If you are anything like most new business owners, your marketing strategy isn’t based on much actual strategy. Make some reels, send an occasional email, post pictures of your product… done. Unfortunately, this willy-nilly approach to marketing is unlikely to lead to business success.

While no one book or resource can make you a marketing expert, Allan Dib’s The 1-Page Marketing Plan, is a great starting point for learning marketing basics that will move your business forward.

Whether you are just getting started or have been running your business for years, entrepreneurs all experience uncertainty and doubt. Is entrepreneurship right for me? Does this ever get easier? What if I don’t reach my goals?

These feelings are natural part of an entrepreneur’s journey, but there is a remedy. You need a good friend to tell you how amazing you are and that you can figure anything out. And that friend is Marie Forleo.

Systems! You've heard you need them in your business, but you're not sure how to get started. You might not even be sure what a system is or how you would go about implementing them in your business.  The truth is, if you are like most business owners, you probably have some systems in place and you don't even realize it. Your social media calendar is a system; your intake process for new clients is a system. 

However, there's a good chance that your systems live only in your brain or the brain of one of your employees, which can lead to disaster if the system holder gets sick, forgets the process, goes on vacation, or decides to leave the company.  Your systems are an essential asset to your business, but they only have an ongoing life if they are documented. 

Persuading people to change is a big part of running a successful business. You need to persuade in employee, vendor, partner, and client management, not to mention the importance of persuasion in sales.

And if you’re like most people, you assume great persuasion is all about finding the right messaging to inspire change. But it turns out that telling people what they should (or shouldn’t) do isn’t a great way to motivate them, especially when you’re an authority figure. No matter how compelling your argument is, the more you impose your opinion, the more you demotivate others to change.

Recently I was chatting with a consultant who mentioned that he rarely does any marketing. Then a week later, I was talking to a different consultant, and she said the same thing. They both told me that they have such great relationships with their clients that almost 100% of their business comes from referrals.

I had heard of this before, work just magically appearing at your doorstep from oodles of referrals, but honestly it seemed more like a myth than an actual possibility. Don’t get me wrong, referrals are an important part of my business, but to be able to cut marketing all together… that seemed too good to be true.

But then I read a book called Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni, and I realized that there is a real strategy to increasing your referrals, and it’s probably not what you think.

The arts don’t have a claim on creativity; it’s also essential for entrepreneurs. You need to find creative solutions for your customers, creative messaging for your marketing, and creative strategies for your team to be effective. Entrepreneurship is all about creativity, and luckily for those of us who don’t feel naturally creative, there are systems to help enhance your creative thinking.

In the book Creative Confidence, design thinking pioneers Tom and David Kelley, help everyone better understand why creativity is so essential for business success and how to design creative solutions for your business.

If you’re like me and adult coloring books are your version of being artistic, you might be wondering why you should read the book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert.   The truth is, I was skeptical too, but I got so many recommendations to read Big Magic, that I thought I should give it a shot.

And while I didn’t walk away compelled to pull out my middle school flute or start water color classes, I did realize that entrepreneurship and being a creative have very similar demands.  Elizabeth Gilbert’s advice in Big Magic has a universality to it, and much of her wisdom will apply directly to you as an entrepreneur.

If you’re anything like me, you run yourself ragged trying to do everything on your own. You manage oodles of daily tasks , and then every time you have a new idea or face a new challenge, you think ‘How can I get this done’. You research on the internet, scour message boards, listen to webinars, or just learn by trial and error. And while all that may find you the answer you need, there is an easier way.

In Who Not How, authors Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy argue that trying to do it all yourself is bad for you and your business. If you’re prone to doing it all on your own, it’s time to start turning to other people for support.

Networking – we all know it’s important, but if you’re anything like me, you dread it. If asked to choose between going to the dentist or chatting with a bunch of strangers in a noisy conference room… I’d choose the dentist in a heartbeat.

Even if you don’t dread traditional networking as much as I do (I’m a card-carrying introvert), business-card-exchange events rarely return great results. There are less awkward, more impactful ways to build your network.

If you’re like most people, rejection is something you dread.  Hearing no can be painful and drains your confidence and enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, rejection is an inevitable part of entrepreneurship.  There is no way around it.  Potential customers will say no, investors and lenders will say no, potential partners will say no… the list goes on and on. 

But if you let all those no’s discourage you, you will never find the people who will say yes.  And those yes’s are so essential to the success of your business that you can’t afford to lose them. 

It’s hard to believe, but March is here again.  That means the days are getting longer, spring is springing, and best of all, women are getting a bit of the recognition they deserve.  In honor of Women’s History Month, I want to share some of my favorite business books written by female business leaders.

I felt guilty seeing her face drop as she realized her mistake.  But I also knew that I had saved her from moving ahead with a very expensive business model without evidence that it would work.  Luckily, I had recently read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick, and I had lots of advice to give her on effective market research. 

If you’re a small business owner (or considering becoming one), The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick is a must read.  Here are my top 5 takeaways from this powerful little book.

Does marketing make you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel of never ending effort with little progress? Do you keep turning out social media posts with no results? Before you put up one more post, ask yourself, are you getting your marketing education from social media influencers who tell you everything you need to know in a 50 second video? That’s not an education. Or worse are you just winging it and not doing any learning at all?

Getting a good marketing education is important. And you need to get advice from the experts—people who've committed their careers to studying what works and what doesn't. To become a better business coach, I’ve read 50 business books in the last year, many of which were about marketing. Along the way I learned some invaluable advice that really surprised me, and I want to share it with you.

Have you realized that getting your business education from 60 second Instagram videos might not be your best option? Or are you worried that the 25-year-old shooting YouTube videos by a pool, might not be the best person to give you advice on growing your business. Let’s face it, if the information you are getting is too basic or too good to be true, odds are you’re not getting a useful business education.

The best way to get valuable, accurate information is to learn from the experts (actual experts), and there is no better way to really understand new business concepts than by reading business books. To become a better coach, I read 50 business books in the last year, and I have come to realize that there are 5 key lessons from those books that I share with my consulting clients time and time again.

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, as we move into the New Year, you’ve been setting goals to grow your business. And that probably means you need to improve your marketing! To do this you could take some classes on digital marketing or hire social media help. Those things would be great.

But if you’re ready to make changes, it’s important to start from the ground up. You need to ask yourself, am I marketing to the right people? Is my message resonating with anyone? Do I have a clear message at all, or am I all over the place? It doesn’t matter how much marketing you put out in the world. If it’s not speaking to anyone, it’s not going to create sales.

Can you imagine dealing with the trauma of being on your own by 16 because it wasn’t safe to live in your own house? And then having the will and relentless drive to continue bettering yourself, becoming a serial entrepreneur, and creating businesses that celebrate the arts and help performers succeed in their work.

Natasha Miller, CEO and Founder of Entire Productions, did just this. She weathered storms many of us could never imagine and found a way to come out on top. In her book Relentless, she shares the story of her childhood, how music gave her strength and inspiration, and how her passion for performing lead her to build the event company she leads today.

Finding marketing messages that stick and compel people to take action is difficult. While there’s no magic formula to make your marketing work, there are principles that you can follow to enhance the impact of your marketing content.

A great start to learning those principles comes from Made to Stick by Chip Heath, a Stanford professor, and his brother Dan Heath, a Duke Senior Fellow.

Hustling is given in entrepreneurship.  It’s a must if you want to succeed.  But Bob Burg and John David Mann have a different perspective on who you should be hustling for.  In their business parable, The Go-Giver, they share five business laws that ask you to redirect your focus from yourself and consider how much you are hustling for others. 

They believe that success starts with giving and caring about others, building genuine relationships, and being someone others can depend on.  Your caring should be extended to your customers, your business network, and your personal relationships.  All of these people are essential in your entrepreneurial journey.

Todd Connor is the founder of Bunker Labs, a nonprofit that helps veterans launch and grow businesses, and the author of the Third Shift Entrepreneur.

Connor believes that the strongest companies are built with a strong personal foundation, which includes financial stability. His book Third Shift Entrepreneur is about building a business while you keep working, but the lessons he shares can be useful to any small business owner, whether you are considering launching or are working to grow a young business.

You are an entrepreneur, which means you are special, but it doesn’t mean you’re superhuman. Without health and well-being, you can’t excel at your work or enjoy your life.  Wellness, and we’re talking about real wellness—not having the perfect body and taking Instagramable baths—is something we should all strive for.

To gain a new perspective on wellness, and to celebrate Native American Heritage Month, I read The Seven Circles by Chelsey Luger and Thosh Collins.  Much of their discussion of wellness will seem familiar to you.  But the authors’ understanding of why these practices are important is driven by their Native American heritage and beliefs.