Marketing and Sales
Best marketing and sales books summarized in 15 minutes
Marketing is how a company, or a person, explains what it does to those who may need it. This selection brings together the classics that shaped the field's vocabulary, such as Positioning and The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Al Ries and Jack Trout, and Seth Godin's Purple Cow, Tribes and This Is Marketing.
A second group covers persuasion and negotiation. Robert B. Cialdini wrote Influence and Pre-Suasion, Chris Voss wrote Never Split the Difference, and Nicholas Boothman wrote How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less. Contagious by Jonah Berger and Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath look at why some ideas spread, and Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller shows how to organize a brand's message.
There are also books on selling and digital marketing: The Ultimate Sales Machine, Launch, Expert Secrets, Crush It!, Hooked and The Long Tail. The summaries show what each author proposes based on their own experience, without promising you the same results.
Marketing and Sales summaries
15 minThe Ultimate Sales Machine
Chet Holmes
The customer who is ready to buy today is always a minority, so ignoring everyone who hasn't decided yet means giving up the biggest slice of the market.
15 minPurple Cow
Seth Godin
A product that only pleases people, without bothering or surprising anyone, tends to go unnoticed among so many similar options.
14 minInfluence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Robert B. Cialdini
Most decisions that feel like yours alone were actually pulled by an automatic trigger that someone learned how to set off.
16 minThe 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Al Ries and Jack Trout
Getting into a category first is worth more than spending years trying to prove your product is better than that of the leader who already holds the top spot.
15 minCrush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion
Gary Vaynerchuk
Talent isn't enough: if you don't show up consistently online, you become invisible to the very people who need exactly what you know how to do.
16 minThis Is Marketing
Seth Godin
People rarely choose based on what a product does; they choose based on what it says about who they are or want to be.
16 minPositioning: The Battle for Your Mind
Al Ries and Jack Trout
Competing head-on against whoever is already first in a category means fighting the customer's memory, not just their product.
16 minTribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Seth Godin
Every tribe already exists before it has a ready-made leader; what's missing is someone willing to take the first step and accept the risk of being wrong.
16 minThe Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
Chris Anderson
Selling a little of a lot of things can be worth as much as selling a lot of a few things, because the internet removed the cost of keeping each item on the shelf.
15 minLaunch
Jeff Walker
A launch works because it swaps one big sale for a sequence of small yeses: first the customer agrees to watch, then agrees to sign up, and only then agrees to buy.
16 minExpert Secrets
Russell Brunson
Data alone convinces no one: the person who tells the story of how they got to a discovery sticks in memory more than the person who just presents the finished result.
16 minThe Greatest Salesman in the World
Og Mandino
Persistence without direction is just stubbornness: the difference lies in revising your method without abandoning your goal.
16 minBuilding a StoryBrand
Donald Miller
When a company casts itself as the star of its own advertising, it steals the hero's role from the customer, and the message loses its power on the spot.
14 minHow to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less
Nicholas Boothman
According to the book, your body reveals your inner state before your words do, so it pays to choose how you want to feel before you rehearse what you are going to say.
14 minPre-Suasion
Robert B. Cialdini
Before you improve your argument, it's worth asking what the other person is thinking about at this very moment.
18 minNever Throw an Idea Away: How to Turn Creativity into Money
Sauana Alves
Early-stage ideas need a safe place to rest before being judged, because dismissing them too quickly often buries brilliant solutions that are still taking shape.
18 minNever Split the Difference
Chris Voss
Letting the other person say no early on gives them a sense of autonomy that moves the conversation forward far more effectively than pushing for a premature agreement.
18 minContagious: Why Things Catch On
Jonah Berger
Spontaneous recommendations happen when sharing something new makes the person telling the story look good.
18 minThe Challenger Sale
Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson
An explanation that works for the chief financial officer might not motivate the people who have to use the solution every day.
19 minContent That Converts
Laura Hanly
The best topic for content creation emerges at the exact point where the buyer's biggest headache meets your company's core technical expertise.
17 minMade to Stick
Chip Heath & Dan Heath
A familiar comparison can open the door to a difficult topic, as long as its limits are also explained.
16 minInvisible Selling Machine
Ryan Deiss
Blasting generic promotions to your entire list burns your brand reputation and drives away potential customers.
18 minPitch Anything
Oren Klaff
Breaking patterns of condescension with calm and humor restores the balance of power when facing arrogant counterparts.
15 minTalking to Humans
Giff Constable
Ideas developed behind closed doors remain mere guesses until they meet the real reaction of people on the street.
19 minThe Sales Acceleration Formula
Mark Roberge
Selling well stops being about persuading someone to buy and becomes a matter of diagnosing whether the product actually solves the customer's problem.
15 minWhat Great Brands Do
Denise Lee Yohn
Promoting human values and a genuine sense of purpose builds deeper customer loyalty than highlighting technical features.
15 minThe Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users
Guy Kawasaki & Peg Fitzpatrick
An effective digital presence does not require million-dollar budgets, but rather daily discipline in curation and consistently delivering value to followers.
18 minBuyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy
Martin Lindstrom
Shocking warning images on cigarette packs activate desire centers in the brain instead of triggering an aversion to the addiction.
15 minBuyer Personas
Adele Revella
According to the author, the reason a person chooses to act right now matters more than their demographic profile when shaping a message.
13 minHacking Growth
Sean Ellis
According to Ellis, the true test of product-market fit is asking how many users would be very disappointed if the product disappeared, and anything below forty percent means it is time to improve before advertising.
15 minMarketing 5.0: Technology for Humanity
Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya and Iwan Setiawan
In a polarized, connected marketplace, commitment to social causes needs to show up in fair internal practices, not just temporary advertising campaigns.
15 minMarket Your Way to Growth: 8 Ways to Win
Philip Kotler & Milton Kotler
Sustainable corporate growth does not come from desperate impulses, but from the disciplined choice of clearly defined strategic paths.
15 minMarketing Warfare
Al Ries & Jack Trout
According to the book, attacking a market leader head-on requires resources that most smaller brands don't have.
15 minWords That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear
Frank Luntz
Effective communication is defined not by what comes out of the speaker's mouth, but by what the listener understands and feels.
16 min$100M Leads
Alex Hormozi
Bringing more people to a weak offer only increases the number of people who tell you no.
15 minHooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
Nir Eyal
Understanding the cycle of trigger, action, reward, and investment helps both people who build products and people who want to break free from them.
15 minEpic Content Marketing
Joe Pulizzi
A three-line content mission works as a filter: any idea that doesn't serve the defined audience gets left out.
13 minJab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook
Gary Vaynerchuk
For the author, the return on a relationship built in public accumulates slowly, and looking only at what's easy to count can be misleading.
16 minThe Persuasion Code
Patrick Renvoisé and Christophe Morin
Showing that you understand someone else's pain earns their attention before you even mention your product.
14 minPlatform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World
Michael Hyatt
Social networks change their rules, so having your own address gives you more control over the relationship with your audience.
15 minTraction
Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares
According to the authors, many new businesses fail less because of a bad product than because they can't reach the people who would buy it.
Marketing and Sales authors
Al Ries · Jack Trout · Seth Godin · Gary Vaynerchuk · Robert B. Cialdini · Adele Revella · Alex Hormozi · Brent Adamson · Chet Holmes · Chip Heath · Chris Anderson · Chris Voss · Christophe Morin · Dan Heath · Denise Lee Yohn · Donald Miller · Frank Luntz · Gabriel Weinberg · Giff Constable · Guy Kawasaki · Iwan Setiawan · Jeff Walker · Joe Pulizzi · Jonah Berger · Justin Mares · Laura Hanly · Mark Roberge · Martin Lindstrom · Matthew Dixon · Michael Hyatt · Milton Kotler · Nicholas Boothman · Nir Eyal · Og Mandino · Oren Klaff · Patrick Renvoisé · Peg Fitzpatrick · Philip Kotler · Philip Kotler, Hermawan Kartajaya · Russell Brunson · Ryan Deiss · Sauana Alves · Sean Ellis
Journeys with Marketing and Sales books
Sequences of books that complete each other, to follow in the app.
Frequently asked questions
+Which marketing book should I read first?
This Is Marketing by Seth Godin is an accessible entry: it is about choosing an audience and serving it well. Positioning is the classic on owning a place in the customer's mind. To organize the message on a website or ad, try Building a StoryBrand.
+Do marketing and sales books guarantee results?
No. Each summary presents what the author argues, usually from personal experience or from companies they followed. Product, market and timing differ from case to case, and a technique that worked for one author may not work for you. Treat them as a toolbox to test.
+How does 15 Minutes work?
On this site you can see who each book is for, its key ideas and a preview of the summary. In the app you get the full summary as text, a quiz at the end of each book, guided Journeys and new books every week. The app is free to download and you can read one full book free every day. Premium: $19.99/year in the US (price shown in your App Store). Audio narration for the English summaries is coming soon.
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