Marketing Library

We get a lot of requests from members asking “What are the must-read books and manuals for golf instructors?” This installment includes marketing books that Proponent Group members have recommended that have helped them grow their businesses. These 10 books were most often mentioned and focus on the marketing needs and abilities of small businesses like yours.

BOOK YOURSELF SOLID: THE FASTEST, EASIEST, AND MOST RELIABLE SYSTEM FOR GETTING MORE CLIENTS THAN YOU CAN HANDLE EVEN IF YOU HATE MARKETING AND SELLING by Michael Port

The bestselling business development guide Book Yourself Solid reveals why self-promotion is a critical factor to success, giving you a unique perspective that makes this guide much more than an ordinary “how to” manual for getting more clients and raising a business profile. Book Yourself Solid, Second Edition enables you to adopt the right promotional perspective and provides the strategies, techniques, and skills necessary to get more clients and increase profits. Through verbal and written exercises, you’ll discover the keys to developing a strong marketing plan and brand image.

DIFFERENTIATE OR DIE: SURVIVAL IN OUR ERA OF KILLER COMPETITION by Jack Trout

For marketers, differentiating products today is more challenging than at any time in history yet it remains at the heart of successful marketing. More importantly, it remains the key to a company’s survival.
Trout takes marketers to task for taking the easy route too often, employing high-tech razzle-dazzle and sleight of hand when they should be working to discover and market their product’s uniquely valuable qualities. More than just a collection of marketing success stories, however, Differentiate or Die is an in-depth exploration of today’s most successful differentiation strategies. It explains what these strategies are, where and when they should be applied, and how they can help you carve out your own image in a crowded marketplace.

DUCT TAPE MARKETING: THE WORLD’S MOST PRACTICAL SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING GUIDE by Jon Jantsch

Is Your Marketing as Simple, Effective, and Affordable as Duct Tape? Let’s face it, as a small business owner, you are really in the business of marketing. The problem for most small business owners is that they suffer from “marketing idea of the week” syndrome instead of implementing a systematic approach to the problem of small business marketing.
In Duct Tape Marketing, renowned Small Business Marketing guru John Jantsch shows you how to develop and execute a marketing plan that will give your business the life and longevity you knew you could have when you made that decision to go out on your own.

THE GOLF MARKETING BIBLE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO GENERATING PLAYERS AND PROFITS by Andrew Wood

Whatever type of club you run at whatever end of the market you are in, you’ll find this book crammed full of proven, real-world, money-making marketing strategies. In this book you’ll discover:

How to identify your perfect customer.
How to measure your results.
How to develop the perfect marketing budget.
The keys to perfect pricing.
Dominate with out discounting.
How to develop your unique selling proposition.
How to design ads that actually work.
The secrets to building a massive email database.
The secrets to email marketing.
How to develop customer loyalty.

GUERILLA MARKETING: EASY AND INEXPENSIVE STRATEGIES FOR MAKING BIG PROFITS FROM YOUR SMALL BUSINESS by Jay Conrad Levinson

When Guerrilla Marketing was first published in 1983, Jay Levinson revolutionized marketing strategies for the small-business owner with his take-no-prisoners approach to finding clients. Based on hundreds of solid ideas that really work, Levinson’s philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it. Levinson offers a new arsenal of weaponry for small-business success including:

Strategies for marketing on the Internet (explaining when and precisely how to use it)
Tips for using new technology, such as podcasting and automated marketing
Programs for targeting prospects and cultivating repeat and referral business
Management lessons in the age of telecommuting and freelance employees
Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing by Harry Beckwith

Selling the Invisible is a succinct and often entertaining look at the unique characteristics of services and their prospects, and how any service, from a home-based consultancy to a multinational brokerage, can turn more prospects into clients and keep them. This book covers service marketing from start to finish. Filled with wonderful insights and written in a roll-up-your-sleeves, jargon-free, accessible style, such as:

Greatness May Get You Nowhere.
Focus Groups Don’ts.
The More You Say, the Less People Hear.
Seeing the Forest Around the Falling Trees.

MARKETING FOR SOLOS: THE ULTIMATE HOW-TO-GUIDE FOR MARKETING YOUR ONE PERSON SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESSFULLY by Jeanna Pool

If you’re like most solo small business owners…chances are you’re fantastic at what you do. Your clients love the services you provide. But, when it comes to the marketing of those services, you could probably use a little help. Let’s face it, most information available about marketing doesn’t easily apply to the solos, who are so busy “doing it themselves” that creating consistent and successful marketing can be a huge challenge.

Whether you’ve been in business three days, three years or three decades, Marketing For Solos is the know-how you need to confidently and successfully take control of the marketing for your one person small business! Inside, you’ll learn how to:

Stand out from your competition in an overcrowded marketplace.
Avoid the “feast-and-famine cycle” by attracting clients consistently.
Make marketing manageable and doable even with your busy schedule.
Attract the most lucrative clients that will generate explosive income.
Avoid big marketing mistakes solo small business owners make.

SOCIAL MEDIA 101: TACTICS AND TIPS TO DEVELOP YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE by Chris Brogan

100 ways to tap into social media for a more profitable business In Social Media 101, social media expert and blogger Chris Brogan presents the best practices for growing the value of your social media and social networking marketing efforts. Brogan has spent two years researching what the best businesses are doing with social media and how they’re doing it. Now, he presents his findings in a single, comprehensive business guide to social media.
You’ll learn how to cultivate profitable online relationships, develop your brand, and drive meaningful business. Brogan shows you how to build an effective blog or website for your business, monitor your online reputation and find out what people are saying about your business online, and create new content to share with your customers.
If you aren’t using the Internet and social media to market your business and stay in touch with your customers, you’re already falling behind. The Social Media 100 gives you 100 effective, proven strategies you need to succeed.

START WITH WHY: HOW GREAT LEADERS INSPIRE EVERYONE TO TAKE ACTION by Simon Sinek

Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty? In studying the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world, Simon Sinek discovered that they all think, act, and communicate in the exact same way-and it’s the complete opposite of what everyone else does.
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers might have little in common, but they all started with “why”.
Drawing on a wide range of real-life stories, Sinek weaves together a clear vision of what it truly takes to lead and inspire.

SELLING THE INVISIBLE: A FIELD GUIDE TO MODERN MARKETING by Harry Beckwith

Greatness May Get You Nowhere.
Focus Groups Don’ts.
The More You Say, the Less People Hear.
Seeing the Forest Around the Falling Trees.

YOUR MARKETING SUCKS! by Mark Stevens

Mark Stevens is a no nonsense marketing guru who focuses on creating maximum return on investment with every marketing dollar. This book shows you how to:

Stop throwing thousand-dollar bills out the window and camouflaging spending as marketing—demand that the money spent on marketing bring in more money in return.
Cut through the myths that claim marketing is about advertising, public relations, or direct mail—learn that it is about growing the revenue, profit and valuation of the business.
Implement the marketing moratorium—stop all marketing until you know how each component of your program justifies itself in dollars and cents.