Mike’s suggested reading list for Summer 2011
I founded PassageMaker over 10 years ago. Today we are a small but stable business (with almost 200 employees we are still small by Chinese standards!) and about 60% of the clients I am honored to do business with are also small businesses. I image that a good number of my blog readers are small businesses too.
So when I was asked to suggest a reading list for the beach or more likely the occasional long flight this summer, I did so with small business in mind. (like small business owners can find time to take a day off!)
I recognize the struggle (and sense of pride when things come together) that small business owners like us go thru. To give us a leg up on the competition, in my opinion, there are 3 books that people like you and I must read, if I may be so bold, as it’s not like I have the Midas touch and more money that I can count, but here they are:
The E-myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
This is about how to organize a business. It totally changed my perspective on how to run a business and got me thinking in the right direction. When I read the book, I was just starting to hit a period of rapid expansion at my company and I don’t think I could have grown my company without it. I read this book about 6 years ago and after reading the book I came up with my company’s business philosophy which is still today the foundation for how we do things around my office.
A great book about building your brand in the internet age. Read it a few weeks ago on the plane from Hong Kong to USA. I couldn’t put it down and read the whole thing twice before we made it to the Aleutian Islands.
The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself
This one is a about leveraging your network to generate leads, essential for us small fish (with limited budgets) in a big pond.
Hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
At a distant 4th is my book on China sourcing (“The Essential Reference Guide to China Sourcing”). Ha ha.
