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Our West Country general practitioner offers his tips for the top business books you and your clients really MUST read.

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31 May - Just a final comment on business books - beware the sequel!! Covey's "The Eighth Habit" and Gerber's "E-myth Mastery" look very much like responses to offers from their publishers that they just couldn't resist. I rushed out and bought both in hardback and haven't managed to finish either. Neither of them have the pace and focus of the original books, although "The Eighth Habit" has an excellent companion DVD (US format only - you need a multi-region player to view it) that is much more entertaining than the book, although it doesn't make much sense on its own. I am not sure if it's included with all editions of the book but you can also view the videos on Covey's website.

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28 May - A few other suggestions for good business reading:

- Anything by Peter Drucker.
- Jim Collins "Good to Great" - another of my favourites.
- And for the real slouch, try "The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read", which gives a two page summary of 100 top titles!

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27 May - My third tip has to be Stephen Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". It was another book that inspired a lot of the Accountants Boot Camp stuff, but it has stood the test of time since it was first published in 1989. I'm not sure if it isn't a rehash of various psychology and time management ideas - which could probably be said about most business books - but it works for me, and again we have given away quite a few copies to clients and prospects over the years (and no-one has returned their copy yet!). The Seven Habits is more about personal effectiveness and time management, so it would be a good book to give your newly qualified staff too. We all need to udnerstand the difference between being efficient and being effective, in other words not just doing a good job, but doing the right one. Covey's analogy is climbing a ladder - it doesn't matter how good you are at climbing it, if you lean it against the wrong wall at the outset it'll just be a huge waste of effort!

Graduates of the Seven Habits might want to look at the other books promoted through the Franklin Covey organisation. "First Things First" by Covey and "What Matters Most" by Hyrum W Smith are also excellent books.

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22 May - My next recommendation, and a book I have given away more than any other, is Michael Gerber's "The E-Myth Revisited". I used to buy two or three copies at a time and give them away to clients and prospects. Compared with a lot of business books it's quite an easy read as it has an ongoing story of a business and the owner's progress towards becoming a true entrepreneur.

I don't know whether he coined the phrase or just adopted it as his own, but Gerber is perhaps best known for the notion of "working on your business, not in it".

The "E" in the title stands for entrepreneurial; his thesis is that most business owners are really technicians - people who do stuff - suffering from an "enterpeneurial seizure"! Indeed, the subtitle of the book is "Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It", which is why I call it essential reading for my team and my clients.

Gerber's other theme is that of 'franchising' your business, which he doesn't mean literally, but rather the idea of making yourself dispensible - you want to be able to run the business, maybe from a distance, but not be involved day to day. To do that you need to systematise every single business process (like MacDonalds do) so that every new employee understands exactly how you do things. If that sounds familiar, i'm pretty sure this book was a big inspiration behind RAS's Accountants Boot Camps.

It's a good read for the Bank Holiday weekend, so get down to Waterstones/Borders/etc now! When you've read it, give it to your favourite client.

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19 May - Enjoyed a few hours with Michael Leboeuf's book over the weekend in between gardening and I feel even more encouraged to get my team motivated on selling our services and keeping our clients happy and loyal. Must try to get him on my iPod though - note to self: check the titles available at Audible.com.

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16 May - The partners have invested in a stack of business books from Amazon to give our qualified staff a broader perspective on business and management issues. However, I was disappointed to discover that THE BEST business book of all time was sadly missing - so much so that I had to go straight onto Amazon and order a couple of copies myself.

What's that?, I hear you ask. Surely he must be talking about Frank Wood on accounting or Butterworths Yellow tax handbook. Nope, I mean the great "How to win customers and keep them for life" by Michael Leboeuf (I originally typed his name as Frank - oops!). This 1987 bestseller should be essential reading for your staff and your clients. I have it as an audio book on cassette but I haven't had a tape player in my car for years so I had almost forgotten about it, but having been reunited with it - in the revised 2000 edition, subtitled "Revised and updated for the digital age" - it's still a classic in my opinion.

Leboeuf explains simply and concisely why and what customers buy - and why they don't come back sometimes. It may be aimed at people who sell products, but it also applies brilliantly to professional services like ours. Get yourself a copy - my used copy was only 2p plus P&P from Amazon!

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13 May - Talking of pricing, another thing the appraisals have reminded me is how our staff often understand clients' perception of value more than the partners and managers.

The people who actually work on the clients' records and visit them to see them in action often have a good idea of the value of the time and effort they expend on client work - and as a result they are usually more bullish about fee levels. In this case it's a sort of reverse appraisal we need - staff need to be able to tell their supervisors that the proposed fee is too low because ... And we need to listen to them, rather than assuming that the client won't pay more than last year.

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12 May - The issues of value pricing, client service and staff appraisals continue to converge this week. The staff who do the hands on work, especially when they work on the client's premises, are in a great position both to pick up what the client and their staff think about us, but also to respond on the spot to client requests to ensure that we 'exceed their expectations'.

We need to make sure that our people feel empowered to go beyond their basic brief when interacting with clients, and to ensure that they receive proper acknowledgement when they do. I hope we do that, but this season's appraisals are an opportunity to make sure the message is getting through.

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9 May - Duly chastened, appraisals now booked.

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7 May - Training. That must be the answer, or at least a big part. Reviewing files today I find there are still forms and checklist questions that few people bother to fill in. Fair enough, they may be under time pressure, but if so what hope is there making sure they ask my quality assurance questions? I'm going to have to arrange some briefing sessions to explain what I want them to do, and then diarise a follow up in say four weeks to get feedback from them and remind them to keep doing it.

I can also reinforce the message during the appraisal interviews - which I need to book.

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6 May - Last month I was pondering value and pricing, and it occurs to me that while I'm appraising the staff amybe we could do something similar with our clients. Some time ago we tried questionnaires and feedback forms - 'how did we do?' forms, like the ones you get from hotels and grarages. We got a reasonable response, but it was all very positive, so we felt good but couldn't help thinking the majority who didn't respond were probably the ones who would have rated us much lower. In other words, not a good way to elicit useful feedback.

Alternatively we could just ask them in person I suppose! If we provide all client-facing team members with a response form or a script they can use when meeting clients we might be able to tease out some more useful information. I want to know what we don't do so well so we can improve on it - and before they leave and go elsewhere.

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2 May - Spring has well and truly sprung down here in the sunny South West - yep, we're getting torrential rain and hail. Global warming, or has it always been like this?

This month I need to get the staff appraisals done, our formal catch up with the team on how they think they are doing and a frank discussion on training needs. They usually take me about six months to finish as this is our busiest time of year. This time I aim to get them all done before Whitsun.

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Last month our West Country general practitioner started a lively debate on pricing and value - take a look at his .