Book Quest – The Search Continues

We love a good success book. Our book list grows steadily each year. We are on a quest. Our search continues to identify books which meet some very specific criteria, books we can add to our tailor-made sales book bucket list. We hope that you can help. We often read books together on our virtual team meetings. Together, we have enjoyed reading some of the best books for success ever written. We read books on the topics of motivation, skill building, sales techniques, cold calling, time management, goal setting, personal growth and development, strategy, success and more. In between books, we also read articles on the same type of subjects. The articles we read may come from the same book authors or not. They come from various publications or blogs, are short and their content stands alone. Sometimes we even read our own blog articles like this one.

Cold calling and working from home can be challenging. Our virtual team meetings are an opportunity for us to come together as a team, have fun, build skills and gain information that will help us in our role as business to business appointment setters. Reading the right books and articles is an excellent way to help our team stay positive and focused. Over the years, we’ve learned a lot from the books and articles we’ve read, and we’ve also learned that some books, books with certain attributes, work better for reading together on our virtual team meetings.

The ideal is to compile all the books out there in the book universe that meet the “best book” criteria for our virtual team meetings. So many books have been written, however, books that meet 100% of the criteria outlined in this article are not as easy to find as you might think. That’s why we’re asking for your help. We have a goal to add to our sales book, bucket list. So, if you have a favorite that matches the attributes described in this article, send us an email or an in-mail and let us hear about all the books you’ve loved to read. Not just every book is as well suited for reading on a virtual meeting as some. There are even those who might say that reading any book on a virtual meeting is not a good idea. But we know better. And for the record, we also sing on our virtual meetings.

Here are the attributes of the “best books” for virtual team meetings:

We want the whole enchilada. We all agree that it is most fulfilling to complete an entire book together, meaning that we read the whole book from cover to cover vs. just reading excerpts from a book. Our meetings are just not that long or frequent, so it isn’t feasible to read the same book in continuation for a year or two. By the time we finish the full book, we will have forgotten the first part of the book. We’ve found that the ideal book length is around 100 pages. Some books have chapters that tend to stand alone and those books work well also, however, not as well as when we can read and complete the whole enchilada from start to finish.

An example of a fantastic book which contains chapters that stand alone, without reading the whole book, is the book Goals by Brian Tracy. The book Goals is a truly great work. We read pieces of it almost every year, sometimes several times a year, but not the whole book straight through from cover to cover because it is about 200 pages long. Through the years we’ve bought a lot of copies of the book Goals. We especially like reading this book when we play football each year. Football pairs perfectly with the book Goals like popcorn pairs with movies. We’ve read the book Goals so many times, I feel like I know Brian Tracy. I definitely admire his work. If only he would write a shorter book, we could read the whole thing during football season.

An example of an ideal book that can be read in its entirety is The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino. A timeless classic, it’s 111 pages in length. It may not be possible for anyone to ever top this book. This book is definitely on our tailor-made sales book bucket list for virtual team meetings.

A story vs. dry non-fiction.  Another attribute of the “best book” for virtual team meetings is that the learning is encoded into the book as a story vs. being written as a non-fiction style book. An example of a book like this is Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. Who Moved My Cheese is an engaging story, a fable, only 94 pages long. Who Moved My Cheese is another book that definitely meets 100% of our bucket book list criteria. The simple, timeless lessons in the book are that we must adapt to changing times in order to find new cheese and that being complacent leads to extinction. Albert Einstein said “The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.” That is what Spencer Johnson did with his book.

Inspirational. Another attribute of the “best book” for our virtual team meetings is that the book is so inspirational that you want to read it again and again. A good example of a book like this is a newer book, The Energy Bus by Jon Gordon. Our team loves The Energy Bus and has requested that we read it again. So, it’s another book that makes our bucket book list. It is actually a little long in terms of page count, 157 pages, however, the way it is laid out makes it short enough for us to read on our virtual meetings from start to finish. It is a great story about getting on the positive energy bus. It’s basically impossible to be negative in any way after running into Joy, the bus driver. Anyone can relate to the main character, George, as he moves through a transformation to save his job and his marriage. There is a lot of rejection associated with cold calling, which is what we do all day. Working from home can also feel isolating. The Energy Bus brings a great message, a perfect message for our team about how to stay positive and the importance of staying positive.

Other. The other attributes of the “best book” are that the book is fun. The book may be spiritual but not religious, non-political and not contain offensive language. These items may go without saying, but sometimes it pays to dot the Is and cross the Ts. The lessons in the books listed above are deep, meaningful, thought-provoking and can even be life changing, but they are presented in an engaging, uplifting and fun story or parable. These books are not only helpful for purposes of business success. They are helpful for life and relationships in general. I look forward to hearing about your faves.