Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

My candidate would be "Kotler on Marketing" by Dr. Philip Kotler. Everyone who is serious about marketing should have read that at least once.

Newer books might include Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and "Blink!"; and Seth Godin's "Permission Marketing." These are technically not textbooks, but many b-schools require them. Seth Godin's other books are interesting and may be useful, but they are not as meaty as "Permission Marketing."

Also, if you haven't read Theodor Levitt's "Marketing Myopia," you should be sure to read that. It's more of an article than a book, and it's still required reading at all the major business schools (e.g., Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Wharton, Krannert, Duke, Dartmouth, etc., etc.) -- after 40 years!

Hope this helps.

Anything by Seth Godin would be good. I also enjoyed both The Tipping Point and Blink..but these are more about understanding human behavior, not specifically marketing. Honestly, you can request a book list from any university program you're interested in attending...or just following their example!

Good Luck,
Debi Brady
Writing & Marketing Consultant

Guerilla Marketing woull be my vote...

I too like Blink and the tipping point, but they are more like fun reads you should read after your studies....

Anything by Daniel Pink gets a vote too...

Most of the authors mentioned have web sites with blogs. I would start reading those blogs. Here are two a few additional blogs you might want to read.

https://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/selling/atom.xml
https://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/atom.xml
https://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/atom.xml
https://feeds.feedburner.com/ChiefMarketerNews

You can just place these links in your RSS reader.

These tend to be very current while some "text" books may not reflect the current marketing and sales situation.

Hope this helps.

I'm actually not sure where this fits in as far as text books go, but MProfs member cread recommended to me "The E-myth Revisited" by Michael Gerber. He said you can pick it up on Amazon used for less than $10.00. I am actually waiting for my copy to come in the mail; the reviews for this book are excellent.

Best Regards,

Jennifer
XPRT Creative

Great question, so here's the answer from my Wharton days. These are text books meant to be reference materials, not currently over-hyped business press books:

PHILIP KOTLER ON MARKETING MANAGEMENT.

This is the one book you want to read if you have time to read one book. There are plenty of others to choose from, but start here. Second book:

MICHAEL PORTER ON COMPETITIVE STRATEGY

Another essential text book on strategy.

Again, these are text books that will give you your 'home schooling' -- I'd really discourage most of the popular press (I like Seth Godin's stuff, but it's more insights than bedrock, and the Trout/Gladwell/etc stuff are fun reads quickly forgotten in my opinion. They're entertaining, of course, but I don't think this is your question).

Others that I'd recommend that aren't textbooks but give you extraordinary insight into consumer behavior include How Customers Think (Jerry Zaltman) and Why We Buy (Paco Underhill); and if you have anything to do with creating copy, structuring outbound marketing, developing sales strategy, or influencing anyone, this is a must-read:

ROBERT CIALDINI, INFLUENCE.

Good luck!

Good luck!