The Extraordinary Business Book Club

"We all want to grow our business. And we often do that by spending quite a lot of money... But the reality is in front of us, we have all the new clients we need." Graham Eisner perfected his technique for asking clients for referrals without embarrassment on either side at Goldman Sachs, and has been teaching business owners how to do it to grow their business ever since. At its heart, his method involves a simple but profound shift in mindset: a belief that people genuinely want to help. It turns out this is an incredibly helpful mindset when it comes to marketing your book, too - and Graham generously shares his pro tips in this energising and practical conversation.

'You cannot go into PR without building relationships.' Louise Third has embraced this principle in the planning and writing of her book PR on a Beermat, first by partnering with the originators of the beermat idea to develop it for PR, by writing collaboratively with partners, and by involving journalists and other media professionals to share their expertise in her book. In this fascinating conversation we talk about PR, the role of a book as part of a business's storytelling, visual thinking, self-publishing and more. Energising and inspiring listening.

'I think it's kind of a miracle. How can a human mind... all by itself, come up with an idea it never had before? You know, in a dialogue, I can understand how I can get a new idea from you, but how can I get a new idea from myself? That's amazing.' So much of writing is about trust - trusting yourself, that you will find something worth saying; trusting that the words will come and that others will find something of value. If you can't trust yourself to take that first step, you'll never write anything. Peter Elbow knows this from experience. Having been shut down by a supercilious tutor at university he ended up dropping out of graduate school, simply unable to write the papers he was required to submit. But what he discovered in the process was to transform his own writing and that of the thousands of people he's taught it to since then - free-writing. What's more, he discovered that free-writing isn't simply a tool for getting unstuck, it produces writing with more energy and clarity. This episode might just change your life.

'Accountability is... probably the most empowering concept you have to live the life you want to live, when you understand it.' When we speak about accountability in business, very often the context is negative. It's about consequences and blame. But if we see accountability as ownership, it's a radically different, more empowering concept. That's what Brian Moran and Michael Lennington discovered, and they drew on their long-standing accountability to each other as business and writing partners to bring out the full significance of that understanding in their new book. This week's conversation is not only a fascinating rehabilitation of a tricky term, but also a masterclass in writing collaboration.

Put an author in front of schoolchildren and you can guarantee that before too long, one of them will ask: 'Where do you get your ideas?' It's a good question, and one that's just as important for business book writers. In this week's 'best bits' episode we look back over recent conversations to see, well, where DO authors get their ideas? (So if someone asks you that question from now on, you can tell them: The Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast.) With insights from: Cathy Rentzenbrink, Robert Kelsey, Jinny Uppal, John Howkins, Christian Busch, David Grayson, Helen Beedham and Catherine Stothart.

'[Writing] is a craft. It's no different to knitting or painting by numbers or whatever, you just have to learn the craft. It might take practice and it might take learning a few rules, but, you know, they're not that scary.' For Robert Kelsey, writing is an essential business skill in the knowledge economy. And he won't accept excuses. In this conversation he shares his fear-free approach to effective business communication, and his tips for getting started and keeping going. We also talk about the new landscape of publishing, and the extraordinary resilience of the printed book. Energising and insightful listening.

'I delighted in writing it. That doesn't mean I found it easy.' Time management has been seen as an issue for individuals for too long: Helen Beedham argues that the real issue is systemic. The way that organisations manage and value time, she says, is broken. And it's not just a productivity issue, it's hurting our wellbeing and working against inclusion and diversity, too. Developing that insight into a book was something of a rollercoaster - as her family will attest...

'Expressing an idea and getting it out there is a very skilful process... the principle is to get the other people as interested in the idea you are.' Creative work is to a large extent invisible - which makes it tricky for managers to manage. It also means that we're left with the challenge of making our invisible ideas visible if we're going to do anything with them. In this fascinating conversation I talk to creativity expert John Howkins about that process, the naming, defining and describing of a new idea, together with his best advice for writers (and his confessions about his own writing process...).

In a world that screams 'Just Do It!', inaction has a bad reputation. But sometimes, strategic inaction is exactly what the situation demands - and much more productive in the long run than the rush to do something, anything. In this week's conversation I talk to Jinny Uppal about how she learned this for herself, and about writing, publishing, crowdfunding and curiosity.

Anyone can have an idea for a book. Writing, publishing and marketing it? That means becoming an author, and that involves a whole lot of learning. In this week's podcast I chat around the virtual campfire to seven members of the Extraordinary Business Book Club - some have just begun their first book, others have written several - about what they've learned so far in their journey as authors. Practical, thought-provoking and often very funny, these dispatches from the front line are essential reading for anyone considering writing a business book.