The Top 10 Best Entrepreneurship Books for Veterans
- civilianrefit
- Aug 14, 2024
- 14 min read
What are the Best Entrepreneurship Books for Veterans?
What do you need to know to be successful as an entrepreneur?
With a overfilled marketplace of good and bad business books, we read through dozens to find the best books for veteran entrepreneurs. Here is our list of the top ten best along with some quick takeaways, action steps, and links to the books themselves. Buy the books or rent them through a digital library. But if you are serious about becoming an entrepreneur, your journey to success doesn’t have to involve a specialized degree. All you need is a little knowledge, an idea, and the willingness to go.
Let’s get into the list.
Jeff Walker's Launch is a step-by-step guide on the strategy an entrepreneur should take in carrying out a successful product or service introduction into the market. Key to doing it, and at the heart of the way in which Walker suggests doing it, is what he has branded as a "Product Launch Formula"—a process of building anticipation and interest, engaging potential customers to the maximum, and making the most possible sales. The book shall be outlining a step-by-step process from creating a high-conversion pre-launch to delivery of free value, building goodwill, and creating a launch sequence designed to be implemented with full excitement and feverishness.
For Walker, the message is to know your audience. Use their pain and pleasure points to tweak your message. He leads one through creating different kinds of pre-launch content, educating and engaging their audience in such a way that interest has already been built up on the eve of launching. Through emails, social media, and other marketing tools, Walker shows how exactly to communicate the value of a product to create a community of enthusiastic buyers.
Now to put all these Walker's laws into practice, draw a clear launch plan in which you build a pre-launch list and an active audience around the content valuable to them by the use of well-timed launch strategy.
A well-structured launch plan out of the phases within Launch will allow your product to gain exposure and subsequently push the desired result, which is a successful sale by creating some momentum. The book is replete with hands-on and practical insights for entrepreneurs on how to make product launches as impactful as possible through appropriate market and audience engagement.
Quick Action Step: Build your email list and network today. One such way of doing this is by offering great, relevant content that adds value to their lives.
In The Lean Startup, Eric Ries describes a systematic methodology that is dedicated to enabling entrepreneurs to build successful startups by exercising scientifically-based experimentation, or to establish a successful business that can sustain continual innovation by using a systematic, scientific approach to create and manage successful businesses.
The basis of Reis' ideology is incorporated in the term, "validated learning," that acknowledges that in this fast-paced, high-risk marketplace the most important "lever" to be pulled is the ability to "build" a stepping stone for the next move, "Measure" data, based on the impact that ". This methodology is developed to reduce wastages and maximize efficiency by rapid development of minimum viable product and continuous improvement, following the customer's feedback. Ries developed a cycle: "Build-Measure-Learn." In this work process, a prototype or MVP is built, introduced to the market to test its performance, and the results are learned from, so that the process of product may be modified or pivoted.
This iterative process allows the startup to respond more flexibly to market demands and customer needs. Since this helps them base their decisions on actual data and market responses, the entrepreneur can make an informed choice that will lead to the improvement of the outlook of his product and avoid falling prey to the concept of over-investment in an idea that has not been tested. To apply The Lean Startup principles, what the entrepreneur needs to do is first come up with an MVP outlining a problem or need and then contact early adopters for feedback that helps in making continual improvements to the product. A process that allows quick validation or invalidation of business ideas, optimal use of resources, and paradigm adaptation through real market responses, leading to an agile and responsive business model.
Quick Action Step: It starts by building a feedback loop on an MVP. Once you get your MVP hit the market running by launching it and testing it.
In Marketing Made Simple, Donald Miller gives an overarching yet practical framework of making any marketing strategy effective that listens to customers and makes business growth happen.
Central to Miller's approach is the "StoryBrand Framework," which places the customer as the hero of the brand story at the center. Most importantly, your product or service needs to help the customer resolve a problem and enhance his or her life. This said, this is characteristic of a good strategy: let the value be known clearly from the offer you have. Miller explains a seven-part way of implementing this framework, which is related to defining your customer's problem, positioning your brand as the answer, and creating a clear, compelling call to action.
Key features of this strategy are defining a one-liner message that explains what you do even to a child, creating a compelling story on brand that stages your customer journey, and making marketing materials so designed that the latter gets reflected out of this. That way, following this structured approach, businesses can create consistent and persuasive messaging across all marketing channels. Apply the principles from Marketing Made Simple to clarify your brand message—exactly how you solve your customer's problems. Make marketing materials that adhere to this message and ensure all customer touchpoints will support and reinforce your brand's story. By applying these strategies consistently, you will be able to engage with your target market and further connect with your audience more deeply and meaningfully in order to drive actual business results.
Quick Action Step: Start thinking of your ideal customer as the "hero" of the story and consider how you can position your product and ideas as the guides to that hero.
Inside the Box, written by Drew Boyd and the similarly co-authored Jacob Goldenberg, is essentially a book on constraint-based innovation, which is the kind of creative process that happens within very well-defined constraints and boundaries. It is a theory that stands in defiance of the old adage that says, "Innovation comes from 'out of the box' thinking," and recommends, instead, it will lead to better creative solutions if done more conveniently and compactly. Boyd and Goldenberg construct the methodology of Systematic Inventive Thinking, which will draw upon patterned strategies to innovate within specified limits.
The five key patterns upon which the SIT methodology is based are Subtraction, Division, Task Unification, Multiplication, and Attribute Dependency.
In any of those patterns, one would be able to change existing elements of a product or process to develop a novel solution out of them. For example, Subtraction removes a component from the product to add value to the product; Task Unification integrates several functions into a single element. By implementing these patterns, firms are well-suited to systematically search for new ideas and ways of elaborating the corresponding innovative solutions without necessarily having a clean sheet of paper for innovation.
Applying Inside the Box principles is simply listing all the constraints or shortcomings in your current product or process, and then using the SIT patterns to look for creative adjustments whose power stems from the same constraints. This trends the innovation task manageable. The process not only provides practical and realizable ideas most of the times, which vastly improve the already existing products or processes, but also derives several new ideas, which might create a new market opportunity.
Quick Action Step: Stop trying to develop something the world has never seen. Reflect on some current need you notice in the world and think about what may fill the gap. Limit yourself to make yourself creative.
Kerry Patterson is the author of the book Influencer: The Power to Change Anything, in which he and his co-authors examine in detail the art of how to make meaningful and sustainable change happen by leveraging influence and enhancements in behavioral science.
The book begins by introducing what an "Influencer" is: a person who can through an eclectic mix of strategies, based on psychology and social dynamics, bring about changes in actions and attitudes. According to the authors, real influence is not superficial but changes behavior by attacking problems at their roots. A central book framework powered by six sources of influence: Personal Motivation, Social Ability, Social Motivation, Structural Motivation, Personal Ability, Structural Ability.
Each source provides a different lever to apply that will drive the change: Personal Motivation is getting the desired behavior to dovetail with those individuals' intrinsic values, and Social Ability is providing the support and resources for the change. The authors give some practical strategies on how these sources can be used to create comprehensive change efforts, focusing on the fact that it should not be a one-solution approach.
Apply the principles of Influencer to diagnose the specific behaviors that you need to change, and the sources of influence that operate upon those. Create an effective strategy that includes interventions of all six sources: personal and structural. Utilize a blend of motivational, skill, and structural strategies in your ability to influence behavior and drive long-term results in personal development, organizational change, or broader societal change.
Quick Action Step: First, get crystal clear on what it is that you want. Then, get crystal clear on how you will measure it. And then fill in the blanks of how to get there using kind of this influence: either personal, social, structural motivation, or ability would be best to use for this situation.
In Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport argues about the value of "deep work"—that it is intense, focused, uninterrupted work that drives significant results and carries personal satisfaction.
According to Newport, the ability to perform deep work is becoming exceedingly more rare and increasingly valuable in modern distractive and superficial work environments. He contrasts deep work, which focuses on the productivity and fulfillment benefits deep work can achieve, with shallow work, which is inherently superficial, broken into pieces, and often less intellectually challenging. Newport outlines several key principles of elaborate performance. He describes it as: First, design a work environment and schedule that intentionally steers you to increasing cognitive depth in your efforts and eliminates distractions. This certainly consists of routines: mentally and even physically, I guess, and boundary types, as well as literal workspace design for focus.
Finally, Newport introduces the notion of "boredom training," which is a way that you would deliberately train your ability to concentrate on one task without switching or depending too much on continuous stimulation, hence becoming stronger in your deep work capacity.
Basically, the practice of Deep Work involves scheduling and conducting uninterrupted sessions dedicated to focused work. Additional strategies for the practice include time blocking and establishing a "shutdown" routine in support of clearly defining when there is work vs. personal time. With thoroughgoing, conscious structuring of one's priorities and work, much better results— both in terms of quantity and quality of work— can be obtained, leading to satisfaction or career success.
Quick Action Step: Find space to do deep work. Then focus it on the 20% of work that has the most outsized effect on your success.
In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell looks at the elements necessary to achieve the highest levels of success, which turns the table on the commonly-held belief that it is personal talent and determination that results in success.
Gladwell argues that apart from personal qualities, the other causes that lead someone to success are things such as cultural background, timing, and opportunity. He introduces the "10,000 Hour Rule" and says that in a field that requires one to be adept, the norm is to put in about 10,000 hours of practice and work; one requires a process. He also takes the reader through how contextual factors such as the success determinant, giving pragmatic examples in support of his argument. He illustrates how the birth month of students works to influence their sports performance. He also illustrates the link between opportunities and advantages and some superficial factors. Gladwell also puts it clearly that cultural legacy or family backgrounds result in different work ethics and opportunity circumstances. He also says that many a time, success is basically from a personal effort and from some degree of providence.
Viewed from the perspective of Outliers, then, one should spend time identifying opportunities that would, in turn, be exploited or utilized to maximize one's chances of coming out ahead. Spend the time doing purposeful practice that will make you a master in the area of your interest, and think through how some aspects, like time and cultural context, can determine your course of action. If you know the wider context of success and even pursue favorable conditions, you'll be able to plot your journey that much better and hopefully maximize your full potential for performance.
Quick Action Step: Evaluate your process and ask yourself if you're devoting the right combination of time and energy toward the opportunities you create. What areas of mastery have you already started to build that could transfer over to your big idea?
The Four Disciplines of Execution is a strategy for an organizational strategy translated to execution. More important, this book is all about how a strategy chalked up in the boardroom can be realized. Rather, it talks about the gap that is always experienced when strategic plans fail to translate into workable day-to-day operations. Covey introduces Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) in ways one can be able to realize any individual or organizational goal and achieve it under the most challenging circumstances.
The "Four Disciplines" are identified as: Focus on the Wildly Important, Act on the Lead Measures, Keep a Compelling Scoreboard, and Create a Cadence of Accountability.
The first of the Four Disciplines hones in on aiming energy as opposed to trying to initiate movements towards a host of lesser ones. The second of the disciplines describes how lead measures of performance are monitored and acted upon in real-time – the logic in measurement and watching. The third discipline is to keep a scoreboard, where team members are always able to see their current performance. The scoreboard will have a source of motivation. Finally, the fourth discipline enforces a regular rhythm of accountability meetings, at which progress is reviewed, and commitments made to the next steps.
Apply the Four Disciplines of Execution by making key goals clear and urgent. Develop and track lead measures that are likely impact drivers for the goals and ensure progress can be monitored with a visible scoreboard. Establish a regular cycle of accountability to review and adjust the results in order to ensure the reinforcing of the strategies and individual commitment. Follow these disciplines to leverage focus and drive execution in pursuit of vital outcomes inside and outside an organization.
Quick Action Step: What is your "wildly important" goal? Find a way to focus on this above all else and set them to goals that are measurable, challenging, and that will drive you.
Think and Grow Rich was inspired by Andrew Carnegie when Hill was tasked with interviewing the richest man in the world on what makes him who he is.
In this book, it is to be outlined that philosophy of personal and financial success in which a definiteness of purpose is stressed, going hand in hand with a clear vision and a burning desire. Hill lays out principles of success, including Desire, Faith, Specialized Knowledge, Imagination, Organized Planning, Decision, Persistence, the Mastermind Group, the Subconscious Mind, the Brain and the Sixth Sense: these make a philosophy leading to riches and achievement. Hill, on the other hand, sees that success results from a firm desire and definite statement of the goal. He puts supreme emphasis on belief and faith in one's self—accompanied by positive affirmations, imagination, and visualization exercises. He further claims that by stepped-up organization and persistent action, a person can actually turn his goals into concrete reality; that is to say, there is no avoiding the hundreds of pitfalls that lead to the accomplishment of set goals. These can be surmounted through careful learning and flexible adaptation in the company of a mastermind group.
Quick Action Step: Mindset matters. Reflect on what aspects of your mindset are not helping you achieve your goals. Look to focus your time on what matters most to you.
In Start with Why, Simon Sinek uses purpose and motivation to attempt to define the basis of leadership and success.
According to the book, Sinek says that truly inspired and successful individuals and organizations are those that are able to articulate and identify their "why": an inside objective or belief behind a cause or action ; he then introduces the " Golden Circle— Why, How and What. He says that most companies start with "What," then move on to "How," whereas inspiring leaders and companies start with "Why." Sinek gives the example of iconic leaders and organizations, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Apple, who achieved incredible success by dealing with their purpose and inspiring the people around them through it.
By beginning with "Why," they inspire a much stronger sense of connection to their message, motivate their teams, and encourage loyalty. This is in stark contrast to starting with lines of products or services and their featured benefits, which sometimes ring hollow or fail to engage and inspire at their core. Start with Why by first crystallizing a clear definition of the central purpose or belief that makes your organization or individual enterprise tick. Express the purpose over and over again to both inspire and engage your team, and be sure that actions and strategies have this primary "Why" at their root. In this way, with a focus on the purpose and not necessarily on processes and products, you are better able to make deeper connections and motivate teams to achieve an effort that is more relevant and successful.
Quick Action Step: Reflect deeply on what drives you internally. If you are struggling to do this, find your way to the Civilian Refit Program and learn what it is you want out of life other than the military.
Bonus – The Four Hour Work Week – Timothy Ferriss
"If you let yourself be absorbed completely, if you surrender to the flow, you are one with everything" (Timothy Ferriss - The 4-Hour Workweek).
Ferriss introduces the concept of "Lifestyle Design," in which the readers question conventional work norms and design their lives based on what they find important. It goes on to provide strategies for getting more done in the least effort possible way—will accomplish it with the application of the principles of the 80/20 Rule: that is, 20% of activities would produce 80% of results—and that of "batching" for households that need to streamline productivity streams across the board. Ferriss talks about the four-step process calculated as DEAL: Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation.
Definition includes the identification of what it is you wish to get out of life and a redefinition of success based on personal goals. Elimination is the hacking of your life by removing distractions and low value-add activities using the 80/20 Rule and "selective ignorance." Automation is all about outsourcing activities to virtual assistants or automated systems in order to save time. Liberation involves building something that allows you to perform a telecommute or become a permanent part-time employee through the creation of a business that can essentially run without you. The key to implementing those concepts in The 4-Hour Workweek is to change your definition of your career and life goals, looking only at what you deeply care about.
Practice time management techniques such as grouping of tasks and delegation. Check out ways to automate or outsource all your daily tasks and have systems in place that allow you to work from anywhere. These may save hours from your work week, thereby increasing productivity and living a more flexible, rewarding life. Quick Action Step: Envision your ideal life. Next, what would be required to live that life? Plug this into your process around goal setting.
Quick Action Step: Envision your ideal life. Next, what would be required to live that life? Plug this into your process around goal setting.
Conclusion: Read
There are dozens of great business, leadership, and entrepreneurship books out there. When you consider what the best entrepreneurship books for veterans would be, this list gives you a great starting point. The more you know about how to start, persevere, and finish, the better equipped you will be to find success. But it all takes work, trial and error, success and failure. And none of this happens overnight. Take time to learn from those who have gone before and combine the knowledge in these books into something useful.
One of the keys for starting a successful business as an entrepreneur is to know what kind of business is worth building. If you aren’t sure of what this looks like and want to learn more about who you are and what kind of work matters most to you, Civilian Refit has you covered. Our Program is built for those transitioning from the military but works just as well for veterans who want something new or current service members who are looking to do something more. Get started with us today. Start reading (or listening) to these books to keep you going.
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