Hey Square Readers, You voted and chose Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara as our Square Readers Book Club book for January & February 2025! We’re so ...
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Hey Square Readers! Are you looking for a new way to level up your business skills and have some fun while you're at it? Then get excited, and get ready to r...
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Hey Square Readers,
You voted and chose Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara as our Square Readers Book Club book for January & February 2025!
We’re so excited to kick off the new year with this book focusing on the core of our businesses: our customers. This book was also featured in Season 2 of the hit show, The Bear, in an episode all about giving service and taking pride in one’s work, and I can’t wait to dive in.
Here’s a quick summary:
Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
“Essential lessons in hospitality for every business: Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. The answer to some of the most pernicious business dilemmas is to give more; and the magic that can happen when a busser starts thinking like an owner. Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business— we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve.”
We’ll start reading on Monday, January 6th, so get ready and pick up a copy at a local library, bookstore, Amazon, or anywhere else! We’ll have discussion threads and conversations all throughout the two months, so keep checking back to the Square Readers Book Club.
We will once again have @DinaLRosenberg, co-owner of Amityville Apothecary in NY, co-hosting for this round of our book club. With an MBA, a ton of small business experience, and an absolute expertise in customer service, she is the perfect person to help guide us through this book.
Tell us in the comments:
Are you excited about this book?
What do you hope to learn?
Here are the next books we’ll read together:
March & April 2025: Obviously Awesome by April Dunford
May & June 2025: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Don’t forget to:
View and Subscribe to all threads about this book
We can’t wait to read with you!
Pesso
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Hey Square Readers!
Thank you so much for joining our Square Readers Book Club!
Don’t forget to click Join Group at the top of our Book Club Group Hub.
I would love to learn more about you all, so here's a space to introduce yourselves and to meet some fellow Readers.
So tell us a bit about yourself here in the comments.
Tell us:
Your name & location
Your business name (and website)
What you're hoping to learn and gain from Book Club
Your favorite book (business or fun)
A picture or two of you or your business
And of course feel free to reply to each others’ intros, especially those nearby or in the same industry as you.
Looking forward to meeting you all, and reading with you,
Pesso
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Hey Square Readers,
**VOTING HAS ENDED**
Are you ready to help pick the next books for the Square Readers Book Club?
This year we’ll pick a few books at once so you can plan part of the year ahead and have more time to get a copy. We’ll start voting now for the first half of 2025.
We have a bunch of books to choose from, and we’d love for you to vote to help us decide! Select ALL of the books that you would want to read, and we’ll take ones with the most votes.
Here are this round’s choices:
1. Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
As featured in Season 2 of the hit show, The Bear!
“Essential lessons in hospitality for every business: Radical reinvention, a true partnership between the kitchen and the dining room—and memorable, over-the-top, bespoke hospitality. The answer to some of the most pernicious business dilemmas is to give more; and the magic that can happen when a busser starts thinking like an owner. Today, every business can choose to be a hospitality business— we can all transform ordinary transactions into extraordinary experiences. Find the magic in what we do—for ourselves, the people we work with, and the people we serve.”
2. Twelve and a Half by Gary Vaynerchuck
“Gary Vaynerchuk explores the twelve essential emotional skills that are integral to his life and business success, and provides critical tools to acquire and develop these traits. Gary provides real-life examples involving common business scenarios to show you how to use them to land promotions, retain core employees, move faster than competitors, win the loyalty of customers, and build successful organizations that last.”
3. Atomic Habits by James Clear
“No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving—every day. James Clear reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. Bad habits repeat themselves not because you don't want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. Atomic Habits will reshape the way you think about progress and success, and give you the tools and strategies you need to transform your habits--whether you are a team looking to win a championship, an organization hoping to redefine an industry, or simply an individual who wishes to achieve any other goal.”
4. Obviously Awesome by April Dunford
“You know your product is awesome—but does anybody else? Forget everything you thought you knew about positioning. Successfully connecting your product with consumers isn’t a matter of following trends, comparing yourself to the competition or trying to attract the widest customer base. Obviously Awesome, shows you how to find your product’s “secret sauce”—and then sell that sauce to those who crave it. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, marketer or salesperson struggling to bring inventive products to market, Dunford’s insights will help you find your awesome, so that your customers can too.”
5. Never Lose A Customer Again by Joey Coleman
Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days
“Learn how to turn a one-time purchaser into a lifelong customer. It isn't about focusing on marketing or closing the sale: It's about the First 100 Days® after the sale and the interactions the customer experiences. While new customers experience joy, euphoria, and excitement, these feelings quickly shift to fear, doubt, and uncertainty as buyer's remorse sets in. Across all industries, somewhere between 20%-70% of newly acquired customers will stop doing business with a company. If you can understand and anticipate the customers' emotions, you can apply a myriad of tools and techniques to cement a long and valuable relationship. These are easy to implement action steps that result in lasting change, increased profits, and lifelong customer retention.”
6. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
Jumpstart your Income, Your Life, Your Success
“No gimmicks. No Hyperbole. No Magic Bullet. The Compound Effect is based on the principle that decisions shape your destiny. Little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. The Compound Effect is a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you’re serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want.”
7. Company of One by Paul Jarvis
“Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.”
8. Find Your Why by Simon Sinek
“Find Your Why picks up where Start With Why left off. It shows you how to apply Simon Sinek’s powerful insights so that you can find more inspiration at work -- and in turn inspire those around you. Achieving that fulfillment starts with understanding exactly WHY we do what we do. With detailed exercises, illustrations, and action steps for every stage of the process, Find Your Why can help you address many important concerns. Whether you've just started your first job, are leading a team, or are CEO of your own company, the exercises in this book will help guide you on a path to long-term success and fulfillment, for both you and your colleagues.”
9. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
“A former FBI hostage negotiator offers a new, field-tested approach to negotiating – effective in any situation. Never Split the Difference takes you inside his world of high-stakes negotiations, revealing the nine key principles that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed when it mattered the most – when people’s lives were at stake. Rooted in the real-life experiences of an intelligence professional at the top of his game, Never Split the Difference will give you the competitive edge in any discussion.”
10. The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
“Anyone who designs anything to be used by humans – from physical objects to computer programs to conceptual tools – must read this book, and it is an equally tremendous read for anyone who has to use anything created by another human. It could forever change how you experience and interact with your physical surroundings, open your eyes to the perversity of bad design and the desirability of good design, and raise your expectations about how things should be designed.”
Which of these do you want to read next? Vote by filling out this Google Forms survey!
After you vote, tell us in the comments why you’re excited about the books you chose. Feel free to leave suggestions for other books you’d want to read (that you’ve heard of or from our Bookshelf)!
We’ll announce the next books on December 16th, and start reading the first one in January.
We can’t wait to read with you!
Pesso
**VOTING HAS ENDED**
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Hey Square Readers,
We hope you had a great time reading Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk with us. We had some really great discussion threads, so thank you all for participating and making the Square Readers Book Club a welcoming and helpful place. And a big thanks to @DinaLRosenberg for co-hosting and leading this round of Book Club with me!
So we’re here now to bring it all together with a full book and discussion summary, with the parts that you all found to be the most important. And if you didn’t get a chance to read the book, here’s a chance to get the shortened version. Let’s dive in!
Book Summary
Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk is all about effective strategies, tactics, and key principles that you can use to promote and grow your business through social media. It focuses on understanding where consumers are spending their attention, and how to create engaging content on those channels in order to get customers to spend their time and money with you.
Discussion Summary
We used our Book Club discussion threads to take the theories from the book and see how you all put them into practice in your businesses.
We kicked things off with a baseline conversation before reading the book about how your business uses social media.
Next we laid the foundations of the book by covering the author’s views why attention matters. He explains how the book gained its title, explaining that business owners must study where their potential customers spend their time and attention, and work to make engaging content in those mediums.
Then we dove into the core principle of the book, what the author calls the The Modern Advertising Framework. This covers the entire process of truly understanding and researching your core audience, creating a strategy and content, amplifying it as much as possible, testing and refining, and creating new content based on your findings and results.
After that, we gave an overview of all of the current Social Media Platforms, explaining the differences and specialities of each one. Here Dina also gave more insights into her experiences with creating engaging content.
Dina also led a social media consultation, with members sharing their channels and giving each other advice on how to improve things. Feel free to jump in to ask for advice and share your own insights!
Then we put everything all together to share the final takeaways from the last chapters of the book. This covered authenticity, creativity, bringing community in-person, and so much more.
And finally we finished off our discussion threads by talking about the impact that implementing strategies from the book has had on your businesses, with folks sharing the benefits they’ve felt and their final learnings.
Tactic Talk: Social Media Event
Rather than our usual Live Discussions, we shifted to hosting a new event, Tactic Talk: Social Media. This was an opportunity for all Community Members to share their learnings and experiences with social media, as well as to ask each other questions for tips and best practices. It was a really great discussion, and thanks to everyone who joined us! Watch the video recording here.
Next Book
We’re taking a winter break from Book Club for the busy Holiday Season in November & December, but we’ll be back in January 2025! Keep an eye out for the next round of book voting coming soon.
Your Thoughts
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this book and overall the experience of our Square Readers Book Club!
Was this book’s framework helpful? What did you get out of it?
What are you looking forward to with next year’s books?
It’s never too late to jump into any of our discussion threads and join in on the conversation!
Paying it Forward
If you’re all done with the book and are looking for something to do with a copy you bought, I highly recommend paying it forward. Give it to another local business owner, or donate it to a local used bookstore, community center, library, Little Free Library, or anywhere else, so someone else can benefit from it.
Thank you so much for all of your participation and discussion throughout the last two months! A big shoutout to some of our most active members: @DinaLRosenberg, @CareyJo, @bonny, @theroyalctambo, @GoalGetter, @BrianaJo, @CrismarChandler, @Doran, @Smellthis1919, @schaefferjosh, and more!
We hope you read the next book with us in January!
Can’t wait to read more with you,
Pesso
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Hey Readers,
We’ve now finished up reading Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk, and we’ve covered everything from your business’ use of social media, the basics of covered the basics of why attention matters, went through the The Modern Advertising Framework, did an overview of the current Social Media Platforms, held a social media consultation, and shared the final takeaways from the last chapters.
So let’s talk about how you’ve implemented what you’ve learned from the book. I’d love to hear what ideas resonated the most with you, what you learned, what it’s been like to actually enact those changes, and how they’ve impacted your business.
I know there is so much to digest and implement. This book really is more academic text book than what we’ve read in the past and, as such, requires working through it rather than a straight read.
In light of that, @Pesso and I hope you’ll join us for our live Tactic Talk event about social media use in your business. Bring questions you may have, wins, any “lightbulb moments,” or even frustration – we wanna hear from you!
Don’t forget to RSVP to Tactic Talk: Social Media, a new version of our Book Club Live Discussions that we’re holding Tomorrow, Tuesday October 29th, to chat together about the social media strategies. Hope to see you there!
We’d love to hear your answers in the comments:
What resonated the most with you from this book?
What have you done in your business as a result of reading this book?
What effects have you felt on your business so far?
Where do you still feel lost or frustrated after reading this book?
Don’t forget to:
View and Subscribe to all threads about this book
RSVP to our Live Discussion – Tactic Talk: Social Media
Happy reading!
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