A lot of contractors don’t read much, and this is a shame because there is some super awesome stuff out there. The right book can make you a LOT of moolah.
I’ve always been surprised when I find out a business owner doesn’t read nonfiction.
Some of the smartest, wealthiest, most successful people on the planet collect their very best nuggets of knowledge. They spend months organizing it all into a coherent structure that other people can understand. Then they sit down at a computer for 1-2 years straight, refining it into a step-by-step guide that shows you how to do what they did and become smarter, wealthier, and more successful yourself.
…and people don’t want to read that!?
I don’t get it.
I just don’t get it.
Sure, most books suck ass. But some are veritable treasure troves of useful, applicable information. And reading these books has made me many hundreds of thousands of dollars that I wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t read them.
You deserve to know about these books.
So here are the top 5 books that have made my contracting business the most money over the past 2 years:
5. Algorithms to Live By – Brian Christian & Tom Griffiths ($30,000+)
This book is a collection of algorithms (i.e., sets of rules) about how to optimize different aspects of your personal and business life. Written by two computer scientists, it contains scientifically-proven optimal strategies for scheduling, organizing, decision-making, and more.
Now if this sounds incredibly dry and nerdy, well … it is. But it’s also incredibly USEFUL.
They explain the provably-optimal way to schedule jobs and sales calls. They explain the best way to organize your tools, files, and digital documents. They show you how to best prioritize your tasks when you have 1000 things to do but 0 time to do them. If I had to put a number on it, I would wager that implementing these optimizations has made a difference of around $30,000 total to my revenue over the past 2 years.
4. Getting Things Done – David Allen ($60,000+)
This book is somewhat like the last one, but with 100% focus on describing the optimal way to get maximum results in minimum time. It explains how the most productive people in the world (Elon, Bezos, former presidents, etc.) get the incredible results they do.
If you want to learn how the most successful people in the world write down, organize, schedule, and execute their tasks for maximum effectiveness … this is the book for you. (It also has a neat side effect of GREATLY diminishing feelings of overwhelm when you implement these strategies, due to how the brain’s memory system works.)
Estimated revenue gain, $60,000+ over the past 2 years.
3. The 4-Hour Workweek – Tim Ferriss ($80,000+)
Ah, the 4 Hour Workweek. “Escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich.”
… Turns out that’s ****ing hard as hell to do in contracting.
Though a bit outdated on software recommendations, Tim’s wisdom is timeless in the areas of automation, delegation, and identifying the key levers that really move the needle in your business.
When I was forced into a wheelchair in 2018 from the fast onset of an auto-immune disorder, I used Tim’s teachings to modify my business model, and I went from working 60-hour weeks to working 10-hour weeks with only minimal loss of income.
Of particular usefulness are his strategies for automating repetitive tasks, eliminating distractions, and hiring an executive assistant.
Estimated revenue gain, $80,000+.
2. Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss ($125,000+)
Customer wants to negotiate on price? Supplier going to be 2 weeks late with some crucial materials? Employee getting out of line? No problem.
Chris Voss, a former hostage negotiator for the FBI, walks you through the strategies and tactics of how to navigate life’s sticky situations. With decades of experience testing various techniques, lines, scripts and body language … then optimizing them under the very hardest of circumstances (negotiating for American lives with armed terrorists), his advice will directly make your life easier in countless ways.
(One line from this book, his infamous Hail Mary line of “Have you given up on ____?” made me over $70,000 last year by itself. ONE LINE! … And this book is chock full of this stuff!)
1. No B.S. Direct Marketing – Dan Kennedy ($200,000+)
Sales slow? You need leads. Leads slow? Time to step up the marketing. Marketing not working? You need ads. Don’t know how to write a good ad that ACTUALLY works? … Well shit. What now?
This book is advertising legend Dan Kennedy’s best book on how to create effective advertisements. From universal strategies of what ideas sell, down to the minute details of how to fold a letter and what font size to use … this book is a gold mine.
(I originally came across this book in 2019 when my business was struggling hard. I was bleeding out fast … and I was getting desperate. I cleared my schedule for 2 weeks and spent every waking hour writing and rewriting the best ad I could based on Dan Kennedy’s teachings.
In total, that ad cost me $800 out of pocket to create, print, stamp, and mail. But it brought in over $60,000 of sales within the next 3 weeks, and totally saved my ass. I STILL use that ad today when I need to create some leads out of thin air.)
Ads work in this industry folks. You just gotta know how to write ‘em. And if you don’t, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage to those who do.
Estimated revenue creation from this bad boy? Easy $200,000k+ over the past 2 years.
Now there are a ton more (last time I counted, my bookshelves had over 600 books on them), but these 5 are the ones that I found most directly applicable to making money in my contracting business.
In fact, I broke down and resynthesized a lot of the wisdom contained in these 5 books for sections of my own book, Markup & Marketing, where I made the knowledge accessible for contractors.
I read these books (and hundreds more), dissected all the knowledge, and constructed systems out of that knowledge. Then I spent over $100,000 field-testing those systems, and refined them down to only what works the best. Then I turned it all into a step-by-step guide on how to grow your contracting business.
(This is a bit of a shameless pitch here, but when you’ve assimilated and implemented over 8000 hours of reading material and turned it all into a step-by-step guide on how to grow your contracting business … some people will definitely want to know about it.)
So if you want to skip all that reading & trial and error … and just download the systems I spent 4 years and over $100,000 refining, you can check it out here.
Phew, pitching practice over.
(P.S. – Almost all of the books on this list are in audiobook form, so you can listen to them while on the road to and from jobsites. Or even during the job, as I used to do when I was laying flooring or cleaning grout. Contractors usually have a lot of time like this, so always look for opportunities to use it wisely.)
