BOOK US

With over 25 years of frontline experience Tom Shay is America's leading small business management expert. He's a "Must Have" for your next event.

Our suggestion of books and the free posters download

During his presentations, Tom has often made reference to business management books written by authors other than himself. This list of titles and authors is categorized by subject matter. The ** denotes Tom's favorites.

We hope as you purchase books that you will make an effort to do business with an independent book store. Here is a link to Powell's; one of our favorite independents.

Visit Powells.com

Business Strategy
AGENDA by Michael Hammer **
Becoming Preferred by Michael Vickers
Best Practices are Stupid by Stephen M. Shapiro **
Be the Elephant by Steve Kaplan
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Blow the Whistle on the Competition by D. Wendal Attig
Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne **
Blue Ocean Shift by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne **
Break from the Pack by Oren Harari
Brick & Mortar Ougha by John W. Hayes
Business is a Contact Sport by Tom Richardson and Augusto Vidaurreta
Competing with the Retail Giants by Kenneth E. Stone
Defining Markets Defining Moments by Geoffrey Meridity and Charles Schewe
Firms of Endearment by Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth and David B. Wolfe
Good to Great by Jim Collins
G.R.A.C.E. Keys to Entrepreneurship by Martha Campbell Pullen, PhD.
Hope is not a strategy by Rick Page **
Killing Giants by Stephen Denny
Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Our Patchwork Nation by Dante Chinni and James Gimpel
Pendulum by Roy Williams
Take Care of Your Business or Someone Else Will by Michael McKinley
The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni
The Big Moo
by The Group of 33 **
The Complete idiot's guide to strategic planning by Lin Grensing-pophal
The Disney Way by Bill Capodagli
The Distribution Trap by Andrew R. Thomas
The Guardians by Vladimir Antaki
The On-Purpose Business by Kevin W. McCarthy
The plan as you go business plan by Tim Berry
The Power of Cult Branding by B.J. Bueno
Understanding Michael Porter by Joan Magretta

Business succession
Dance in the End Zone by Patrick A. Ungashick
Dirty Little Secrets of Family Business by Henry Hutcheson **
Effective Succession Planning
by William J. Rothwell
The art of the exit by Jacob Orosz
Who's Next Please? by Fred A. Tillman and Jack Rice

Customer service
180 Ways to Walk the Customer Service Talk by Eric Harvey
Building Customer Loyalty by Joanna Brandi
Butterfly Customer by Susan O'Dell and Joan Pajunen
Conversion by Mark Ryski **
Customer Centric Selling
by Michael T. Bosworth & John R. Holland
Customers for Life by Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown
Customer Winback by Jill Griffin and Michael W. Lowenstein
Dealing with the customer from Hell by Shaun Belding
Difficult People by John Hoover
How Customers Think by Geral Zaltman
How Pleasure Works by Paul Bloom
How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life by Michael LeBoeuf
Hug your customers by Jack Mitchell
I love you more than my dog by Jeanne Bliss
Infinite possibility by Joseph Pine & Kim Korn
Listen to the dinosaur by Dave Fellman
Listening for Success by Steve Shapiro
Managing Customers as Investments by Sunil Gupta and Dolald R. Lehmann
Nurturing Customer Relationships by Jim Cecil and Eric Rabinowitz
Nuts! by Kevin and Jackie Freiberg
Outrageous by T. Scott Gross
Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles **
Romancing Your Customers by Sam Allman
Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000 by Pete Blackshaw
Solution Selling by Michael T. Bosworth **
The Customer Rules; 39 essential rules by Lee cocherell
The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company by Joseph Michelli
The power of a positive NO by William Ury
The Trust Edge by David Horsager
The Starbucks Experience by Joseph Michelli **
The Welcomer Edge by Richard Shapiro
The Zappos Experience by Joseph Michelli
Treasure Hunt by Michael J. Silverstein
What Customers Want by Anthony W. Ulwick
When Customers Talk by T. Scott Gross & BIGresearch
When Fish Fly by Joseph Michelli
When Retail Customers Count by Mark Ryski

Financial
Buy Low, Sell High, Collect Early & Pay Late by Dick Levin **
Managing by the Numbers by Chuck Kremer and Ron Rizzuto
Profit First by Mike Michalowich
Simple numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits by Greg Crabtree
The Entrepreneur's Guide to Forming a Business Entity by Michael J. McCormick, CPA**
Triple your profits by Dr. Albert Bates

Management
301 Great Management Ideas by Sara P. Noble
Always Think Big by Jim McIngvale with Thomas Duening and John Ivancevich
Atomic Habits: An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones by James Clear
Big Shots: Business the Bill Gates Way by Des Dearlove
Boundaries for Leaders by Henry Cloud
Braving the wilderness: The quest for true belonging and the courage to stand alone by Brene Brown
Built to last: Successful habits of visionary companies by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
Built to sell: Creating a business that can thrive without you by John Warrillow
Dare to lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brene Brown
Decisive: How to make better choices in life and work by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newton and Jeff Bottoms
Don't Bullsh*t Yourself by John Taffer
Do The Work by Steven Pressfield
Effortless: Make it easier to do what matters most by Greg McKeown
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Entrepreneurial Strengthsfinder by Jim Clifton
Escape from cubicle nation: From corporate prisoner to thriving entrepreneur by Pamela Slim and Guy Kawasaki
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
Everything Counts by Gary Ryan Blair
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
Fashion Unraveled by Jennifer Lynne Matthews
First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
Fix this next: Make the vital change that will level up your business by Mike Michalowicz
Flight of the Buffalo by James A. Belasco and Ralph C. Stayer
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Grinding it out: The making of McDonalds
by Ray Kroc and Robert Anderson
Grit
by Angela Duckworth **
How to win friends and influence people
by Dale Carnegie
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini
In the Owner's Chair
by Ronald W. Torrence
Leadership Jazz by Maxx DePree
Leaders eat last by Simon Sinek
Leaders make the future by Bob Johansen
Losing my virginity by Richard Branson
Lovability: How to build a business that people love and be happy doing it by Brian de Haaff
Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish
Mavericks at work: Why the most original minds at work win
by Wiliam C. Taylor and Polly G. LaBarre
Millennials Rising
by Neil Howe and William Strauss
Never split the difference; negotiating as if your life depended on it by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant **
Portrait of an Entrepreneur
by Edward Kenneth Loyst
Present over perfect: Leaving behind frantic for a simpler, more soleful way of living by Shauna Niequist
Quality is Free by Philip B. Crosby
Quiet by Susan Cain
Reinventing the Wheel by Chris Zane **
Results by Gary L. Neilson and Bruce A. Pasternack
Return on Customer by Don Peppers & Martha Rogers, phd
Rework by Daniel Heinemeier and Mike Chanberlain
Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickmanand Mark C. Winters
Shark Tales: How I turned $1,000 into a billion dollar business by Barbara Corcoran and Bruce Littlefield
Shoe Dog; a memoir by Phil Knight
Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
Start with Why: How great leaders inspire everyone to take action by Simon Sinek
Start your own business by Rieva Lesonsky
Switch; how to change things by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
The $100 startup: Reinvent the way you make a living, do what you love and create a new future by Chris Guillebeau and Thomas Vincent Kelly
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
by Stephen R. Covey **
The Advantage by Patrick M. Lencioni
The art of the start 2.0: The time tested, battle hardened guide for anyone starting anything by Guy Kawasaki
The consolations of philosophy by Alain de Botton
The Disciple of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
The E Myth by Michael E. Gerber **
The E Myth Manager by Michael E. Gerber
The Four Tendencies; The indispensable personality profiles that reveal how to make your life better by Gretchen Rubin
The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe and William Strauss
The Fred Factor
by Mark Sanborn **
The hard things about hard things: Building a business when there are no easy answers by Ben Horowitz and Kevin Kenerly
The Ice Cream Maker by Subir Chowdhury
The Innovators Dilemma: When new technologies cause great firms to fail by Clayton M. Christensen
The Jew Store by Stella Subeman
The lean startup: How today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses by Eric Ries
The Likeability Factor by Tim Sanders
The Knack by Norm Brodsky
The Magic of Believing by Claude M. Bristol
The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
The On Purpose Business by Kevin McCarthy
The Orange Revolution: How one great team can change an entire organization by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
The Power of Simplicity
by Jack Trout
The Process of Excelling by Roger E. Herman
The road to character by David Brooks
The Six Sigma Way by Peter S. Pande, Robert P. Neuman and Roland R. Cavanagh
The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman
The Successful Business Owners Manual by David A. Toney
The Third Door: The mindset of success by Alex Banayan
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions by Annie Duke
This I believe by Dan Gediman and Jay Allison
Thou Shalt Prosper: The ten commandments for making money
by Rabii Daniel Lapin
Tribes - We need you to lead us
by Seth Godin
Twelve Minute Risk Management by Ivy Walker
Upstream; the quest to solve problems before they happen by Dan Heath
Values Shift by John B Izzo and Pam Withers
Warren Buffet on business: Principles from the sage of Omaha by Richard J. Connors and Peter Johnson
What I learned from Sam Walton by Michael Bergdahl
Win: The Key principles to take your business from ordinary to Extraordinary by Frank Luntz
Work the system by Sam Carpenter
Zero to one: Notes on startups or how to build the future by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Marketing
A buck at a time by Macon Brock and Earl Swift
Anytime, Anywhere
by Robert Spector
Big Box Swindle by Stacy Mitchell
Boom by Mary Brown & Carol Orsborn
Brandscaping by Andrew M Davis
Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller
Branded! How Retailer Engage Consumers with Social Media and Mobility by Bernie Brennan and Lori Schafer
Brand Washed by Martin Lindstrom **
Buying In by Rob Walker
buy*ology by Martin Lindstrom
Crazy is a Compliment by Linda Rottenberg **
Fish! by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul,and John Christensen **
Flip the Funnel by Joseph Jaffe
Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt
From Mind to Market
by Roger D. Blackwell
Guerrilla Retailing by Elly Valas, Orvel Ray Wilson and Jay Conrad Levinson
Living It Up - America's Love Affair with Luxury by James B. Twitchell
Luxury Marketing Disrupted by Pamela Danziger
Marketing Warfare
by Al Ries and Jack Trout **
Meet the HENRYs by Pamela Danziger
One Buck at a Time by Macon Brock with Earl Swift
Platform Revolutions: How Networked markets Are Transforming the Economy and How to Make them Work for You by Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne and Sangeet Paul Choudary
Positioning: The battle for your mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout
Predatory Marketing by C. Britt Beemer **
Purple Cow by Seth Godin **
Small Data: The tiny Clues that Uncover Hugh Trends by Martin Lindstrom
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout
The Art of War by Sun Tzu and Samuel B. Griffith
The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema
The everything store: Jeff Bezos and the age of Amazon by Brad Stone
The Experience Economy by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore **
The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan
The Hidden Persuaders
by Vance Packard
The Invisible Touch by Harry Beckwith
The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz
The Mom & Pop Store by Robert Spector
The Power of cult branding: How 9 magnetic brands turned customers into loyal followers (and yours can, too!) by Matthew W. Ragas and Bolivar J. Bueno
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
The Psychology Influence of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD
The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing by George Silverman
The Small-Mart Revolution by Michael H. Shuman
The Stuff Americans Are Made Of by Josh Hammond and James Morrison
The thank you economy by Gary Vanderchuk
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
Think Big Act Small by Jason Jennings **
This is marketing:You can't be seen until you learn to see by Seth Godin
To Catch A Mouse Make A Noise Like A Cheese by Lewis Kornfeld
Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy by Joan Magretta
What Every Body Is Saying
by Joe Navarro and Marvin Karlins
What Women Want by Paco Underhill
Wikinomics by Anthony D. Williams
Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz

Merchandising
1010 Tested Ideas That Move Merchandise by Riched and E.B. Weiss
Call of the Mall by Paco Underhill **
In-Store Signage & Graphics by Larry Ruderman with Athur Ruderman
Lifestyle Stores by Martin M. Pegler
Retail Entertainment by Martin M. Pegler
Retail Superstars by George Whalin **

Sales skills
Amazing Face Reading by Mac Fulfer, JD
Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury
How to Read a Person Like a Book by Gerald I. Nierenberg and Henry H. Calero
It's More Than Words by Harry Perdew, PhD
Sell Yourself First by Thomas A. Freese
SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
The Power of Face Reading by Rose Rosetree
The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy
Words that work by Frank Luntz

Staff management
A carrot a Day by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
Be Quick - But Don't Hurry: Finding Success in the Teachings of a Lifetime by Tim Hill and John Wooten
Coaching for improved work performance
by Ferdinand F. Fournies
Dream Manager by Matthew Kelley
Drive by Daniel H. Pink
Coaching Knock your socks off service by Kristin Anderson and Ron Zemke
Getting Employees to Fall In Love With Your Company by Jim Harris
Generations at Work by Ron Zemke, Claire Raines and Bob Filipczak
Generational Insight by Cam Marston
Here comes everybody by Clay Shirky
Hug your People by Jack Mitchell
I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You by Terri Kabachnick
It's OK to Ask 'Em to Work by Frank McNair **
Keeping Good People by Roger E. Herman
Linchpin by Seth Godin
Motivating the "What's in it for me?" Workforce by Cam Marston **
Nurturing Customer Relationships by Jim Cecil and Eric Rabinowitz
Please don't just do what I tell you! by Bob Nelson **
Rethinking the Sales Force by Neil Rackham and John DeVincentis

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trums Everything Else in Business by Patrick Lencioni
The Ambitious Generation
by Barbara Schneider and David Stevenson
The Carrot Principle by Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton
The No Asshole Rule by Robert I. Sutton
The Southwest Airlines Way by Jody Hoffer Gittell
The Entusiastic Employee by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind and Michael Irwin Meltzer
The Zappos Experience by Joseph Michelli
W*A*Y*M*I*S*H by Ray Considine and Ted Cohn **
When Generations Collide by Lynne C. Lancaster and David Stillman
Why Employees Don't Do What They're Supposed To Do And What To Do About It by Ferdinand F. Fournies **
Who Moved my Cheese? by Spencer Johnson, M.D.

Store design and strategy
Guerrilla Trade Show Selling by Jay Conrad Levinson, Orvel Ray Wilson and Mark Smith
Maximizing Store Impact by Donna Geary
More Retail Details by T. J. Reid
New Retail Power & Muscle by Thomas E. Austin
Retail Details by T.J. Reid
Retail Success by George Whalin
Shops that pop by Pam Danziger
Stop talking, start doing retail branding by John Torella
The Budget Guide to Retail Store Planning & Design by Jeff Grant
Visual Merchandising - The Business of Merchandise Presentation by Robert Colborne
Visual Merchandising Presentation and Display by Linda McKendry
Why People Buy things they don't need by Pamela N. Danziger
Why We Buy by Paco Underhill **

Over the years, Tom has closed each of his presentations with a poem or saying. These sayings are available in the form of posters from this website. Here is the list of all the posters where you can click on the name, and print your own posters.

Clicking on a poster name will open a second window with the printable poster. Simply click "print" on your browser. When you are through printing, close the poster window and you will see this poster list again.

Poster 1

Don't just service what you sell. Service who you sell!

Winners find a way, losers find a reason.

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just stand there.

Every calling is great when greatly pursued.

Poster 5

Poster 6

Poster 8

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

Winners make mistakes, losers make excuses.

Customers are like vowels, you have to buy them, one at a time.

When you bring a problem to my attention, are you bringing a solution with you? Or, are you still a part of the problem?

Poster 9

Poster 10

Poster 11

Poster 12

The road to success is not doing one thing 100 percent better, but doing 100 things one percent better.
Anybody can advertise, but it takes a PRO to promote!

A master sell three things: themselves, the business, a product or service.

Some people see things as they are and say "Why?" But, I dream things that never were and say, "Why not?"

Poster 15

Poster 16

Nothing happens until somebody sells something.

 


Anybody can sell something to a customer one time. A salesperson can bring them back.

 

You may learn from your mistakes, but you profit the most when you learn from someone else's mistakes. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
I do not choose to be a common man (an epitaph) Thanks to my competitors (Poem) If you are unique, you have no competition. If you gain a customer because of your prices, then you will lose that customer because of your prices.
If you are always putting out fires in your business, You may be the one carrying the matches!

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Never forget a customer, Never let a customer forget you! Insanity - Using the same technique to do a task over and over, but expecting different results
Crisis Management - Spending more than 15% of your day solving problems that did not exist when your day started Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. (Quotation by Calvin Coolidge) The Essence of Achievement (Quotation by Theodore Roosevelt) An inadequacy that goes uncorrected sets a new standard
There is no business like show business. But there are several businesses like accounting. Advertising is what you do when you fail to track your existing customers or ask them for referrals! Good Business - If I possessed a shop or store I'd drive the grouches off my floor! I'd never let some gloomy guy Offend the folks who come to buy .... Success is not like spontaneous combustion - you have to set your self on fire!
The Clerk with The Smirk If at first the idea is not absurd, it has no hope of succeeding. Albert Einstein We will never make Amazon.com fun and engaging in the same way as the great physical bookstores are. "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." Senator Everett Dirksen
It is not about waiting for the storm to pass, but about learning to dance in the rain. The better you niche the more you get rich. People do not buy because they understand; they buy because they think you understand. ACES - Around Customers Everybody Sells (Bill Sharp)
If you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid for more than you do If you don’t understand the details of your business you are going to fail The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication
You cannot steer a parked car Deciding when to start is the enemy of starting When a nation of shopkeepers is transformed into a nation of clerks, enormous spiritual sacrifices are made Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.
   
He who becomes a commodity last is the winner If everyone is doing it one way, there's a good chance you can find your niche by    

MARCH 2024
Have the Small Business Conversations, Advisories and News sent to your inbox. Subscribe HERE

Small Business

Conversations

We are taking a break with the Small Business Conversations programs. However, we have the many years of the program cataloged by date on the website.

Small Business

AdvisorieS

The March Small Business Advisory remembers a line from many a western movie; "They went that a-way" and expressions similar to that distract from a business giving great customer service.

Small Business

News

Top Story

The big news item on November 30, 2022 was the advent of ChatGPT; Artificial Intelligence applications which many believe are used exclusively by big businesses.

This does not have to be true as there are many applications we share that have usage in a small business.


Article of the Month

"No plan B"; the subtitle to Van Morrison's Born to Sing album. The idea of no plan B also applies to a small business when you think (or is it when you don't think) about when the time, or opportunity, comes that you can sell your business. Generally speaking, a small business owner gets less money when they decide to close their business.


Book of the Month

"Escape from Cubicle Nation" is the March book of the month. While directed towards those working a corporate job and wanting to become an entrepreneur, we remind readers about utilizing their gut feeling to make decisions in their business.

After all, you did use your gut feeling when you decided to open or purchase your business.

BOOK US

With over 25 years of frontline experience Tom Shay is America's leading Small Business Management Expert. He's a "Must Have" for your next event.

Small Business

Conversations

We are taking a break with the Small Business Conversations programs. However, we have the many years of the program cataloged by date on the website.

Small Business

Advisories

The March Small Business Advisory remembers a line from many a western movie; "They went that a-way" and expressions similar to that distract from a business giving great customer service.

Small Business

News

 

Top Story

The big news item on November 30, 2022 was the advent of ChatGPT; Artificial Intelligence applications which many believe are used exclusively by big businesses.

This does not have to be true as there are many applications we share that have usage in a small business.


Article of the Month

"No plan B"; the subtitle to Van Morrison's Born to Sing album. The idea of no plan B also applies to a small business when you think (or is it when you don't think) about when the time, or opportunity, comes that you can sell your business. Generally speaking, a small business owner gets less money when they decide to close their business.


Book of the Month

"Escape from Cubicle Nation" is the March book of the month. While directed towards those working a corporate job and wanting to become an entrepreneur, we remind readers about utilizing their gut feeling to make decisions in their business.

After all, you did use your gut feeling when you decided to open or purchase your business.