On the seventh day of Christmas, Spin Sucks gave to me…seven books for communicators, six SEO tricks, five breakable habits, four PRM tools, three AI experts, two PR trends, and one mindset shift in a pear tree.
My favorite subject! Books!
Although I will admit that reading this year has been less than pleasing. I’m normally a one-book-a-week girl, but this year? Hrumph. My brain is all foggy and I can’t focus to save my life. I had to institute a “read one chapter a night” rule just to fight through the fog.
I’m glad I did because I’ve read some really good books (and not-so-great ones)
Today, I want to give you books that will make you a more well-rounded communicator—not just PR-type stuff, but business, leadership, communications, marketing, search, and more.
Without further ado…
Books for Communicators: Building a StoryBrand
The process in Building a StoryBrand is a proven solution to the struggle business leaders face when talking about their businesses.
It provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services.
Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching the seven universal story points all humans respond to; the real reason customers make purchases; how to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and how to create the most effective messaging.
It will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.
Books for Communicators: Conversion Code
The Conversion Code provides a step-by-step blueprint for increasing sales in the modern, internet-driven era.
It’s becoming increasingly important to stand out—ignore best practices, stop doing what everyone else is doing, build your own brand—and, along with the two aforementioned books, this book helps you do just that.
It provides clear guidance toward conquering the new paradigm shift towards online lead generation and inside sales.
You’ll learn how to capture those invaluable internet leads, convert them into appointments, and close more deals.
This book shows you where to find those leads, how to engage them, and how to position your company as the ideal solution to their needs.
Books for Communicators: Crisis Ready
No matter your level of security, due diligence, or control, the reality is that we live in uncertain times.
Organizations are prone to a multitude of risks that can attack from every angle.
And, yet, the greatest exposure does not lie within these risks.
Rather, it lies in having a team that is not prepared to anticipate, foresee, or respond to a rising threat and how it will affect your reputation, revenue, and relationships in real-time.
When your team is crisis ready, your organization is prepared for anything and everything that the modern world can throw at it.
Crisis Ready is not about crisis management—management is what happens after the negative event has occurred.
Readiness is what is done to build an invincible brand, where negative situations don’t occur and even if they do, they’re instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill.
This book is your roadmap to business invincibility.
Books for Communicators: Fabulous F Words of Business Ownership
When Fabi Preslar entered the world of business ownership, she never knew how powerful F words could be.
Twenty years later, she’s sharing what she’s learned in Fabulous F Words of Business Ownership: Redefining Choice Words to Fuel Your Small Business.
Throughout the book, we journey along with Fabi through her forefather’s lessons in business ownership to the fear and facade we all experience as business owners and finally into flourishing in the spaces we have built. With probing questions in each chapter, she invites readers to dig deep into their own business journeys to find the fuel to move forward successfully.
Books for Communicators: Radical Candor
From the time we learn to speak, we’re told that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
When you become a manager, it’s your job to say it—and your obligation.
Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she worked with a team to develop a class on how to be a good boss.
Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to care personally at the same time that you challenge directly.
When you challenge without caring, it’s obnoxious aggression; when you care without challenging, it’s ruinous empathy. It becomes manipulative insincerity when you do neither.
This simple framework can help you build better relationships at work, and fulfill your three key responsibilities as a leader: creating a culture of feedback (praise and criticism), building a cohesive team, and achieving results you’re all proud of.
In a world where the nice guy finishes last, it’s good to have a book that shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity.
Books for Communicators: Rocket Fuel
One of my favorite all-time business books is Traction, which is written for business owners.
So I was really excited when the authors published Rocket Fuel because it’s written for the teams of people who surround a business owner to help them reach their vision.
As the book’s cover says:
Visionaries have groundbreaking ideas. Integrators make those ideas a reality. This explosive combination is the key to getting everything you want out of your business. It worked for Disney. And for McDonald’s. And for Ford. It can work for you.
The book details the integral roles of the visionary and of the integrator and explains how an effective relationship between the two can help an organization thrive.
When these two people come together to share their natural talents and innate skill sets, it’s like rocket fuel—they have the power to reach new heights for virtually any company or organization.
Books for Communicators: Unleash the Power of Storytelling
The market is flooded with a dizzying array of books, experts, and resources on business storytelling. This book cuts through the hype to clarify and demystify the storytelling process.
All the experts suggest you tell stories — but no one tells you how. That’s where Unleash the Power of Storytelling comes in. Rob Biesenbach provides a five-step process for crafting your stories, and six ways to ensure they’re relevant to your audience.
Unleash the Power of Storytelling offers step-by-step instructions for finding, shaping, and telling powerful stories. You’ll learn about the essential ingredients that go into any good story and how to avoid common storytelling pitfalls.
Taking a fun, no-nonsense approach, you will learn the hard science behind why stories work, a simple three-part structure for telling any story, the role of emotion in fueling great stories, how to cut the clutter and focus your story on the essentials, how and where to find great stories, and tips for delivering your stories in the most effective way possible.
After you read this book, you’ll never again have to wonder … ‘but how?’”
Books for Communicators: Your Turn
As I put together this article, I asked the Spin Sucks Community for the best business books they’ve read this year.
Here is what they included:
- Atomic Habits
- Content Chemistry
- Deep Work
- Delivering Happiness
- Mandela’s Way
- Never Split the Difference
- Strategic Writing for UX
- Tell to Win
And now it’s your turn…what would you add to the list?
