I’ve Read 50 Business Books—These Are The 3 You MUST READ

[Music] In the last 12 months, I made 113k 851 outside of YouTube sponsorships and AD Revenue, all without having any full-time employees for a long time. Even though I don't want to admit it, I relied heavily on AdSense and sponsorships. While they worked, constantly chasing views is quite exhausting, and I wanted to have a sustainable way to monetize beyond chasing the next viral video basically. So, to do so, I decided to focus on creating valuable products and services for my audience so that I can monetize beyond this channel.

It wasn't easy, but I'm quite proud of the result. Making 100K is quite cool, in my opinion. If there is one thing that's made the biggest difference for me, it's definitely reading. To be honest, many business books promise the world but leave you confused. I get it because I read like 50 to 100 books a year, and not all of them are worth your time. That's why today, I'm sharing the three books that truly helped to build and grow my business. I will tell you who each book is for, why you should read it, and how it helped me. By the end of this video, you will know exactly which books are must-reads for your journey and why.

Let's start with the first book: "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek. If you're feeling a little bit lost or unsure about the direction of your business, or even like wondering why you want to start one in the first place, this book is perfect for anyone who needs to get clear on their purpose. If you just think that making money is enough to kind of like motivate you, I'm sorry, but it's actually not. Because figuring out your deeper motivation is absolutely crucial if you want to build something that lasts.

Simon Sinek makes a pretty compelling argument that people don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. Think about that for a second. It's not just about the product or service you're selling, but it's about the story behind it. Having a clear why is what sets you apart and helps you build a brand that people love and want to support. He loves using Apple as an example for this, and their why is all about challenging the status quo and thinking differently. Even though they don't always have the best or cheapest products, they've built a loyal fan base.

For example, I'm a loyal fan. So why? Because our customers believe in the same thing that they do, like innovation, creativity, and challenging the norm. People aren't just buying an iPhone; they're buying a whole experience, and they're buying into Apple's vision and mission. So if you want to inspire others and really stand out in a crowded market, we need to start figuring out our why, and this book will help you just do that.

When I first decided to create a product for my audience, I was honestly kind of like a bit lost. To be honest, I wasn't sure what to create or where to start. But after reading "Start with Why," I got really clear on my core purpose. For this channel, I realized that my core purpose is to help people overcome their self-doubt and achieve their goals through continuous improvement, which is my Kaizen philosophy. Basically, to be honest, we're quite in the early stages of Kaizen still, you know, like what I want to do with Kaizen.

But I started with something simple called Kaizen. It's basically a notion template plus a community designed to help people live more organized and fulfilled lives and actually make time for their goals and dreams. Even though I didn't do like a crazy promotion or big launch or made multiple videos about it, it did actually quite well and I got a lot of positive feedback. I really think it's because we had a clear why when designing it; people really connected with that.

Also, when you know the purpose behind what you're doing, it doesn't feel like just work; it feels like a passion project, something that you're like genuinely excited to build and share instead of just making money. There's so much more I want to do with this throughout the rest of the year. Like, you know about Kaizen, so stay tuned.

The next book on our list is "100 Million Offers" by Alex Hormozi. If you want to get more clients or increase your profits without decreasing your prices, I think this book is really good. The main idea of this book is basically to make people an offer so good they would feel stupid saying no. Alex Hormozi will teach you how to make money, which basically starts with creating an offer. He basically says that if you don't have a compelling offer, you don't have a business, which is crazy to say.

If your offer is just average, your business will stagnate. But a grand slam offer, what he calls it, can set your business apart, drive fantastic profits, and ultimately give you freedom. One of the key lessons from the book is about pricing. This really opened my eyes, to be honest, because I thought the main factor people will decide whether to buy or not, you know, something is the price. But it's actually not; it's actually the value we bring.

So if you think something is worth more than the price, you buy that thing. Let's take Harvard as an example, okay? Graduating is not guaranteed. It's not guaranteed that you will get a job or how much you will get paid. Obviously, people graduating from Harvard tend to get good jobs, right? But it's not guaranteed. When you pay the tuition fee, they're not guaranteeing you that. But even with the high price, people still take student loans and still pay to Harvard and go for it because they think it's valuable.

The value exceeds the price, and people don't say no to that. Another important reason why we should stop competing on price, you know, lowering and lowering is because it's a race to the bottom. There's so much that you can decrease your price, but Alex Hormozi instead teaches you how to create an offer so good that you can increase your price. You can charge premium prices for what you're offering, and it's quite scary to charge a premium price.

But we need to remember that it's just not about the price but the value we bring with the offer. You might think, "Oh, I don't want to charge premium prices; I'm not really comfortable about it." But actually, charging premium prices is better for both sides, like the entrepreneur as well as the customer. Because if you have more money that you can spend on the business, you can improve whatever you're offering, right? You can add more features; you can make it better, basically.

How we make money through business is helping solve other people's problems. If you can invest more money into it, it means that you can solve other people's problems better. Let's say if you're helping people get in shape, and if you have a lot of money to burn, you can maybe create an app that helps them, or you can maybe hire coaches to keep them accountable.

Not only can you improve your business by charging high prices, but you also only get customers that are serious and want to invest their time and energy into it. Because when we pay money, we become more focused on that thing, right? Because we've already paid for it, so we kind of want to make that back or get that value back. By charging premium prices, you increase the quality of your customers, which is the community that you're building, and which is ultimately going to affect the results that you get from your customers.

If you want to turn your skills and passions into a business that really stands out, "100 Million Offers" is a must-read. Okay, but building a business, especially if you're going to do it solo like I do, can be quite overwhelming because you will need to handle everything, like marketing, finances, you know, creating offers, tracking them, all of them.

That's why I want to share a resource that is quite helpful for me, which is HubSpot's Solopreneurs Business Guide. It's completely free and it offers a step-by-step roadmap for anyone looking to grow a solo business just like I'm doing right now. It covers everything you need to know, from getting into the right mindset to building healthy habits, building key partnerships, identifying the top skills you need to run a business, as well as how to manage finances.

It also shares a marketing plan template for your work, also like building your marketing strategy. They also have a business growth checklist at the end, which makes it super easy to follow through all the steps outlined in the guideline so that you can check them out. If you're serious about scaling your solo business, make sure to download HubSpot's Solopreneur Business Guide through my link in the description below. It's completely free, and a big thank you to HubSpot for sponsoring this portion of the video and providing such valuable resources to help solopreneurs thrive.

Now, let's continue with our next book, "Expert Secrets" by Russell Brunson. Let me tell you, if I could only pick one book to read, it would be this one. I'm such a big fan of this book. This book is for you if you felt, "I don't know enough to teach others; I can't be an expert; I don't have enough experience." I really feel you because I used to feel the same way, kind of like questioning whether I had enough knowledge or experience to teach people, you know, the authority to teach people.

Whenever I'm making videos, this book is for anyone who feels like they're not expert enough, they don't know enough, but yet want to make a difference and build a successful business. Whether you're just starting out or you've been doing this for years and want to take things to the next level, "Expert Secrets" will teach you everything you need. I'm not kidding; literally, it's perfect if you want to turn your passion into a profitable business. Whether you're a consultant, a coach, a YouTuber, or just someone with a message that the world needs to hear, "Expert Secrets" is all about converting online visitors into lifelong, die-hard customers, and fans.

It doesn't only teach you about how to sell stuff, but it teaches you about creating something people can't resist and actually leading to a movement and changing people's lives. When creating a movement, right? Influencing people, you don't necessarily need to have all the answers, and you don't have to know everything to start leading people. When I say leading people, it might sound cheesy, but when you're running a business, especially if the business gets bigger, you're actually influencing more and more people's lives and touching them.

So if you want to create businesses that have die-hard fans, it means that we need to create a mass movement, something that is influencing people's lives. Also, you don't have to know everything to start leading, but it's about understanding your audience's problems. If you don't have an audience, it's about understanding your own problems and positioning yourself as a guide who can give them the solution. It's about being one step ahead of the people you want to help to share your experiences and help other people.

For example, I'm making this video, but I'm not an expert, right? I'm not Alex Hormozi; I didn't build 100 million businesses. But I can still help people that are just starting out because I'm a couple of steps ahead of them. So, to share your knowledge and experiences, you don't need to know everything, and that's what most people think. You might think, "Oh, maybe then I will teach them something wrong," but that's fine as long as you're being transparent about it.

If you're transparent about not knowing everything, right? You're also experimenting; you're also learning, and you're sharing your journey, then that's completely fine. For example, on this channel, I just read books, learn them, test, and share things that I've learned from books and research. Russell Brunson says that instead of faking it till you make it, share your journey alongside of learning with your audience.

Let's say, if you don't think you have anything to teach, then show the process of your growth and what you're learning online. For example, let's say you want to help people get fit in the future but you're not fit yet, and you don't work out consistently. Instead of getting fit first and then building the business, what Russell Brunson suggests is that you document your own journey of getting fit—like maybe the workouts that you do, the supplements that you take, or whatever.

Then, as you're documenting that journey, show your failures, show the problems you're facing because not only will people resonate with you, and once you get fit, you can show your credibility to your future customers. It's kind of like becoming a human guinea pig where you try a bunch of things and you show how it's working for you.

It will also attract a loyal audience and have a massive impact because most people online don't have credibility about the things that they're talking about, but you will have undeniable results there. For example, for my channel, I have videos from like 6 or 7 years ago when I was failing on YouTube and I didn't have like a thousand subscribers. But now, I can show them as my credibility because I also failed and I also went through the things that you went through.

So it taught me that I didn't necessarily need to wait until I had all the answers or all the resources and achieved a certain level of success. Instead of making myself excuses and telling myself that it's not time to start yet to build this particular business, I could start sharing my journey, document the process, and help people along the way. Because even if you're not an expert, if people are seeing your journey and you failing but you're still trying new things, they will learn from it and get inspired.

You will be able to help people along the way. It also showed me that building credibility isn't just about showing your achievements. Let's say you're building a business and want to teach others how to build a business. You've got to like show your failures, your lessons, and also your growth, which I'm planning to do.

By being honest about where you are in your journey, saying that you know you didn't make a hundred billion but you have some good book advice, for example, can make better connections with your audience. When you're not just selling a product or service but offering real value based on your experiences and the credibility that you've earned, people resonate with that more. They see that you're there to lead them, not just to sell them.

That's why what makes "Expert Secrets" a really good book, in my opinion, is because it makes you really understand that you can impact other people's lives and use that to build a business that basically makes a genuine difference. I know it kind of sounds a little cheesy, but if you would read it, you would get what I mean. It's really good, and it's one of the books that I keep coming back to, read it again and again, and learn something new.

But at the same time, I know that you probably wouldn't have all the time to read three books right away, so I have a free summary guide in the link description below. I will have all the highlights that I learned from "Expert Secrets," "100 Million Offers," and "Start with Why." It has some important points, actionable steps, and my kind of personal insights from each book so that you can easily kind of learn almost like a cheat sheet.

It's completely free, so if you're interested, check my link in the description below. If you want to learn more about how to build a one-person business, check this video out. See you!