BizBooks

Matt Higgins on Success

In this gripping rags-to-riches instant classic, Matt Higgins provides the blueprint he used to go from a desperate sixteen-year-old high school dropout caring for his sick mother in Queens, New York, to a shark on Shark Tank and the faculty of Harvard Business School. Told with raw emotion and radical transparency, Higgins writes the definitive tome on the oldest life hack in history: burn the boats.
From Sun Tzu to Julius Caesar, the ancient Israelites to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, there’s a bold and highly effective tactic seen throughout history—when leaders want to motivate their troops for success, they destroy all opportunities for retreat, and fully commit to the mission. They burn their boats; it’s win or perish, and the clarity of sheer desperation propels them to victory.
But the conviction of crisis decision-making can also be harnessed in peacetime to achieve unfathomable success. Higgins draws upon extensive research, historical precedent, and dozens of firsthand case studies—from actress-turned-entrepreneur Scarlett Johansson to NFL Coach Rex Ryan—that prove merely contemplating Plan B diminishes the probability of ever achieving Plan A. Now a self-made serial entrepreneur with a $1 billion consumer portfolio of some of America’s most iconic brands, Higgins explains how to burn the metaphorical boats that undermine total commitment, ranging from imposter syndrome to paralyzing anxiety to toxic leadership.
Burn the Boats is the manifesto for anyone looking to level up their life while navigating risk. Each chapter includes clear, actionable advice that readers can immediately start applying to their own lives, along with inspiration drawn from dozens of real-life success stories. This book will give you the courage to confidently go all in on your life’s true purpose.
Topics in this episode include:
01:00 - About Matt
10:49 - Having empathy in business
20:33 - Determining the best use of your time
29:50 - Optimizing your mental health
40:10 - The importance of pattern recognition
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Boats-Overboard-Unleash-Potential/dp/006308886X
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Jocelyn Davis on Women in Leadership

International leadership expert Jocelyn Davis presents twelve timeless female archetypes reimagined and refreshed with stories of literary and everyday women who fought, cajoled, commanded, schemed, or blasted their way free of the chains that bound them.
Discover your personal types, along with inspiration and strategies for expanding your range, tapping your inner power, and unleashing your natural leadership in work and life.
Topics in this conversation include:
00:42 - About Jocelyn Davis
08:05 - The Amazon Archetype
13:01 - Navigating the Amazon Archetype as a business leader
20:30 - Women who are experts in negotiation
27:52 - The Jesteress Archetype
Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Insubordinate-New-Archetypes-Women-Lead/dp/1637553870
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

G. Riley Mills on Intention-Based Communication

The Bullseye Principle is the definitive how-to guide for communication, collaboration, and execution for leaders in the corporate arena. With these “soft skills” trending above technical knowledge in executive wish lists, this book provides invaluable guidance for new and experienced leaders alike; from the planning stages to the outcome and beyond, the discussion features critical insight and actionable tips based on award-winning methods. Polish your presence, utilize intention, influence emotion, engage workers, build relationships, make connections, and leverage the power of storytelling―it all comes down to technique.
This book shows you everything you need to know to start communicating more effectively, starting today. The success of any communication rests more on how the information is conveyed than what that information actually is; at every level, in every sphere, effective leaders strive to master key skills that inspire, empower, motivate, and more.
Topics in this episode include:
00:41 - About Gary
07:31 - The Pindrop Principle
18:50 - Navigating speaking to large audiences
26:00 - How to handle resistant audiences
33:40 - Creating a personal branding statement
40:00 - Transformational change and 'yes, and'
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Bullseye-Principle-Intention-Based-Communication-Collaborate/dp/1119484715
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Alexsys Thompson on Leadership

In The Power of a Graceful Leader, Alexsys Thompson shares how to begin integrating who you are and how you lead. Through her experience with this disconnect in her own leadership and having coached hundreds of leaders in their integration journey, Alexsys offers tools, tenets, and some relatable stories to support you in your journey toward becoming an integrated and graceful leader. You will find yourself making better decisions, building healthier relationships, and experiencing joy, love, and compassion as you transcend into the leader you were born to be.
Topics in this episode include:
01:30: About Alexsys
09:00: Negative impacts of patterns of condemnation instead of grace
15:20: Conscious leadership
24:44: Being compassionately powerful
35:15: The act of gratitude
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Graceful-Leader-Alexsys-Thompson-ebook/dp/B08SJ4GSRV#:~:text=Graceful%20leadership%20embraces%20the%20ability,such%20an%20important%20leadership%20principle.
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Karin Hurt and David Dye on Workplace Culture

From executives complaining that their teams don’t contribute ideas to employees giving up because their input isn’t valued--company culture is the culprit. Courageous Cultures provides a road map to build a high-performance, high-engagement culture around sharing ideas, solving problems, and rewarding contributions from all levels.
Many leaders are convinced they have an open environment that encourages employees to speak up and are shocked when they learn that employees are holding back. Employees have ideas and want to be heard. Leadership wants to hear them.
Too often, however, employees and leaders both feel that no one cares about making things better. The disconnect typically only widens over time, with both sides becoming more firmly entrenched in their viewpoints. Becoming a courageous culture means building teams of microinnovators, problem solvers, and customer advocates working together.
In our world of rapid change, a courageous culture is your competitive advantage. It ensures that your company is “sticky” for both customers and employees.
This book provides you with the practical tools to uncover, leverage, and scale the best ideas from every level of your organization.
Topics in this episode include:
01:31: About Karin and David
11:40: How to provide a psychologically safe environment
22:03: Chronic restructuring and why it's a big mistake
30:13: Navigating the narrative
36:05: Empowering your employees
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Courageous-Cultures-Karin-Hurt/dp/1400219531/ref=asc_df_1400219531/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=459680637280&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4743187583971387121&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9007481&hvtargid=pla-923415162948&psc=1
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Aytekin Tank On How Automation Can Save You From Busywork

In Automate Your Busywork: Do Less, Achieve More, and Save Your Brain for the Big Stuff entrepreneur, founder, and CEO of Jotform Aytekin Tank delivers a can’t-miss blueprint to help you make the most of your most precious asset: time.
You’ll explore what’s possible when you offload repetitive tasks, why automation has democratized innovation, and how you can use cheap―or even completely free―no-code automation tools to transform your ability to focus on what truly matters in your business and life.
Aytekin Tank is a founder, productivity expert, automation enthusiast, and the bestselling author of Automate Your Busywork. His entrepreneurial passion and firm belief in creating tools to make organizations more productive led him to build Jotform, a bootstrapped global SaaS company that provides powerful online forms to tens of millions of users.
In addition to serving as the CEO of Jotform since 2006, Aytekin frequently contributes to Fast Company and Entrepreneur. A developer by trade but a storyteller by heart, he writes about his journey as an entrepreneur, shares advice for other startups, and provides insights on leadership, productivity, and using SaaS technology within workflows.
Topics in this episode include:
01:23: About Aytekin
09:36: Automation framework
19:06: Workflows vs. business processes
28:05: Multiplying your solutions using AI
39:30: How to apply automation principles in real life
Get his book here: https://www.amazon.com/Automate-Your-Busywork-Achieve-Brain/dp/1119901731
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Neil Hoyne on Converting Customers Using Data

When the world’s biggest brands want to improve their approach to converting customers using their digital marketing strategy, they call Neil Hoyne – Google’s Chief Measurement Strategist and Senior Fellow at the Wharton School.
In his first book, Neil offers a simple, research-backed playbook that anyone can use to find their best customers and develop relationships that last. Under pressure for quick results and facing fierce marketplace competition, too many marketers are boxed into spaghetti-to-the-wall forms of digital marketing that limit the potential of their long hours, countless experiments, and warehouses of data. And in the end, they watch their competition sprint ahead.
But what if you built a business around long-term relationships with customers, using data to understand who they are, what they need, and where to find more customers just like them? You can. And you’ll leave your competitors, with all of their data and their short-term thinking, to poke around in the scraps.
In Converted, you will learn how to:
• Understand the full value of each relationship
• Engage in an ongoing conversation with your best customers
• Ask the right questions so you can anticipate your customers’ needs
• Find more great customers A real person is always on the other end of the transaction.
Converted shows you how to win their hearts. Neil has served as an analyst, researcher, inventor, lecturer and, in his words, the father of many forgettable slides of glossy funnels and Venn diagrams. A witness to and participant in billion-dollar successes, and instructive failures, all in the pursuit of building indestructible customer relationships through digital media.
A key player in the executive rallying cry to be more “data driven.” As Google’s Chief Measurement Strategist, Neil has had the privilege to lead more than 2,500 engagements with the world’s biggest advertisers. His efforts have helped these companies acquire millions of customers, improve conversion rates by more than 400 percent and generate billions in incremental revenue.
Immensely proud of the degrees he’s earned from Purdue University and UCLA, Neil returned to academia in 2018 as a Senior Fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. This is his first book. He hopes you like it.
Topics in this episode include:
00:40: The origin of Neil's book
08:00: The goal of data for small business owners
16:40: How to gauge your customers more to get the data that you need
27:00: Enticing people to take more surveys
38:00: Figuring out your customer lifetime value
Get the book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/688629/converted-by-neil-hoyne/
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Lindsey Pollak on the Evolving Workforce

Covid-19 has heightened career uncertainty in a workforce landscape dominated by turbulence and change, and it is directly impacting how people are entering—or re-entering—the workplace. But as Lindsey Pollak makes clear, the pandemic merely accelerated career and hiring trends that have been building. Changes that were once slowly spreading have been rapidly implemented across all industries.
This means that the old job hunting and career success rules no longer apply. Job seekers of all generations and skill sets must learn how to thrive in this “new normal,” which will include a hybrid of remote and in-person experiences, increased reliance on virtual communication and automation, constant disruption, and renewed employer emphasis on workers’ health and well-being.
While this new world is complicated and constantly evolving, you won’t have to navigate it alone. For twenty years, Pollak has been following the trends and successfully advising young professionals and organizations on workplace success. Now, she guides you through the changes currently happening—and those to come. Combining insights from both experts and professionals across generations, she provides encouraging, strategic, and actionable advice on making lifelong decisions about education; building a resilient personal brand; using virtual communication to remotely interview, network, and work; skilling and reskilling for the future; and maintaining self-care and mental health.
Like your personal GPS, Pollak equips you to handle workplace obstacles, helping you see them as challenges to navigate rather than impossible roadblocks. There is no perfect path to a dream career, but with Recalculating you’ll be prepared with the necessary skills and tools to succeed.
Topics in this episode include:
00:41 - About Lindsey
06:42 - Choosing your mindset
14:17 - The power of the word 'yet'
19:22 - Changing landscape of traditional education
27:10 - Interview advice for college students
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Recalculating-Navigate-Career-Through-Changing/dp/0063067706
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

David Meerman Scott on Marketing and PR

The latest edition of The New Rules of Marketing and PR has been completely revised and updated to present the most innovative methods and cost-effective strategies.
The most comprehensive update yet shows you details about the pros and cons of AI and machine learning to automate routine tasks. Your life is already AI-assisted. Your marketing should be too, but there are challenges to be aware of. As the ways we communicate continue to evolve, keeping pace with the latest trends in social media, including social audio like Clubhouse, the newest online video tools such as TikTok, and all the other high-tech influences, can seem an almost impossible task. How can you keep your product or service from getting lost in the digital clutter?
The eighth edition of The New Rules of Marketing and PR provides everything you need to speak directly to your audience, make a strong personal connection, and generate attention for your business.
An international bestseller with nearly half a million copies sold in twenty-nine languages, this revolutionary guide gives you a proven, step-by-step plan for leveraging the power of technology to get your message seen and heard by the right people at the right time. You will learn the latest approaches for highly effective public relations, marketing, and customer communications―all at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising!
The definitive guide on the future of marketing, this must-have resource will help you:
Incorporate the new rules that will keep you ahead of the digital marketing curve
Make your marketing and public relations real-time by incorporating techniques like newsjacking to generate instant attention when your audience is eager to hear from you
Gain valuable insights through compelling case studies and real-world examples
Topics in this episode include:
00:52 - How the book evolved to the 8th edition
07:44 - How video has changed messaging
13:40 - How to effectively incorporate video into your company
19:18 - David's take on the risks of rebranding
28:38 - AI and machine learning in marketing and PR
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Marketing-Podcasting-Newsjacking/dp/1119854288
About Gene: About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.

Peter Fader on Customer Buying Behavior

A customer-base audit is a systematic review of customer buying behavior using data captured by its transaction systems. It will help you answer questions such as:
-How healthy is your customer base?
-How realistic are your growth objectives?
-How do your customers differ in terms of their behavior and value?
-How has the quality of your customers changed over time?
-What changes in customer behavior lie behind period-to-period changes in firm performance?
-What is important to your high-value customers?
-Which products help you acquire and retain your best customers?
Fader, Hardie, and Ross present five “lenses” through which an executive can address questions like those above. The answers are often lurking in various parts of the organization, but it is rare to find all the relevant analyses in one place, let alone performed on a regular basis (as an audit should be). Yet without such a basic, systematic understanding of the foundations of the firm’s primary source of cash flow, how can executives make informed decisions?
Pete Fader is the Frances and Pei-Yuan Chia Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His expertise centers on the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping/purchasing activities.
He works with firms from a wide range of industries, such as telecommunications, financial services, gaming/entertainment, retail, and pharmaceuticals.
In addition to his various roles and responsibilities at Wharton, Fader co-founded a predictive analytics firm (Zodiac) in 2015, which was sold to Nike in 2018. He then co-founded (and continues to run) Theta to commercialize his more recent work on “customer-based corporate valuation.”
Fader is the author of Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage (2020, 2012) and coauthor of The Customer Centricity Playbook (2018) with Sarah Toms. He has won many awards for his research and teaching accomplishments.
Topics in this episode include:
01:11 - About Peter
09:50 - Methodology to predicting customer behavior
20:25 - Not all customers are created equal
24:34 - Factors to keep in mind when evaluating long-term customers
30:54 - Peter's thoughts on survey data
38:10 - Valuing a business by auditing your customer base
Get the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Customer-Base-Audit-Journey-Customer-Centricity/dp/1613631618
About Gene: Gene Marks is a former columnist for The New York Times and The Washington Post and now writes weekly on political, economic, management and technology issues affecting small and mid-sized businesses for The Guardian, The Hill, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Times, Forbes and Entrepreneur. He runs a 10-person company financial and technology consulting firm near Philadelphia.