Bring up the concept of “customer service” and you will certainly cause someone’s blood to curdle. As much as just about every company provides service and support to its customers for its products and services, so many do it so poorly to the extent many times it’s easy to swallow the loss and buy from someone else. Well, at least I have done it that way a few times.

But why is it that way? This question and more around customer service are answered extremely well in the book BAM!: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World, by Barry Moltz and Mary Jane Grinstead. Within the pages of this must-read for anyone who is in business, they share many personal customer services stories – both good and bad – as well as demystifying the entire process of customer service. The term “BAM” is for “bust a myth” and it dispels various customer service myths throughout the book. I was graciously given a copy of the book by Barry, with whom I have worked with in the past. After reading it, I was reassured as to why I worked with him!

There’s a lot to take away from BAM! and here are a few of my major takeaways.

Customer service must be baked into your business - Issues with customer service being removed from the core of a company are rampant. Sometimes, they are removed so far away it is outsourced to a third-world country! Not only should customer service be within the core of your company, it should be designed into the products and services you develop. Why create a product that you can’t support? Short-term gains will only last so long.

You must want to be able to deliver good customer service as it won't just happen - The road to good fortune is paved with good intentions. If you don’t have a plan in place to offer good customer service, it just won’t happen. If you only have 1 or 2 people to handle support and you need more like 50, good luck.

Have a customer service manifesto - Want to offer good customer service? Write it down, and tell everyone.

BAM! is a great read for a round-trip flight. It is also a book you’ll want to pass along to colleagues, especially those who have responsibility for customer service in a company. It also has lists of the various myths and examples that are real and ready to use. I highly recommend BAM! to anyone in business or those thinking about starting a business, so that they are ready to offer good service to their clients and customers.

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Keeping positive and focused is easier for some than others. For those like myself who need a little help with it, it is the little things that can do the trick when we the day isn’t going the way we want it. It can be a call from a friend, a sign or a phrase.

This is where books like That Was Zen, This Is Wow: 232 Ideas for Transforming Your Life from Ordinary to Extraordinary come in handy. I met one of the co-authors, Rob Engelman, several years ago through networking and when I heard about his book I had to get a copy and purchased one from him. In it, there are 232 quotes and ideas that will cause you to pause, reflect and hopefully get back on course. You can read the book from cover-to-cover when you need some strong motivation or randomly flip to a page to get some quick inspiration.

One thing this book inspired me to do was to write some thoughts of my own. Many people have quotes of their own to help them get through the day. That Was Zen, This Is Wow can be that pit-stop we need during a hectic day to refuel our minds and hit the road running again.

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When I was given a copy of Upbeat: Cultivating the Right Attitude to Thrive in Tough Times by a friend who had no connection with the author or publisher, one word in the title caught my eye – thrive. Many times we see books and get advice in how to just get by, especially these days. What also caught my attention was the cover was bright yellow. The author, Rajesh Setty, is trying to get a point across.

Upbeat is a small book and a quick read, but carries a positive message about reaffirming what to do to keep motivated. The book is in 2 parts – the first is narrative, the second is a summary, almost a checklist, for one to follow. Though many of the messages are not unique to this book, the reaffirmed takeaways I have had from other books.

My greatest takeaway is that you cannot do it alone. You need to have a network of people, as well as a mentor. Many entrepreneurs who work solo can easily fall into a quagmire as it is just them. Working and connecting with others will help gain perspective and help you see good in the bad.

Another takeaway is to remember to take care of yourself. A healthy body contributes greatly to a healthy mind. This is one I need to continuously remind myself of.

Everybody operates differently. Some have internal energy sources nobody can quite understand, even the person themselves. Others need a little help to keep motivated. If you are the latter, reading Upbeat might be the nudge you need.

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There is no shortage of business books available to read. All of them offer some unique perspective on one or many aspects of business. As is shown from an entire category here at The Hot Iron on book takeaways, I enjoying reading a variety of business books and manage to take something away from them. With some books, something resonates with me strongly, even if it is a reaffirmation of something I already know.

This was the case for me with The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. It is considered a “classis” small business book as it talks about the dilemma most entrepreneurs (what the “e” stands for) get into, where what they thought was creating a business was more creating a job. Gerber, in a narrative style, takes the reader to the point where they are, and guides them out of it and back to leading a business.

In this description I have oversimplified the details of the book, as there are many to go through, plus I did not want to give too much away as I am hoping anyone who owns their own business reads the book! There is certainly a lot in each step of Gerber’s process, especially as he has developed a consulting firm around helping people do so. I will share with you my takeaways from this book.

My greatest take away from The E-Myth Revisited is to write is down, and write down everything. I am not just referring to to-do lists, rather I am talking about writing everything from a business plan to operation plans to logins and passwords. Many people will confirm with me that if it isn’t written down, it will never happen. This rings true especially for business planning. Why many people don’t write things down is because they believe they do not have to, that it is in their heads and that is good enough. However you will get to a point that you wished you wrote it down, so you have something to look to at all times as a barometer at how successful you are.

An equally important takeaway is to determine what you want out of your business. For most entrepreneurs, including myself, going on your own meant you wanted to do things the way you felt they should be and not how you did them working for someone else. Where this is true, one thing you probably didn’t want to do was work 20 hours a day, every day or balance your business’ books on a regular basis! In E-Myth Gerber calls this your Primary Aim, and defining it even several years down the road is important for you to do. I know, I did it myself.

Note both of these takeaways are not necessarily earth-shattering revelations you could only get from the book. Perhaps it was the style of the book, or when I read it personally, that made these points resonate with me.

The E-Myth Revisited was recommended to me by many people. I purchased my own copy and was personally compelled to write this post. My only regret with reading it is that I wished I read it very early on in the starting of my business. After reading it, myself and a colleague decided to go through defining our Primary Aims and we shared out discoveries. It was a soul-searching experience, not to mention important activity. Needless to say I recommend this book to anyone who is thinking of starting a business or even someone who is already in business who has not read it yet. I consider The E-Myth Revisited a must-read business book, with the likes of Barry Moltz’s You Need To Be a Little Crazy: The Truth About Starting and Growing Your Business. Note the links to books in this post are affiliate links to Amazon.com.

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Have you ever felt that all of the sudden you hear about someone who has done something great and then wondered, where did they come from? The term “overnight sensation” is commonly given to these people. But is their success truly something that materialized over the course of 24 hours? This is the idea behind the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

In Outliers, several categories of people are analyzed as well as famous people who fall into those classifications. Gladwell is seeking to find out why they are successful – is it by chance, or were there contributing factors to their success? The book is told in a narrative, non-intimidating style for a book that presents a lot of data and unique scenarios to consider. He makes conclusions based on his research which in the end are rather simple – I won’t give them away as I don’t want to spoil it if you decide to read the book!

There were a couple of takeaways for me from Outliers. The greatest was we don’t often know the whole story behind a person’s success. Many times when a person’s story is told, you hear their achievements and perhaps some obstacles they had to overcome, but not much more. This is no fault to journalists or whoever is telling the story, as these are the most interesting parts. Many other events occurring in a person’s history may not even be interesting; however they may have contributed greatly to their success. In the book Bill Gates is highlighted. Where most people may know he dropped out of Harvard University, most probably don’t realize the high amount of access he had to computers as a youth, which Gladwell contributes to his success.

Another takeaway from the book was there could have been other titles for this book. I assume “Outliers” was chosen as the people highlighted are considered outliers from the mainstream of society. Another good title could have been “Chances” as many of the people in the book had chances and opportunities others have not which contributed to their success. Another title could have been “The Rest Of The Story” which though is probably trademarked by the late Paul Harvey’s estate would have fit as it does tell the rest of the story of those featured. I’ll admit the given title did not compel me to read the book as much as who wrote it, as I have liked Gladwell’s other books.

I enjoyed Outliers and would recommend it to anyone in business or beyond, as the back story of the book helps remind you there is probably more going on or has gone on than you may realize. And to fully disclose, I was offered this book by a colleague, and it was shipped to me directly from either the publisher or a publicist at no cost. I was not asked to write a review or takeaways on it. Note the links to the book within this story are affiliate links to Amazon.com, where I would earn a few pennies if you did buy the book from one of the links.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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