Content has a clear role in the marketing process. It must aid the customer journey by moving readers from one stage of awareness to the next until they become leads. In other words, content develops leads. If your content is going to fulfill its duty—to turn readers into leads—people need to actually read it. So how can you write content that people will read? From Reads To Leads teaches 11 principles that define how a content writer writes every draft. Applying these principles to your writing will help you grab the right person’s attention, get your message across, and move your reader down the marketing funnel. The book comes with 40 writing exercises to each chapter to help you learn and practice several writing rules that will help you focus on writing content that makes readers act instead of writing content that sits on a server and gathers dust. You'll discover: How to understand what your readers need and how to write content that appeals to them How to get the desired response from your readers and move them down the marketing funnel How to figure out and communicate your key message and how to use it to take readers to the next stage of their journey How to creatively turn your content into a story with a three-act structure How to write an outline that focuses your writing and kills your procrastination What makes writing clear and simple How to express your brand’s personality and make your writing recognizable What makes content readable, and how to get your readers to stay with you till the end The writer’s role in the content writing process, and how you should approach content collaborations How you should react when your work is ripped to shreds From Reads to Leads is a true roadmap to succeeding with content for copywriters, content writers, marketing managers, and entrepreneurs curious why they're not making as many leads with their content as they know they should. Website: https://www.readstoleads.com/

It's the common habit shared by many successful people throughout history. It's responsible for unlocking limitless creativity and influence. It's known to reduce stress, improve decision-making skills, and make you a better leader. What is it? Reading. And it's the single best thing you can do to improve yourself professionally. Reading more and better books creates opportunities for you to learn new skills, rise above your competition, and build a successful career. In Read to Lead you'll learn - why you need to read like your career depends on it - the five science-backed reasons reading will help you build your career - how to absorb a book into your bloodstream - a technique that can double (or triple!) your reading speed - tips on creating a lifetime reading habit - and more If you want to lead a more satisfied life, have more intelligent conversations, and broaden your mind, you need to read to lead!

Storytelling has come of age in the business world. Today, many of the most successful companies use storytelling as a leadership tool. At Nike, all senior executives are designated "corporate storytellers." 3M banned bullet points years ago and replaced them with a process of writing "strategic narratives." Procter Gamble hired Hollywood directors to teach its executives storytelling techniques. Some forward-thinking business schools have even added storytelling courses to their management curriculum. The reason for this is simple: Stories have the ability to engage an audience the way logic and bullet points alone never could. Whether you are trying to communicate a vision, sell an idea, or inspire commitment, storytelling is a powerful business tool that can mean the difference between mediocre results and phenomenal success. Lead with a Story contains both ready-to-use stories and how-to guidance for readers looking to craft their own. Designed for a wide variety of business challenges, the book shows how narrative can help: * Define culture and values * Engender creativity and innovation * Foster collaboration and build relationships * Provide coaching and feedback * Lead change * And more Whether in a speech or a memo, communicated to one person or a thousand, storytelling is an essential skill for success. Complete with examples from companies like Kellogg's, Merrill-Lynch, Procter Gamble, National Car Rental, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut, and more, this practical resource gives readers the guidance they need to deliver stories to stunning effect.

In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it. (In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of "non-reading"-from books that you've never heard of to books that you've read and forgotten-and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read-which became a favorite of readers everywhere in the hardcover edition-is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them.

A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.

“How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories.” “A book that doesn’t seek to shut down the current literary discourse so much as shake it up.” (The New York Times Book Review) Offering “its audience the opportunity to look past the simplicity we’re all too often spoon-fed into order to restore ourselves to chaos and complexity — a way of seeing and reading that demands so much more of us but offers even more in return." (Los Angeles Times) "I gasped, shouted, and holler-laughed while reading these essays from the phenomenal Elaine Castillo. What powerful writing, what a rigorous mind. For as long as I live, I want to read anything Castillo writes, and you probably do, too." —R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy? That we can travel through books? How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves? Or claimed that books saved our lives? These familiar words—beautiful, aspirational—are sometimes even true. But award-winning novelist Elaine Castillo has more ambitious hopes for our reading culture, and in this collection of linked essays, “she moves to wrest reading away from the cotton-candy aspirations of uniting people in empathetic harmony and reposition it as thornier, ultimately more rewarding work.” (Vulture) How to Read Now explores the politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories. Smart, funny, galvanizing, and sometimes profane, Castillo attacks the stale questions and less-than-critical proclamations that masquerade as vital discussion: reimagining the cartography of the classics, building a moral case against the settler colonialism of lauded writers like Joan Didion, taking aim at Nobel Prize winners and toppling indie filmmakers, and celebrating glorious moments in everything from popular TV like The Watchmen to the films of Wong Kar-wai and the work of contemporary poets like Tommy Pico. At once a deeply personal and searching history of one woman’s reading life, and a wide-ranging and urgent intervention into our globalized conversations about why reading matters today, How to Read Now empowers us to embrace a more complicated, embodied form of reading, inviting us to acknowledge complicated truths, ignite surprising connections, imagine a more daring solidarity, and create space for a riskier intimacy—within ourselves, and with each other.

Build a High-Impact, Low-Hassle Digital Sales Prospecting System That Works! Hate cold calling? Stop doing it! Build a supercharged, highly automated digital sales prospecting system that attracts more qualified leads, shortens sales cycles, and increases conversion rates—painlessly! In The Invisible Sale, Tom Martin reveals techniques he’s used to drive consistent double-digit growth through good times and bad, with no cold calling. Martin’s simple, repeatable process helps you laser-target all your marketing activities, sales messages, and sales calls based on what your prospects are actually telling you. Martin boils complex ideas down to simple, straightforward language...real-life case studies...easy-to-understand templates...and actionable solutions! • Discover the “invisible funnel,” where self-educated buyers are making decisions before you know they exist • Leverage Funnel Optimized website design to identify your prospects’ key challenges before you ever speak to them • Integrate social media, content, and email to optimize the entire prospecting process • Make every sales call count with behaviorally targeted email prospecting • Leverage Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to efficiently “prospect at scale” • Use the science of propinquity to choose “outposts,” strategize social networking, and drive offline campaigns • Save money by rightsizing production quality to each marketing requirement • Rapidly create keyword-rich text content, and use it widely to promote self-qualification • Create webinars and tutorials more easily and painlessly than you ever thought possible • Choose low-cost devices, apps, software, and accessories for quickly creating high-quality DIY media content • Learn how to apply Aikido Selling Techniques to close self-educated buyers