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Category: Book reviews

Book reviews related to marketing, business, and leadership.

  • Welcome to your brain

    5 out of 5 stars

    An easy read and incredibly informative.  The subtitle is: Why you lose your car keys but never forget how to drive and other puzzles of everyday life.  One of the reasons I write book reviews and started a career oriented blog at: MichaelRyland.com is to make sure to retain my learning’s over the entire course of my life.  This book enforced my reason for doing it in the chapter on memory – use it or lose it.  Synapses in the brain can be strengthened or weakened over time, if you don’t revisit memories from time to time they can fade or completely disappear.

    Here is my top list for what I found interesting in the book:

    1. We use all our brain: The myth that we only use 10% of our brains is complete BS.  We use 100% of our brains – don’t you feel dumber now 🙁
    2. Brain setupThe brain is wired like my motorcycle after I took it apart and put it back together again – except worse.  The wiring is jacked up.  Certain connections are handling multiple tasks.  EG: 25% of the population sneezes when they look at a bright light b/c their brains are wired such that the connections that handle pupil dilation also handle sneezing.  There are lots of examples like these throughout the book!
        Our brains started out as very basic and then kept adding functionality.  As any engineer knows, this can lead to very poor design and efficiency.  Yep, that’s your brain.  Incredibly complex, incredibly poorly designed.  If we could start over, the plumbing could be made much cleaner and efficient.  I feel for neurosurgeons.
    3. Factors influencing intelligence: Little geniuses – playing Mozart does not make babies smarter.  Genetics set the upper bound for intelligence.  Pre-natal care, diet, and opportunity for development are the environmental factors that can then decrease intelligence.  In the US it’s not hard to ensure that your baby Einstein has all his / her needs met so don’t stress.
    4. Happiness: Frequent small events have a greater cumulative impact than occasion large positive events. Here are some exercises that can increase happiness
      • Focus on positive events. Every evening for a month write down 3 good things that happened that day and explain what caused each of them.
      • Practicing using your character strengths. Got to authentichappiness.org and take the VIA signature strengths questionnaire to figure out what they are. Next, use them in one new way every day for a week.
      • Remember to be grateful. Every day write down 5 things you are thankful for.
    5. Willpower can be trained. There is a part of your brain responsible for willpower and the dendrites / synapses / etc. can be strengthened.
    6. Meditation works. Brain scans further prove that practitioners of meditation are able to change their mental state. This can be finding inner peace or removing feelings of physical pain. It’s pretty cool what we can do when we put our minds to it.

  • Buzz Marketing

    4 out of 5 stars.

    This is a great marketing book that forces you to start thinking outside the box. Assuming you don’t work for a company with really deep pockets and you’re trying to launch a business on a shoe string budget, you have to be creative when it comes to marketing.

    I can sum up any business plan in 2 objectives:

    1. How are you adding value?
    2. What is the cost / how do you acquire customers?

    Number one is usually easy to answer. I have a widget / service that does x,y,z – people need it, love it, etc. Number two is where things get tricky.

    In 10 years I’ve launched 6 businesses. I have had only 1 mild success. The biggest problem with each one is how to cheaply acquire customers. This is a major problem.

    Buzz Marketing provides some great advice:

    • The law of 6:People pay attention to content / suggestions / word of mouth 6 times more than they do an add. Want to get the word out – an ad won’t cut it, you’ve got to get people talking to each other about it. Or better yet, get the media and news to talk about it – this is the essence of buzz marketing.
    • Make it a secret:If there’s one thing people love to share among each other it’s a secret. Google launched gmail as this ‘not yet released’ service, but if you get an offer and tell a friend we’ll give them an account too. Somehow overnight they gained 10% market share – not much of a secret after all!
    • Taboo:Genitalia, sex, anything related to the potty or that you’re not supposed to talk about it. Run a campaign around something unmentionable and watch it get mentioned, a lot.
    • Unusual / Outrageous:Overweightdate.com got started with a funny name, some t-shirts, and a small amount of online marketing. Be honest – you want to tell someone the name right now.
    • Funny:Give people something to laugh about and a story to tell.
    • UnPolished:Slick designs, costumes, posters – scream corporate. Go with something that looks homemade and you’ll gain peoples trust and interest.
    • Customer Support:If you’ve got the media talking about your product, have a great story people are sharing, and then you give crappy customer service – that is the number one way to kill sales. Secondly, exemplary customer support can be one way to get your existing customers recommend your business.
    • Employee evangelists: Don’t talk about IPO’s, sales goals, or hitting the numbers. Reference the secrets above and get your internal team talking about what makes the product / service great. CEO’s who offer a week of their compensation to a member with the best idea for saving on operations costs, board members who drop by individual stores, these are things you want your team talking about internally. Your employees should be the front line members who are evangelizing your product / service and telling everyone they know how great it is. They don’t do that b/c of money, but because of something worth talking about.

  • On becoming a leader

    3.5 out of 5 stars.  Written by Warren Bennis.

    1. You set the context. Refuse to be defined by others around you, current events / markets/ environments, or your own personal history.  Define and understand what is truly important.
    2. Ingredients of leadership:
      • Vision – a clear idea of what you want to do.
      • Passion – love what you do.
      • Integrity – understand yourself, be honest, be mature.
      • Curiosity and daring – try new things and don’t be afraid to fail.
    3. Accept responsibility – blame no one.
    4. Reflect on your experiences.
    5. Understand your personal history so that you can be master of your life not its servant.

  • How to win friends & influence people

    5 out of 5 stars.  The seminal book on understanding how to get along with people.  Written in 1936 and still every bit as applicable today.  Here are the key points:

    1. Don’t criticize or condemn other people.  Try to understand the other person and have empathy, no matter the situation.  Agree with them, recognize their feelings and statements, then move to what you want.
    2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.  The desire to be great is as powerful as that for food, sex, and sleep.  Give people that feeling.
    3. Arouse want in others.  Got a brilliant idea – let other team members think it’s their own.  Think about what other people want when trying to get them to do something.
    4. Be genuinely interested in other people.  Let people talk about themselves and they’ll be interested in you.  Ask questions.
    5. Talk in terms of other peoples interests.  Makes them interested in the conversation when you do talk.
    6. Remember and say peoples names.  The sweetest word in anyone’s language is their own name.
    7. Smile. Duh!
    8. Make other people feel important – admire something about them or that they have done sincerely.
    9. You can’t win an argument. Arguing only entrenches peoples existing beliefs.
    10. Never say “you’re wrong”.  Understand the other sides position.  Disarm them by agreeing with them.  Listen to why they are upset.  Ask questions.
    11. If you are wrong, admit it quickly. Self criticize and admit your mistake.
    12. Have a problem – begin in a friendly way.  Tell the other side how great they are and what is pleasure it has been to do business.  You’d hate for x to be tarnished and thought they should know…
    13. Get the other person saying yes immediately.  Start small and work up to bigger issues.
    14. Handling complaints: let the other side do most of the talking.
    15. Get cooperation: Let other people think the idea is theirs.
    16. Collect past dues: People want to be honest.  If they are paying it’s usually b/c they are upset about something.  Listen to them, appeal to their nobleness, let them name their price, and collect what they will give.
    17. How to criticize:
      • Begin with praise when criticism must be given.
      • Call attention to peoples mistakes indirectly.
      • Talk about your own mistakes first.
      • Don’t give orders, ask questions.
    18. How to encourage:
      • Praise the slightest improvement and every improvement.
      • Give a dog a good name.  Give the other person a good reputation to live up to.
      • Use encouragement – make the fault seem easy to correct.