Before jumping into the the topic 7 types of Books Your Must Read Before Starting Your Business, let’s discuss the most important thing.
Do you know what is common between our bodies and businesses?
Yes, It is the systems.
Both our body and business are made up of various systems.
Our body is made up of systems like the respiratory system, circulatory system, nervous system, digestive system, and so on.
When one system gets defective it affects the whole body.
Hence, for a body to work properly and smoothly, every system of our body should work harmoniously.
In the same manner, business is made up of various systems or levels.
The business consists of various systems like accounting, communication ( sales and marketing), systems, legal, and product.
For the effective working of a business or running a successful business, these parts should be in harmony.
All the levels should be checked out properly. A successful businessman must work on all the levels of the BI-Triangle given below.
Understanding the BI-Triangle
A successful businessman should work on the given 5 levels along with that s/he should know team building, leadership, and a strong mission.
1) Mission
In the given BI triangle, the base element is Mission.
Hence a business should have a strong mission if an entrepreneurs want to create a successful business.
The mission is the driver of an entrepreneur.
If the mission dies, there are more chances of failing a business.
2) Cashflow (Accounting)
An entrepreneur should focus on the cash flow level of the BI triangle because no money simply means you are out of business.
It is the most important level to be considered.
Hence for understanding the accounting level, accounting books are mentioned in the upcoming pages.
3) Communication
The communication level consists of sales and marketing.
It is the most important level after the cash flow level.
An entrepreneur must know and somehow experience this level.
An entrepreneur without sales and marketing experience cannot run a business.
4) System
A business cannot call a successful business if the owner has not made a proper system for every business activity.
A business should have the proper system for various activities in the organization.
5) Legal
Every business should work on a legal level.
The business ownership and its intellectual property should be protected from duplication.
A business should work on a legal level so that it can work smoothly without any interruption by its competitors.
6)Product
Most people focus on just building better products without testing them in the market.
Most often even if you have a fantastic product, your product cannot occupy enough market because entrepreneurs lack knowledge and experience on other levels of business.
Every successful businessman and entrepreneur in history has mastered the most important level in early life.
Most of them you can find selling products on the street and roads like Mukesh Ambani, and Ratan Tata.
The most essential skill for an entrepreneur is selling skills.
If you have a selling skill, well you are on the way to becoming an entrepreneur.
If you don`t have selling skills, don`t need to worry, you can develop this skill through knowledge and experience.
Books Help You To Understand Accounting:
1) The Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs By Karen Berman and Joe Knight
Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs is the most important book if you are a beginner.
This book will make us understand the most important elements used in business.
It will teach you what you need to know about numbers.
If you want to read and understand financial statements and related terms without wasting time on a huge syllabus, this book you should read.
2) Accounting Made Simple By Mike Piper
Accounting Made Simple is one of the simplest books to read if you want to understand accounting.
Piper has made accounting simple such that even an ordinary person can understand it simply just by reading and a little bit of real-life experience.
You can finish reading this book within 7 days if you are a curious reader.
3) Accounting For Non-accountants By Wayne Label
Accounting for non-accountants is a book for those who want to understand accounting but have never taken any classes.
Those who are intimidated and mystified by the accounting jargon must read this book.
It is a perfect accounting guide for beginners and A quick, compact, and easy to easy-to-understand resource for Non-Accountants.
4) Accounting Quick Start Guide By Josh Bauerle
It is the simplified beginner’s guide to real-world financial and managerial accounting for students and small business owners.
This book is easy to read and uses simple language to make you understand complex accounting principles.
You should read this book if you want to understand accounting in simple language.
Books help you understand selling:
1) Spin Selling By Neil Rackham
Spin Selling is the book that includes the best-validated sales method developed from research studies.
To bring these sales methods around 35,000 sales calls were analyzed.
It would help you a lot if you want a method of making bigger sales.
This book includes the SPIN model which will help you make sales, especially larger sales.
It would help you to understand the sales methods used to make smaller sales are quite different when making high ticket sales.
2) Little Red Of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer
In the book Little Red Book of selling, Jeffrey presents 13 principles of selling and numerous practical tips and techniques.
This principle in this book will help you build on customers’ buying reasons to create an atmosphere conducive to buying.
3) The Psychology Of Selling By Brian Tracy
The psychology of selling helps you to work on your self-image and how you relate to your customers so that you can close more deals.
It is the book that will give you the most essential 10 keys to success in selling. If you want to understand selling, this book will give you more insights.
4) Emotional Intelligence For Sales Success By Colleen Stanley
In Emotional Intelligence for sales success, Sales Trainers and experts Stanley shows how closely EI is related to achieving sales success.
El is the most important in performing sales. It emphasizes how important it is to make relationships to make sales.
It helps you to make the most appropriate sales culture.
5) Words That Sell By Richard Bayan
In this book, Richard says the importance of words we use in performing sales.
This book helps you to understand the value of words.
This book will help you to change your words so that you can improve your sales performance.
If you are a copywriter, this book will help you more.
Books help you understand Marketing
1) The Dotcom Secrets By Russel Brunson
Dotcom Secrets is one of the most popular books by Russel Brunson.
It will help you to grow exponentially if you have an online business.
In this book, Brunson shares his secrets about online business growth.
He talks about building sales funnels and value ladders along with that he has presented how to find your dream customer and the different types of traffic.
2) Marketing Management By Philip Kotler
Philip Kotler is known as the father of the marketing world.
He has stated the marketing foundational level knowledge in this book.
It is the most important book who want to understand marketing from the beginning.
This book will give you essential marketing knowledge and help you build your marketing foundation strong.
3) The Traffic Secrets By Russel Brunson
Traffic Secrets is a compilation of marketing strategies used by Russel Brunson and his team in growing click funnels to a US$ 100 million company.
It provides a good introduction to strategies, tools, and techniques used by growth hacking marketers to scale their businesses.
This book helps you to generate more traffic through the strategies and techniques mentioned there.
4) The Expert Secrets By Russel Brunson
Expert Secret is a book about creating a marketing plan and executing it.
It includes numerous experts who will help you to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
This book helps you to pack your knowledge, skills, and expertise into a buyable format for your audience.
It is the most essential book to read for marketers.
5) The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing By Al Ries & Jack Trout
22 Immutable laws of marketing include 22 laws that need to be followed by the marketers otherwise their violation can do great damage to you.
The laws mentioned in the book will determine the success or failure of your products and ultimately, your company.
I think it is the most important book you should read.
Read in more details about marketing. & become a great marketer.
Books help you to understand business system
1)The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
The four-hour workweek is the step-by-step blueprint to free yourself from the Shackles of a corporate job.
It helps to create a business to fund the lifestyle of your dreams and live life like a millionaire.
Moreover, it will help you to escape the 9-5 jobs and provide you the flexibility to work from the place you want.
This book is very important if you want to create a system and live independently.
2)Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less by Sam Carpenter
Work the System is a book that emphasizes building systems.
Sam has stated that the world is running in a system, without us.
So, he has talked about the nature of systems and how to work on creating the system in his book.
He has taught us how one can use systems for oneself to optimize your life and live fully.
You should read it once if you want to create your business system.
3)Built To Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow
A successful businessman has created a business so that his business runs even without his presence.
In this book, John has given information related to creating a business that can thrive without you.
It also shows you how to become a successful entrepreneur by explaining the steps necessary to grow a small service business and one day sell it.
4)Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
Are you losing control over your business?
Do you have a strong grip on your business system and processes?
This book will help you to take a strong grip over your business so that you can grow your business`s bottom line.
5)The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
The checklist manifesto is the result of years of personal experience in several industries.
It will give the method and tips to develop your business checklist.
Thus checklist ensures that your business is running in a defined pattern and with the proper system.
If any kind of deviation is seen, the checklist will help you to take corrective measures.
This simple act of making a checklist will improve your business productivity by 70 times.
I think this is a must-read for the business owner to check its system and processes.
Books help you to understand Leadership
1) The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership By John Maxwell
Do you think leadership is inherited?
Do you think leadership cannot be learned?
This book will show you that leadership is learned not inherited and you can learn to become a leader too.
It will provide you with some universal principles at play in any leader-follow relationship.
If you internalize those principles you will be on the way to becoming a leader.
2)Wooden on Leadership By John Wooden
This book is highly recommended to strategists, managers, coaches, and ordinary people who want to do something great in their lives.
“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you are,
while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”
~John Wooden
You should read if you want to leave a mark on this planet as a leader creating your organization.
3)Dare To Lead by Brene Brown
Dare to Lead is one of the best books if you want to be a great leader.
It dispels common myths about modern-day workplace culture and
shows you that true leadership requires nothing but vulnerability, values, trust, and resilience.
It shares the extraordinary stories of various pioneering agents of change.
Brown has learned these lessons from their decades of experience as a pioneer in their field.
This book will give knowledge about the qualities a leader should have.
4) Good to Great By Jim Collins
Do you know that good is the enemy of great?
The one who wants to be good lost his sight to be great.
It examines what it takes for ordinary companies to become great and outperform their competitors by analyzing 28 companies over 30 years, that managed to make the transition or fell prey to their bad habits.
This book helps your business to leap into a great business.
5) Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader
This book provides you with insightful and practical advice about how to do the hardest thing of all-change ourselves.
It forces the reader to understand that the leadership approach that has brought them success so far, may not be fit for the purpose when they step up to a new role.
Read this book to find out how leaders think and act.
Books help you to understand Team Building:
1. The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork: Embrace Them and Empower Your Team by John C. Maxwell
Whether you want success in business, family, church, athletic teams or any organization depends on teamwork.
By knowing this we can understand how it is important to have team-building knowledge and skill.
This book will help you learn how to build and maintain champion-level teams so that you can lead your team to the peak level of success regardless of the field you are in.
2. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
This book explores the fundamental causes of organizational politics and team failure.
It shows the many pitfalls a company faces when they seek to grow together.
Mainly dysfunction occurs when the team members of a company are unwilling to admit their mistakes, weaknesses, or need for help.
If you are going to build your team for your own company in the future, you should read this book at least once.
3. Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins
Teams of teams reveal the incredible power that small teams have to manage complicated issues that arise in every company.
Even large organizations can take advantage of them by building a system of many teams that work together.
“A leader`s words matter, but actions ultimately do more to reinforce or undermine the implementation of a team of teams.
More than directing, leaders must exhibit personal transparency.
This is the new ideal.”
~Stanley McChrystal
4. The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
The culture code book unlocks the secrets of highly successful groups.
It provides tomorrow`s leaders with the tools to build a cohesive, motivated culture.
It makes clear that to build powerful teams you need to let people know you are listening to them and that you know you aren`t perfect,
this then allows them to be their authentic selves and that it`s okay to make mistakes.
This is the book worth reading if you are managing teams or running a company.
Books help you to understand people
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The Laws Of Human Nature By Robert Greene
Once you are with the knowledge contained in this book, you can become a calmer and more strategic observer of other people.
Moreover, you can able to interpret their behaviour and judge their character.
It shows you how to out-think toxic people, motivate others, and to alter your negative behaviour patterns.
Lastly, it will help you to unleash your true potential.
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The Power of Habit (Why We Do What We Do) By Charles Duhigg
In the book “Power of habits” Charles explains why habits exist and how you can be changed.
It helps you to understand why habits are the core of everything you do, how you can change them, and what impact that will have on your life, your business, and society.
This book helps you understand the habits of others so you can understand the people.
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Thinking Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman
In thinking fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman explains problem-solving, decision-making, and behavioural economics for those who don`t have psychology degrees.
It shows you that you have two systems in your brain.
They are constantly fighting over control of your behaviour and actions.
He teaches you the many ways in which this leads to errors in memory, decisions making & judgment.
It also shows you what you can do for this error.
It would be more helpful in understanding psychology.
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Games People Play By Eric Berne
Games people play describe both functional and dysfunctional social interactions.
It is a book about human behaviour which explains the wild and interesting psychological games that you and everybody around you play to manipulate each other in self-destructive and divisive ways.
It will teach you how to tame your ego so you can quit playing and enjoy healthier relationships.
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48 Laws of Power By Robert Greene
Robert Greene`s The 48 Laws of power is a self-help book offering advice on how to gain and maintain power, using lessons drawn from parables and the experiences of historical figures.
Power depends on the relationship between a person and those he or she seeks to control.
This is a must-book for you because you gain power if you read.
BONUS :
Books that will give you an overview of business:
The personal MBA is a combination of all the business concepts you can expect from an MBA program in a single volume of a book.
In addition, it will help you make a business mindset and allow you to work with teams.
This book covers various parts of the business which are given below:
a) Value creation
b) Marketing
c) Sales
d) Value delivery
e) Finance
f) Understanding, analyzing, and improving systems
g) Lastly, the human mind and working with others
If you apply the concepts given in the book by doing real stuff, you will be far ahead in the game of business.
Happy Reading!