In My TBR Stack:

Pitch Like Hollywood: What You Can Learn From the High-Stakes Film Industry

by Peter Desberg and Jeffery Davis

McGraw Hill

Hardcover

From the book publicity:

From impromptu elevator pitches to full-board presentations, sales and marketing professionals face an “audience” daily―often with make-or-break consequences. As the person delivering the performance, you need to know you have a great script and are able to maintain composure throughout.

To help you perfect both pitch and performance, there are no better coaches than clinical psychologist Peter Desberg and writer/producer Jeffrey Davis. With experience and insights from both the film industry and the corporate world, they understand the pitch process.

In Pitch Like Hollywood, they show you how to up your game substantially ―no matter what business you’re in―by incorporating elements of a classic Hollywood pitch: driving emotion, piquing curiosity, and ultimately winning over decision makers with powerful persuasion and performance. They take you on an insider’s tour of the entire process, from defining the fundamentals to designing effective presentation strategies to overcoming stage fright.

With chapters that include Persuasion Boot Camp, The Pitch Panic Cycle, and Creating the Pitch II (The Sequel), Pitch Like Hollywood provides a front-row seat in a master class on giving great performances for any audience, every time―at board meetings, sales calls, and whenever else you want to make a case to get the results you want.

In My TBR Stack:

 All Are Welcome: How to Build a Real Workplace Culture of Inclusion That Delivers Results

by Cynthia Owyoung

McGraw Hill

Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Studies prove that companies with more diversity in their ranks are more innovative, expand their markets, and perform better financially. Why, then, has so little progress been made, especially when it comes to corporate leadership? Because most companies have yet to develop and implement effective diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives. And the ones that have too often focus mainly on hiring a diversity of staff or rolling out unconscious bias training without improving results. 

DEIB expert Cynthia Owyoung has spent more than two decades working in this space. She’s seen it all, and she knows what works—and what doesn’t. In All Are Welcome, Owyoung explains what DEIB is and why it matters, and she delivers the information and insights you need to make DEIB a key element of your company culture. You’ll learn how to:

• Break old habits that keep DEIB efforts from moving forward
• Retain talent from underrepresented groups 
• Conduct an audit of the state of DEIB at your company today
• Engage and excite leaders and managers around DEIB efforts
• Weave DEIB into all your talent pool management methods
• Uplevel employee resource groups to effectively support business goals 
• Measure your progress with qualitative and quantitative data
• Connect your DEIB efforts to driving better business results

DEIB begins but doesn’t end with hiring. When you deeply understand all the nuances of diversity, equity, inclusiveness, and belonging, you’ll be able to put them all together for a better, more productive, and happier workplace. 

With All Are Welcome, you have everything you need to build a workforce and a company designed to compete in the twenty-first century while doing your part to make the world a better place to live—and work.

Coming Soon:

Unfear: Transform Your Organization to Create Breakthrough Performance and Employee Well-Being

Available November 18th, 2021
by Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas
McGraw Hill Education
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

Fear and uncertainty have been undermining performance and well-being in the workplace for as long as we have had workplaces. Here’s a little-known fact of business: mismanaged fear is responsible for almost all of the dysfunction that most organizations experience. While fear can drive short-term results, it does so at the cost of high employee burnout and turnover. It also undermines long-term business performance. But we can’t eradicate it entirely; it is inherent to the human condition. Winning organizations aren’t fear-free; they know how to reframe fear into opportunities for learning and growth. They create resilient cultures of unfear.

In this timely and essential guide, McKinsey alumni Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas show leaders:

The impact of fear, its biological underpinnings, and the archetypes through which it is expressed as patterns of behavior in organizations
The strategies, techniques, and actions to bring about an unfear transformation
The process begins with yourself—how to become an unfear individual
Transformation doesn’t start with systems and structures but with mindsets and behavior—how to build unfear teams
Employee well-being leads to high performance for your business—how to build unfear organizations

This proven approach to workplace anxiety reduces stress, boosts engagement, and overcomes obstacles that get in the way of success. It leads to personal rewards greater profits, and sustainable growth. This is only possible with a culture of unfear.

In My TBR Stack:

The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave
by Robbie Kellman Baxter
McGraw Hill Education
Hardcover


From the publisher's website:

More and more companies are concluding that the potential rewards of subscription-based products and services are worth the risk of radically changing their business models. They’re correct. The Membership Economy is here and it’s here to stay—and if you want to compete for the long run, you need to join it.  

Strategy consultant Robbie Kellman Baxter has been helping companies excel in this business environment for more than a decade. Now, in The Forever Transaction, she reveals all her secrets. Whatever industry you’re in, Baxter provides the inspiration, tools, and insight you need to build and execute a business model that will leave your competition in the dust. 

You’ll find out how industry leaders like Under Armour, Microsoft, and Netflix have created an ever-expanding customer base of loyal subscribers?and are keeping them coming back. You’ll learn how to lead your organization through every step of the process?from initial start-up to new product testing, scaling for long-term growth and sustainability to revamping your culture so everyone works together to optimize customer lifetime value. You’ll also master all the essentials of succeeding in the Membership Economy, like subscription pricing, Software-as-a-Service, digital community engagement, and freemium incentives as a way to turn casual browsers into cash-paying super-users.

With The Forever Transaction, you have everything you need to build durable, long-term relationships with every customer, and leverage them for ultimate business success?today, tomorrow, and forever.

In My TBR Stack:

Get to Aha!: Discover Your Positioning DNA and Dominate Your Competition
by Andy Cunningham
McGraw Hill
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Andy Cunningham has been at the forefront of tech and innovation since day one, and she’s been helping companies create new product categories ever since. Now she reveals the winning framework she uses to transform markets and industries.

Get to Aha! shows how to establish the kind of foundation world-class brands are built on. Too many business leaders fail to ask the most basic questions about their company—Who are we? And why do we matter?—before they leap right into branding. Big mistake. A company must first know itself (establish its position) before it can express its identity (execute its branding). 

There are three types of companies in the world, each with its own DNA: Mothers are customer-oriented, Mechanics are product-oriented, and Missionaries are concept-oriented?and it’s absolutely critical for business leaders to know which type their company is to create an authentic and ultimately “sticky” position in the market. A company’s DNA is the key to achieving this and with it, a competitive advantage. Why? Because if a Mechanic creates a marketing campaign based on its belief that it is a Missionary, the underlying positioning will not ring true and the company won’t gain a foothold in the market. But if a company positions itself in alignment with its DNA, it will resonate authentically and establish its role and relevance even in the face of a major competitor.

Get to Aha! presents a clear step-by-step framework that will help you determine your company’s precise position in the marketing landscape, using Andy’s DNA-based methodology. It takes you through the process of performing “genetic testing” on your company, examining the market through the six Cs of positioning, and developing your positioning statement—a rational, factual statement about your company’s role and relevance. Then and only then can you create a branding and marketing strategy that will build market momentum and crush the competition.  

Trust Andy. Steve Jobs did.

In My TBR Stack:

High Velocity Hiring: How to Hire Top Talent in an Instant
by Scott Wintrip
McGraw Hill Education
Hardcover

From the publisher's website:

Win the war for talent by building an army of ready-to-deploy candidates

An employee leaves and you post the open position. Resumes trickle in. You interview a few candidates. No one fits the bill. The next thing you know, three months have passed and that desk is still empty . . .

Nothing drives business success like a staff of talented, productive employees. So why accept a hiring process that fails you time and time again? 

Well, there’s one person who doesn’t: Scott Wintrip. And in High-Velocity Hiring, he provides the tools and systems for creating a hiring process designed for today’s fast-paced, talent-deficient landscape. Using the proven methods Wintrip has applied at some of today’s more forward-thinking companies, you’ll hire top employees faster—and smarter.   

High-Velocity Hiring replaces the old, worn-out way of hiring with the simple but revolutionary approach of actively cultivating top talent before positions open. The old way is slow and inefficient. Wintrip’s way is dynamic and proven-effective. You’ll enrich and maintain a flow of high-quality candidates, harness this flow by identifying the most talented people, and channel it into a pool of ready-to-hire prospective employees.

More than ever, hiring the best people requires foresight, planning, alertness, and decisive action. With High-Velocity Hiring, you have everything you need to seize the high-ground in the war for talent and maintain it for long-term growth and profitability.