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Brian Scudamore's Top Book Recommendations

Founder & CEO/1-800-GOT-JUNK?

Want to know what books Brian Scudamore recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Brian Scudamore's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

GREAT GAME OF BUSINESS, THE

An executive who turned around his own business shows how any company can build on its people's "universal desire to win," to boost both profits and employee morale, using his bold system of open-book management. less
Recommended by Brian Scudamore, Paul Hawken, and 2 others.

Brian ScudamoreThis book showed me the importance of transparency in business (making everyone understand the “game” of business”), and then how essential it is to give your employees some skin in the game. This book is why we adopted a profit-sharing program at O2E Brands called GGOB (Great Game of Business). (Source)

Paul HawkenThe brilliant story of the most radical act committed by a businessman in this century. (Source)

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2
Discover the vital relationship that will take your company from "What’s next?" to "We have liftoff!"

Visionaries have groundbreaking ideas. Integrators make those ideas a reality. This explosive combination is the key to getting everything you want out of your business. It worked for Disney. It worked for McDonald’s. It worked for Ford. It can work for you.

From the author of the bestselling Traction, Rocket Fuel details the integral roles of the Visionary and Integrator and explains how an effective relationship between the two can help your...
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Recommended by Brian Scudamore, and 1 others.

Brian ScudamoreWhen it’s time to scale up in business, you have to let go of control and find someone who can even out your flat spots. For example, I’m not good at operationalizing vision — I need people who have those skills. I hired our COO Erik Church because he’s the yin to my yang; he takes blue-sky dreams and turns them into reality. Rocket Fuel is about how partnering with the right people can make you... (Source)

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3

WTF?! Willing To Fail

How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success

Entrepreneurship is a roller coaster of trial and error, laughter and tears, confusion and triumph. In WTF?! (Willing to Fail), serial entrepreneur Brian Scudamore takes you on an adventure that will convince you once and for all that you have exactly what it takes to succeed.

With engaging stories from his thirty-plus years of failing upward, his book is full of lessons you can apply to your own endeavors developing a clear vision, creating an awesome culture, finding gratitude in challenging times, and using setbacks to change your business for the better.

Being an...
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Recommended by Brian Scudamore, Michael E. Gerber, and 2 others.

Brian ScudamoreIf someone is interested in my career path, WTF?! (Willing to Fail) shows every misstep and every moment of doubt … but also how I came through them. The takeaway is that by finding awesome people and choosing to be positive, you can accomplish more than you ever imagined. (Source)

Michael E. GerberBrian Scudamore is everyman's entrepreneur. This book tells the story of how everyone can, with great, productive joy, literally transform the world! (Source)

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4
E-Myth \ 'e-,'mith\ n 1: the entrepreneurial myth: the myth that most people who start small businesses are entrepreneurs 2: the fatal assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that does that technical work

Voted #1 business book by Inc. 500 CEOs.

An instant classic, this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths about starting your own business. Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points...
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Dave Ramsey[Dave Ramsey recommended this book on his website.] (Source)

Timothy FerrissAfter reading The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber and The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch, I decided that extreme questions were the forcing function I needed. (Source)

Brian ScudamoreThe book that’s had the biggest impact on me is The E-Myth by Michael Gerber (I even wrote about it in my own book). I read it front to back, then reread it right away. Gerber takes you through every step of a running a business from start to finish, and shows you what you need to make it successful. I read it when I was looking to take 1-800-GOT-JUNK? to the next level, and I had an epiphany:... (Source)

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5
To find the keys to greatness, Collins's 21-person research team read and coded 6,000 articles, generated more than 2,000 pages of interview transcripts and created 384 megabytes of computer data in a five-year project. The findings will surprise many readers and, quite frankly, upset others.

The Challenge
Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.

But what about the company that is not born...
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Jeff Bezos"Collins briefed Amazon executives on his seminal management book before its publication. Companies must confront the brutal facts of their business, find out what they are uniquely good at, and master their fly wheel, in which each part of the business reinforces and accelerates the other parts," Stone writes. (Source)

Dave Ramsey[Dave Ramsey recommended this book on his website.] (Source)

Max Levchin[Max Levchin recommended this book as an answer to "What business books would you advise young entrepreneurs read?"] (Source)

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