4 Books to Sharpen Your Ninja Marketing Skills

Photo by Ulfur

Well after going through my kindle today I realized I absolutely relish a few solid books that aren’t necessarily about marketing… but boy have they made the difference for me in my approach to marketing!

And whether you’re a marketer or not, you probably have to do some marketing in your lifetime. So peek at the list below. It’s worth it!

1. Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom. Why the heck do people buy… or not buy. Or get addicted or brand-sensitive? Ask someone why they do any of these things and you rarely get the truth. You get what they think is the truth (or what you want to hear). Lindstrom here went ninja on his focus groups and started interviewing their BRAINS. He used neuroscience to study how the brain reacted to different branding messages.
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   Though it’s heady and a bit academic, this book rocked my socks off. It dives deep into the raw and real reasons we buy, and what we respond to at a biological level using scientific studies to map the brain’s behavior and essentially interview the brain about why we do and want certain things, even when we believe we don’t.
2. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink. Whether you’re trying to get your kids to pick up after themselves, your virtual assistant to possess intense passion and desire for your success, or you want to inspire your clients to hire you and stick with you… this book reveals the pitfalls of motivation a la carrot and stick and opens our eyes to the magic of intrinsic motivation.
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   I got some serious ideas for how to ignite the natural motivation already existing in my clients and their audience, helping solve the dreadful dilemma of pricey employee bonuses that yield decreased performance and profits. Any business with employees would erect a shrine in your honor were you to enlighten them to the solutions this book provides for many of their most persistent and common problems.
3. The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. If you’ve had even a  morsel of that tantalizing success called “working for yourself,” then you know what I mean when I say that every friend (including those I didn’t know I had) approaches me at some point to ask how they can learn “how to do what you do.”
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   What I’ve learned through a dozen or so well-meaning but pitifully wasteful attempts to mentor these friends is that the ultimate test for whether they’re serious and whether they can embrace my lifestyle and work ethic is this: that they read The 4-Hour Workweek. I’ve seen it blow the caps off people’s minds and I’ve seen it piss people off who are convinced that traveling the world and 90-day vacations aren’t possible. Sorry folks, but the only limits you face in life are your own. And if you haven’t read this book, I dare say you’re crazy trying to live the freelancing lifestyle without it.
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   Oh and he’s got some savvy marketing tricks and tips throughout the book too!
4. The Culture Code: An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do by Clotaire Rapaille. I have mixed feelings about this book but I think it has several fantastic morsels that help me overlook Rapaille’s clearly opinionated beliefs that are stated as verifiable and irrefutable fact (something I think is highly dangerous particularly when writing something so deep for the average joe or jane).
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   I recommend you read the book with your rebellious nature intact. Don’t take what is written as gospel, but rather take it all in and decide for yourself. For myself, I found the particular culture codes extremely useful for understanding how a product or concept resonates with the market, and the differences he notes between different cultures were also useful. However he often follows these well researched culture codes up with statements extrapolating their meaning beyond the science.
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   While he is more than welcome to do this, I would have appreciated him acknowledging that his extrapolations were merely his opinion, rather than based on his research. For example, where I completely buy into the idea that the French code for cheese is “Alive” he then extrapolates that the American code for cheese is “Death” because we pasteurize and wrap our cheese and store it in a morgue-like refrigerator. Oh yeah, and he’s French. So just beware his own culture codes that affect his perspective. Otherwise it’s a solidly beneficial read.

Enjoy slinking through those shadows now you sly ninja you… just remember I’m a ninja too.

Hiyaaa!