relationships that help your business grow and cost structure. Now it sounds a little bit like how do I make all this work? That's the beauty of the book. The book is established in such a way that multiple business examples or case studies are analyzed and mapped to the business model canvas. Old school businesses like the post office and insurance sales, and new businesses like freemium-based online services are all explained. So you can see old-school ways of doing business and emerging digital models. It's simply brilliant. I think I've given away probably 15 copies of this book. The thing that's cool about it is that there are several online sites available now where you can go and download a PDF of the business model canvas, and print it yourself either as a poster or as a banner. I did a four-foot by a six-foot vinyl banner of the business model canvas. And when I meet with clients, we'll put that up in their location, and then use sticky notes, the two by two or three by three sticky notes, and fill out all of these different relationships. And when we're finished, we've got an instant visual model of how that business works and how everything works within it. This helps us to then further define the responsibilities of the workers, employees, outside vendors, customers, suppliers, all of those things can be mapped out and defined so that you know what you're doing and you're not wasting time and you're getting the biggest return possible. So the key thing about it that I like the most is that it's visual, and I'm a visual learner. I like to see things in front of me. And when you combine the business model canvas with the sticky note approach, it makes business design and planning attainable and functional. And anybody can do it and I highly recommend it. It's called "The Business Model Generation" by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. Marshall Atkinson This is Marshall. Hey, hope you're enjoying this podcast. The first book that I want to recommend is one that was published this year. It's called “Red Goldfish Promo Edition”, how Promotional Products leverage purpose to increase impact by my good friend Roger Burnett, and it was co-authored by Stan Phelps. You heard Roger earlier in the podcast episode. He was also featured on Episode 5 of the Success Stories podcast earlier this season. What makes the "Red Goldfish Promo Edition" superb is that Roger and Stan do a fantastic job of diving into why you need to build a stronger emotional connection to your brand with your customers. It's about digging deep And finding the purpose of your business. So here's a question: can we be more than transactional in our sales? What if that same sale that you've been working on use products, techniques, methods or different ideas to give back and become more than just simply money-changing hands. Roger and Stan do a wonderful job illustrating the book with over 250 examples from our industry with people that I'll bet you already know. As I say in the book: "Purpose is the New Black". And here are four reasons from the book that I thought were impactful ideas for thinking about how to drive more purpose in your business. First, purpose and still strategic clarity. Meaning, where are you going? Purpose guides, choices; it's about what to do, but also what not to do. Purpose channels motivation. purpose motivates people through meaning, and not fear. So this is a great way to get all of your employees paddling the canoe in the same direction because we're all had the same motivation. So “Red Goldfish Promo Edition” is my first choice for books to recommend this year. Be sure to grab it today. And next up, I wanted to go back to an oldie but a goodie. And frankly, I can't remember when I acquired this book. But I'm in reading and rereading it over the years as a source of inspiration for me. And it's Jeffrey Gitomer, his famous sales guide book, "The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness". And looking through these pages, it shows that this book was originally published in 2005. I can't remember when I bought this book, I bought it a long time ago. And I probably reread it at least half a dozen, if not more times. Jeffrey, by the way, has been
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