What are business books? It might be hard to define what a “business book” is since everything from marketing and sales to investing and economics.

Blow are a few books I’ve listed that I believe are essential reads for anyone in business, especially people who are new to business or just starting. These are also great books for young people getting into the entrepreneurship world.

My Personal Top 6 Business Books

1. Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins

Built to Last is subtitled, Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, which should be on the top 50 list of everyone in business. Built to Last is an easy, clear and intriguing read that will open your eyes to a few of the principles behind a few of the longest lasting corporate giants in the world. The author picks 18 successful visionary companies for research in this book. Including Disney, Wal-mart, Ford etc. One of the things that stayed with me after reading this book was that successful visionary companies stick to their core values. I found it interesting that none of these companies were stuck to a specific idea or product that, with time, outlived its years while the company continued on.

2. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Micheal Gerber

This was the first book that enlightened me on the differences between the Entrepreneur, the Manager and the Technician and how each viewed the world and the business differently. These differences in point of view, talents and motivations cause each “personality” to have a unique set of frustrations, goals and work style. The Technician views anything other than work a waste of time. The Manager is constantly planning and managing. The Entrepreneur works and plans as well, but more than anything the Entrepreneur is a “dreamer”, a visionary. Gerber explains that when a employee suffering from the entrepreneurial-seizure starts a business, they start a business related to their previous vocation. A web developer starts a web design company, a cook starts a restaurant, etc. Very few people go into business thinking like a true Entrepreneur, with a vision. In E-myth Gerber goes into greater detail on the stages of a business, from infancy to maturity, and the issues that come in each stage.

3. Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling by Michael Port

This is one of my favorites. I read it a little over a year ago. One of the best books on running and promoting your own business. Even though it’s targeted more towards the self-employed, it’s also great for CEOs or business owners as well. Micheal guides you step by step through a few effective methods for marketing your personal brand and your business. From business cards and elevator scripts to writing and selling your own e-book and info products.

4. The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly by David Meerman Scott

If there’s one book you need to read to understand the ins and outs of social media it’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR. David goes all out and tells you how to leverage each aspect of social media to market to your buyers directly. From news releases to online video and blogs. The New Rules of Marketing and PR is a manual for learning and leveraging the power of social media.

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Some bloggers are dead set against monetization. They think it taints their content and ruins trust with their readers. I’m no expert but beg to differ:

1. Put more valuable time in blogging, create better content. If you could replace your income blogging, or even just replace a few days a month with the cash you make from your blog, it would be fair to say you could spend more time writing valuable content(and less time working.) Lets say you spend 10 hours writing and drafting a blog post. How many people have that much time unless they don’t have to work?
2. Get you more serious about blogging. If you’ve been blogging long enough, you’ve probably had times when you wrote up a blog post and published it off, later regretting the sloppy errors you made. Monetization demands a little more attention. Would you read a blog, that asked for money, and had sloppy content?
3. It takes little effort, if you already have the traffic and the dedication. It’s really simple, just copy the strategy of someone else who has a successful blog(successful in terms of helpful content and makes money) and if it doesn’t work, try a new approach.

I’d love to hear your opinion!

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1. Write about other people/start-ups/businesses

While back I wrote a post about Maynas Eric Chua called Maynas Eric Chua on Building Trust Mask of the Ninja dvd Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia video The Hustler download . About an appearance he made on Singapore News TV station. I knew Eric for a while on Twitter and he was quite an inspiration, as well as one of my first users on my startup, PutFeed.com. I thought, what a great way to add value to my blog as well as send some hits his way. Eric is in the top 3 Twitter users in Singapore and has over 30,000 followers. This guy deserves a post written about him:)

2. Guest Posts

You may not be the most popular person in the world. But you may know a few other bloggers who have connections. Ask them to write a quick guest post on your blog. Chances are they will send hits to the post they just wrote via Twitter or FaceBook, thus giving you more publicity and some credibility in the blogging community. You become open to your Guest’s network, and hey they might know tons of people. It just opens up more opportunity plus adds some fresh ideas to your blog.

3. Interviews

Interviewing is another great way to gain credibility and to give others some publicity. There’s a lot of entrepreneurs, lawyers, brokers, real estate and web design experts that would be glad to participate in an interview. This shows that you have some connections in the blogging community and once again, opens up your blog to the networks of other people.

There are a few ways to undertake an interview:

• Video(post them on YouTube and other video sharing sites)
• Plain old blog post
• Podcast

(You decide the rest, be creative)

4. Ping Other Blog Posts

This is a great way to get ideas for new blog posts and add value to other blogs at the same time. When you see a blog post you like and that you could add some thoughts to, write your own blog post and ping them back(using the ping url). They will love you for it whether you agree or disagree with their views. The fact that you took the time to respond to their post is a sign of appreciation.

5. Stay Connected

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With all the great online and desktop tools we have the ability to stay connected with our community in half the time we used to. Stay connected with people in your niche by doing the following:

• Subscribing to their blogs
• Posting comments to their blog posts(people love it when you post sincere comments)
• Tweet their blog posts and let them know that you are by adding their @username in the tweet.
• Share their blog posts in your FaceBook statuses.
• Connect them with other people in your network.
• Share your own blog posts with them after you’ve added value to their blogs.
• Send a personal e-mail to new blog posters thanking them for their contribution. Give them the chance to reply.

If you stay connected with people they’ll return the favor and send some blog comments or recommendations your way. The rules are, ONE. be sincere, TWO. Add value before expecting others to add value to you.

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Much of marketing has always been about getting a message across and making it stick.

Twitter and social media adds a different approach to making a message stick. We’ve heard this word so many times it almost makes us want to puke, the word is engagement

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Wild Things rip . That’s right, knowing the people you’re getting the across to.

Because you’re much more likely to remember a friend than you are a out-of-the-blue marketer who’s only interested in promoting a product.

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In these times failure is inevitable. But we all have to understand that we’re going through a period of change. Times aren’t going to be as easy as they used to be. Partly because we aren’t going to be used to it at first, the way business is revolutionizing. Once it was about big machines, hard hats and cranes. Now days it’s about information and ideas more than anything. Of course that started changing in the early 90’s. But whether we like it or not, we have to admit, we’re getting deeper into it. Day by day!

2009 brings in a whole new atmosphere. Mixed with fear, doubt and optimism all at the same time. It’s time to sink or swim! Atlantis: The Lost Empire move

It’s time to toughen up, not give up! Hellboy II: The Golden Army movie download Bad Boys II trailer mad max online Stardust video

Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning dvd It’s time to show what we’re really made of! We have to push forward instead of fall back. Sure times ahead will be tough, but “tough times call for tough people”
It’ll be a time to learn from failure and adapt to new changes. All of us have to make these changes as we continue on into ‘09(and the upcoming years as well).

My advice is keep learning, sharing information and applying what you learn!

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Don’t worry so much about what the future brings to you, but rather what you bring to it. Failures are blessings in disguise so make sure you learn from them every chance you get. And believe it or not new opportunities open up in the hard times also. I think we’re going to learn a lot this year! So let’s stick with it!

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You can use Twitter to TAKE UP your time, by keeping the world updated on personal junk.

OR

You can use Twitter as a valuable marketing tool, by telling the world what you’re doing for them.

—
Who really cares?

Let’s face it. You’re not adding any value to anyone’s time, or yours, by turning Twitter into your personal activity tracking system. Who cares if you’re baking brownies, or going to get gas, or that you have gas?

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Facebook is the king of personal statuses. Why should we go further and make it a full time activity?

—

So why use Twitter?
Twitter is a great mini-blogging/mini-updates tool for personal and or business branding. It’s a feed that’s being checked constantly(because it’s being updating constantly).

This immediate interaction provides great opportunities for marketing to your audience.

Thus, it doesn’t waste time(if you use it right)

—

So let’s stop using Twitter like a bunch of morons.
Use it to benefit you, or don’t use it @ all.

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If you found this useful, please share with a friend or fellow tweeter…

You can also follow me if you think this post was great – @ClintonSkakun

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I’ve been using PHP for a few years. I love it and I think it’s a great language. Of course it has it’s soft spots, like naming convention for functions(like n2br(), strtr(), str_replace, etc.).

Though with the growing popularity of Python and Ruby, what’s going to happen to PHP? Ruby, a language built for convenience and Python, a powerful language built for speed both run over PHP in those two aspects. Is there a reason to stick with PHP? And why not switch to something more efficient? PHP scripts sometimes take longer to write and are also harder to debug. Ruby ranks as one of the highest in terms of maintenance and ease of speed. Python is portable, powerful and fast!

PHP’s strong points are it’s documentation, afford-ability, support and popularity

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. A person with a business plan can rustle up PHP free-lancers pretty fast. PHP is that language that has almost always had support from hosting companies, and that being said, has always been more available to beginners. PHP also gets a rap for allowing inexperienced developers to create unmaintainable, messy code. Not as a Stranger video

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This happens too many times, where code gets passed on and all you can do shake your head… At the same time experienced coders have developed some of the net’s most popular web applications.

The real test for PHP will come when they finally release PHP6, which has been anticipated for four or more years. By eliminating tons of crap, adding name spaces, better speed performance and more efficiency PHP6 will show what PHP is actually capable of. This will truly be PHP’s time to shine.

Please pass this on to your fellow developers.:)

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These are MY 13 personal tips on how to successfully manage time and boost productivity. Follow these tips and in a month from now you’ll see a difference in the way you go about your work. My experience with these tips have been more than successful in how I view my work and how I handle tough assignments. These are methods I’ve picked up from reading great books, blogs and listening to outstanding people.

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#1 Partial Involvement in many things < Full involvement in a few things.

Taking on a ton of different projects may keep you busy. Focusing your energy on a few things is much more effective than spreading your energy across a ton of things.

American Psycho dvd #2 It’s not perfect and it never will be

I wasted a lot of time, yet learned a great lesson, by trying to perfect things that didn’t need to be perfected. Nothing is ever perfect and that’s what makes life interesting.

#3 You handle as well as you plan

I found out that writing out a quick plan helps your progress. It also great motivation and it helps clear your mind.

#4 Minimize to maximize

That is, minimize the amount of stuff you do to maximize your productivity. The similar things are the easier it is to focus and get stuff done!

#5 Procrastination harms productivity

It wasts time and it throws your brain out of whack!

#6 Desire to GET STUFF DONE!

In a nutshell, start with the end in mind. Set a goal, think of how free you’ll feel after finishing your work.

#8 Try to be outstanding!

Be an achiever, think like an achiever and eventually your attitude will guide your work.

#9 Eliminate Worry

Worry causes mind fog, depression and hinders your work. Find out how to eliminate that worry and then ACT.

#10 Think in steps

Everything is more satisfying when done is steps.

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A plan of action is more effective than a routine list of daily activities.

#12 Believe YOU can

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Remember that there where people in tougher times who have achieved more. Think of the dirty 30’s. Think of the people in poor countries who don’t get chances like these. You have the advanced so make the best of it. Something I head a little while ago that I thought was quite profound, “If we did what we are actually able of doing, we’d be greatly surprised.”
Your mind is the only thing that prevents you from accomplishing what you want. Change your mind.

#13 Last but not least. Stay organized

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You are a product of your environment. Work in a messy unorganized environment and that’s how you’ll work. Be organized and eliminate clutter.

All the best!

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What are your readers really interested in?
What do they look for in your blog? Bell Book and Candle move

The key is to understand whay THEY want. Yet in a way that you can relate and in an area where you have experience.

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So use that experience to stirr intrest in a way that will benefit the reader. No Escape movies

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The sooner you’re able to “trade minds” with your targeted audience the better your response will become. And you’ll be able to reach them in a much more effective way.

To inspire and positively influence people you need to understand them.

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Of the tons of new small businesses that are started every year, MOST end in failure. Why does this happen?

1. Excuses… Tristan + Isolde divx

One of the reasons I personally believe that new businesses fail is the false impression people get when starting one. Yes starting a business is simple and pretty easy, however, building it and making real income is another story.

Thing is, there’s always a way to succeed if you REALLY want to. You might have your list of excuses, aches and pains, family problems, finances, school/lack-of-education… but the fact is, people in worse circumstances have gone further in tougher times. People like to give up once the going gets tough and use excuses like, “well…it was too time consuming, or there was too much competition or who ever made it in this market anyways…”. Those who inspire themselves to come up with awesome-lame excuses damage their chances for success.

2. Lack of persistence

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Persistence is one ingredient of success. The ability to continue on when things seem hopeless.

3. Short lived VISION

People with a dream know what they want, and are determined to go after it. People who lack vision will always fail. Without a goal in mind the obstacles aren’t worth combating. Though if you know what you want, it makes life much more interesting, not easy, interesting and eventually better.

-Clinton

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