80/20 Sales and Marketing: The Definitive Guide to Working Less and Making More by Perry Marshall
This should be essential reading for anyone in marketing and sales. The author, a leading expert on Google AdWords, examines the '80/20 Principle' - that 80% of your results comes from 20% of your inputs - and how it applies to growing your business by acquiring more visitors to your website, scaling traffic, dominating markets, and sales conversion. His advice is to outsource everything that is a low-value use of your time. He also challenges you to say how much an hour of your time is worth.
How to Make a Million Before Lunch by Rachel Bridge
This book provides plenty of fascinating stories illustrating what to do and what not to do when setting up a business. These range from the creators of Trivial Pursuit selling games for three years at far below the manufacture cost (sometimes you need to break the rules, even the obvious ones) to the sorry tale of the author's local high-end organic kebab restaurant (don't try to create a new market from nowhere).
How Google Works: The Rules for Success in the Internet Century by Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg
Two top Googlers (Schmidt is the executive chairman of parent company Alphabet Inc.) explain how technology has shifted the balance of power from companies to consumers. In an era when everything is speeding up, the best way for businesses to succeed is to attract smart-creative people and give them an environment where they can thrive at scale. It's probably the reason why so many of the brightest undergraduates are choosing internships in tech companies rather than the still rather stuffy world of investment banking.
Follow Saira Khan on Twitter: @IamSairaKhan
