The Forum

Many of us don’t take the time to stay on top of industry trends and best practices. At Rainmakerz, we routinely conduct research for presentations, webinars, and the development of new processes to help our customers especially in the areas of time management, business development, capture/proposal best practices, and presentation design/development. Don’t have time to read any of these books? Contact us to get the golden nuggets on your book of choice or visit our blog to learn more.

• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell. The instant conclusions we reach are very powerful, important, and often exactly right. Gladwell explores why some people follow their instincts and win, why the best decisions are often impossible to rationalize, and why great decision makers aren’t necessarily those with the most information. “A silent 2-second video clip of a teacher can tell us as much about how good a teacher will be as sitting in the class for an entire semester.”

• David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell. Challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages drawing on history, psychology, and storytelling. Being an underdog can open doors and create opportunities that might otherwise seem unthinkable.

• Do-It-Yourself Billion Dollar Graphics, Mike Parkinson. Introduces a simple 3-step method to turn text and ideas into persuasive graphics with an emphasis on knowing your audience, asking the hard questions, and incorporating the right level of subject matter expertise. Mike is an icon in the proposal graphics industry and a Rainmakerz Consulting partner. We are honored to be acknowledged in his book for our help and support.

• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity, David Allen. Includes practical and common sense time management methods with a twist—they require a different way of approaching day-to-day work. Allen’s book provides good tools, tips, and techniques for capturing all the things you need to do and disciplining yourself to get them done.

• How to Become a Rainmaker, Jeffrey J. Fox. Includes practical and insightful rules for getting and keeping customers and clients. “Rainmakerz say you, they don’t say I.”90% of all sales calls are won or lost before the salesperson sees the customer.” “The rainmaker doesn’t sell the product; they sell what the customer will get from the product.”

• Jump Start Your Business Brain: The Scientific Way to Make More Money, Doug Hall. Explores the patterns in the “universe of business” that help you win more, lose less, and make more money. Sections on “overt benefits” and “reasons to believe” are especially compelling and relevant for our industry. This book was a gift from one of our customers that keeps on giving.

• Powerful Proposals: How to Give Your Business the Winning Edge, Pugh and Bacon. Includes proven strategies for creating benefit-focused proposals with a focus on writing themes, executive summaries, maximizing graphics, callouts, and other visual elements.

• PresentationZen, Garr Reynolds. A strikingly different and simple approach to designing, preparing, and delivering highly visual presentations that is practical and easy to implement—without ditching PowerPoint. “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication…visuals are thousands of times more memorable than words…bullet points add nothing.”

• Resonate: Visual Stories that Transform Audiences, Nancy Duarte. A how-to guide and business justification for storytelling as one of the most effective ways to create and deliver presentations that connect with audiences. “Stories are very powerful…to help the audience visualize, engage, and be more receptive.”

• Shipley Capture Guide (Third Edition), Shipley Associates, Larry Newman. The definitive A-Z reference guide to capture planning written by fellow Dream Team member Larry Newman. This book is an absolute must for every capture and proposal manager.

• Shipley Proposal Guide (Fourth Edition), Shipley Associates, Larry Newman. The companion reference book to the Shipley Capture Guide and generally recognized as the proposal manager’s bible. This A-Z guide is the basis for APMP foundational certification and required reading for every proposal manager. Do you know the difference between a differentiator and a discriminator?

• Smart Tribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together, Christine Comaford. A systematic approach to creating company culture to outperform, outsell, and out-innovate the competition. Includes neuroscience research and the importance of understanding the fight/flight/freeze reptilian brain as the key to increasing performance.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. A classictop seller for over two decades explores how being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, prioritizing, and win-win opportunities, makes people more effective.

• The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch. After learning about his incurable pancreatic cancer, Randy Pausch delivers a humorous and inspiring lecture for the ages about the importance of overcoming obstacles, and seizing every moment. The book includes practical time management   tips. “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

• The Naked Presenter, Garr Reynolds. A great follow-up book to Presentation Zen for more advanced presenters who want to make their presentations more powerful by connecting with audiences. Key points include less focus on technology and more focus on transparency, vulnerability, simplicity, integrity, and passion. “The more text you have on a slide, the less the audience thinks you know the material.”