What books have helped you run your business? 📚📖

[Pesso]

Hey sellers!

There are so many business books out there, but as a business owner it's hard to find good ones that would be relevant to your needs.

So today we're asking:

What business books have helped you run your business?

We'd love to hear what books have inspired you and given solid strategies to help you run your businesses.

• What books helped you the most?
• What elements of these books resonated with you?
• What are some key strategies that you found and used in your business?
  
  

It could be about any aspect of your business: starting up, management, marketing, leadership, hiring & training, product creation, or anything else!

Here are some that have been recommended to me (that I haven't read yet): 

• Dare to Lead by Brene Brown 
• How I Built This by Guy Raz 
• The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber 

Looking forward to seeing what you've found helpful!

Pesso

[OurCupCakery]

Traction  

[RSutter]

Company of One was a favorite of mine while I was getting my LLC set up this summer!

[Pesso]

So great to hear, @RSutter - thanks for sharing!

What about this book helped you with that?

[LexiLynn]

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz helped me so much! There is also an audio book!

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @LexiLynn !

What about this book helped you?
I'd love to hear more!

[BRCWPR]

Yes, and it's free on YouTube. I connected with Mike on Twitter in 2020; he sent me ten copies to give away and one autographed book, and I gave them to small business owners. 

[Pesso]

That's amazing, @BRCWPR - thanks for sharing!

Are there any pieces of information from the book that stand out and helped you the most?

[BRCWPR]

The entire book has been beneficial. It's a tried and true method applied to business. 

[mksavage]

Oooohhh, this is a great question and I'm creating a reading list from all the recommendations!

Two books that I'm currently in the middle of that have both been really enlightening are Radical Candor and The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. They are both about different aspects of leadership in general, not necessarily limited to small businesses. In the five years of running our brick-and-mortar, I have found the people/leadership side of running a business to be the most challenging, emotionally-draining, and where I most often feel out of my depth. These books have been providing a lot of tools and context for that side of business ownership. Still a LOT to learn.

[Pesso]

Thanks so much for sharing, @mksavage ! I'm definitely adding them all to my list too.

I love the idea of using general leadership books here too -- management is absolutely a really tough part of owning a business, especially with today's labor situation. Thank you again!!

[MudFire_Deanna]

I agree @Pesso and @mksavage we are using some of the Radical Candor curriculum right now and also are reading Sarah Schulman's 2014 book Conflict is not Abuse. I agree - there is a LOT to learn.

[Poochesnpals]

www.tanyaellis.com 

My 2 business books :

Pet Grooming is Like Mountain climbing- How to overcome your hugest obstacles

Opening a Pet grooming Salon- 10 steps to success

[Pesso · Accepted solution]

Hey Square Readers!

Thank you all for sharing your favorite business books.

I'm so excited to announce that we’re bringing a brand new group to the Square Seller Community, the Square Readers Book Club, and we’d love to have you join.

You can read all about it on our Introduction post, but here's the most important info:

We’ll pick one book every two months to read and chat about together in this Community Group full of sellers like you. We’ll share some extra resources and content from the author and cap it off with a live Google Meet video chat. And of course, we’ll post a full summary with key insights and takeaways from each book.

We’re voting on all of the books we read, so head over to help pick our first one! 

The first book will be announced and we’ll start things off on April 3rd.

Join the Square Readers Book Club Group

We can’t wait to read with you!

Pesso

-----

@Poochesnpals @mksavage @LexiLynn @BRCWPR @RSutter @OurCupCakery @jemes @Desert_Deli 

[jman172003]

How to Win friends and Influence People has always been an important book to me

[PlaySpace]

The E-Myth is really good

[DragonDon]

Unmarketing by Scott Stratten. It’s a bit dated(mentions Twitter a lot) but otherwise a brilliant book!

[K4Chocolate]

TractionTraction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman

Gave me several tools to bring our business up to par.

[Greenmonkey65]

Profit First, The 12 week year both are great books that have changed the way I do business.  Fix it next is a good one too. 

[Starsinhearts]

When I started working at my first bigger salon company, they had us read Raving Fans. This book showed me that going above and beyond for clients really helps them feel like your place of business is almost personalized to them and keeps them coming back. Now at a hourly, under paid salon job where I was bring the business thousands of dollars and only getting paid maybe an eighth of that, I didn't see the point. But now that I'm running my own show, I totally understand. You go above and beyond for your clients and they will come back every time. I try and re-read portions of Raving Fans semi regularly to keep that in mind. 

Also being a bit more shy, the book How To Talk To Anyone has been a big help to me as well. Being able to fully engage with clients who I seemingly have nothing in common with also really helps me. Even if they don't come back because of our lack of in-common-ness, I always want people to feel comfortable in my chair and being able to talk and communicate the entire visit is a way to do that. 

[Helen]

Thank for sharing those book recommendations @Starsinhearts. I'm going to look up both of them! 

[CeoPosh]

Hello, heres a really great gem for ya! Kikoff is a great downloadable app to download for your phone and build credit and invest into courses that are $18 or less. I purchased the seo and marketing course for $18 total and paid $2 a month until paidoff. So worth it. Courses of all genres available for you.