Brian Tracy explains the habits that will change you and your approach to business.  This book is a classic.

Keeping brands simple and relevant is the name of the game.

Dale Carnegie's classic treatise on becoming influential, persuasive and valued.

Web marketing, presentation and usability is amount minimizing the workload on your visitor's brain. Clarity is the name of the game. Remember, most of your web visitors are just scanning a page for valuable content.  Design, build and present your web pages with this in mind.

Establish a marketing "beachhead" by dominating a niche and expanding out from it. 

Move beyond vertical marketing to lateral marketing by altering an existing offer utilizing substitution, combination, inversion, elimination, exaggerating or reordering.

Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of the Start" is must reading for anyone looking to start something. Get working creating value with a mantra behind your work, not just a corporate mission statement.

Self development is a core pursuit for small business oweners - they need to be equal parts technician, entrpreneur and manager.  All of these traits need to be present for business success.