Ep 42: 10 Best business and marketing book recommendations

Ep 042: 10 Best business and marketing book recommendations for Dawn of a New Era Podcast ‘Chronicles of a Serial Entrepreneur’ 

In this episode, I’m going to share my top 10 business and marketing books to read right now. 

These are all books that I’ve got on the go and I’m reading currently. 

Some of them are by authors that I’ve met and interviewed for the podcast, and who have shared some of the most inspiring stories.  

As we delve into the books, I’m going to share not just the book, but a little bit about the author, too and why I’ve chosen the book, what it’s going to do for you, and I hope that you go and check some of them out, even buy them or have a look at some of them online.

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Here are the highlights from this episode:

{1:35} Billion Dollar Sales Secrets by Joe Paranteau

{2:57} How To Pivot To Win, Jordan Babineaux

{3:43} 50 Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Jürgen Ingels

{4:50} FastScaling, Patrick Flesner

{6:22} Stop Talking and Start Doing, Shaa Wasmund

{7:01} The Employee Millionaire, H.J. Chammas

{8:06} Getting Naked, Joel Primus

{10:39} Exit Rich, Michelle Seiler Tucker

{11:55} Billion Dollar Start-Up, Adam Miron

{13:47} Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter

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Dawn McGruer’s Marketing * Motivation * Mindset Group    



 
Speaker. Author. Podcaster. Strategist.
 
Multi-award-winning speaker, strategist & best-selling author of Dynamic Digital MarketingHelping to inspire entrepreneurs to rise to meet today’s challenges and be powerfully present to shine online.
 
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Welcome to Dawn of a New Era, a business and marketing podcast with a difference, ranking in the top 5% globally for people who want to start, scale and grow their own business. Dawn McGruer shares tips to improve marketing, motivation and mindset, as well as her own real life challenges and experiences as an entrepreneur. Guests include some of the world’s most inspiring leaders, too. So if you are an aspiring, established or serial entrepreneur, this is your go-to podcast to fast track results and rise to meet today’s challenges. Never miss an episode, and subscribe and listen at dawnmcgruer.com.

 

Dawn McGruer:

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era episode 42, where I’m going to share my top 10 business and marketing books to read right now. Now, these are all books that I’ve got on the go and I’m reading. The reason I’ve chosen these books is twofold. Some of them are people that I’ve met and interviewed for the podcast, and who have shared some of the most inspiring stories. But, how I met them in the first place was I found their books, I started reading and I got hooked so I wanted to know more. I wanted to see the author behind the book. So as we delve into the books, I’m going to share not just the book, the recommendation, but a little bit about the author, too. And why I’ve chosen the book, what it’s going to do for you, and I hope that you go out and check some of them out, even buy them or have a look at some of them online.

 

Billion Dollar Sales Secrets by Joe Paranteau

 

Number one is a guy called Joe Paranteau, and I interviewed him on my podcast. And actually, he invited me to endorse his book. His book is called Billion Dollar Sales Secrets. And really interesting book, because it takes in a lot of the concepts that I believe in. I believe the three core pillars of success are marketing, motivation and mindset. Now, sales is something that a lot of marketers struggle with. We’re very creative, we’re great entrepreneurs, we love what we do and we’re experts in our own field. But as soon as you mention sales, it’s not necessarily something that we compute, that we do every day. I loved the angle of this book because it talks about actually selling in a way that is human, in a tone that you can just buy into. This book is honestly something that I think you would get loads out of from a performance point of view, and just how you address your customers’ needs and the way that you present your business.

As much as it’s talking about billion dollar sales … This is his background, he works for Microsoft, et cetera, and he’s in charge of a huge amount of sales targets. But, the way it’s written is really, really down-to-Earth and it’s got a nice feel to it. So by the end of it, I think you will have got quite a few changes in the way that you deal with your sales within business.

 

How To Pivot To Win, Jordan Babineaux

 

Now, the next one is Jordan Babineaux, and he is an ex-NFL player, he was into sports. What I like about his book, which is called How To Pivot To Win, is he’s taken the concepts of being a sportsman, the disciplines, the nature and the psyche of winning, and he’s turned it into a business book and how he relates that into his entrepreneurial journey. Now, he’s a filmmaker, he is still a presenter and host on a lot sports shows and the voice of the Seattle Hawks, et cetera. But, he’s got businesses. He is very honest about failure and challenges, and how to adapt into a winning situation. There’s loads of tips in there, in terms of things that you can instantly apply.

 

50 Lessons for Entrepreneurs, Jürgen Ingels

 

Now, that brings me onto another one of my favorites. This is something that I keep picking up and I keep going back to it. It’s from a gentleman called Jürgen Ingels. He is basically behind loads of startups and loads of scale-ups. He is a founder of a company called the SmartFin Fund, which basically finances and supports growing technology companies. But, he was also the driving force behind Clear2Pay. That was a massive, massive company with thousands, I think 1200 employees in 20 locations, and he sold it in 2014 for $500 million. I mean, amazing story. But again, this one goes back to starting, growing and selling. The way he’s positioned this book is all about the 50 lessons that an entrepreneur can learn, and it’s broken down into all these bite-sized nuggets. You can go through each of them and take away an actionable insight. This is what I like, implementation. Not just reading and consuming, but actually doing something with it.

 

FastScaling, Patrick Flesner

 

Now, my next book is a follow-on from this. It’s from a gentleman called Patrick Flesner. Now, all of these authors I’m talking about, you will find on dawnmcgruer.com, and he can dig a little bit deeper and find out a bit more about their human psyche and who they are. And, you can actually see them in a video interview. I love that correlation of reading a book and meeting the person, and this is why I always find my podcast guests this way.

So Patrick, he is a growth capital investor, 15 years experience. And, he is also a partner in an investment firm. He has an insight knowledge into why businesses that scale are successful. This book is all about fast scaling, that’s the title, FastScaling. What he’s looking into this book and sharing about information is all about enabling you to become a successful growth leader, so someone’s who’s a strong leader whose pursuing this smart growth strategy and how to execute it. It’s a step-by-step, a path to building a valuable business. It’s got a really nice tone to it, and again, in the interview he shared how difficult it was to write.

And also, many of these authors, during the pandemic, had to re-gear some of the writing because they didn’t want to miss out on concepts that were important in business. And with the changing evolution of, obviously, the fact that we’re driven online, we can’t go out, we’re in a pandemic and so on.

 

Stop Talking and Start Doing, Shaa Wasmund

 

Now, a colleague of mine and friend who was also on the podcast, and you may have heard of before, is Shaa Wasmund MBE. She was the bestselling author of Stop Talking and Start Doing, that was the first book I read. And then, this one is How To Fix Your Shit. It is basically a straightforward guide to a better life. It’s a really short, simple quick-fix book. You can pick the book up, read it, consume it in a few hours. But, there’s lots of actionable insights. But, lots of check in moments, of things you go, “Ah, do you know what, this is me.” Epiphany moments where you’re like, “This is where I am, actually. If you just change this a little bit, it would be a bit different.”

 

The Employee Millionaire, H.J. Chammas

 

Now, there was a gentleman who was on the podcast quite early on called H.J. Chammas. I have a property company, and this is where it sparked my interest because he focuses on the fact that you don’t have to leave your job. This is something that I really am passionate about. You hear all these people in the online space talking about, “You’ve got to leave your job, you’ve got to commit, you’ve got to put all in.” He talks about the fact that you can actually have your job, and the book he’s written is called Employee Millionaire, so how you can build a property portfolio whilst in a job, with little money in. He’s really realistic.

He talks about in the interview on the podcast about how he started his business. He only had a small, small amount of money to get his property, and he talks about signing for it. So you buy into it, you really feel it from his point of view. As much as it’s aspirational to think about being a $1 million property owner, et cetera, it feels really, truly achievable in the way that he presents it. That’s why I like that book.

 

Getting Naked, Joel Primus

 

One of the funniest podcast interviews I had with Joel Primus, he is a Canadian guy that I literally just liked his style online and the way that he presented himself. Because he was on the podcast interview, just talking about his business in just such a lovely manner, because he’s been very successful. He started a company called Naked Underwear, and he shares how this company had some epic fails and some major wins. He raised $17 million for the company and it was sold through major department stores, so epically successful.

But, he also shared a story on the podcast interview about when he got his first order in. He placed an order with the manufacturer for 10,000 pairs of boxer shorts. One of the investors got in touch with him and he said, “Well, I can understand why you have named it naked.” And he said, “Oh, really?” He said, “Yeah, because they don’t stay on.” He tells this story, and you know what, it’s so funny but so inspiring in the fact that he nearly lost his business over this. It shows that entrepreneurs who are authentic will rock up and tell you about their fails, because everybody has failed at some point. It would not be true to say that everybody has floated through life, started a business and it was absolutely mega. It’s not, there’s some hard points.

There’s been tears in my life, there’s been real exhaustion and desperation in my journey. And again, on my book Dynamic Digital Marketing, it’s a 400-page hardback book, but it took me a lot to get that out. I got my publishing contract in 2019 and I was just so elated, I was so, so excited. But then, writing the book was such a challenge just to feel like I was giving the value, giving the knowledge. And then when I handed in the manuscript, wow did I get imposter syndrome. Honestly, I really started panicking about are people going to read this, what are they going to think. Do you know what, when it came out it was a bestseller before it was even actually available for purchase, then that was a bit of a game changer. And then, it got an award, well finalist in the Business Book of the Year Awards. So it started to dissipate, but I still always felt it and probably still will, in the background, that anxiety of putting yourself out there in just such a visual way.

 

Exit Rich, Michelle Seiler Tucker

 

Now, the last couple of books I’m going to talk about are about businesses, but on two different angles. So for instance, there was a lady called Michelle Seiler Tucker, really vivacious lady, really straight-talking, totally out there in terms of she is very, very insightful and factual about what she does. But, very honest, so she’s straight-talking down the line. She talks about scaling businesses and how to get rich, basically, fast. And, it’s all about valuing a business and how you build a business that’s actually sellable. I think it was really interesting, when I was talking to her, because her book was something that I accidentally came across.

I was just searching online and I saw it come up in the Amazon New Books. I was like, “Not sure if this is for me,” so I went and had a look at it. It’s called Exit Rich, and Michelle Seiler Tucker includes the Six P method to sell your business for huge profit. Do you know what? I started getting really into it. I really started looking at the structure behind my businesses. I found it really fascinating, and the way that she breaks it down, it just makes total sense as you’re reading.

 

Billion Dollar Start-Up, Adam Miron

 

And then, another very inspiring gentleman, and this is my last book on the list, this is Adam Miron. I got in touch with him and I was a bit apprehensive because I was thinking, “Will he even come on my podcast? Will he even want to do this? I have no idea.” And, I reached out, took a little bit of a punt and messaged him on LinkedIn. He had written a book called Billion Dollar Start-Up, billion dollar. This wasn’t just millions, this was billions. What really got me was that, by 29, he was one of the only 100 Canadians ever in history to still be alive while his company was actually a $1 billion company.

His demeanor in the interview was just so calm and just so unassuming that … Sometimes, I’ll be honest, when I’m looking for podcast guests you start thinking, “Oh, are they going to be a bit arrogant and a bit full of themselves? Am I going to feel completely inadequate?” He just actually had this way that he told his story about where he came from, he told his story about trying to fund the business, and the heartache and things he went through. And, even the fact that he’s a billionaire, he was just really, really down-to-Earth. I know that you can probably say that we could all be lovely people if we were billionaires because it’s a nice thing to be, isn’t it? But he was, he’s definitely one to go and have a look at.

And, the concept of his business is even more out there, because it was all to do with cannabis. That again, really spiked my interest because I was thinking, “Well, how did he manage to grow it to get the CBD oil? How do you get a license for that?” He charts the story, so a really interesting guy and one to follow.

 

Mapping the Mind, Rita Carter

 

Now, there’s loads of other books that I love and I always get asked if there was one book that I read when I was younger that made an impact. And it was Rita Carter, Mapping the Mind. I loved it because it just started out, and plotted out in my mind, essentially, the differences between men and women, but also how the mind works. Why do we think things? How are we feeling things? Why is the mind making us do this? It was a fascinating book.

There’s loads more books I read in my life. From things like Anne Wilson’s The Wealth Chef, I loved that. It was about financial freedom. I’ve read all the Profit First books by Mike Michalowicz, if I can pronounce that correctly. So yeah, loads of different things. I like learning anything to do with psychology and about how we learn, so Benedict Carey created a book all about How We Learn, really interesting read. But, the ones I’ve covered in today’s episode, they’re my top 10, the ones that I’m reading at the moment and I’m taking action from.

Final reminder and final recap. Number one is Joe Paranteau, Billion Dollar Sales Secrets. Number two is Jordan Babineaux, How to Pivot to Win. Number three, Patrick Flesner, FastScaling. And number four, Adam Miron, Billion Dollar Start-Ups. Number five was Joel Primus, Getting Naked. Number six was Shaa Wasmund with her book, How To Fix Your Shit. And number seven was Michelle Seiler Tucker and was called Exit Rich. Number eight was H.J. Chammas’ Employee Millionaire. And number nine, Jürgen Ingels. And of course, I couldn’t do book recommendations without including a cheeky little feature of my own book, Dynamic Digital Marketing, which is all about mastering the art of online marketing to scale and grow your business.

I hope this episode was helpful for you. Let me know how you get on with the books, and let me know if you take action and what happens, any defining moments that you’ve taken from these. Yeah, I’d love to hear feedback. So take care, and we’ll see you on the next episode.

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era Podcast. And for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit, and success and join our community, go to dawnmcgruer.com.

Remember to join me and all my Podcast Guests on Facebook
Dawn McGruer's Marketing * Motivation * Mindset Group

Speaker. Author. Podcaster. Strategist.

Multi-award-winning speaker, strategist & best-selling author of Dynamic Digital Marketing - Helping to inspire entrepreneurs to rise to meet today’s challenges and be powerfully present to shine online.

Connect with me and let’s Dream Big * Work Hard * Make it Happen
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube

Ways to work with me
Read My Book | Speaking | Training | Strategy | Retreat

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