Book review: Your Move by Ramit Sethi

My 31st read of 2017 was Your Move: The Underdog’s Guide to Building Your Business, by Ramit Sethi.
I’m a big fan of Sethi and find him at the acceptable end of motivational wealth gurus. His writing, whilst a bit ra-ra and motivational in places, is generally grounded in reality.
Your Move is part-autobiographical account of Ramit’s own experience creating an 8-figure-a-year company and part rule book examining important principles behind wealth building.
It’s a quick read at a couple of hundred pages, but there’s plenty of content in there, not just filler.
Here are some of the passages I highlighted on my Kindle:
When you can connect and really solve their problems, the price is a mere triviality.
Remember, making money is a byproduct of adding massive value to the world (Rule #1).
The best entrepreneurs know we have an OBLIGATION to ask for the sale, because that’s the best way to help our customers. The best entrepreneurs know we have to avoid reporting the “fake” numbers and focus on the number that matters — sales.
Rule #1: People pay me for the value I create. In other words, if I create value, people will be more than happy to pay me for it. Rule #2. The more I make, the more value I can create. I can invest back into the business, by building systems, creating technology, and hiring new people. Rule #3. Money is a marker that I’m doing the right thing. We’re going to avoid fake proxies of success, like how many people like my Facebook page. Instead, we’ll focus on the ultimate sign that you’ve created something the world wants: Sales.
In our experience, business is the most fun (and most profitable) when you focus on helping great people get better.
Focus more on being decisive and less on trying to make the “right” decision. You’ll never know until you try, and if you’re wrong, you can always try again.
The world wants you to be vanilla. They will always push you to look and act the same as everyone else.
In a world full of websites and e-books and apps, the moment you look and sound like everyone else, you’re dead.
There are a million different ways to approach any topic. The key is: Instead of focusing on the competition, focus on your audience.
To sell, you need to know four key things about your customers: their hopes, dreams, pain points, and fears.
Sending a survey to people in your target audience has two benefits. First, you’ll get a lot of insights about what they’re thinking. Second, you’ll get the exact words to use in your copy so that your audience will listen to you.
Here are some of my top places to learn about your audience: Amazon reviews of similar products and books Reddit or other online posting sites Facebook groups
Next up, I’m reading Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win, by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.
