Insight

Post2Post – The 100 Best Business Books of All Time

Earlier last year we stumbled upon a post that reviewed Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae, and noticed that the blog was taking part in Paul Williams‘ Virtual Book Tour. We loved the concept, and volunteered to participate during the next season of the Post2Post virtual book tour. So here we are. The third stop on the 100 Best Business Books of All Time virtual book tour. Enjoy.

Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten know business books. They run 800-CEO READ, a retail (and online) bookstore catering specifically to businesses. Who better, then, to compile The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You? The books are organized by category to facilitate easy reading, and also making it a handy go to guide if you’re looking for help in a specific area. What I think I enjoyed most about The 100 Best Business Books is how Jack and Todd were able to extract the key ideas and each of the books featured in a concise manner, pulling in first-hand stories of their experiences running 800-CEO-READ to add some narrative and grounding to the ideas the authors presented. We had the chance to ask Todd and Jack some questions about the book, as well as the business of books.

Chris Taggart: How can people who are not necessarily interested in business benefit from reading “business” books?

Todd Sattersten: First of all, everyone is involved in business. Buy a car. Shop at a grocery store. You are participating in commerce on a daily basis.  Having an understanding of business is personally beneficial no matter what field you are in. Business books are a great route to that better understanding.  Take a book like Oil on the Brain.  There is no better description of the oil industry.

Secondly, most “business” books have lessons that can be applied to other parts of your life.  Getting Things Done helps productivity in all parts of your life.  The Leadership Challenge applies to your work as president of the Rotary or president of the PTA.  Emotional Intelligence helps you work with colleagues or children.

Having reading so many business books, how have you personally benefited from doing so?
TS: Each book brings something different. From Getting Things Done, I now keep my email inbox empty and have a tickler file for things to remember in the future.  Those sound simple, but they add a little bit of sanity to my life by clear space in my head for other things. Now, Discover Your Strengths showed me what my strengths are and what I can do to improve them. Made To Stick showed me how to construct and package my ideas so they last longer and have greater influence. I could go on and on.

What was the 101st book that almost made the cut…but didn’t?
TS: There are 295 books that we recommend in the book beyond The 100 Best.  Any of those could have been a candidate.

Jack Covert: John at Brand Autopsy (Monday’s stop on the tour) makes a great case for The Discipline of Market Leaders and he even goes as far as producing the review how it may have appeared in the book.

TS: I could make a great case for our 2008 800-CEO-READ Business Book of The Year Tribes by Seth Godin (we include the 2007 winner Made To Stick).

JC: It is also amazing to see the power that StrengthsFinder 2.0 is finding in the marketplace.

TS: We could go on (and yes we are not going to give you a direct answer :)

Do you see a lot of customers purchasing books for corporate libraries, or are they more often given to managers or employees?

JC: I built the business on selling to corporate librarians.  They were a huge resource for managers and as time went on, they were eliminated and people were left to do their own research.  The tools that became available with the internet made that all possible.

Where we see business books most used is as change tools with managers giving them to employees. They work great for sending messages that people can later digest at their own pace and get a better understanding of.

Why do you think it is that people don’t read more business books?

TS: Time is the issue. And it is not a lack of time to read.  I think it is a lack of time to search and be certain they are going to find a book worthy of their time.  There is nothing worse that an hour lost and $25 spent on a bum book.  What we are doing with The 100 Best Business Books of All Time is giving people a pile of both they could read.  There is enough there to keep people busy for three or four years.

We noticed The Cluetrain Manifesto wasn’t included in the book… was our copy missing some pages? ;)

JC: That was the 101st book.  That was the one that almost made it. Thank you for reminding us.

Where do you see the future of business books going? Are E-books and readers like the Kindle poised to take over, or do you think we’ll still be passing around dead trees  for several years yet?

TS: We are about one year into a five year disruption of book publishing. Books read on devices other than paper is going to become dominant.  Screens beat paper for flexibility of use and immediacy of delivery. I still think paper is  a better way to read books, but we will accept a lower grade experience as we have with mp3 files and YouTube videos.  Reading a paper book will be like going to the movie.  You will do it less often but will still periodically for a superior experience. And business people are always earlier adopters so they will be among the first to make this digital move.  This is something we are watching really closely.

Thanks guys!

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A big thanks goes out to Todd Sattersten and Jack Covert for making the time to answer our questions, and high-fives all around to Paul Williams at Idea Sandbox for including us in the first Virtual Book Tour of 2009.

Additional Resources

• 100 Best Biz – The official website of the 100 Best Business Books of All-Time
• All the books included – A complete listing of the 100 Best Business Books of All-Time
• 8CR YouTube channel – for author interviews & talks

Other Stops on the Tour

• March 2nd – John Moore at Brand Autopsy
• March 3rd – Phil Gerbyshak at Slacker Manager
• March 5th -  Eric Taylor
• March 6th – Krishna De at Biz Growth News

As a special treat to CrowdSpark readers, Jack and Todd are offering a choice of one of three books free if you buy The 100 Best Business Books of All Time from 800-CEO-READ this week using one of the following coupon codes.

Leadership Moment by Michael Useem – Code: clash
Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono – Code: csq9t
Growing A Business by Paul Hawken – Code: xtjpt

Just put the book in your cart and then apply the code.  A copy of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time must also be in your cart for the offer to be valid.

The offer expires March 7, 2009 at the conclusion of the tour.

⋅ March 4, 2009

© 2009 CrowdSpark.com.