The best book I’ve ever read about marketing isn’t about marketing. It’s about baseball.

The book’s called Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis. If you’re a marketer or advertiser you need to read this book.

The premise is that baseball insiders are guilty of a herd mentality that’s focused on the wrong things and reaches the wrong conclusions. If you know nothing at all about baseball you’ll still learn very valuable lessons about business.

The book is centered on Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A’s.

Beane ignores all the conventional wisdom (i.e., baloney) that permeates the sport. He and his staff developed their own principles about what makes a ballplayer valuable. And they follow these principles regardless of what the herd thinks.

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