These 4 communication books will make you communicate in your business more effectively

Books give us food for thought and I am always eager to learn more and find new ways to support my clients and help push my own business forward. Lately, I have read a lot of non-fictional books around the topics of communication, business and self-development. In this blog post, I am going to share my top 4 books on communication. While reading these 4 books I had so many aha moments and immediately could apply the new insights and tips to either my own business or my client’s projects. If you feel you don’t have the time to read any of the books, there are also great talks, interviews and podcast episodes by the author’s that can give you a gist of their key messages.

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action by Simon Sinek

Marketing consultant Simon Sinek started asking himself why some companies and people were more innovative, more influential and more profitable while other’s fail even though all of them would sell very similar products and talk about similar ideas. Sinek started analysing successful companies and influential leaders such as Apple, South West Airlines or Martin Luther King and detected a particular pattern. Sinek came to the conclusion that these successful companies and leaders knew exactly what their purpose was. To simplify his findings Sinek developed his golden circle model. The Golden Circle model guides you to answer three questions about your company: Why do you do what you do? How do you do what you do? What do you do? The key is to be clear about the answer of Why you do what you do as that is the basis for the how and what question and the difference between being successful or not, because people don’t buy what you do they buy why you do it.
In the wool industry, we often list all the benefits of wool as part of our argument why consumers should buy wool. However, competing synthetic fibres just argue in the same way.  Simon Sinek challenges us to first start with an explanation of why we are in the business of wool, then explaining how we do things in the wool industry and then explain what the benefits of wool and our products are.

To learn more you can watch Simon Sinek’s famous TED talk about the Golden Circle via this video link.

Contagious – How To Build Word Of Mouth In The Digital Age by  Jonah Berger

If you think about the last purchases you made, how many of those did you buy based on a recommendation of your partner, friend, colleague, professor or sales person? And after your purchase did you tell someone else about it or even showed everyone on your preferred social media account? Word-of-mouth is the most effective form of product promotion and is a huge driver behind all purchasing decisions. The internet and social media thrive on word-of-mouth, just think of the latest YouTube video that went viral, the latest cat content photo that you forwarded or the latest review you read before purchasing online. Associate Marketing Professor, Jonah Berger, explains how word-of-mouth works and how you can use it to promote your business or idea. Thinking about how to generate word-of-mouth for your B2B wool industry business or your B2C wool product will help you save money on other forms of advertisement as you just let the word be spread by your customers and potential customers.

Jonah Berger also gave a great talk explaining the key concepts of his book. Watch the video here.

 

Fascinate – How To Make Your Brand Impossible To Resist by Sally Hogshead

Advertising expert, Sally Hogshead, answers the question of how a brand or company can fascinate and become impossible to resist. In her book, she identifies seven advantages which she describes as Innovation, Passion, Power, Prestige, Mystique, Alert, or Trust. She explains further that each brand is already applying one of these advantages often unknowingly.
The success lies in identifying your advantage and then using it to fascinate your customers. This book will help you see your brand’s strength clearly and give you a strategy and plenty of inspiring examples you can apply to keep your communications fascinating by staying true to your strengths.

Sally Hogshead also gave a great Ted Talk. Watch her speech here.

 

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook – How To Tell Your Story In A Noisy World by Gary Vaynerchuk

Wool has so many great stories to tell but we don’t yet tell them enough. There is a huge potential for the wool industry to tell its stories on the different social media platforms. With so many platforms it is overwhelming to know on which social media platform we should tell them and how? In his book Jab, Jab, Jab Right Hook, Gary Vaynerchuk, describes each platform, explaining what is special about them and how each platform works.
He also makes it very clear which platform needs what kind for story telling. What I found especially useful were the many practical examples of actual Facebook, twitter, Instagram posts the author examines, highlighting why they fail or achieve their goals. The key message of this book is summarised in the book’s title: You need to deliver a lot of valuable content (jab) before you can ask for a sale (right hook) in other words give, give, give then sell. My recommendation is to buy this book as a physical copy as you otherwise won’t get the most out of the practical examples.
Let me know if you have read any of the books and tell me what you think. If you have another great recommendation, please leave a comment in the comment section below.

You can find many videos of Gary Vaynerchuk on YouTube. Here is podcast interview about the book.