5 brilliant business books you can expense

With World Book Day upon us, I asked around the office for some book suggestions from the ANNA team. Ones that have helped inspire them, motivate them and get them to where they are now.

Did you know? Books to help you with your business are all fully expensable! (Category: Staff Training) So take a look at our suggestions and see if any tickle your fancy and could help boost your small business.

Branding in Five and a Half Steps

Chosen by Andy, Design Lead

Leading brand consultant Michael Moore explores the world's most successful brands, taking us through the process of creating a brand with vibrant illustrations and templates for creating your own brand.

Andy says: "This is an excellent practical guide to brand strategy and design. It's full of well-known examples broken down to their basic components. It's full of exercises and frameworks that make the process easy to follow and do yourself. It covers the end to end process from research, forming strategic insights and direction, through personality and purpose ,and then all the elements of a successful system."

Available from £19.79

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

Chosen by Vic, Social Media Manager

Written by Tom Wainwright, this book talks about how drug cartels can survive and prosper by taking in best practice from big business, such as brand value and franchising from McDonald’s, supply chain management from Walmart, diversification from Coca-Cola. Many of the same ideas and techniques can be applied to your own small business.

Vic says: "I love how the book shows how some of the most effective business ideas and strategies can be adapted by smaller businesses, although in this case it mentions drug cartels, it can easily apply to what ever small business you run yourself."

Available from £13.99

This Is Service Design Doing: Applying Service Design Thinking in the Real World

Chosen by Will, Design Director

Written by the team of Marc Stickdorn, Markus Edgar Hormess, Adam Lawrence, Jakob Schneider, this book contains everything you need to improve – or revolutionise – the products and services you offer.

Will says: "You don’t have to be a service designer to use design thinking in your business. This book has a tonne of very practical exercises that will help a business understand their customer, build better products and services, and talk about their business in the most relevant way. Great reference you can dip in and out of."

Available from £25.09

Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping Our Future

Chosen by Suzanne Mucci, Copywriter

Ashlee Vance tells the intriguing story of entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk, from his childhood in South Africa through his early ventures at Zip2 and PayPal, and on to global success with SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity.

Suzanne says: "This is the fascinating story of a complex character who, despite scepticism and numerous setbacks, has remained focused on his vision to reshape the way we live."

Available from £8.65

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential within Us All

Chosen by Tim, Comms consultant

Too often, creativity is assumed to be the domain only of 'creative types'. This inspiring book from the founders of award-winning design firm IDEO shows how anyone, in any profession, can unlock their creative potential.

Tim says: "It's like the ultimate guide to extracting great ideas from yourself and your team. Exercises, ways to think about problems, and how to use real world insights to make your ideas better (whatever it is you do). All based on human-centric design principles."

Available from £8.75

Fancy a good read?

Get all these and more from your local book store.