programs, campaign testing, joint ventures, prospect qualification, and leverage. Once you read this book, you'll think about marketing in a whole new way.
The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
Books about sales are a dime a dozen, and I've reviewed several dollars worth. Most of them try to pump you up, then give you several thousand great-sounding-but-vague-and-close-to-useless tips on how to get more prospects and close the sale. This book is different.
According to Chet Holmes, successful selling is NOT about doing 4,000 things well - it's about flawlessly doing 12 basic things 4,000 times with "pigheaded discipline and determination."
Like a little league baseball coach, The Ultimate Sales Machine
This book is one of my favorite sales books of all time for a simple reason: it's based on the author's experience of improving the sales of hundreds of companies over many, many years. You won't find fluffy theory in this book - just 12 clear priorities that will help you take your sales system, and your business, to the next level.
Purchase All Nine Books
You can purchase all nine of these books from Amazon.com by clicking the box below:
Choose Another Category:
Quick Start | Personal Effectiveness | Applied Psychology | Commercialization | Entrepreneurship
Management | Strategy | Analysis | Business History | Business Reference
The Entire List (Printable)
Site Navigation:
PMBA Blog | PMBA Recommended Reading List | PMBA Member Forums| PMBA Coaching
Copyright © 2005-2007, Josh Kaufman. All rights reserved.
This information took a great deal of time and effort to compile: please be respectful and do not copy this manifesto or reading list on any blog or website without my written permission. If you found this website useful, links and votes on social bookmarking sites are greatly appreciated.
Note: the Personal MBA is proud to be affiliated with Amazon.com. Each time you purchase books through this site, you’re helping support the PMBA’s hosting and bandwidth costs. Thank you for your support!
Personal MBA coaching is a service of Worldly Wisdom Ventures.
