Recommended books

A short list of books I recommend, with what each one puts forward.

Growth
Le Personal MBA
Josh Kaufman · 2010
Kaufman reduces how a business works to five parts that hold together: creating value, making it known, selling, delivering, and managing the money left over. The book argues that none of the five can be run in isolation, and that an MBA programme comes down mostly to principles you can learn by reading.
Why I Recommend It
I use it to define an audience and to answer the five objections a customer raises before buying. I recommend it to see a business as a whole, where marketing is one part out of five.
Marketing
Esto es marketing
Seth Godin · 2018
Godin defines marketing as the act of making change happen for someone, and separates it from advertising, which was long treated as the same thing. The book argues that serving the smallest viable market works better than aiming at everyone, and that marketing is there to solve the customer’s problem rather than the company’s.
Why I Recommend It
My reference book on positioning: it teaches you to start from the person you want to serve, before talking about the product.
Sales
How to Sell Anything to Anybody
Joe Girard · 1977
Girard tells how he sold 13,001 cars at a Chevrolet dealership between 1963 and 1978, a record listed by Guinness. The book argues that selling can be learned, and that it carries on after the signature: every customer has around 250 people in their life, what Girard calls his Law of 250, and a customer who is well looked after becomes the source of the next sales.
Why I Recommend It
A sales lesson from the field, the one I keep above all others: a customer who is well served once the deal is signed brings in the next ones.
Psychology
Les lois de la nature humaine
Robert Greene · 2018
Greene sets out eighteen laws that govern human behaviour, from irrationality and envy to the denial of death. The book argues that other people's reactions usually come from their own history far more than from the person on the receiving end, and that knowing these laws helps you read the intentions behind the social mask and stay calm around difficult behaviour.
Why I Recommend It
I think it is the most useful book for understanding human behaviour and handling relationships better, at work and in life.
Psychology
Cómo ganar amigos e influir sobre las personas
Dale Carnegie · 1936
Carnegie brings together the human-relations principles he taught in his adult courses: take a genuine interest in others, remember their name, avoid arguments, see the situation from their point of view. The book argues that understanding people gets you much further than criticising them, and that this skill can be learned like any other.
Why I Recommend It
For me, it is the book that best shows that a relationship is built by taking an interest in the other person first, with a client as much as with someone close.
Personal Development
Pouvoir illimité
Tony Robbins · 1986
Robbins draws on neuro-linguistic programming to describe what makes up a state of mind: how a person pictures a situation, and how they use their body. The book argues that success can be reproduced, by taking on the beliefs, the way of thinking and the physiology of people who already get the results you want.
Why I Recommend It
Several of my mantras come from him, including “Where focus goes, energy flows”. My recommendation: read it to see how the state you are in when you make a decision shapes that decision.