Posted by James Cooper
Huge statement, right? Achieving more, in less time! Big Call!?! Absolutely, I know it's possible because I'm living proof and I've seen dozens of business owners use this method and it does work! 
Perhaps you have done the hard yards and built a good business but you are still working 40 hours per week but can't seem to get down to 32 hours without the whole business starting to fall apart. Or maybe you are flat out doing big hours, like 50 or 60+ per week, which is possibly taking its toll on you, and heck... there really should be more money at the end of every month, right?!
Hey, whatever your situation, here's my process for turning things around and taking back control of time...
Time Management Matrix by Stephen Covey
The productivity of you and your team will determine the profitability of your business!
Most business owners spend the majority of their week in the least effective quadrants, Waste and Deception. They are doing jobs which seem urgent, rushing round. How many of you have ever had a day or a week where you worked your tail off and got to the end of the day and realised you achieved nothing, anybody ever have a day like that? That is what I'm talking about with deception and waste, hey... you could almost call it delusion and distraction, your aim should be to get out of these areas and into the two ‘Important' based quadrants, I and II. Necessity is just another word for demand, where you're doing the things that make a difference; this is what happens in quadrant I. But, ultimately the more time you spend working in the ZONE, doing the planning, focusing on growing the business long term (Quadrant II - Quality), the less time you spend in urgent demand, you know... putting out fires and dealing with crisis'.
Here's Brad Sugars take on the time matrix, adapted to create a time target, which gives you somewhere to aim for. In a game of darts, where do you get more points?
Time isn't the challenge is it? You see, time doesn't speed up, it doesn't slow down, in fact it is the one constant thing we can rely on, but ... it is in fact, in my opinion, the only limited resource on this planet, once you spend your time it's is gone forever. So, shouldn't you be a little more careful about where you spend your time? After all, what you do with your time determines your results. What we are really talking about here is self management, that's what we need to work on. You see, there's no such thing as time management, you can't manage time, but you can self manage what you do with the available time.
Here's the mimosaPLANET timeCONTROLTM Process to achieve more in less time...
- 1) Skill Enjoyment Matrix - Take each task from your summary and on a 9 quadrant matrix with Skill on one axis and enjoyment on another axis, rate all the tasks you do.... as either low/med/ or high skill, and what enjoyment you have in doing each of those tasks, low/med/high. What you have now done is... determine, what the tasks are that you don't like doing that require low skill.
- 2) Effective Delegation - Start to delegate/outsource the low skill/low enjoyment tasks first. Hire a bookkeeper at $30 p/hr for 5 hrs a week. If you charge out $70 per hour in those five hours you are making an extra GP of $200 per week from not "saving money by doing it yourself". Or if you focused on closing 1 more sale per week in that 5 hours for your staff to do the work what would that be worth? Probably a lot more!
- 3) Value Index - Take the Skill Enjoyment Matrix from step 3 and get a highlighter. Highlight the tasks that provide huge value to the business; that is... tasks that make you money! Tasks like doing the work of the business and sales and marketing. In fact, they are the only tasks that make you money directly. Highlight them... and FOCUS on them to take up most of your day!
- 4) Retrain the Team and Customers - Don't let yourself be a victim to the environment, you shape your personal environment, experience and results the way you want. This is how you deal with all those annoying interruptions that happen. If you are like most must owners you will get lots of questions from your staff, what would happen if you stopped answering them? If you are thinking "my business would fall apart because I'm the only one who knows the answers" then start paying your employees to think, they have brains too you know. How much time could you save each week if your employees didn't have to call you to; find out what to do next, where we get so and so from, what happens when, what's happening with this customer, how do I....
Stop taking all the risk out of them thinking for themselves! I mean, as an employee why would you risk making the wrong decision and getting in trouble, when all it takes is to ask the boss and she'll/he'll tell you straight away. When an employee asks you a question, ask a question back "What would you do?" "What do you think happens next?" "If I wasn't here where would you find that information from?" etc It's painful at first I know, I mean.. it would just be sooo much easier to tell them, right? But if you don't give up, pretty soon they start feeling better about themselves as they figure stuff out and realise it's pointless calling you because you won't tell them... so they stop calling!
This can expose a lot of holes in your business systems, particular when it comes to the transfer of information. This is great, now you know what forms or systems or manuals or documents you would get time benefits from by sorting out!
This applies to customers as well, if you are getting lots of the same questions, try to pre-empt them by providing information up front, or give them a process to get that information. (PS, new sales enquiries are not interruptions; they are awesome opportunities to make a sale, they are the life blood of your business).
- 5) Current & Ideal Future Diary Plan - Don't be too ridged here, I've tried planning out each minute of the day, packing it fill. I've had clients try this too.... it just doesn't work long term, there is no allowance for people and relationship-building, it values tasks and schedules over people and relationships, "sorry can't talk to you for 15mins, only 3mins" ...What this screams to people is more like this "I've got to send eMails between 8:30 and 8:45, and at 9:00am I need to make my first sales calls so I don't value you enough to give that up". Not good for long term growth.
What you do need to consider here is that fact of ON vs IN type tasks and high value tasks. You need to be aware that if you don't do the 20 hours per week of high value sales and marketing stuff then you won't drive the business forward, so make time for it on a regular basis, etc... just don't be an arse about it.
- 6) Daily Diary Plan & Task List - Do this the night before, never in the morning for that day. Highlight or mark with an (A) your top two tasks for the day.... all the rest of your day is just the daily rubbish, but you must ensure to keep moving forward you do those two tasks!
This Weeks Action Points...
This is a process that will yield results. But it does require conscious thought; after all you are trying to change a habit of a life time, how you spend your time. So you need to consciously make an effort, until it becomes unconscious competence. Stick to it and you will be in CONTROL, give up or ignore it and you will be controlled by the environment.
Posted by James Cooper
Yes, ego! You see, there is this fascinating area of psychology call Transactional Analysis (TA). It is effectively an integrative approach.... that is, it focuses on interactions between people not just internal stuff. So rather than just increasing your awareness of unconscious ideas and thoughts, TA concentrates on the content of your interactions with people. TA has developed a number of models and tools to help you change those interactions to achieve better results!
So what are we really talking about here? Shaping your BEHAVIOUR. After all, your behaviour is defined as the actions, reactions, movements, decisions, and responses you have. Basically, it's what you do on a daily basis. Now, we all know that it is impossible to get massive results in business without the help of other people... team, customers, suppliers, partners, family... And I'll bet that not every interaction you have with people is as awesome as it could be. Learn about how your ego-state changes and what affect it has on interactions with other people. Get this right and you will be able to leverage your business results far beyond what they are today by improving your communication....
So what's the dirt on Ego-States?
When I say Ego people nearly always think of a person with a huge ego about themselves, you know the type that think they are just the coolest thing and everyone else is just so average. But, hang on ego is actual your personality, your character, your self-image, your self-worth, it's your opinion of yourself.... everyone has one... and here's the kicker... it changes depending on who you are with and the situation. Why is this important? Why am I talking about psychology? Well, if you are not getting the results you want, whether in business or relationships, you'll be happy to hear that TA is underpinned by the philosophy that PEOPLE CAN CHANGE!!!!
The Ego-State (Parent-Adult-Child, PAC) Model
The PAC model describes how people are structured psychologically in a very easy way and helps explain and understand how people function and express themselves through behaviour. Basically people use three different ego-states (Wikipedia offers this definition);
Parent ("exteropsychic"): a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent's actions. For example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they learned from an influential figure in childhood the lesson that this seemed to be a way of relating that worked.
Adult ("neopsychic"): a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to what is going on in the "here-and-now," using all of their resources as an adult human being with many years of life experience to guide them. This is the ideal ego state, and learning to strengthen the Adult is a goal of TA. While a person is in the Adult ego state, he/she is directed towards an objective appraisal of reality.
Child ("archaeopsychic"): a state in which people revert to behaving, feeling and thinking similarly to how they did in childhood. For example, a person who receives a poor evaluation at work may respond as they did in their childhood, by looking at the floor, and feeling shame or anger, as they used to when scolded as a child.
Ok, how is this useful?
Well, the best thing we can do is look at some examples;
Example 1; Imagine a child of 5 years old. They have strong controlling parents who for their whole life have always watched what the child says and does... "NO, don't do this... don't touch that... be quiet ... you'll have this ... you won't have that ... NO, don't go over there ... don't climb on that you'll hurt yourself" etc, etc. This child never gets to think for itself, decisions are always made for them, and when they do try to be free they are constantly told off and told No. Now, how do you think this child views the world? Probably with some fear..."it's a big scary world out there, full of things you can't do so I've got to adapt to what my parents expect and follow others lead, basically you're ok, I'm not ok"
Example 2; Imagine another child of 5 years. This child has no rules and no boundaries, they can do what they like when they like, climb everywhere at the risk of breaking an arm. This child has a very different view of the world, it's big and for adventuring, they are free, they don't understand about control or rules or boundaries. They only get positive strokes from their parents, everything they do is good.
Now...Fast forward 20, 30, 40, 50 yrs... what effects do you think this has on a person in the way they view the world and the way in which the interact with other people and their behaviour? Well, obviously the child in example 1 will interact vastly different given the same situation as the child in example 2, even in adulthood... especially in adulthood!
I know I'm only touching the surface on the topic of TA, but can you see how understanding where your own behaviour has come from and how it could be different to others is the first step in changing and shaping your behaviour to improve your results with people? Am I saying that you have a problem? No, what I am saying is You're Cool, I'm Cool, we're all FINE and OK, but I am damn sure we can all still be better and improve. Seeing as people and their behaviour are the difference between things going well, things going badly, or things going beyond your wildest dreams... do you think it would be worth while doing some exploration and some tweaking?
Here's the PAC Model in more detail...
Let's look at a scenario at work...
Person A: "John, have you completed that project yet?" (Looking to Communicate Adult to Adult)
Person B: "Look, would you just stop bugging me! I'm doing it!!" (Behaves as a Child to Parent)
As you can see this is a recipe for disaster, as Person A will likely start to respond with a Parent to Child interaction, which is only natural but not going to work in fact it just makes it worse, but this is what happens all over the world with bosses and staff. i.e.
Person A: "You have got an attitude problem, sort it out or you're fired!"
Basically, you and everyone else all over the world is acting out little programmed scripts in your brain that you have learnt, from childhood, from school, from work, from life. Now that might be just fine, but we all had different childhoods and different life experiences. So sometimes your behaviour could just be totally out of whack with another persons!
People interact in a multitude of different ways with each other, often I have a parent to child relationship with many of my clients... sometimes I'm communicating from the nurturing parent mode, giving positive strokes to get a positive free child response ... i.e. encouraging my client to do something bold and step out of their comfort zone, basically changing their behaviour. Other times I'm more of a controlling parent, just telling what needs to be done, mainly when I get a child like communication from a client really looking for guidance and direction to get better results.
Ultimately, we will all use all modes, but what we can get the best and most healthy behaviour from is interacting adult to adult.... drawing on a both parent & child modes to solve challenges in the ‘here and now'... this is where I attempt to steer my behaviour, interactions and communications with others.... the difference in results with people is huge.
If you understand this, you begin to understand why you have what kinds of behaviour in different scenarios... and that is the first step to changing and improving and shaping your behaviour to get better business results through better behaviour and interactions with people!!!!!
This Weeks Action Points...
I kid you not... this is only one of a number of very powerful models and tools of TA that can dramatically help you to shape your behaviour for a more beneficial outcome. Read this again, print it out, discuss it with your partner, with your team, identify behaviours and interactions where you don't like the result or outcome and then write an alternative script and an alternative outcome.... then start to change!
Posted by James Cooper
Here's How You Can Get Clarity, Which Creates Focus...
I have said it before, throughout my years listening to hundreds of small business owners about their challenges and frustrations it has become clear that there are 3 Critical Success Factors to Business Success; Focus, Behaviour and Knowledge.
Of the 3, Focus is the core factor. For without Focus the other 2 rarely amount to anything. Now I've seen, tried, taught and implemented many different methods to build Focus over the years, but nothing starts the journey and process quiet as effectively as building clarity through the following tool...
What would people say at your Eulogy?
Think about it... we can break anybodies life pretty much into these four areas; Family, Friends, Business & Community. I've used the idea that Steven Covey highlights in his powerful best selling classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habit 2 is called ‘Begin with the end in mind', and makes a lot of sense really, we've all hear about having goals or vision, nothing new or ground breaking, right? But something has been lost in time and translation... for the real strength in this ‘habit' is the art of making it PERSONAL and emotional, not task orientated like regular business goals, you know, achieve a 25% increase in sales next quarter.
To make it personal and emotional, shock yourself!!!!! What if you died tomorrow? What would people say about you, what would your family say, your friends, your customers, your community? Just think.... we all want people to say great things about us at our funeral, but it's not front of mind, I mean... it's not too healthy to be thinking about this kind of stuff the whole time, it's different... and that's why this works. For me it's got to be 75yrs from now, for you perhaps it's 30 or 50. The point is, stop waiting until you are closer to death until you find the real clarity of what you want to do with your life... you're just wasting time, shock yourself and think about it now.
What do you want people to say about your character, about your contributions and your achievements?
My End of Life Eulogy...
This Weeks Action Points...
Print this page out and write in the box under each area your thoughts. Better yet write it on the computer, save it and print it out. Share with your partner and keep at your desk or a similar place you will see it. In 3 months or 6 months revisit the document and add to it and build on it. This is one part to building Clarity.... Clarity for FOCUS!
Posted by James Cooper
Here's The Key Principles At The Core Of Your Challenge...
Is it never or seldom? Or perhaps it's "we don't have Projects, we sometimes come up with new ideas and some of them get implemented with various degrees of success, nothing Mind-Blowing though, and some ideas just fizzle out"!
"He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never therefore make any progress" Anwar Sadet. These are powerful words from the Nobel Peace Prize Winning Egyptian President who made immense change in his life, not only for himself but for two nations at war with each other. So would it be possible that the way you think effects the way you act, and don't actions lead to results (good or bad). So if you've been getting average results, perhaps it's time to take a look at your thoughts.
I'm not talking about Mind-Set people, no... I'm talking about Mind-Reset! And I've got a couple of very simple diagrams that will at least get you thinking if not scratching your head....
What do you want?
Pretty broad question, eh? But almost universally it can be boiled down to this.... to be happy. Now, happiness means 6 billion different things to 6 billion different people, but I do like this definition by Steve Covey in his excellent book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, "True happiness can be defined as one's ability to forgo what one wants today for what one wants tomorrow" Now, I may have quoted this slightly wrong but you can get the general jist, right?
I don't believe for a minute that anyone who has had great success and happiness in their life didn't at one point sacrifice a great deal to get there. But what made them do that? What caused them to not take the easy route that would make them happy (comfortable) today and forget the great happiness they could achieve in the future? You see, it doesn't matter if I'm talking about Tiger Woods or Bill Gates, when it got tough, when it got hard, what makes them the best in the world is that they kept going, they kept practicing, they kept testing... so they got the results! Why?!?!?!
They had the Victory Attitude! The Success Attitude, the Winning Attitude... whatever you call it... they were able to keep going long after everyone else stopped.... And that has everything to do with the brain, like it or not... it's time to look at how you think!
Now, having a "positive attitude" is not the answer, a positive attitude is the result of other key factors. The whole school of "the power of positive thinking", which was so strong from the 1960s -1990s, is pretty much crap actually... thinking positive about a negative situation is not smart thinking, it's delusion!!! This is why this area of business, yes business (and life), has got such a bad rep, so that gives rise to the pessimist who is only too happy to say "I told you so" and also to lump positive thinking in with everything else to do with personal effectiveness by saying "oh this stuff is all crap, just get on and do it".
But the facts are clear, the brain can be influenced and people are mostly programmed to run a series of scripts that they have learnt, some from early childhood and parents, some from school, some from work, some from friends.... If fact they are all from experiences, these experiences shape the very way we view the world. If the last time you tried to do a PO Box flyer drop it failed, you probably view the world from the mindset that PO BOX drops don't work... and wouldn't try one again, I mean ...you tried it once it didn't work, it was just a waste of money, right? The challenge is that this experience has shaped your thoughts and therefore your decisions and actions and future results in this very area! And we don't know if that is for the better or worse, I mean... did you actually know how to do Direct Response Advertising, or did you just leave it up to the printer to design the flyer? There could have been a huge difference in results, which would have had you thinking PO Box drop are the best thing ever.
What I'm getting at here is... start to see that the decisions you make and actions you take on a daily basis determine your results... but there is a reason you are making these types of decisions and doing these actions, it's based on a whole lot more complex stuff that makes up who you are, just that a look at the two processes below, see how they build on each other....
The Path to Happiness
The Tower of Self/Life
So, what can we do with this information, how can we benefit from it, that's what you want to know, right?
Well, realisation is the first step. You've now become aware that you get to choose, you have the ability as a human to re-programme parts of yourself to get a different result at the end... you get to Reset your Mind... well, parts of it. Start by creating a list with each sentence starting like this "Up till now I ......." Then for each item on your list change it by focusing on what it is you choose and writing another list starting with "From now on I ....." i.e. "Up till now I have not focused on marketing and thus don't get many re leads in my business through proactive measures" , "From now on I will actively seek out new information and write a quarterly market plan of action to increase the leads I get". What this activity does is runs your mind through this simple formula...
Change & Success Formula
Realization x Visualization = Actualization
Realization = Awareness (you get to choose)
Visualization = (what do you choose)
Actualization = (taking action)
This Weeks Action Points...
Value yourself enough to invest time in yourself to increase your personal effectiveness, ultimately bringing better results, success and happiness ...
Posted by James Cooper
... And Which One You Should Read First ...
"If you want to develop your business to succeed, then below is a list of books that I personally recommend you read. Each book gives great value in a number of areas however, I have put them into sections to assist you in selecting what books you should read first. Simply choose a book from the topic area which you will gain the most benefit from an improvement in, I have read them all and many other books, however these are the best." James Cooper, Managing Director, mimosaPLANETTM
Recommended Best Business Books Reading List:
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TOPIC
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TITLE
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AUTHOR
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1.0 Personal Effectiveness
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Lifestyle Design
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The 4 Hour Work Week
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Timothy Ferriss
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Clarity of Direction
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
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Stephen Covey
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Creating Wealth
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Billionaire in Training
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Brad Sugars
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Understanding Change
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Who Moved my Cheese
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Spencer Johnson
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Biography
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Losing My Virginity
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Richard Bransen
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Unauthorized Biography
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iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business
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Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon
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2.0 Strategic Direction
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Business Structure/Systems
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The E Myth Revisited
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Michael Gerber
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Business Growth Strategies
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The Business Coach
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Brad Sugars
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Innovation/Future Business
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Re-Imagine
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Tom Peters
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Business Growth Plan Process
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Getting to Big the Small Way
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Frank Prestipino
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3.0 Financial Management
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Improve Cashflow
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Where's the Money?
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Craig Rust
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Structure for Tax (NZ)
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Pay Zero Taxes!
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Peter Sibbald
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Lower Tax Bill-What to Claim (NZ)
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Slash Your Taxes Now!
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Peter Sibbald
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4.0 Sales Conversion
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One on One Sales Conversion
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The Great Sales Book
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Jack Collis
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One on One Sales Conversion
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How to Master the Art of Selling Anything
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Tom Peters
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5.0 Marketing
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Marketing Principles & Approaches from 17 great books
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The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
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Chris Murray
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Permission Marketing
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Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
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Seth Godin
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Inbound Marketing
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Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs
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Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
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Positioning & Brand
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Selling the Invisible
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Harry Beckwith
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Advertising/Direct Marketing
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Tested Advertising Methods
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John Caples
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6.0 Systems
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Systematising the Business - Basic
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Money Making Systems
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D.C. Cordova
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7.0 Team
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Fast Effective Tool for Team Management
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The One Minute Manager
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Ph.D Kenneth Blanchard & M.D. Spencer Johnson |