The Brain Audit

Sean D'Souza's marketing guide sets out to explain why customers buy and why they walk away from a sale that seemed certain. Rather than persuasion, pressure or mind tricks, D'Souza maps the steps people go through every day when buying a product or service, and shows what information customers need in order to decide. He identifies seven elements, which he calls bags, that a decision requires and that should be presented in the right sequence. He also gives a checklist meant to replace shifting personal opinions about a website, presentation or business card with consistent benchmarks, so marketers can tell whether their message is working.

Louis Grenier, host of the Everyone Hates Marketers podcast, named it as a good book for telling stories and giving them structure.