Starter for Ten - Simple inspiration
Entrepreneurs and business leaders are always on the lookout for great ideas and inspiration. Innovating, implementing new policies or redesigning current products all require a creative mindset to accomplish, and finding the right inspiration can help get you in that perfect headspace.
If you’re looking to tap into your creativity or get your company growth back on the right track, here’s some simple inspiration to get started with this week - from books to podcasts, webinars and professional training.
Have a great week ahead.
Alison Dwyer
Head of Marketing and Communications
Five of the best business books to read
Business books — whether they be about starting a business, leading or managing a business, or improving your business — can help you see the problems ahead and create strategies to overcome them. Here's 5 of the top rated business books to add to your reading list.
Trajectory: Startup: Ideation to Product/Market Fit by Dave Parker
This book promises to remove the mystery from the startup process. It offers a path from ideation to launch and revenue in six months with easy-to-follow tasks and timeframes.
The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia
This book is written for a new generation of founders who would rather build great companies than big ones. Lavingia uses his experience building his company, Gumroad, to help entrepreneurs make smart investments, manage remote workers and gig workers, develop and release products quickly and successfully, and become profitable.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
When starting out, you might get caught up spending months building your product or service — only to find that no one wants to buy it. The Lean Startup will help you create a product that customers want (and are happy to pay for) quickly by identifying and testing key assumptions early on.
Beyond Happiness: How Authentic Leaders Prioritise Purpose and People for Growth and Impact by Jenn Lim
Beyond Happiness draws on the science of happiness to show readers that true joy comes from living your true purpose. The book shows company leadership how to help individuals align their purpose with the company mission.
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know by Adam Grant
What if the most important skill is no longer to think and learn but to rethink and unlearn? Grant argues that too many of us favour the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt.
How to succeed as an outsider
Leadership in the modern world is fraught with unprecedented challenges, which makes success stories even more remarkable. In her book 21st Century Business Icons, Sally Percy explores the lessons we can imbibe from some of the world's most successful business leaders. Here, the author delves into what we can learn from Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Australian graphic design platform Canva.
Perkins is not your archetypal tech unicorn founder. She’s not male, she’s not white and she’s not based in Silicon Valley. This probably explains why she’s chosen to write about what it’s like to be 'on the outside' in life. Percy suggests that determination in the face of adversity is the key to the founder's success.
But what about the class ceiling in workplaces?
We’re getting better at talking about the roles that gender and race play in career progression. What’s less spoken about is class or social mobility.
In the latest episode of Working It - an FT podcast, host Isabel Berwick talks to John Friedman, professor and chair of economics at Brown University, who studies the impact of childhood inequality, and hears from Sophie Pender, a London-based corporate lawyer and founder of the 93% Club, a UK network that connects and empowers people who went to state school, about how class discrimination continues to affect people at work and what to do about it.
Podcasts for small business leaders
1. Duct Tape Marketing Hosted by John Jantsch,
Duct Tape Marketing dives into marketing tips for small businesses. Jantsch invites marketing experts onto his show to dish on topics such as doubling your sales, employer branding, Instagram marketing, and more.
2. Odd Lots
Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway take a high-level look at deeper issues impacting the global economy. Every Monday and Thursday, they chat with global experts on topics ranging from the inflated price of eggs to up-and-down rent prices.
3. Count Me In
This show from the Institute of Management Accountants covers all things accounting and finance, including how to up your business’s profitability and productivity. Count Me In helps listeners understand the complicated nature of accounting and how it affects their personal and business finances.
4. Next Economy Now
Next Economy Now focuses on business leaders putting sustainability, transparency, and equity at the forefront of their strategy. The show highlights topics often left out of the larger business conversation, from social ventures that help refugees to the racial wealth gap in the food and farming industries.