Here at the Business Library it’s obvious that we LOVE—what else?—business books! To commemorate the recent Book Lovers Day, we asked entrepreneurs and professionals, from all walks of life, to share with us their favorite business book(s), and to tell us how those books had a positive impact on them, their businesses or their careers.

Whoa! The response was overwhelmingly wonderful and absolutely fantastic – and it gave way to this series of 11 daily blog posts (Parts A through K). It was hard to figure out how to classify all the responses, yet eventually we settled for this:

• The most popular business books: the ones that were mentioned time and time again in the responses we received, ranked by number of mentions.
• The honorable mentions: other books that were mentioned where the readers got an idea, had an a-ha! moment or took some form of action to enhance their businesses. Also included in the honorable mentions are a few books that, although not strictly in the business category (special mention to Robinson Crusoe in Part H and The Godfather in Part I), the responses were so clever and business-oriented, that we included them to reiterate that ideas can strike anywhere and anytime. (Did I mention how much I enjoyed the ‘business and leadership’ message of the movie Finding Nemo?... That’s another blog post for another day!) We left the honorable mentions in alphabetical order, in case you ever want to refer back to these posts to get ideas for your reading list.

The work has been immensely rewarding and I hope that reading this series of posts is as inspiring for you as it has been for me.

As a quick reference for you to know what to expect and find in this series of posts over the next 11 days, here’s a guide (the links will be live as the days go by):

Part A – The Most Popular Business Book (below)
Part B - Second & Third Most Popular Business Books
Part C – Fourth Most Popular Business Books
Part D – Fifth Most Popular Business Books
Part E – Honorable Mentions: 100, A-D
Part F – Honorable Mentions: E-I
Part G – Honorable Mentions: J-N
Part H – Honorable Mentions: O-S
Part I – Honorable Mentions: T (The $100 – The Hard)
Part J – Honorable Mentions: T (The Intelligent – Traction)
Part K– Honorable Mentions: W-Y

Without further ado, let’s get started!

PART A: THE MOST POPULAR BUSINESS BOOK

This book seems to come up in virtually any search for entrepreneurship and business books to read. In our query about favorite business books, it was the one with the most mentions. I agree that it should be part of any entrepreneurial library. And the book is… drum roll, please:

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, by Michael Gerber

Why is this book so good and mentioned over and over? This summary from the back cover says it all: "Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. He walks you through the steps in the life of a business from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed. He then shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business."

This book has changed --for the better-- the lives and businesses of the entrepreneurs and professionals who read it. Let's see below what they have to say!

The E-myth Revisited, by Michael Gerber

“Best biz book I've ever read, and I read a lot of them. I've read it twice and I like it because it is full of examples and stories that teach entrepreneurs that they can't and shouldn't be doing everything! Just because you have vision and work ethic to start a company doesn't mean you don't need help, especially once it is up and running. The book talks about the entrepreneur's role, the manager’s role and the sales person’s role. It further talks about creating a company that is easily reproducible and getting automated systems in place. If you create a company that you could easily reproduce, say, in another city, it means that you have systems and processes in place that make work seamless and automated. It changed the way I work!”

- Christopher Rogala, President of Office Space Chicago, Inc.

“This book studies the divide between technical and business skills. I had already created and sold a business when I first began Finder, but I wouldn’t say I was a business expert. My business partner, Frank, and I knew we had the technical skills to make it a success, but we also knew that was only part of what makes a great company. I took to studying everything I could that would help build the foundations for a company that ran well, could grow and had an amazing culture. A well-worn copy of this book is never far from me.”

- Fred Schebesta, CEO & Co-Founder of Finder.com

“I read this book, among several others, when I started my business over 2 years ago. It stuck out to me for a very simple reason-it made me feel like I belonged as a business owner. I never saw myself as a business owner and, like many others, thought owners had to be the mythical entrepreneur figure you might see on Shark Tank. This book breaks down that mythology, and explains the different type of personalities that may start a business. It helped me see what personality I was, how I fit in as a business owner and how what I thought were my weaknesses were actually strengths.”

- Michael Mason, Owner of Perfect Chaos Films

“My favorite book to date. It’s straightforward and sensible, it taught me to re-evaluate what running a business means. In short: running a business doesn't mean that you need to be involved with everything, work 12 hours a day, get stressed out, confused, overloaded and ultimately be unproductive. A business has many different parts and each one needs a system and/or a person in charge of that part of the business. Breaking your business down into separate parts helps the business focus on the most important tasks. Hiring great people to focus on key parts of your business helps the business do a better job.”

- Ed Mellet, Co-founder of WikiJob

“The E-Myth is a book about entrepreneurship and how many people go into it with the idea that they will get to do the work they love and run the business how they see fit. Many of us get trapped, running a business and not getting the chance to do the work we love to do, which was the whole reason for starting the company in the first place. The book talks a lot about how you can structure your company and set clear standards, clear guides, and train employees from the start.
In our law firm, we implemented a structure with defined roles. Each person signs off on the role agreement sheet, which is a ‘contract’ that says what that role is responsible for accomplishing. Even if one person holds multiple positions, it makes it easier when hiring for the future because you know what you are trying to fill. You don’t end up hiring someone who ends up being a jack of all trades.”

- Mitch Brudy, Communications Director of Freiwald Law

As you can see, the response is enthusiastic, and the way this book has helped enhance the business mindset of these entrepreneurs is amazing. Have you read this book? What did you think about it? How did it help you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s Part B where we will talk about the second and third most popular business book recommendations on our query and share some more of the readers’ insightful comments.