Business Development Skills

John C. Maxwell has been a public speaker and motivational teacher for more than fifty years. He is one of only eight people on the planet who have been awarded Toastmaster’s Golden Gavel and been inducted into the National Speakers' Association Hall of Fame. In The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication: Apply Them and Make the Most of Your Message, he shares everything he’s learned from a lifetime of communication.

Today, in an instant, leaders can find themselves face-to-face with crisis. An active shooter. A media controversy. A data breach. In You're It, the faculty of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University takes you to the front lines of some of the toughest decisions facing our nation's leaders - from how to mobilize during a hurricane or in the aftermath of a bombing to halting a raging pandemic. They also take listeners through the tough decision-making inside the world's largest companies, hottest startups, and leading nonprofits.

You face tough communication challenges every day at work, both in person and online - a toxic boss, backstabbing coworkers, office politics, and much more. Here are immediate, effective, eye-opening actions you can take to resolve those infuriating problems. You will find stories and examples drawn from corporate communications consultant Leil Lowndes’s more than 20 years of training business professionals, from entry-level new hires to CEOs.

A five-time Moth GrandSLAM winner and bestselling novelist shows how to tell a great story - and why doing so matters. Whether we realize it or not, we are always telling stories. On a first date or job interview, at a sales presentation or therapy appointment, with family or friends, we are constantly narrating events and interpreting emotions and actions. In this compelling book, storyteller extraordinaire Matthew Dicks presents wonderfully straightforward and engaging tips and techniques for constructing, telling, and polishing stories that will hold the attention of your audience (no matter how big or small).

In this eye-opening account, Cal Newport debunks the long-held belief that "follow your passion" is good advice. Not only is the cliché flawed - preexisting passions are rare and have little to do with how most people end up loving their work - but it can also be dangerous, leading to anxiety and chronic job hopping. After making his case against passion, Newport sets out on a quest to discover the reality of how people end up loving what they do.

What skills do you need to succeed today? How can you make better choices? In today's fast world, it's important to have certain skills for success. With so much fake news and information everywhere, critical thinking and logic are crucial. These skills help us think well and make good decisions. They help us understand why things are how they are, figure out what influences them, and come up with ways to make things better. One of the reasons most of us fall short in thinking critically is that our educational system doesn't teach critical thinking.

This book explains how wielding power affects your emotions and decision making and helps you avoid the traps that lead to negative consequences. With the latest psychological research and practical advice from leading experts, you'll learn how to use soft power to persuade others, fix unhealthy power dynamics in your team, use compassion to connect better with others, and remain ethical in your choices and actions.

What if charisma could be taught? For the first time, science and technology have taken charisma apart, figured it out and turned it into an applied science: In controlled laboratory experiments, researchers could raise or lower people's level of charisma as if they were turning a dial. What you'll find here is practical magic: unique knowledge, drawn from a variety of sciences, revealing what charisma really is and how it works. You'll get both the insights and the techniques you need to apply this knowledge. The world will become your lab, and every person you meet, a chance to experiment.

The Theory of Constraints (TOC) has been successfully applied in almost every area of human endeavor. And while Eli Goldratt is indeed a scientist, an educator and a business leader, he is first and foremost a philosopher. He is a thinker who provokes others to do the same. Dr. Goldratt exhorts his readers to examine and reassess their lives and business practices by cultivating a different perspective. In his latest book, The Choice, Goldratt once again presents his thought provoking approach.

From the time we learn to speak, we're told that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. When you become a manager, it’s your job to say it--and your obligation. Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she developed a class on how to be a good boss. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, Radical Candor. Radical Candor is a simple idea: to be a good boss, you have to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly.

Drawing on his experience as a psychiatrist, business consultant, and coach, author Mark Goulston combines his background with the latest scientific research to help listeners turn the "impossible" and "unreachable" people in their lives into allies, devoted customers, loyal colleagues, and lifetime friends. Just Listen provides simple but powerful techniques listeners can use to really get through to people.

Celebrating the 75 anniversary of the original landmark bestseller How to Win Friends and Influence People, comes an up-to-the-minute adaptation of Carnegie’s timeless prescriptions for the digital age. Dale Carnegie’s principles have endured for nearly a century. Since its original publication in 1936, his timeless classic How to Win Friends and Influence People has gone on to sell 15 million copies. Now, introducing new listeners to Carnegie’s words of wisdom, comes How to Win Friends and Influence People in the Digital Age, a new guide for a new era.

Communication is essential in a healthy organization. But all too often when we interact with people - especially those who report to us - we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry. Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as "the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person."

Brilliantly researched, impassioned, and accessible, Presence is filled with stories of individuals who learned how to flourish during the stressful moments that once terrified them. Every listener will learn how to approach their biggest challenges with confidence instead of dread, and to leave them with satisfaction instead of regret.

Often the decision between a customer choosing you over someone like you is your ability to know exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to make it count. Phil M. Jones has trained more than two million people across five continents and over 50 countries in the lost art of spoken communication. In Exactly What to Say, he delivers the tactics you need to get more of what you want.

Do you lack confidence or self-belief? Join the club. Millions of otherwise smart people lack the confidence to achieve their full potential - at work, in their careers and even in their personal pursuits. Yet confidence isn't something that can be conjured from motivational exercises or via quick-fix techniques. Confidence is something you must build for yourself. It takes planning and action, deciding where you want to gain confidence and how it must be won. It will require courage, optimism, and resilience.

Author Thomas Erikson explains that there are four key behavior types that define how we interact with and perceive the people around us. Understanding someone’s pattern of behavior is the key to successful communication. Erikson breaks down the four kinds of behavior types - Reds who are dominant and commanding, Yellows who are social and optimistic, Greens who are laid-back and friendly, and Blues who are analytical and precise - and explains how to identify and interact with each type of person.

Using the exact steps you’ll learn in this book, Donald Miller grew his small business from four employees working out of a basement to a 15 million dollar operation, increasing revenue sixfold in just six years. As Miller grew his own business from the ground up, he realized nobody had put together a simple, step-by-step playbook for growing a business. That book didn’t exist. Until now. In this book, you’ll learn the 6 steps to grow a successful small business and create a playbook to implement them—your Flight Plan.

In Exactly What to Say: For Real Estate Agents, Phil M. Jones, Chris Smith, and Jimmy Mackin provide 30 Magic Words to help with the most common, critical, and difficult conversations real estate agents have today. If you are open-minded to a better way of selling, this book is for you. Imagine what it is going to feel like knowing exactly what to say when it matters the most.

Margaret Wheatley proposes that citizens band together with their colleagues and friends to create the solutions for social change, both locally and globally, that are so badly needed. Such change will not come from governments or corporations but from the ageless process of thinking together in conversation. Turning to One Another encourages this process.