I skim, read and study hundreds of books each  year. Here are seven that will improve your leadership in various ways:

Ross Shafer has written a short but provocative book called Grab More Market Share. Read it if that’s what you want to do.

A classic I’ve referenced before and still in print is Fred Smith’s You and Your Network. Get it, read it and share it with your kids when they enter the world of work. It is packed with wisdom (I’ve given away dozens of copies).

Think work ethic is dead? And what can you do about it? Pre-order Reviving Work Ethic by Eric Chester. (I’ve read an advance copy.)

Do you get tired of boring meetings? Or are you guilty of holding boring meetings? Read Jon Petz’s book Boring Meetings Suck. It provides lots of ideas for  making your meetings better.

Bob Burg and David Mann have written It’s Not About You. This leadership fable reinforces key leadership principles I believe in.

The Mackay MBA of Selling in the Real World was just released by Harvey Mackay and if you sell, or lead sales professionals, you’ll enjoy this story-driven book of advice.

And my last “favorite” is from Joe Calloway, Work Like You’re Showing Off. This is a fun read that will most likely reinvigorate you.

My background is in sales. I started selling as a part time job in College and today I regularly speak at National Sales meetings. Over the years I’ve met many extraordinary sales professionals. I find the best–the sales leaders–never leave anything to chance. They use time proven strategies and tactics to succeed.

Many years ago I worked with a client to develop a four-step system for converting a prospect into a buying customer (or for getting a customer to buy more). Here is that strategy that  you—and everyone on your team—should remember and use for successfully completing the sales process. Whenever you engage a prospect or client:

Meet—establish rapport by being genuinely interested. If you don’t spend time getting to know your prospect (and letting them get to know you), you’re jumping over the first critical step in the sales process.

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Analyze—what does the prospect need and how can you help? Many salespeople move into presenting solutions too quickly. Your value is your ability to meet the specific needs and solve the particular problems that your prospect faces. As the old saying goes, prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.

Present—offer your solutions based on the analysis you’ve done. Demonstrate that you’ve heard and understand the prospect by showing how your products and/or services will meet their needs. Make your presentation interesting and compelling.

Sell—check the prospect’s reaction to your presentation and ask for the order. If you’ve done well in the first three steps the fourth step will enable you to make the sale. If you meet resistance, go back to analysis and find out what you missed.

Selling is rarely easy but that doesn’t mean the process isn’t simple. Use MAPS as a checklist for making more sales.

(Of the books I’ve written, The Encore Effect is the most powerful for sales professionals. It is packed with ideas you can use to become the kind of sales pro that customers want to buy from again and again. Learn how to become irreplaceable by clicking here.)

Image via CrunchBase

Most of us don’t change until we have to. When it comes to value, we know what it has looked like in our past, we are less familiar with what it looks like in our present, and we are clueless about what it will look like in our future.

To ensure that we are producing value, and will produce value for the foreseeable future, we often have to break the mold that produced value in the past. If we simply continue to function in the way we always have, the value we produce will be slowly degraded by changing times. Another way that I often put it to my audiences is, “Success is an early warning indicator of failure.” Yesterday’s formula for success probably won’t work tomorrow.

By any measure, Facebook is the model of success for social media. In fact, “Facebooking” is the most popular activity on the World Wide Web. The social network has about three quarters of a billion users and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The brand name “Facebook” is now synonymous with social networking in the minds of most consumers.

And yet, just this month, Facebook announced a stem-to-stern overhaul of its social networking site. It’s added new features, removed old ones, and changed the way the site is used and viewed. While the site’s old model was quite popular among users, the pioneers behind the site understand that standing pat is not an option. They know that Facebook must continue to train and retrain the value it creates in order to remain competitive. (And yes, it can be unsettling for users, myself included.)

Competition is definitely one of the forces motivating Facebook’s changes. Inspired by its success, new competitors have entered the social media market, duplicating the value that Facebook offers and, in some cases, offering distinctive new value or appealing to niche markets not well served by Facebook.

Adding new features and tapping new markets are Facebook’s way of keeping its value current for today and prepared for tomorrow. Without changes like these, Facebook’s value would gradually begin to seem like old hat, yesterday’s news, as users migrate to newer, more innovative sites. Facebook’s changes are not without risks, particularly the risk of alienating customers who were already happy with its service. However, the team at the social networking giant understands that the risks of growing stale and changing nothing are greater.

Your products and their value change over time, so you often have to change the product or the process. Sometimes it’s a tweak. Sometimes it’s an overhaul. As you assess your own products—what is it that you produce that creates value?—it’s important to live in the present and think toward the future. More often than not, value and success in the future will be defined differently than they were in the past.

My new book, Up, Down or Sideways explains why value is paramount and how you can innovate to grow your personal and organizational value proposition. Watch the trailer and download an excerpt here.

Yesterday my new friend and fascination expert Sally Hogshead called me at precisely 11 a.m. for a scheduled conversation. I was impressed. More often than not, someone says they’ll call at 11 and the phone rings 5 or 10 minutes later. I was impressed by Sally’s professionalism.

“It makes me crazy,” I shared, “when I ask someone to call me back in literally 2 minutes knowing that I can take the call on a different line or phone then, and they call back 10 or 15 minutes later and I’m no longer available.”

Sally suggested that the meaning of literally seems to have morphed into something like “approximately” or “close to”. “We need a new word,” she said.

I suggested “literally squared.” (Yes, that appears to be two words, but there is no “squared” little 2 symbol on the iMac.)

To some of my more mellow readers, literally squared might seem like a case of being wound too tightly. While that might sometimes be the case, there is a serious aspect to this idea. We live in a world where precision often matters. From medicine to flying an airplane to engineering a structure, you don’t want to work in loose terms.

In a competitive environment for selling and serving customers, clients and shareholders, precision also matters. When we invest time and money, we don’t want vague promises like “I’ll get back to you” (when?), “we are focused on improving earnings” (what are you doing?) or “this will grow your business” (how much?). The more precise the promise and the performance, the more powerful the value proposition.

Whether or not we need a new concept like “literally squared” is debatable. I’m convinced, however, that we need to employ the power of precision.

There is a very nice home in our neighborhood that was bought as a foreclosure and then renovated to flip. My wife Darla and I have seen the inside and it is nicely finished with a huge backyard.

There is also a spray-painted patch on one of the garage doors and a big ding on the other. It would look bad on any home much less one listed at $650,000.

I asked the realtor why it hadn’t been fixed. “Oh, it will be very soon. The seller knows that it detracts.”

That was six weeks ago and nothing has been fixed.

Great house, decent value and off-putting features. One of these is not like the others.

How often do we have garage door dings in our businesses? We have a great product or value proposition but there is a payment policy that customers don’t like or  a service rep who is unpleasant or bad response times to inquiries or… And we know these things are off-putting and plan to fix them right away. But we don’t get around to it. We’re like the investor who renovates the house but only gets it 99.3% right.

Thought for the day: look for the dings and flaws in your value proposition. Find the dent in the garage door and fix it ASAP.

The greatest challenge of the holiday season isn’t the preparations or frenetic activity of the celebrations themselves.

The greatest challenge is keeping the spirit of the season alive after the celebration ends.

Most of us know the let down that so often occurs after the first of the New Year. Resolutions are made and quickly broken. With no immediate holidays in the near future, a fatigue of the spirit can set in. We resign ourselves to a temporary elevation of the spirit.

It doesn’t need to be that way.

Some are able to exhibit the compassion, appreciation and joy of the season throughout the year.

How do they do it? And how do leaders keep the spirit of an organization’s culture and values alive long after the kick off or launch?

My observation is that those who do best at keeping the spirit alive–whether of a faith, holiday, belief or even a corporate culture–do three things: they remember, remind and rehearse.

Remember what you want to retain. It sounds so simple and is so hard to do. How many times have you slapped yourself on the forehead and said, “I knew that!” Yet somehow you temporarily forgot.

Have you clarified exactly what the spirit is that you want to keep alive? You can’t remember what you never knew to begin with. Summarize the key values and behaviors you want to remember. Write down key phrases where you’ll see them often. Reflect on those things frequently and etch them into your memory.

Remind others of what you want is important. An excellent call center manager constantly reminds her team about the importance of extraordinary service. A top-notch sales manager doesn’t quit

talking about and demonstrating what was taught in the sales training course. A good parent looks for teachable moments to remind children of important lessons.

Of course there is an additional benefit: reminding others helps you remember as well.

Rehearse the behaviors of the spirit you embrace. A great actor rehearses his or her lines until they are delivered with perfection. There is no substitute for doing. Almost everyone knows what is good, right or important but leaders are those who act on their knowledge. Have you considered what you can do each day to demonstrate the spirit you value? Let your behavior be a witness for your words

Don’t let the spirit of any important seasons or event evaporate. Remember, remind and rehearse to keep the important messages and themes of significant events alive long after they are over.

I don’t know if we’re truly out of the recession (I think not, despite the cited data). In the months ahead things may improve, stay the same or get worse. Of that much I’m pretty sure.

The point is that there are things that successful businesspeople should always be doing whether the market is  up, down or sideways. Here’s a brief reminder of some of those things:

1. Keep the pipeline full. Never stop searching for new customers.
2. Take care of customers. Never neglect the customers you’ve already got.
3. Solve problems. It isn’t enough to offer products or services.
4. Take responsibility. Understand current conditions but don’t use them as an excuse.
5. Build new relationships and foster existing relationship.
6. Try new things. The cliché is true: the best never rest. Innovation keeps you ascending.
7. Be financially prudent. Live beneath your means. Save for rainy days as they always come.
8. Count your blessings. No matter how bleak things may seem, there are always blessings.
9. Aim to be distinctive. Excellence doesn’t offer much competitive advantage.
10. Keep learning. Ideas are the fuel of current and future success.

What would you add to the list?

Last week I drank a great many beers. I wasn’t on a bender and although I drank over 50 beers in a couple days, the amount was typically an ounce or less of each. I was attending the Great American Beer Fest and some related events.

I tried some extraordinary but esoteric beers that you’ve never heard of and would be hard pressed to find for purchase. They were beers brewed in small amounts and made available in limited release.

One of my favorites was from the Brooklyn Brewery and made by brew master Garret Oliver. Here’s a partial description:

“Brooklyn Reinschweinsgebot: This is a brown ale aged for nine months in Woodford Reserve Bourbon barrels. This beer has then been “fat-washed” with fat rendered from Benton’s Country Smokehouse Bacon. Allan Benton also produced a smoked malt for this beer and a special strong ale was brewed from it. The fat-washed/barrel-aged beer was blended with the bacon-smoked beer and the blend was re-fermented in the bottle with Champagne yeast. Only 20 cases were ever made.”

It might sound odd but it tasted delicious.

So here’s the question: would you rather have the “best” product in your category or the bestselling?

Understandably, it is difficult to determine what of anything is truly best (there is no accounting for taste). I can tell you, however, that some of the bestselling brands aren’t best by a long shot. A liquor that I’m familiar with claims to be the world’s bestseller and many make the leap that it must therefore be the best. It isn’t. It scores well but not particularly high in its category.

More often than not–and this is based on observation rather than hard data–the most successful brands find a sweet spot between best and bestselling. These brands find a way to offer quality that is appreciated by a large enough group of buyers that the brand is profitable. If the product’s attributes are too specific and narrow, there isn’t a critical mass of buyers. If the attributes are too generic and broad, you may sell a large amount but it will be to a mass market.

Sure, there are bragging rights to being best, even if the claim is difficult to substantiate. But few of us want to have a terrific product that only a few buy and appreciate.

The challenge, therefore, isn’t whether to pursue best or bestselling. The challenge is to have a product deemed by many to be among the best; a product those people repeatedly buy and tell others about.

My long time speaker colleagues and friends Tony Alessandra and Jerry Teplitz have written a very interesting new book called Switched On Selling. It goes beyond the traditional sales techniques you might be familiar with to address deeper psychological and physiological challenges and opportunities. In the book they teach some fascinating ideas about improving your brain for better selling success. Here’s how they describe the book:

Have you ever wondered what it is that sets extraordinary salespeople apart from those who are just getting by? Are they simply more talented or more intelligent? Do they have better connections with decision-makers? Or is something else going on? The fact is that super-successful salespeople not only have great personalities and proven, powerful sales methods, they also have an elusive quality that we might call the X-factor. Super-successful salespeople more easily work through challenges and keep focused on their goals. Whether they know it or not, they are successful because they have subconscious beliefs that support success.

This book is based on a seminar Jerry has taught to tens of thousands of salespeople.  In it, anyone can learn to change subconscious beliefs that do not support success.  This is done through a process called a Brain Gym^® Balance, which actually re-educates the brain, allowing you to discover the specific aspects of the selling process that are difficult and then eliminate the internal blockage to that goal. After doing the Balance, your brain will no longer perceive the blockage to that part of selling and, without effort, you will achieve greater selling success.

If you have thoughts like, “Prospects never answer my calls,” then it’s more likely that your calls will go unanswered. If you believe that closing sales is hard, it will be more difficult to attain success. Any limiting beliefs that you hold about success, abundance, effectiveness or other issues relating to the sales process are part of your subconscious programming.

The big question is this: Where does that programming come from? Why do you automatically “default” to the little voice inside that says that prospects don’t respond positively to you? Why doesn’t your little inner voice shout out to you: “I can do this.” “Cold calls are easy.” The problem is that the programming in your subconscious mind is locked in there—like a database of stored programs on a computer.

You can think of a Brain Gym Balance as re-wiring and rebalancing the circuitry of your brain from a fear / survival focus, which is triggered by past negative or stressful experiences, to a present time / choice focus. Through this re-wiring process, you will create new neural pathways that will make it easier to achieve the success you are looking for in your sales career.

In most cases, the goals that you currently find difficult to achieve are triggering an automatic stress response in the part of the brain called the amygdala. This response causes your amygdala to send a signal to the body’s fight-or-flight survival mechanism, which keeps you in the old “It’s difficult to achieve” or “I can’t do that” mental programming. You are caught up in the memory of negative experiences and stuck in your inability to achieve your goal.

The Balance reprograms the brain so the signal will be directed to the cerebrum instead, allowing you to choose a new response related to that situation. By doing the Balances, you will be switching off the amygdala’s stress response while you will be switching on the cerebrum’s ability to choose new responses for the different aspects of the selling process.

Switched-On Selling also includes selling techniques from master sales trainer, Dr. Tony Alessandra.  The combination of the Brain Gym Balances and Dr. Alessandra’s leading-edge sales methods allows anyone to think like super-successful salespeople.  Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup For the Soul book series, said this book will enable you to reach “superstar status.”

To order Switched-On Selling: Balance Your Brain For Sales Success, you can go to www.Amazon.com or www.Teplitz.com.

Why do some companies get written and talked about excessively while others get ignored?

Why do some companies become media darlings while others are media dogs?

The answer, I believe, is an adjective: interesting.

The essential adjective in branding is interesting. It may even trump quality as an attribute.

Marketing firm Euro RSCG created “the most interesting man in the world” to promote Dos Equis. They’ve also created The Most Interesting Academy. Interesting is sexy; interesting is hip. And drinking Dos Equis, it is suggested, makes you sexy and hip, too.

They’re on to something. We hate boring. In this over-stimulated world in which we live, boring is, well, BORING. While some may seek the truly stimulating, more people look for the interesting.

Want to be interesting? Consider these four aspects:

What you do.

As Cory Miller points out in his blog, duct tape could be t he most boring product in the world but has spawned duct tape fashion and even a club.

How you do it.

Fortune magazine just did a feature on Trader Joe’s (a client of mine some years ago). The article angle was the “secrecy” of the company and how they do business. Sometimes the less people know about a successful brand the more “interesting” it becomes. I’ve read that a sub-plot of William Gibson’s new book Zero History is about a brand that is wildly in demand because it is almost impossible to get.

Why you do it.

TOMS Shoes is based on a simple premise: for every pair of shoe you buy, they’ll give a pair of shoes to a needy child. Interesting. And very cool.

Who does it.

It is tough not to point to Steve Jobs who has the uncanny ability to make everything–even product flubs–look interesting. But despite the danger of the charismatic leader (that Jim Collins has warned about so well), paying attention to the people who speak for your product or service can make the difference between interesting and boring.

Old Spice has seen an enormous resurgence as a fragrance, not because the product changed but because the perception changed. “The man your man could smell like” Isaiah Mustafa has brought new life to an old brand by making it interesting.

An exceptional sales person can inject interesting into whatever he or she sells, and a great CEO can do that for an entire company.

How interesting is your company?

How interesting is your product or service?

How interesting are you?