Recommended external resources

There are many very helpful resources I've found over the years, and I've put some of the key ones here, ranging across all topics from management to marketing to operations. 

BOOKS:

• "Never Split the Difference" - Chris Voss book / audiobook / videos Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It : Voss, Chris, Raz, Tahl: Amazon.com.au: Books 
  • Purpose: negotiation training. Chris is an ex-FBI hostage negotiator and uses very effective techniques and trains them well. Life is negotiation, and if you want to get ahead in sales or other areas, negotiation training is helpful for business people. 
• "Corporate Turnaround Artistry" - Jeff Sands, Book / audiobook Corporate Turnaround Artistry: Fix Any Business in 100 Days : Sands, Jeff: Amazon.com.au: Books 
  • One of the most hard-hitting books on turning around a struggling business, the do's, don'ts, and the in-the-trenches real life tactics to use.
• "Scaling up" - Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) : HARNISH VERNE: Amazon.com.au: Books 
  • a great resource for those seeking to grow their business into the unknown beyond their initial small startup - gives the tools, templates, tactics, and training to take a small business into a large one effectively.
• Jim Collins - pretty much all of his books. Jim Collins - Books probably the most well-known is "Good to great"
  • Jim studied objectively the companies that went from "good to great" to unpack the key elements that were in common and presents his findings. His other books follow similar analytical methods of understanding what makes great businesses 'tick'. 
• Patrick Lencioni "5 Dysfunctions of a team" The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable - Lencioni, Patrick M. | 9780787960759 | Amazon.com.au | Books 
  • A great leadership fable built around a framework of "5 dysfunctions of a team" to illustrate how to get great teamwork in place, and what makes it fail. 
• "The ideal team player" - The Ideal Team Player | The Table Group 
  • One of Patrick Lencioni's greatest developments was "Humble, Hungry, Smart" - a fantastic measure for how to find the right people for your team.
  •  Ideal-Team-Player-Model-and-Summary.pdf 

TOOLS / TEMPLATES

• The Business Model canvas - developed by Alexander Osterwalder. Business Model Canvas – Download the Official Template 
  • A brilliant one-pager for mapping out your businesses' functions. Key partners, activities, resources, value propositions, Customer relationships, channels, customer segments, cost structure and Revenue streams. 
• Perry Marshall's "Marketing DNA test" Marketing DNA | Perry Marshall 
  • Purpose: A test to measure natural preferences in marketing tasks, which when you're figuring out how to get marketing going is very helpful - once you know your strengths you can build on them. 
• Patrick Lencioni's "Humble Hungry Smart" graph: Ideal-Team-Player-Model-and-Summary.pdf 
  • One of Patrick's greatest developments was "Humble, Hungry, Smart" - a fantastic measure for how to find the right people for your team.

• Perry Marshall's "Tactical Triangle"  Tactical Triangle: The Ultimate in Marketing Simplicity | Perry Marshall and  The Tactical Triangle: A New Way to Think about Marketing | Perry Marshall  
  • Perry Marshall's "Tactical Triangle" is a brilliant way to unpack any marketing problem you have. The simple equation is based on 3 factors - traffic, conversion, and economics. Once you understand this, the question "“What’s the #1 thing I need to improve next – Traffic, Conversion, or Economics?” always leads you in the right direction for your business.