Top 5 Business Books [2024] Must Read #221

I love these books and they've had a serious impact on my coaching, life and relationships. If you enjoyed this podcast please consider sharing it with a friend or subscribing so you don't miss an episode!

Coach Builder by Donald Miller

Key Person of Influence by Daniel Priestly

Storybrand by Donald Miller

Traction by Gino Wickman

The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:35

let's learn about the top five business audio books that you can listen to in 2024. We're going to get into some of the key insights in this video with these books and, if you have a bit of a taste and you like them, definitely download them and listen to them. I think that they are fantastic. So I listen to all of mine on audible on. I crush those and I hope that you learned some practical tips during this. So if you get anything out of this, please hit that subscribe button and check out my community. My name is Corey Barlow. I'm the founder of Set the Standard Men's Personal Growth Community, and we really focus on helping people break through their business plateau so that they can double their revenue. We've got countless of case studies and we want you to see that happen. So, yeah, this is some of the stuff that we use, learn and apply. One side of this is business strategy, but the most important side, obviously and set the standard would be the mindset. So let's get straight into it. The first book I think that everyone should read is Coach Builder. Now, this is the online coaching edition, so Coach Builder by Donald Miller is a fantastic book for any online coach, not just if you're starting out, but if you're advanced as well. It runs through the key concepts of building a coaching business and the struggles that come. And for anyone who let's say, for example, you ever wanted to start a podcast or you wanted to cook something and you've looked at a recipe or something online, you've gone to YouTube and you've looked, hey, what are the steps that I can use to start a podcast or cook a recipe in the kitchen? And they step-by-step goes you through like what to do in terms of a tutorial, coachbuilder is very a tutorial of starting an online coaching business and they map it out from the start of like making your first hundred thousand dollars a year and then moving you forward to making over a million dollars a year. They go through the meetings that you need in every single like in your business. They run over the strategy, they run over the messaging, they run over the marketing. They give you free email templates in the audio book and it has a PDF download. So I went through and I downloaded the PDF and actually applied the email system that they had into my business, because we run lead magnets and all of our lead magnets that work for men's personal growth and men's mindset have got to do around people who are hesitating around finance. So we run ads in regards to finance and then people have been downloading that lead magnet. Then they go onto the nurture sequence and people book in calls We've had. You know, we've only just started running it at a very small amount of ad budget per day to test and see how it goes, because we most of our revenue comes from webinars and social media. And yeah, like we've been running it for I'd say like two, three weeks now we've had someone booking a call and we're only running at like $5 a day testing the ads and we're like this is crazy, this is working. So I highly recommend that book, especially as a template for building a coaching business. So if you've got a coaching business or you want to learn coaching in some way, some form, that book is an essential for coaching.

Speaker 1: 3:34

The second audio book is Key Person of Influence, dan Priestley. So if you guys haven't seen Dan Priestley, he's been on my podcast. You can go and have a look. A couple of episodes back he's been on there, which is very fantastic. I am also friends with his business partner, glenn Carlson, who been to their webinars. He lives not too far from my house, so every now and then we catch up to chat business and one of the best things about Key Person of Influence is in their company, dentglobalcom, dan Priestley and Glenn Carlson, they live by that book, like they absolutely live by Key Person of Influence and they use it and they embody it and they embrace it. Hence why it is working and they work with some really high quality clients and it works too.

Speaker 1: 4:14

So but what you can learn out of the book is really looking at the strategies for PR. It's making yourself become extremely Google-able and it is hardcore business strategies and getting your message out there. So crafting a pitch, learning how to pitch it to an audience and then use people and public relations to scale your business, which is really fantastic. So, like a podcast is a really good example. Youtube channel is a really good example, but they're really honing in and understanding the pitch and then starting making deals with people. And I've listened to the book like on repeat probably like eight, nine times, just nonstop. Every time I need a bit of a refresh and it's extremely motivating, especially in regards to mindset, of putting things into perspective, of really doing the work. So you can learn everything. You can watch this video. You can listen to the book and not implement anything, but they really focus on, like, doing the work. And because of Key Person of Influence it's I started writing a book. I create these YouTube videos. It's making sure that we put out in the media. We have a strong landing page which you can visit if you want to see an example of ours. But running through all of the concepts in Key Person of Influence so beneficial. It's a short book too, so it's only like five hours.

Speaker 1: 5:24

I like to listen to my audio books on 1.8 to 2.2 speed depending on how fast in a rush I am. I listen to mine when I'm at the gym. So I like listening to Key Person of Influence because it really like when I'm at the gym, because it gets me in the zone and I'm like, oh yeah, this is really cool. So then when I train in the morning and I get to work and I start hustling nah, let's go I'm in this really positive mindset which is absolutely fantastic. Highly recommend Key Person of Influence. Probably, if I would say, yeah, that's probably the two that I'd rate on that one Key person of influence usefulness I'd probably say is more around like a seven and a half, but it's enjoyability and practicality. It would definitely be around an eight. Like these are pretty high quality books, like I really like them.

Speaker 1: 6:14

The third one Storybrand by Donald Miller. Let's go, storybrand. So Donald Miller has been gone here twice. Let's go, donny D. So I've been listening to these on repeat recently because I've been going to events in Gold Coast to understand more about branding and messaging. And Story Branding is one of the perfect books that you can use to get your messaging right.

Speaker 1: 6:40

It runs through the hero's journey and, if you guys are subscribers or know anything about me, I teach and educate the hero's journey and I put that onto entrepreneurs who, like when I have one-on-one coaching clients, I educate the hero's journey and I put that onto entrepreneurs who, like when I have one-on-one coaching clients, I use the hero's journey with them. I map it out for them personally and map it out in their business. And I highlight the two because what's really important about the hero's journey is understanding the different initiations that happen in the circle of the hero's journey and that each initiation is something new for you to do in your life or something new for you to do in your business and the thing that prevents people from usually breaking through the glass ceiling to get to the next level is going through one of those initiations. For example, someone might be charging a certain amount for their services and they go, oh, I can't charge any more than that. Or they know that they're worth more and they know that they could charge more and they have to for their own life, but they don't know how to do it. There is some sort of initiation in the hero's journey which will help them move across. Now the important part of it is it is a story and in StoryBrand what they do is it maps you through how to use your own story and your business as a story and those initiations for your clients so that they can understand what you are doing.

Speaker 1: 7:44

Really powerful book. It helps you frame yourself as pitching yourself as a guide. So I'm not the hero here. Yeah. For example, a hero would be like yep, I helped this person, hit $500,000 a year and, like I said, if you're a business coach, right, I hit, this person hit $500,000 a year and I'm the best business coach and I did this and I did that and I did this, right. There's not so much more like helping someone that's not positioning yourself as a guide, when a guide is someone who is more. I've got these skills and resources and I have this mission. Like, for example, my mission is to really raise the standards of men. Inspire and it's a challenge and set the standard for all. Inspiring leaders is like my mission.

Speaker 1: 8:24

And what I think is that too often we are pissing on men, we are putting men down and that conversation needs to change. Yes, call men out for bad actions, like if they're like like just getting straight into the deep stuff, domestic violence, men being lazy, men not doing like. Call them out and call them forward, but stop shitting on them essentially because, and shitting on powerful men who have sex, money and power and bringing them down. Who's ever said I've had too much sex? Who says I have too much money? Who says I'm too much of a leader?

Speaker 1: 8:55

Okay, I really want to champion that men validate themselves through the sex, money and power that they have, and the more sex, money and power that someone has, the better they can show up as a dad, a father and a husband, and I've gone through suicidal tendencies. I've seen my dad completely break down, struggle as an entrepreneur, not being able to make it and go through a breakup and a divorce and make really bad decisions, and I don't want Elsa's dad to go through that and I don't want my children to go through that. So this is why I've created Set the Standard so I can help you get there. I've built my own business, I've helped other people build their businesses through mindset alone, and now we're coming with strategy and mindset to help you move through. Now that's me, like that's my actual own pitch, using myself as a guide to help you get towards your goals. And that's what StoryBrand really helps you to do and I find it's so powerful and they've got a really awesome framework in there and they've got practical advice and they give you, like, email templates as well.

Speaker 1: 9:47

But it helps you conceptualize your message and without a message key message no one's going to understand what you're doing. And we used to struggle with that in business so hard, like it was so embarrassing. I used to struggle so bad to communicate my message on Instagram or in person and people would regularly say to me Corey, we didn't even know what you do, man, like, what do you actually do? So coming up for us even clarifying the message of you know, we help you break through your business plateau and double your revenue by reprogramming your mindset. Now it's like oh, that's very clear, you know what I mean and we'll show up every single week and we'll coach you. We've got programs and StoryBrand book and a lot of work to get real clear on just those words. Now a lot of people won't put in the effort to do them and that's the difference between those who crush it and those who don't is getting really clear and spending the time to articulate that so people can understand you. Like, we live in a world at the age of attention and if people can't understand you immediately, you're lazy.

Speaker 1: 10:42

So StoryBrand powerful book I'd give it, uh, probably just an all-round, like an eight and a half for both scores. So practicality and listenability is definitely around about an eight and a half, so that's also short a book too. Like key person of influence, coach builder and story brand. They're all around five to six hours so you can crush them within. Like two, three gym workouts listen audiobooks when you're gyming, guys, let's go traction.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Fourth book, so fourth book. So Traction. This book is so good. It's one of the most masculine books I've ever read in my life. It's like here's your business plan, do this, and they got a PDF and they will start at the start. They're like okay, get your vision sorted out, get your message sorted out and then start breaking down your business like this. These are the meetings that you want to have every single week. These are your goals, these are your tasks. Map them out, put them down here, revisit them every month, every week, every quarter, and if you do this, you apply.

Speaker 1: 11:27

The reason that I listened to this book was from Glenn Carlson, who's Daniel Preece's business partner, key person of influence. He said to me I was asking him some questions about my business and then he said to me dude, you need traction. No-transcript, want to get your business at the next level, like. This book is so handy for it, and it's also another short book. It's like six to seven hours and you know that's three gym sessions and you've listened to the whole book. But please apply, it's so powerful.

Speaker 1: 12:05

Now, listenability, I'm going to bring that down, but that's like a six and a half, like a six. So the guy's voice isn't, isn't amazing, it's not like oh yeah. However, it's just a normal guy talking and he's very practical and if you want practical tools that you can bolt onto your business immediately. This is the perfect book for that. So highly recommend the last book. Yeah, like it's essential.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Like these books, all of these books are so essential to listen, especially if you're an online coach Holy moly. But even more so if you own a tradie company, if, like, if you had a trade company, if you had an e-commerce company, a marketing company, if you even own a YouTube channel, anyone where you start to hire staff, or you want to scale your business up a property company, like a real estate company, a recruitment agency, anything like that this book is so powerful just to get your shit in order. And if you have certain processes and systems, I would look at your process and systems. I'd look at this book and I can pair the two and I see what you can take from it, because it is really powerful and I highly recommend it, highly, highly, highly recommend it. And if you're not the manager, you might be the visionary, like getting ideas. Oh, what audio books should I listen to? Give this book to someone and say implement this, please. Like Glenn, he obviously runs dentglobalcom and, for example, he bolted on for his entire business and they're one of the most successful businesses and he's got like his time back. Like you know, they're running like multi-A-figure company. They've got like 10 companies underneath them Like it is wild. So I was like, okay, I'm going to learn from the masters here and really apply this to mine.

Speaker 1: 13:26

The last book which I highly recommend is the Goal, and I got recommended this by a friend of mine who is currently revenueing over $1.3 million a month. It's an e-commerce company teaching e-commerce owners and he has a few e-commerce stores himself. So it's really credible. If you guys want to check him out, it's Ecom Capital, really reputable company, and I'm actually doing some coaching in their company and mindset helping people break through some living beliefs soon. So it's really fantastic. So if you're in there and you're watching this, what's up, guys Recommend this book. This is called the Goal by L-E-R-U. Can't say his name, but this is one of Jeff Bezos' most recommended books.

Speaker 1: 14:07

So I've been told this book for readability. I'm going to give it like a 10 out of 10. It is an amazing story. I'd listen to it again. So I listen to fantasy books as well. I'd listen to this again purely because of how good the narration is. It's fantastic and the storyline is awesome.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Plots everything like blew my brain. Awesome, practicality is so great as well. It really helps you understand the importance of choosing the right goal in your business and what to track and understanding what your business is. So this is one of the powerful things for mindset and reprogramming your mindset. It's like what is the purpose of your business? Like when you go down like unbiased, not purpose, and like oh, let's get a purpose message of what's my purpose in the business. So like my purpose, you know, for set the standard is to, you know, raise the standards for all men around the world right, Especially financially and in power and business. And as a side effect of that, the relationship will be great, the health and fitness will be great. And then you're like, let's go, my lift is out there, that'll help them move forward. So that's like the purpose of set the standard and the vision that we have is we want to have a compound in every major city in the world where we have a thousand entrepreneurs and leaders who are doing business together, they're connecting and they're optimizing themselves to the highest and the highest quality of what they can be. And like my vision for that is, people would be like well, why is that guy crushing it he's in set the standard right. So that's like the vision to see of the company right, and they go wow, I want to get to set the standard. So that's the vibe that we're creating right.

Speaker 1: 15:32

The actual goal of like every business mostly is going to be making profit right, that's one of the main things like in the goal. So it is the lifeblood and it is the oxygen for your company. And when you think about that and they break it down, okay, I have to be a revenue generating machine. So if I'm the business owner or the founder and my mindset is not focused on bringing in revenue at all times and growing it as best as possible, and everything that's happening in the back of the business is there to help grow the revenue of the business and that responsibility is on me, then the business, if it's not focused on that, it's not going to operate well. So, regardless if it's your responsibility or someone else's responsibility, there has to be someone who is leading the reins on growing the revenue in the company and the goal is like has this best story of how to get there?

Speaker 1: 16:25

Is this guy. He's working at a really high quality like foundry and they create, like they manufacture stuff and his relationship's going to shit. His child's trying to spend time with him and he's trying to learn like from a master who's just been studying physics and science and they've started going through process and systems for what actually works and he can only get him for like 10, 20 minutes at a time because he's on the phone and the guy's really busy and he's just giving him questions and advice. What are the three goals? I'm not going to tell you. You can read the end of the book to figure those out, but there's like three goals at the end that are really important for everyone to track in their business. I was just like, wow, this is so fantastic.

Speaker 1: 17:07

And one of the way is looking at bottlenecks and they really identify roadblocks. And you might think, on your business, I don't have any roadblocks. But yes, we do. We have roadblocks and we've got to map out the systems and we've got to write them down. We've got to figure them out because that's what's going to prevent success, growth, success, growth and scalability in your company. So the book is so. This is why it's like the number one on here. It's so powerful once you read it and conceptualize it, bolting it also onto your business, but it's definitely more of a mindset thing.

Speaker 1: 17:33

So when you're running your business and you're tracking your business and your main goals, it's always consistently what's the main goal? What's the main goal? What's the main goal? For example, on my social media, I ran through with one of my close friends. He's an entrepreneur. He came around and this is real powerful for you guys to know. So, like blindness, if you're doing anything online or people in your business do anything online, you do any marketing online.

Speaker 1: 17:53

Bolt this onto your brain at Instagram and we had a look around. What's the most important metric to track? So this is I'm using the goal theory on Instagram. I'm had a look at my. Is it likes, is it views? Is it total amount of likes a month? Is it the amount of content that we're posting? You know what is the most important metric? Well, we have people like, so we really focus on DMS, so we focus a lot.

Speaker 1: 18:15

We have a lot of DM strategy. Anyone who comes in, we DM them. We have some really high quality tactics in terms of ads and retargeting ads. So if people click on certain parts of my Instagram, they're going to get retargeted with a certain ad that's going to give them something for free which is really cool, or let them know something that's incoming. So what would be the goal, the specific one goal of the Instagram? Right? If it's clicks, likes, comments, any of that, we start DMing people.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Okay, it's just engagement. So what we track every week is the total engagement score between Corey Boutwell page and the set the standard Instagram, and we track both of those and by together cumulative to see if our engagement is increasing. And if it's not, then we have to do something about it. Do we do a giveaway? Do we change our content Like? What do we do to increase engagement? Because the more engagement that we have on our page doesn't matter about likes, doesn't matter about followers, doesn't matter about any of that, doesn't matter about how well our reels do. All that matters is are we have engagement? Then that means we're going to get business, which is going to contribute to the revenue goal, right?

Speaker 1: 19:20

So that took us like 45 minutes. We had to look at all the metrics. We're like, oh, what are we going to do in the kitchen rushing around, and we figured it out so, and I don't think that it would have landed in my brain if I hadn't have read this book. So it was a great, you know, mindset moment. So when I'm coaching people, when I'm um, when I'm coaching people, I'm looking at things in my business. I'm always getting real clear on okay, what is the exact goal we want to get clear on.

Speaker 1: 19:44

And that moves mountains for people, because that's why we get distracted, that's why we focus time on everything else, and that's when we get shiny object syndrome. Which shiny object syndrome is? Oh, I'm going to focus on this project, I'm going to focus on this project. And then we become yes-men. Oh, I'll do that, I'll do that. And we start the yes-men act of trying to please everyone. And then we have no time in our business, our relationships fall into shit. For some reason, we started our routine for sleep has gone down the drain. We have no. We're starting to put on weight, we're not getting any fitter, and then we're starting to get depressed and anxious here, and the solution for that is getting really clear on one goal Okay, so, and then, yeah, when we get down on ourselves, we beat ourselves up.

Speaker 1: 20:21

And then, if we're getting like judgment from the media regards to my message before if we're getting judged from the media like, oh, men are shit, they're not doing any good. Blah, blah, blah blah and there's not enough awareness around. You know men's mental health and how we can get them to being, you know real high quality men who embrace their sex, their power and their money. Then we just have poor quality men and we want high quality men who are always raising the standards. So let's raise the standards for everybody, baby. So that's it. That's my five books. I hope you like this video. I hope you like this podcast. If you did, please subscribe, because I'm going to be doing a lot more of these, and thank you for tuning in and we'll see you in the next one, guys.