The 365 Best Business Books Of All-Time: Made To Stick

Chip and Dan Heath have become the de-facto sticky brothers through their bestselling book Made To Stick. As they say on their website “Urban legends, conspiracy theories, and bogus public health scares circulate effortlessly.”

Meanwhile, people with important ideas: businessmen, educators, politicians, journalists, and so on, and so on, really struggle to make their ideas stick. And it’s a fascinating conundrum. The solution say Chip and Dan is their success principle. That’s S-U-C-C-E-S. You can drop the last S and it stands for simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, and emotional stories.

They’re a great starting point for developing and recognizing spreadable, contagious and sticky ideas that will stand the test of time. And I think that’s something that we all need a little bit more of these days.

My Key Takeaway/Principle

Make your marketing message concrete so people can quickly understand it.

Success principle number three is concreteness. Just as our brains are wired to notice differences they’re also wired to remember concrete data. Hence, the success of that Guinness book, Letterman’s top ten list and even the stickiness of your own phone number. We can recall concrete data better because it is usually associated with other sensory clues.

So what I’m going to do is ask you take this simple test which was done by David Rueben, a cognitive physiologist at Duke University. And it’s only going to take about thirty seconds. You ready? Okay, here we go.

Remember the first line of Hey Jude. Now remember the Mona Lisa. Now remember the house where you’ve spent most of your childhood. Now remember the definition of truth.

Okay. Immediate associations will probably jump into your mind. You know the image of the Mona Lisa, the way she is glancing at you. A memory of the first few bars McCartney’s baritone from Hey Jude. Perhaps even the aroma of your childhood home.

However, the definition of truth exercise probably didn’t conjure anything in particular. Why? Because it’s an abstract concept — it’s not concrete. Now think about this in terms of your last sales pitch or your last marketing piece, whatever. You’ve only got a few seconds to get your point across to make it stick. What associations are you conjuring?

Questions to ask yourself

• What abstract concepts am I using in my marketing programs?
• What concrete concepts can I use to replace them?

What else is covered in this book?

Well, the other 5 principles that make up the SUCCES principles, of course. Learn how to create simple, unexpected, concrete, credible and emotional stories to make your messages stick.

This year (2018) I’m reading and summarizing the top 365 business books of all-time. You can get the full list of books, and links to my reviews of each book, by clicking here.

Happy learning!