Episode #31: Top 10 Authors for Marketers
In this episode, Kelly shares with Julia the story of her 2020 commitment to read a business book a week and shares her favorite authors, books, and quotes for inspiration.
Top 10 Authors for Marketers Episode Recap
In this episode, Kelly and Julia delve into the world of marketing books and their influence on marketers. Kelly’s remarkable commitment to reading one business book a week during the pandemic has led to a wealth of knowledge and insights that she’s excited to share with our listeners. Here are Kelly’s top 10 authors for marketers:
1. Al Ries and Jack Trout: Known as the world’s best marketing strategists, they wrote “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind,” which explains the concept of positioning and how to differentiate a company from its competitors.
2. Seth Godin: A well-known marketing guru, his book “Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?” emphasizes the importance of being indispensable in organizations and creating remarkable futures.
3. Simon Sinek: Famous for his TED Talk “Start with Why,” he delves into the concept of finding one’s purpose and using it to inspire others, both in personal and organizational contexts.
4. Bernadette Jiwa: An Australian storytelling advisor, her books like “Marketing: A Love Story” focus on differentiating oneself through brand storytelling and adding value.
5. Daniel Kahneman: A psychologist and economist, his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” explores the psychology of judgment and decision-making, discussing intuitive and deliberate thought processes.
6. Daniel H. Pink: A data-driven researcher, his book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” delves into the science of timing and making better decisions.
7. Adam Grant: An organizational psychologist, his books like “Originals” and “Give and Take” talk about success coming from how we approach interactions with others and our reciprocity styles.
8. Malcolm Gladwell: A popular author and storyteller, his books like “Outliers” and “The Tipping Point” present fascinating insights on various topics.
9. Chip Heath and Dan Heath: Brothers who wrote “Made to Stick” and “Switch,” exploring the concepts of stickiness and how to make change easier.
10. Scott Galloway: An NYU professor, entrepreneur, and author, his books like “The Four” and “Post Corona” discuss the impact of tech giants on our lives and predictions on the post-pandemic business environment.
These authors cover a wide range of topics, from marketing strategies and business success to psychology, storytelling, and personal development, making them valuable resources for marketers and individuals looking to enhance their knowledge and skills.
Episode Transcript:
Julia
Welcome to the Two Marketing Moms Podcast. Today is kind of a special episode for Kelly and I because I get to interview her about her amazing ability to read, comprehend, remember, and apply everything she learns in marketing books. And she’s going to talk a little bit about her commitment that started pretty much at the beginning of the pandemic to read one business book a week. So, for this podcast, she has boiled it down to, drumroll please, her top 10 favorite authors for marketers. Take it away, Kelly.
Kelly
Are you ready? I have organized my authors here.
Julia
They look so great.
Kelly
…that are my favorites. I don’t have all their books because some of them I read digitally, but my top 10 marketing authors are as follows Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Simon Sinek, Bernadette Jiwa, Daniel H. Pink, Adam Grant, Scott Galloway, Chip Heath and his brother, Dan Heath, Al Ries and Jack Trout, and Daniel Kahneman.
Julia
And I like several of these and have read over a very long amount of time some of these books. Kelly is a power reader. And the fact that she reads actual paper books is so impressive in my book.
Kelly
Oh, it only has to do with my age, because I can’t really see the digital.
Julia
Okay, so let’s dive on. That’s a dive in, because this podcast is really to talk about to give your recommendations for what should marketers be reading? What will have an impact on their practice of marketing. So, what authors should new marketers read when they are just starting out?
Kelly
So, I would start and this is not in my stack, because I read it so long ago. But I would start with Al Ries and Jack Trout. They’re known as the world’s best marketing strategists; they are credited with resurrecting the idea of positioning their book called Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind basically explains what positioning is. And we all know that positioning is creating a position in your prospects mind that reflects your company’s strengths, that is differentiated from your competitors. So that one is the first one that I would start with, but I would follow that up with one that I really love, which is called The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. And they also created a version of that called The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. And I’m going to give you a couple of their fun tips.
One of them is that you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category that you can be first in.
Marketing is not a battle of products. It’s a battle of perception.
Julia
Oh, 100%. I agree with that.
Kelly
One more, two companies cannot own the same word in a prospects mind.
Julia
Mm hmm. Okay, that is really good.
Kelly
It’s really for just kind of get an intro into marketing, those are kind of giving that those books kind of give you the parameters of where to start and kind of get you excited about marketing? Because once you know the rules, and you can play around with them.
Julia
Yeah, because one of my questions for you is if those are for new marketers? What are the foundations that these books offer to a marketer that they literally can use every day in their job?
Kelly
Well, that’s the entire reason why we exist. The entire reason why marketers exist is so that we can help our clients differentiate themselves from their competitors. And so that’s called “positioning” it’s called “unique selling proposition”. Simon Sinek calls it “your why” so there’s a whole range of different authors and experts who talk about how you differentiate yourself. And that’s the key to what we do. And if you can’t differentiate one company, organization, nonprofit from another, then you’re not a successful marketer.
Julia
And often our clients come to us not knowing how to do it and we have to help them do it.
Kelly
Which is my favorite part of my job.
Julia
Me too, me too. Totally. So, how has studying like this is a huge topic in marketing books, the psychology that we have to understand, the end user of our clients, products/services, whatever that is, right? So how is studying psychology helped you in advertising?
Kelly
So, I try to study any of the psychologists, behavior or organizational change behaviorists, economists, anything that has to do with understanding buyer perceptions, and motivations. How do people make decisions? And at what stage in the buying cycle? How do they make decisions, what levers you push? Is it emotional? Is it rational, etc.? And there’s many, many, many authors who study this.
But the top four for me are Daniel Kahneman, Daniel Pink, Adam Grant, and Malcolm Gladwell. Those are my top four authors in this arena. And I would probably start with Daniel Kahneman, because he’s one that really kind of blew my mind when I first read his book. He’s a psychologist. He’s an economist. He’s most notable for his book called Thinking Fast and Slow, which is really on the science of the psychology of judgment and decision making. And so, it really kind of explores the two systems that control how we think and act, one of them is fast and intuitive and emotional, and the other one is slower and more deliberate and logical. And this book kind of discusses the pros and cons of both and teaches us when to trust our intuition, and when to rely on slower, more logical decision making. So, he’s my first one. And he has a new book out called Noise that I have not read. But it is on my list. And anything he writes, kind of blows me away.
Daniel Pink, a DC resident, is one of my one of my favorites, as well. He’s a data driven researcher, he’s one of the top 10 TED talks of all time, which most of these authors do. And his book is called When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, that shows how to use science to make better decisions. And we talked about this on our productivity episode. So, he talks about the three different types of people. The larks — the morning people, the owls — the night people, and the third bird –which is everyone else, which is most common. I’m an owl. What about you, Julia?
Julia
Oh, I’m definitely a lark.
Kelly
Figured that. This involves every aspect of our lives. When your mood rises in the morning, at the peak, your most productive time, we talked about this in our productivity episode, is between 7 and 11, that’s when you really need to hit the most important thing that you need to address during your day right? To the trough. He calls it the trough which is when our mood declines, and that’s midafternoon anywhere from two to four. And we also talked about how there’s various studies on when the least productive time in the day, and it really varies. It’s anywhere from 2:22 in the afternoon to 3:15. Bottom line is you need to avoid the trough for any sort of important things that you’re working on. It’s actually when the most car accidents happen from 2 to 4 pm. And so that all the way through your recovery which happens later when your mood boosts back up in the evening, and that’s when I become happier as well. And so, you just really kind of need to focus on what is based on your mood type, and he also did a Masterclass. I don’t know if anyone’s a fan of Masterclass, I think you pay $200 a year and you get access to all these wonderful authors and writers and directors and they teach master classes. And he did one on sales and persuasion. And I think there was like 24 lessons. And did you know Julia, that sales and sales related activities make up about 40% of our job? Or 24 minutes of every hour?
Julia
I did not know, but I absolutely believe it. Because sometimes I feel like 90%, I’m sure you can relate Kelly, of our jobs are sales, especially this week. And we’re going to do an episode on that. Actually, I was looking at our schedule and a couple of episodes, we’re going to talk about why every marketer needs to be a salesperson.
Kelly
It’s absolutely true. Kind of the least favorite part of my job. We’ll talk about that in that episode.
Julia
See, there’s so much to say.
Kelly
I know. Adam Grant is next. And he’s an organizational psychologist. He’s a professor at Wharton. He also has a top TED talk. He has several famous book Originals, Think Again, and Give and Take. And I just finished his book Think Again. And this is relevant right now about what’s happening in the world. And his thesis is that the world is not black and white. There are shades of grey and our ideas and our beliefs can and should be reevaluated and shifted over time. And we do this by surrounding ourselves with others who will not just support us but challenge our thought process, which is why I like working together as partners because we do challenge each other.
And the next book that I think you should read if you haven’t Julia, is his book Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, and his premise is that success comes not only from hard work talent and luck, but also how we approach our interactions with other people. And so, he categorizes people into givers, takers, and matchers. And he demonstrates shifts from one reciprocity style to another indifferent relationships. And he says the givers are actually more likely to climb the top of the success ladder due to their ability to build networks, to collaborate, influence, and to help others achieve their potential. Again, another reason because we’re both pretty much givers, right, Julia?
Julia
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I feel like the more that I give, the more I get back. 100%.
Kelly
That’s why we have this podcast? And then the last one on the organizational psychologist side of things is one of your favorites, Malcolm Gladwell.
Julia
Be still my heart. Malcolm is my favorite person. He’s probably my favorite author. I don’t read I read like 2% as much as Kelly reads and in that 2%, is like 50% Malcolm Gladwell.
Kelly
What book is your favorite?
Julia
I actually think my favorite is Outliers. I don’t even like football. And nor do I like Tom Brady. But the fact that he opens with Tom Brady’s story, and that he is an outlier, was just so fascinating. I just think Malcolm Gladwell is just a magical storyteller. He knows how to do it. And his podcast Revisionist History is definitely one of my number ones. Lately, he had a couple of months ago an episode about laundry, and the right way to do your laundry, and how brands are figuring out the psychology of consumer behavior around washing their laundry, and they’re actually changing soaps to be more energy efficient and better on your clothes. And he did this whole study of people, do they use cold or warm? What do you use, Kelly?
Kelly
I think I use cold.
Julia
Good. That is what you’re supposed to use. Anyways, it was just such a fascinating podcast. He also has one about a three-part series on The Little Mermaid where he interviews a lot of lawyers about their feelings about the justice in the story. I mean, I could go on forever. So, there you go.
Kelly
Now he has some controversy around him. There’s been a couple of controversies. Number one was about the 10,000-hour rule, whereby you need 10,000 hours, if you’re a violinist or an athlete or anyone in order to be considered a professional or an expert, and that has kind of since been debunked. But the premises is there. And the other one was, he had some controversy over his last book that he wrote, which I didn’t include in here Talking to Strangers.
Julia
Yeah, there was some there was a couple of chapters, I had to skip the one about war crimes.
Kelly
Yeah, so that was more of a challenge. But I think my three favorite are Tipping point, Blink, and Outliers, all three were worth reading. And he also has a Masterclass on writing and worth checking out. And I have seen him speak in person, which was quite fun. O
So, I’m going to skip down to one that belongs in this category. But I didn’t mention that upfront. And that’s really authors from 20 years back, Chip and Dan Heath, the brothers, they wrote Made to Stick: While Some Ideas Survive and Other Die. The whole idea of stickiness. And Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard.
Julia
Made to Stick is an old book. It’s a classic book.
Kelly
And Malcolm Gladwell has talked a lot about stickiness as well.
Julia
Yes. It’s stickiness and Tipping Point, I think kind of go together. Okay, so out of your list. Who were you the most surprised by?
Kelly
I was going to pull the books to show you but I don’t want to ruin my lovely pile. So, Bernadette Jiwa — see these little teeny adorable books here? I’ve got her nestled underneath Seth Godin, because I learned about Bernadette Jiwa from Seth Godin had written an article or was interviewed and asked about his favorite marketing author’s and it was her and I hadn’t heard of before. She’s Australian. I feel like she’s one of the best kept secrets in marketing. Let me just read you some of her titles, Marketing: A Love Story, Meaningful, Story Driven, Make Your Idea Matter. Her books — you could read all of them in one night. They’re little. They’re adorable, lovely prose. And she calls herself a storytelling advisor or a story skills trainer. And she really helps people tell stories that set them and their companies apart. And in all she’s written 10 books, but my favorite one is this – Marketing: A Love Story. And she talks about how to differentiate and add value by telling a better brand story. And she says, “If we show people that we care there, they care back.” One of the lines that I love that she wrote is “great content doesn’t feel like marketing. It feels like a gift.” And we’ve talked about this idea of gifts in advertising that we talked about before. And so, if you’ve fallen out of love with marketing, and you want to fall back in, read Bernadette Jiwa.
Julia
Oh, how could you ever fall out of love with marketing? Also, she is the only woman on your list. Maybe one day we’ll do a whole episode just about women authors.
Kelly
Yeah. And I wanted to put in Carol Dweck, who wrote Mindset. But I had to focus on my top 10. Yes, female authors are also extremely important. And we should definitely do an episode on women.
Julia
Yes. Okay. So, you know, we usually spend so much time at the beginning of our podcast, building up, right. And so, we kind of buried at this time. So, I wanted to go back to why we did this episode. And it’s because of your commitment to read a book a week at the beginning of the pandemic. So, Kelly, why did you commit to something so challenging and crazy?
Kelly
I don’t know.
Julia
You love a challenge?
Kelly
Well, I think it’s the same reason we started this podcast, which was around the same time really, I started the read the book a week challenge. Before that, there was this quote that I was inspired by Warren Buffett, and he said, “Read 500 pages every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest, all of you can do it. But I guarantee you, not many of you can do it. But I guarantee not many of you will do it.” And that’s a pretty major commitment.
So, I thought one step down from that is a book a week. And you know, when I started to learn about it, there’s a hashtag about and a lot of people try and take that challenge. And I committed to doing that after I didn’t have to do my long, 45 minute to an hour commute, because I had more time. And the reason why I did it is because I felt like I wanted to stay sharp, and reading is helps me stay sharp. So, if I’m not in an environment with, with co- workers around me, and people stimulating me and learning from others, and I’m not going to conferences, right, I have to get ideas from someplace. And so, I get most of my ideas now from books.
And that’s why I started to read and the benefits for me are really, getting away from my four kids and a dog and hiding in my room and getting my alone time. And so, it’s stress reduction. It’s idea generation and, improving my writing. And then I started the Williams Whittle Media Club, hashtag #WWMedia Club if you go on Twitter. I have probably 100 books in media that I’ve read, and I do reviews of on a weekly basis so that people can decide which books they want to check out. And they’re all in this venue of work type books and marketing related books. But I also look at masterclasses and podcasts and videos, and all sorts of things, but books are really my favorite. And again, it’s really just to kind of challenge myself and it’s also become a vehicle for me to connect with others, which I didn’t expect with because then once I started going, I’ve started to have authors connect with me on social and several of them thanking me for the book reviews, but also, authors are sending me books now. I actually have a queue of books that I need to look at to review.
Julia
Well, actually, this podcast is going to drop as your two-year celebration of your commitment.
Kelly
Yeah, you’re right. Crazy, I continue it today. I think that was the interesting thing is it became a habit and I might not be doing it necessarily every single week, but definitely every other week. And it’s just you when you start doing it, it’s something that you integrate in your life. Now I just need to work on exercise.
Julia
You’ve replaced yoga with book reading?
Kelly
No, I still do yoga. I need to start running again.
Julia
All right. Well, I think it’s super impressive. It’s something that I just would never commit to, because I read like two pages of a book every night. And then I am fast asleep. So major props, Kelly. So, let’s move on to your absolute favorites. Because these are definitely some of my favorites. And between them, they’ve read me they’ve written a ton of books, and they’re probably some of the most well-known.
Kelly
That’s correct. Seth Godin, and Simon Sinek are my top two. And so, let’s talk about Seth first. I think I really became obsessed with Seth when he started, he committed 20 years ago to write a blog a day. He writes every single day. And you know, so if you want inspiration, subscribe to his daily blog. But his marketing books are some of the most well-known and there’s so many that we can talk about.
I think my favorite is Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to drive Your Career and Create a Remarkable Future. And it’s obvious what the meaning of this is, how it’s more essential than ever to become indispensable. And linchpins make things happen in organizations, they create order out of chaos, they love their work, they pour themselves into it, they get the best jobs, they have the most freedom. And so, being indispensable and being a linchpin has always been my North Star for my career since I read that book, and that one is my all-time favorite, but I know you also love Seth Godin? And you have a quote that you love from one of his books?
Julia
Oh, yes. “The key to success is to find a way to stand out to be the Purple Cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins.” And, that’s something that I live by standing out. One of the best forms of flattery or the best compliment you can give me is that you love my company branding. Because I live, I breathe it, it’s all about standing out. And even like, the clothing that I wear is bright, and I just, I really live that quote.
Kelly
I love that. I mean, again, it goes back to the positioning discussion that we talked about, and how your brand stands out from the rest. And, you know, Seth states that “companies must build things worth noticing right into their products and services and make something remarkable.” So, we could do a whole episode on Seth. But I’m going to move away from Seth and talk about next about Simon Sinek. Julia, you have a Simon Sinek story, don’t you?
Julia
Well, no, I think it’s more of a story for marketers, like when I was introduced to Simon Sinek years ago from his TED talk about finding your why, right? So, Simon, everyone should look this up on YouTube, if you have not seen it, it is a must. And he really talks about how that TED Talk in particular talks about how you’re going to keep employees, how to build a company culture, right? And I think about that a lot as I build my business and have, more people within my circle that I work with on a regular basis. I have a I have a full-time team member and it’s really not about the work, right? Like we love marketing. It’s not really about the clients, we love our clients. We love their missions. We love what they’re doing. It’s really about like getting just personal satisfaction out of it. That’s kind of one of my cultural tenants.
But anyways, I like to take this why what he calls the Golden Circle. I like to apply it to clients. When I first meet with a client, one of the best exercises to go with through with them is “what is your what?”, “what is your how?” and “what is your WHY?” and Simon is right on. Normally, people are absolutely doing it the opposite way they should be. And it’s a really low key non- confrontational, helpful tool for clients. But then I feel like really makes them feel empowered to really embrace who they are, and get to that, why faster when they talk. And, that’s also part of the love of what I do is like when people when they have that little tiny lightbulb moment, and you can just help them get to that next level is just so exciting. So that’s my Simon story. But you probably have a lot more to say about Simon.
Kelly
No, I’m just going to mention that I saw Simon speak right before the pandemic hit like the week before in 2020. I got second row tickets. That’s how much of a geek I am. Second row tickets. It was a full house to see Simon Sinek. And let me just paint the picture. His branding, he was wearing jeans, and on the jeans in orange stitching, it has the word “inspire”.
Julia
Oh, oh. Only people who see him in person would know that.
Kelly
Yes. And they were selling T-shirts that said “Inspire”. And I think the whole point of his why concept is when you get to the why, that’s the inspiring part of what you do, right. And that’s what leaders need to leverage their employees behind and give them a reason to want to be a part of a company and want to spread the word and he gave us these little quote cards. There was like a little letter from him when you arrived and about what he’s going to do for the evening. The symbol that he has on his logo, but the quote on this card says “Life is beautiful, not because of the things we see, or the things we do life is beautiful because of the of the people we meet.” That’s one of his little quotes.
Julia
Where did you see him?
Kelly
I don’t remember it was it was in downtown DC. I don’t remember. But it was a it was a great experience. And it was funny to have second row seats, too.
Julia
So cool. Okay, so to wrap up our podcast, I’m going to ask you who gives you the most laughs and who was the most entertaining of these 10 authors?
Kelly
That’s an easy one. I adore Scott Galloway. Prof. G. If you haven’t heard of Scott Galloway, I’m not sure what planet you’re living on. He’s a NYU professor. He’s an entrepreneur. He’s the co- host of Pivot with Kara Swisher and the Prof G Podcast, the author of No Mercy/No Malice, his take on tech and relationships in the digital economy. And he is just so much fun to listen to. Because when you listen to him on his podcast or see him, in video, he writes how he talks. So, when you read any of his books, you read it with that seem sarcastic no bull type, response, and I love it. And, and I think everyone needs to read a couple of his books. The first one is The Four, I don’t know where it went here. It’s here somewhere, the Four which is really to have an understanding of how Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have truly permeated every aspect of our lives over the last 20 years.
His other book that he recently wrote called Post Corona is a quick read. And it really gives you an idea of his predictions which he loves to do predictions on how the pandemic will reshape the business environment. In increasing focus on health, digital marketing, the impact of privacy laws, and Amazon’s potential leap into healthcare. Imagine if Prime health expanded to give members access to the right physician, right now, at a lower cost, and a prescription could be delivered through Amazon’s own fulfillment along with your COVID vaccine? That’s the future of health.
Julia
Sounds like Theranos.
Kelly
Yeah, exactly. But my favorite of his which is actually a little off brand for him is The Algebra of Happiness. And that’s up here. And it’s a small book, and it’s really lovely. And it really provides a formula for happiness, based on his personal experiences being both a father and a son and his professional experience. And one of the premises is happiness = family. So that’s a great concept in terms of what makes everyone happy and so I agree with that, and I know you do as well, Happiness does equal family.
Julia
He talks about happiness a lot in his enewsletter. I think a lot of the reason why people might not know about Scott Galloway is because of their age because he founded Red Envelope. Did you know this, Kelly?
Kelly
I did because I was a huge fan of Red Envelope back in the day.
Julia
And then when I read his personal story about the crash of that was, wow. I mean, he lived, he lived the.com life back then I find those stories personally fascinating. Another good book about happiness is written by one of my favorite authors that lives here in DC with us, the owner of the Washington Capitals, my favorite sports team. Among other things, Ted Leonsis, and he wrote a book and signed it for me called the Business of Happiness.
Kelly
Oh, I’m adding that to my list.
Julia
I think it will just take the ball from Scott Galloway, the Algebra of Happiness, and it will just continue you on and it’s a lot about his personal journey. And, you know, when he almost lost his life in a plane.
Kelly
I have to add one more — The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor, also a great one. So, we could go on and on all the way great books.
Julia
Let’s talk about everyone who talks about happiness. Well, it’s a perfect way to end because we want you to be happy and read books and learn more. And we will link all these books and these authors in our social posts, so be sure to follow us on Instagram or Twitter @twomtgmoms, wherever you get your social.
Kelly
I will include some of our favorite quotes from each of them as well in our social on this one.
Julia
Oh, we will. We’re busy every day. Thanks Kelly.
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