Best Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
These approaches have been honed from over three decades of advising tens of thousands of CEOs and executives and helping them navigate the increasing complexities (and weight) that come with scaling up a venture. The goal of this book is to help you turn what feels like an anchor into wind at your back -- creating a company where the team is engaged; the customers are doing your marketing; and everyone is making money. Scaling Up shows business leaders how to get their organizations moving in sync to create something significant and enjoy the ride. “Verne’s tools and techniques have been key to scaling up Benetton to become the #1 international fashion brand in India. Scaling Up is that business book. Verne’s tools and techniques have been critical to helping us drive and manage this growth during my 20 years as CEO ― and ultimately to freeing me up as the founder to pursue other interests.” -- Scott Tannas, founder and Vice Chairman, Western Financial Group; senator, Canadian Parliament. “Scaling up a significant business requires precisely the kind of discipline and focus detailed in Verne’s practical and ‘how-to’ driven book.” -- Scott Farquhar, co-founder and CEO, Atlassian. “Verne Harnish’s Scaling Up is one of the finest business books you'll ever read. Whether you're an entrepreneur who wants to scale up, a CEO who wants to take his business to the next level, or a non-profit executive who wants to leave a legacy, this book will be life-changing.” -- Tan Yinglan, Author of Way of the VC – Top Venture Capitalists on Your Board, Chinnovation – How Chinese Innovators are Changing the World and New Venture Creation - Entrepreneurship For The 21st Century - An Asian Perspective.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The idea of focusing on People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash is especially meaningful to me as an entrepreneur who founded a business that has been growing for 18+ years and now has over 100 employees."
"It has given me a number of good ideas for changes I can make to how I run my own business, which has been a 1-man band for the last 16 years."
"This book was great for our organization."
"Verne's insight is superb, fresh view, clear direction, a lot of new books, you are in good hands!"
"I have read a lot of business books, literally thousands, and I would put this book in my top 10 for sure."
"Most businesses in the world turnover less than $1 million and if you want to make it to the 4% this book has solid advice from an experienced entrepreneur on how to become part of the 4%."
"A textbook for how to run and grow a thriving enterprise, it gives you the philosophies, actions, tools, and even the forms to implement it all."
"Excelente teory, dificult to achieve in practice."
But while traveling he met a young boy begging on the streets of India, who after being asked what he wanted most in the world, simply answered, “A pencil.” This small request led to a staggering series of events that took Braun backpacking through dozens of countries before eventually leaving a prestigious job to found Pencils of Promise, the organization he started with just $25 that has since built more than 250 schools around the world. “A compelling and singular story filled with universal truths everyone needs to hear.” (United States Senator Cory Booker). "A remarkably inspiring story that shares the essential lessons to creating a life of meaning, passion and purpose." “A vivid, heartfelt account of the power of education and the ability of one person to impact the world.” (Wendy Kopp, Founder of Teach For America and Co-Founder & CEO of Teach For All). “Braun combines his laid-back storytelling style with simple yet sage advice….The Promise of a Pencil is engaging, instructive and inspiring reading for anyone who wants to change his or her life, change the world, or simply feel better about humanity.” ( Success Magazine ).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"“The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person can Create Extraordinary Change” is an inspiring masterpiece written by Adam Braun, the founder of the Pencils of Promise, a non-profit organization which builds school in developing countries like Ghana and Laos. I can easily read it while I am waiting for the bus or classes and it does not add to the weight of my backpack which is usually heavy and full of my textbooks, files and a laptop that I carry everyday to classes. After all, it is an amazing masterpiece!"
"At this point in my life, I didn't think any book could expand or strengthen the strong purpose I feel for trying to make a dent in the universe through social good, big dreams and going off the beaten trail. A favorite quote of mine: "The single most powerful element of youth is that you don't have the life experience to know what can't be done.""
"Adam's story is highly motivating, because he's an every day person who dreamed of something extraordinary, and made it happen. I am a 24 year old college student studying business, and I've always thought that education, money, a great career, and massive success were the only important things a young man like myself should go after."
Drawing on decades of teaching, advising, grantmaking, and research, Meehan and Jonker provide an actionable guide that executives, staff, board members, and donors can use to jumpstart their own performance and to achieve extraordinary results for their organization. Along with setting forth best practices using real-world examples, the authors outline common management challenges faced by nonprofits, showing how these challenges differ from those faced by for-profit businesses in important and often-overlooked ways. "As a philanthropist constantly grappling with how I can achieve more impact, I found Jonker and Meehan's insights to be provocative and engaging. They go beyond the typical rhetoric regarding 'what the nonprofit sector can learn from business' and give these organizations their due—with great advice. "Bill Meehan and Kim Jonker have decades of experience in rigorously evaluating what makes organizations operate—or fail to operate—at a high level. In Engine of Impact, they leverage that deep knowledge to create a smart, compelling guide to doing good by leading well." Meehan and Jonker's outstanding analysis combines the intense rigor of business strategy with the critical soft skills of courage and creativity to equip us with the toolkit necessary for transformative social change." "In an era when the work of nonprofits is ever more essential, Meehan and Jonker deliver critical insights, strategic guidance, and inspirational lessons from the front lines. Drawing on their considerable expertise and insight, Meehan and Jonker provide a framework for dedicated executives who are committed to building organizations that are worthy of their missions." "The social sector has long needed a book like this one, which emphasizes a businesslike approach to doing good at scale. This is a vital topic, and I'm excited to see how the next generation of nonprofit leaders applies the ideas and insights in this book." —Joel Fleishman, Professor of Law and Public Policy Sciences, Duke University, co-author, Give Smart. With inspiring stories and cogent frameworks, Meehan and Jonker show us that social change is an art and a science that demands rigor and spirit.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"As one who works in the nonprofit sector, my heading sums up my thoughts on this book."
"For those who have read classics like Peter Drucker's Managing the Nonprofit Organization, Jim Collins' Good to Great and Michael Porter's Competitive Strategy the start of the book may seem boring and obvious - it's a quick read. Where the book shines is in it's references - they are detailed and mean it's a book any nonprofit board member can go back to as a valuable reference source. "It takes courage for leaders to keep their nonprofits focused on mission despite the many pressures that allow mission creep" - sage advice from the authors.Chapter 5 is extremely valuable for nonprofits that want to manage volunteers successfully - advocating Teams of Teams. The book encourages these less fortunate nonprofits to emulate the successful ones in reaching out to donors. A key question for nonprofit boards is "Does our organization have the core competency or skill required to achieve our mission?"."
"The thinking and writing are clear, the stories informative and illustrative and the overall result is a book that makes this a must read for anyone on a non-profit board, that works in or for non-profits, AND any student or professor of non-profit leadership or strategy."
"Engine of impact is also a must read for CEO's and directors of nonprofit organizations. The first part of the book presents key recommendations about how to apply strategic thinking to the management of nonprofits. These pages give important insights about the mindset of the authors in terms of how to measure the impact of the organization and programming."
Best Strategic Business Planning
How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Standards: Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. The Comparisons: The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? At the heart of the findings about these companies' stellar successes is what Collins calls the Hedgehog Concept, a product or service that leads a company to outshine all worldwide competitors, that drives a company's economic engine and that a company is passionate about.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Finally, a book from Jim Collins on Good to Great for Social Sectors which should be read by everybody working in social enterprises and organization, who are not operating as businesses and companies in their field, but who want to contribute their very best in the interest of people's rights and wellbeing around the world."
"Yet the proof is in the results that these level 5 leaders have achieved, for example Fannie Mae's CEO David Maxwell who exemplified these qualities and grew the company 3.8 times the general stock market."
"Good to Great is a marvelous description of what makes companies elevate themselves in the minds of their customers and their other constituencies."
"An interesting read, but I'm not sure his conclusions are sound--info is fairly anecdotal and correlational, not causal."
"Practical - because the Great companies' analysis indicates duplicateable concepts and steps which are universal in any field by aspiring Level 5 leaders. Encouraging - Some of the toughest decisions made by Level 5 leaders are being made by leaders aspiring to attain the Level 5 mentality."
"The book is based on a huge amount of research and has great examples to underpin their conclusions."
"If you work in government, non-profit or higher education, I recommend the companion monograph for the Social Sectors, which helps apply these business-focused concepts in a more meaningful way."
"Just a great, thorough book."
Best New Business Enterprises
In Zero to One , legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things. Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places. What Thiel is after is the revitalization of imagination and invention writ large…" – The New Republic "Might be the best business book I've read...Barely 200 pages long and well lit by clear prose and pithy aphorisms, Thiel has written a perfectly tweetable treatise and a relentlessly thought-provoking handbook." This is a classic.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan “Thiel has drawn upon his wide-ranging and idiosyncratic readings in philosophy, history, economics, anthropology, and culture to become perhaps America’s leading public intellectual today” - Fortune "Peter Thiel, in addition to being an accomplished entrepreneur and investor, is also one of the leading public intellectuals of our time. "The first and last business book anyone needs to read; a one in a world of zeroes."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"For example "we never invest in entrepreneurs who turn up for the interview in a suit" or "four of the founders of PayPal had built bombs as children." Memo to Peter Thiel: you are successful despite your prejudice against people who don't share your sartorial taste, and your partners made it to adulthood despite having been poorly supervised as children. He was not beaten by a better provider of software, he was superseded by a shift in technology toward powerful mobile devices, tablets and the cloud, all of which, in turn, were motivated by other entrepreneurs' desire to obtain monopoly profits. So Steve Jobs dominated many of these arenas for long enough to enjoy monopoly profits and other people will some day take this all further. Even the government is in on the act, Peter Thiel claims, or else it would not be granting patents to inventors or freedom from competition from generic drugs to the pharmaceutical companies that first develop new medications. My mom taught me that "necessity is the mother of invention:" GM did not develop the Volt till it was up against the wall, Archimedes discovered how to screw water upwards during the Roman siege of Syracuse, the Germans developed jet propulsion, the swept wing and the rocket we later sent to the moon when they had pretty much already lost WWII. And then we have the cases where, as the author says, it's clear that you need to incentivize people to innovate (drugs spring to mind, where the US has a lead) and that's where patents come in. And it was crystal clear to everybody with a modicum of common sense that both Intel and Microsoft were not helping the world along when they used dirty tricks to hurt AMD and Netscape. The author takes us on a (rather gratuitous) trip from Plato and Aristotle to Nozick and Rawls via Epicurus, Lucretius, Hegel and Marx to discuss when optimism is and isn't warranted and the bottom line is that you're only allowed to be an optimist if you have "definite optimism" based on a specific Design (my capital D) for a business. Peter Thiel takes a massive swipe at the Malcolm Gladwells of the world who overemphasize chance, serendipity and fate with facile arguments about the similarity in Steve Jobs' and Bill Gates' birthdates. It's the Nassim Nicholas Taleb idea, and he duly appears on the back cover to endorse the book. For the best book on the subject I'd swerve around NNT's work and turn to Benoit Mandelbrot's masterpiece, "The (Mis)behaviour of Markets." The fourth idea is no more original, but Thiel puts it well: "there are many more secrets left to find, but they will yield only to relentless searchers." The fifth idea is you need to pick your partners i.e. your investors, your fellow managers and your (ideally 3) directors very carefully in order to make sure you all want the same thing out of the company (and it had better not be immediate rewards). But once they have their first billion and don't need to run their ideas by anyone else to get them funded they very often go do something stupid (dunno, like go mine asteroids) with exactly the same fervour they previously applied to the sensible endeavour that made them rich. The more grounded ones keep their further investments close to home and direct their creativity toward giving lectures and writing books."
"Along with business strategy, Thiel outlines how successful innovation shapes society and shares an intriguing vision. Rather than offer scripts or formulas, Thiel discusses the logic of starting a company that will make a truly meaningful and unique impact on the world. Blake did a great job of adapting and presenting the contents, many of which were delivered when Thiel taught at Stanford. Keeping in mind that companies growing 1000x often carry entire portfolios, Peter gives a good argument for successful moonshots and grand visions. He also highlights the dangers of trying to disrupt entrenched competitors and avoid extra resistance and burn rates on marketing. Rather, Tesla began by making powertrains, then started with high end luxury models to which no solid alternative existed. His strong argument for monopolies are both for novelty and to develop early market dominance should competitors arise later. I found a Monopoly Index by Forbes that showed these types of companies outperforming the Dow and S&P by 33%, which was a pleasant result of some due diligence. Even if you make a product that’s a 3x improvement over a market leader, you aren’t creating anything truly new, and well funded competitors are likely to catch up. It looks at economics, globalization, artificial intelligence, and historical trends along with founder characteristics and the qualities of great salespeople. If you like diving really deep into the mind of a founder across many life experiences, check out Tony Hseih’s Delivering Happiness."
Best Business Consulting
In Case Interview Secrets, you'll discover step-by-step instructions on how to dominate what many consider to be the most complex, most difficult, and most intimidating corporate job interview in the world—the infamous case interview. "Victor gave me a clear understanding of how to structure a case interview using a highly logical approach. This helped me get offers from BCG and a boutique firm and make it to McKinsey's final round before opting out." "In my first attempt to break into consulting, I failed every one of my interviews with McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Oliver Wyman, Monitor, Booz and probably a few others. On my second attempt two years later, I followed everything Victor Cheng suggested and took advantage of every resource he provided ... and received an offer from McKinsey!" "After following Victor's guidance, I had a complete breakthrough in my case interview performance and got an offer from Monitor." "As a PhD candidate in engineering, I had an academic background that left me completely unprepared for the case interview process. "Victor taught me how to prepare both technically and mentally, and this is what makes the difference between him and the competitors. "Victor is effective because he focuses on behaviors and habits that make you successful and not just on frameworks.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Valuable resource for anyone wanting to know more about successfully passing case interviews."
"Before you even begin to read - the author offers bonus tools that will assist the reader with achieving their objectives. Additionally, current informative feedback from former readers of the book are inspirational for the consultant job hunter. The author states that " the interview is essentially over even before it has begun"; this reveals how critical it is to answer case questions."
"It seems like a trend now to treat a book sales as side revenue and the real money is made elsewhere from the leads generated by the book. Nevertheless, there is enough content to justify the book price."
"It is such a great tool to help you build essential business skills and confidence as well."
"I found that going through Case in Point first was useful to go through more specific case examples and frameworks."
"Excellent Book which helped myself successfully to secure interviews and corresponding job-offer."
"Being a good consultant is all about discipline, keeping it simple, straight forward and repeatable."
"Ideally, you would want concrete advice, with a lot of concrete case study examples and answers...within ONE book."
Best Marketing for Small Businesses
New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. Even companies committed to jabbing—patiently engaging with customers to build the relationships crucial to successful social media campaigns—want to land the punch that will take down their opponent or their customer’s resistance in one blow. Even companies committed to "jabbing"—creating content for consumers and engaging with customers to build relationships—still desperately want to land the powerful, bruising swing that will knock out their opponents or their customers' resistance in one tooth-shattering, killer blow. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really work.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Kinda basic in some parts if you already have some experience in Social Media."
"Gary is a hero."
"JJJRH is the next and final installment with lessons learned in between, real-world examples, and a basic patterned blueprint for success to give brands and businesses, big and small, a fighting chance in this social frenzy."
"I have now read all 4 of Gary Vaynerchuk's books and highly recommend these for professionals who are determined to stay aware, and relevant, in this rapidly changing business climate."
"I was STOKED when I found out that Gary chose my SM campaign, garnering me the "win" as his JJRHBook/Skillshare class challenge contest winner - winning me a 1-on1 Skype with Gary. I'm a firm believer in "speaking those things that are not, as if they were"."
"One of the features I especially loved about this book was the numerous examples of content marketing posts made in a variety of industries, by businesses of many different sizes."
"The phenomenal popularity of social media coupled with the market penetration of smartphones and mobile devices, has very recently and quite remarkably changed human behavior."
Best Entrepreneurship
“Hal Elrod is a genius and his book The Miracle Morning has been magical in my life. What if you could wake up tomorrow and any—or EVERY—area of your life was beginning to transform? After enduring the most difficult year of his life, battling cancer, Hal is now in remission and furthering his mission as the founder of The Miracle Morning book series, host of the "Achieve Your Goals" podcast, creator of the Best Year Ever [Blueprint] LIVE event, and Executive Producer of The Miracle Morning MOVIE - a documentary that reveals the morning rituals of some of the world's most successful people.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I almost didn't get the book because I read the 1 star reviews and they said it was a simplistic redo of the same messages many others had done. I heard Hal Elrod on a webinar and was excited to read the book based upon his presentation, there were a lot of 5 star reviews and I decided to get it. To exercise has been on my goals list for five years and I just couldn't get back to it until I read Miracle Morning."
"A few weeks ago I was exhausted in tears thinking I didn't have "me time". What time alone I had at the end of the day I just wasted watching tv."
""Whether you want to make significant improvements in just a few key areas, or you are ready for a major overhaul that will radically transform your entire life--so your current circumstances will soon become only a memory of what was--you've picked up the right book. You are about to begin a miraculous journey, using a simple, but revolutionary process that is guaranteed to transform any area of your life... all before 8:00 am." After 6 minutes of that (near-)death experience, he spent several days in a coma and awoke to discover he had suffered brain damage and was told that he may never walk again. He defied the odds and proved we're all capable of overcoming obstacles while creating the life of our dreams. If you've been looking to jump start your life--or just take it to the next level--there's no better place to start than by dialing in your morning routine and Hal is the perfect guide to help us discover the "not-so-obvious secrets" to rockin' it before 8:00 am! good job of helping us architect our miracle mornings--whether that's a 6-minute plan to start or 60."
"First off, there are a lot of good ideas outlined in the book that I'm looking forward to implementing to improve my mornings and be as productive as I can possibly be. "Thousands of people have reached their potential after utilizing The Miracle Morning." There was so much fluff and shameless self-promotion that had the book not been downloaded on my iPad I would've thrown the physical copy away after ripping out the pages that were actually useful."
"Once on the website, you need to register and get sucked into more commercial advertising and never get the information that was said to be there."
Best Small Business Franchise
This comprehensively researched and deftly written franchise guide brings together experience and fact to give you the tools you need to understand which franchise is right for you. His insights and knowledge are sought after by industry veterans and prospective franchise owners.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Nick does an outstanding job of going through the process of discovery and helping prospects understand what should be done to successfully find the right franchise for them."
"That's where The Franchise MBA comes in -- this book provides a clear roadmap for properly uncovering "right fit" franchise options and then conducting a thorough and productive investigation."
"The best part of this book is that it starts with asking you to know yourself better."
"i'm sure if you know nothing about franchises then this would be helpful."
"This book was a good read and does set the priorities for what to look for when shopping for a franchise."
"Well written, informative book."
"The Franchise MBA is an excellent primer for anybody looking to understand the franchise environment, whether it be as an aspiring franchisor or franchisee."
"Very good introduction for anyone who is considering franchise ownership."
Best Home Based Small Businesses
Nonfiction Authors Association GOLD AWARD Winner. Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Finalist Romi Neustadt is passionate about helping others build lucrative direct sales and network marketing businesses that help create lives with more freedom and flexibility, greater purpose and a lot more fun. Romi Neustadt is a former corporate chick (first a lawyer, then a PR executive) who traded in the billable hour for more time and financial freedom through network marketing.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I read this book in two sittings completely raptured by what's inside. Thank you, Romi Neustadt, for pouring into the people you love and the people that will soon be in love with you for you changing their lives one "real and raw" chapter at a time in a book that should be in everyone's lap and the top of every team's reading list."
"I bought this for my daughter and she loves it!!"
"I chose the printed book simply because I wanted to use her book as a reference when specific prospects - I've got notes, highlights and post-its throughout the entire book!"
"I found it motivating for me in my direct selling business."
"I liked the honesty that Romi has inspired for us to get out of our own way!"
"This is a MUST READ for anyone interested in starting their own Network Marketing business."
"As a first time network marketing boss I found this book helpful in so many ways."
"Romi is very inspiring, but she is also quite frank and speaks plainly, even if it involves a curse word or two."