The Bookshelf — Books on marketing, strategy and growth

The Bookshelf

Books that have shaped how I think about marketing, strategy, brands, and business growth.

Business, Marketing and Persuasion

Marketing 7.0

Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya and Iwan Setiawan

Subtitled “A Guide for Thinking Marketers in the Age of AI”, the book argues for “mind-centric” marketing: moving beyond AI-driven performance optimisation towards understanding how people think, connect and decide to buy.

Main ideas

Digitalisation, AI and immersive technology are changing how the consumer mind works.
Relying too heavily on performance marketing and automation can undermine authenticity.
Customer insight, not tools, should shape storytelling, value propositions, selling and the customer experience.

In marketing and business

Use it as a check on your AI and performance marketing: keep the efficiency gains, but make sure every campaign still rests on a real understanding of what your customers think and value.

Try this

Pick one automated or AI-assisted activity in your marketing. Write down which customer insight it is based on. If you cannot name one, find it before optimising further.

Playbook: Market and Customer Research Playbook: Growth and Optimization

This Is Marketing

Seth Godin

Godin argues that marketing is the work of helping a specific group of people make a change they want to make — and that it starts with empathy rather than reach.

Main ideas

Choose the smallest audience you can genuinely serve, rather than chasing everyone.
People buy to change their status, feelings or circumstances, not to acquire features.
Culture spreads through shared identity: groups adopt what people like them already do.

In marketing and business

Use it to sharpen targeting. Define the people you want to serve so precisely that you can describe what they believe, what they fear and what change they are seeking.

Try this

Complete this sentence for your business: “Our product is for people who believe ___ and want ___.” If the answer could fit any competitor, narrow it.

Playbook: Brand Strategy and Positioning Playbook: Market and Customer Research

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Robert B. Cialdini

Drawing on research and field observation, Cialdini explains the mental shortcuts that lead people to say yes — and how to recognise when they are used against you.

Main ideas

Reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity reliably shape decisions.
These shortcuts are useful because they usually lead to good decisions quickly.
The same principles can inform or manipulate; the difference lies in honesty.

In marketing and business

Audit your website and sales process for real, honest evidence: genuine testimonials, verifiable credentials and useful free value. Never fabricate proof or urgency.

Try this

List the proof you currently show prospects. For each principle, ask: what honest evidence do we have that we are not yet showing?

Playbook: Launch and Customer Acquisition Playbook: Brand Strategy and Positioning

Blue Ocean Strategy

W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne

The authors contrast competing in crowded markets with creating new market space, where the competition becomes less relevant because the offer is valued differently.

Main ideas

Value innovation pursues differentiation and low cost at the same time.
The strategy canvas plots how competitors invest across the factors an industry competes on.
The four actions framework asks what to eliminate, reduce, raise and create.

In marketing and business

Use the strategy canvas in competitor research to see where everyone looks the same — and where a different combination of benefits could stand out.

Try this

Draw a strategy canvas for your market. Pick one factor to eliminate and one to create that customers would genuinely value.

Playbook: Market and Customer Research Playbook: Brand Strategy and Positioning

Building a StoryBrand

Donald Miller

Miller applies the structure of storytelling to brand messaging: the customer is the hero, and the brand is the guide who helps them succeed.

Main ideas

Confusing messages lose customers; clarity wins attention.
Position the customer as the hero and your brand as the guide with empathy and authority.
A clear plan, a direct call to action and the stakes of success and failure make messages persuasive.

In marketing and business

Use it to rewrite a homepage or sales page so a new visitor understands within seconds what you offer, how it helps them and what to do next.

Try this

Rewrite your homepage headline so it names the customer’s problem or desired outcome, not your company.

Playbook: Brand Strategy and Positioning Playbook: Brand Identity and Experience

The $100 Startup

Chris Guillebeau

Based on case studies of people who built small businesses with little capital, Guillebeau shows how to turn skills into an offer customers will pay for — and to launch quickly.

Main ideas

A viable business sits where your skills meet what people actually want.
Sell the benefit customers care about, not the effort that went into it.
Launch early, keep plans simple and improve with real feedback.

In marketing and business

Use it to test a new offer cheaply: a simple page, a clear promise and a small launch to real prospects before investing heavily.

Try this

Write a one-page plan for an offer: who it is for, what it promises, the price and how you will reach the first ten customers.

Playbook: Idea and Vision Playbook: Business Model and Offer

Personal Development, Mindset and Success

Rich Dad Poor Dad

Robert T. Kiyosaki

Through the contrasting attitudes of two father figures, Kiyosaki makes the case for financial literacy and for thinking about money in terms of assets and liabilities.

Main ideas

Assets put money in your pocket; liabilities take it out.
Financial literacy is a skill most people are never taught.
Early in a career, work to learn as well as to earn.

In marketing and business

Think of marketing spend the same way. Some activities build lasting assets — an email list, useful content, a strong reputation — while others only rent attention for as long as you pay.

Try this

Split last quarter’s marketing activity into “builds an asset” and “rents attention”. Is the balance right for your goals?

Playbook: Business Model and Offer Playbook: Growth and Optimization

Eat That Frog!

Brian Tracy

A practical book on beating procrastination: identify your most important task — usually the one you most want to avoid — and do it first.

Main ideas

Do the most important, most difficult task first.
Plan in writing and apply the 80/20 rule to your list.
Focus on one task until it is finished.

In marketing and business

Marketing to-do lists fill up with easy, visible tasks. Use the principle to protect time for the work with the biggest impact, such as customer research or fixing the main conversion problem.

Try this

Identify the one marketing task that would make the biggest difference this month. Schedule it first thing tomorrow.

Playbook: Marketing Strategy and Go-to-Market

Atomic Habits

James Clear

Clear explains how small, consistent changes compound over time and offers a practical framework for building good habits and breaking bad ones.

Main ideas

Small improvements compound into large results.
Focus on systems rather than goals alone.
Make good behaviours obvious, attractive, easy and satisfying.

In marketing and business

Apply the same laws to your customers’ experience: make the next step obvious and easy, and reduce friction. Internally, build marketing routines — publishing, reviewing data — that run without heroic effort.

Try this

Find one point of friction in your customer journey and remove it this week.

Playbook: Growth and Optimization Playbook: Launch and Customer Acquisition

The Four Agreements

Don Miguel Ruiz

A short book built around four personal commitments: be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best.

Main ideas

Words carry weight; use them with integrity.
Other people’s reactions say more about them than about you.
Assumptions create misunderstandings; ask instead.

In marketing and business

“Don’t make assumptions” is a useful research discipline: ask customers instead of guessing. “Be impeccable with your word” is a good standard for marketing claims.

Try this

Write down three assumptions you hold about your customers. Plan one conversation to test each.

Playbook: Market and Customer Research

The 48 Laws of Power

Robert Greene

Greene distils historical examples into laws about how power is gained, kept and lost. Many describe tactics worth recognising rather than copying.

Main ideas

Reputation is a strategic asset that takes years to build and moments to lose.
Attention and perception shape influence.
Understanding power dynamics helps you anticipate others’ moves.

In marketing and business

Read it critically. Its lessons on reputation and attention apply to brand building, but many tactics conflict with honest marketing. Use it to recognise manipulation, not to practise it.

Try this

Identify which parts of your brand’s reputation are most valuable and what single event could damage them. What protects it?

Playbook: Brand Strategy and Positioning

The Law of Success

Napoleon Hill

Hill’s early work, organised as a course of lessons, covers principles such as having a definite chief aim, self-confidence, initiative, persistence and cooperation.

Main ideas

A definite chief aim gives direction to effort.
Cooperation — the “master mind” — multiplies what individuals achieve.
Persistence and initiative separate plans from results.

In marketing and business

The idea of a definite aim maps to marketing objectives: one clear goal focuses decisions far better than a long list of hopes.

Try this

Write your single most important marketing objective for the next 90 days in one sentence with a number in it.

Playbook: Idea and Vision

The Richest Man in Babylon

George S. Clason

A collection of parables set in ancient Babylon that teach basic money principles: save part of what you earn, make money work for you and protect it from loss.

Main ideas

Keep a portion of everything you earn.
Put savings to work so they grow.
Seek advice from people experienced in what you plan to do.

In marketing and business

Treat budgets with the same discipline: reserve a fixed share of marketing budget for testing new ideas, and invest in activities that keep producing value.

Try this

Decide what percentage of your marketing budget is reserved for experiments, and write down the rule.

Playbook: Marketing Strategy and Go-to-Market

The Magic

Rhonda Byrne

Byrne presents gratitude as a daily practice, structured as a series of exercises to be completed over 28 days.

Main ideas

Gratitude can be practised deliberately, like any habit.
Short daily exercises shift attention toward what is going well.

In marketing and business

Gratitude has a practical side in business: thanking customers, recognising referrals and noticing what loyal customers value all support retention.

Try this

Send a short, personal thank-you to three customers this week, with no sales message attached.

Playbook: Growth and Optimization

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

A fable about Santiago, a young shepherd who travels from Spain to Egypt in search of treasure and learns to follow what the book calls his Personal Legend.

Main ideas

Pursuing a meaningful goal requires leaving comfort behind.
The journey and its lessons matter as much as the destination.
Paying attention to signs along the way helps you adapt.

In marketing and business

Its structure — a hero, a quest, obstacles and transformation — is a reminder of why stories work in brand communication, and of the persistence any new venture needs.

Try this

Describe your customer’s journey as a story: where do they start, what stands in their way and what does success look like?

Playbook: Idea and Vision Playbook: Brand Identity and Experience

The Confidence Gap

Russ Harris

Drawing on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Harris argues that confidence usually follows action, and shows how to act on your values even when fear is present.

Main ideas

The actions of confidence come first; the feelings of confidence come later.
Fear is a normal part of doing something new, not a sign to stop.
Acting on clear values makes difficult steps easier to take.

In marketing and business

Useful for launches: you will rarely feel completely ready. Define what “good enough to learn from” means, launch and improve with real feedback.

Try this

Name one marketing action you have postponed because it felt uncomfortable. Define the smallest version and do it this week.

Playbook: Launch and Customer Acquisition

Summaries, ideas and exercises are original notes written for this site; they are not excerpts from the books. Covers are typographic illustrations, not the publishers’ cover art.