The 15 books I Highly Recommend to My Contractor Clients

October 24, 2024
Category: General

by Bill Silverman

This week marks my 15th anniversary as a business coach. So, to celebrate I decided to give you a gift.
Over the last 15 years I’ve read hundreds of business books, but only a few of these books are given a prized spot on the small bookcase that I have on my desk. These are the books that I refer to often, and often recommend to my clients because they can make a significant impact on their business success and life balance.

So, without further ado… drum roll please… here’s the list:

1. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey: Classic book on personal leadership and on taking personal responsibility for your life (and business) to make them what you want them to be. My favorite. Literally changed my life!

2. E-Myth by Michael Gerber. This book is a classic and needs to be on everyone’s list! Terrific book on how to make a small business successful. Coined the term “Work on your business not in it.” Talks about the importance of having repeatable processes and treating your business like it was the first unit of a franchise. If you haven’t read it…Read it!

3. Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish. A straightforward, no BS book on creating and actually using a plan to run your business successfully.

4. Traction by Gino Wickman. If you’ve grown your business by doing everything, making every decision, and solving every problem and now that “I do everything” management approach is no longer working for you, read traction. It explains how to run your business though your managers, just like the CEOs of major corporations. The result will be a growing, profitable business that can run without you!

5. The Accounting Game by Darrell Mullis and Judith Orloff. If you’re a little hazy about how your financials work, get this book! It’s a short, simple, and fun workbook that shows where the money goes in your business. Don’t let the fact that it looks like it’s made for a kid turn you off. It’s the best learning tool I’ve found for understanding your financials!

6. Rapid Problem Solving with Post-it Notes by David Straker. One of my absolute favorites on how to use Post-it notes to solve all sorts of problems. I use the techniques in this book all the time with my clients.

7. Little Voice Mastery by Blair Singer. We all have little voices in our head that berate us and hold us back. This book contains 21 simple techniques that you can use to blow past the little voices and the fear to get more done. Powerful!

8. The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken, and Hal Burrows. This quick book shows how you take all types of projects from your employees (the authors call these “Monkeys”) without even realizing it. And because you’re doing so much of their work, you don’t have time to do your own! The book shows you what to do to about the monkeys to save you time and make your team more personally responsibility for getting their jobs done. Eye opening!

9. Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury: This is the classic book on win-win negotiating. It teaches you how to solve negotiating problems so that everyone wins by defining your needs and the needs of whomever you’re negotiating with, so that you can create a solution where everyone wins. Creating “win-win” solutions is a great life skill that I use in all areas of my life. It relates to customer service, recruiting resolving employee problems…everywhere in your life!

10. Ownership Thinking by Brad Hams. The subtitle of Ownership Thinking says it all “How to End Entitlement and Create a Culture of Accountability, Purpose, and Profit.” The book describes why most employees don’t think like an owner and what you can do to promote ownership thinking in your business. Chapter 2 “How to Create Incentive Plans That Work!” is my favorite. Many of my clients have improved their businesses significantly by implementing all company incentive plans inspired by this book.

11. 8-Minute Meditation by Victor Davich. I have trouble focusing and staying on task. I used to think that there was nothing I could do about it. But I was wrong. Through the 8-Minute Meditation book I learned how to let random thoughts go so I can keep focused. If you’re interested in trying meditation, this book makes it easy by giving one new technique a week that you do for 8 minutes each day. If you want to learn to focus and get more done, this book is for you. Your attention span will be grateful to you!

12. The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. The Big Leap is a book about how to take our lives to the next level of happiness and fulfillment. The main idea in the book is that we all have an unconscious “happiness thermostat” that is set at a certain happiness level. Each time our happiness rises above our happiness thermostat setting, we do things to knock ourselves down. They call this “the upper limit problem.”

The reason that I like The Big Leap so much is that it clearly describes the many unconscious ways that we “upper limit” ourselves, so that we can identify which ones we do to ourselves. The book also shows how to raise your happiness thermostat setting. It’s made a big difference for me!

13. Do Nothing by J. Keith Murnigham. The premise of Do Nothing is that to become a great leader you need to stop overmanaging. As Murnigham says in the book “The key insight here is simple: you will be a more effective leader if, rather than doing the work yourself, you let other people do it. In other words, stop doing and start leading.” When you do the work for others you shrink their abilities and make your business worse. When you lead others and let them do the work, you grow their abilities and make your business better. It’s a simple, but not easy idea. Read Do Nothing to learn how to make it happen.

14. The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg. This book is a gem! In 18 short chapters and 103 pages Landsberg shows you how to coach your team to improve their skills and your business results!

15. How to Make Meetings Work by Michael Doyle and David Strauss. Another gem! This book not only teaches you how to run great meetings, but also how to be an effective facilitator, with the tools to facilitate group problem solving and brainstorming meetings that produce great results.

Pick up one of these books and start reading. You’ll be glad that you did!

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