Do you actually know why your clients hire you? Not what you think the reason is - what they actually say when you ask them?

Kathryn McGarvey - founder of Nosy HQ + client researcher - joins me to dig into why most businesses never ask their customers the right questions. And what happens when they finally do.

We cover the questions that unlock better marketing, why surveys are mostly useless + the Parker Pen story that will change how you think about your positioning entirely.

Look for more shows with Kathryn. 

Book discussed in this episode:

Marketing Myopia - Theodore Levitt

Kathryn’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kathryn-mcgarvey

Kathryn’s Website: nosyhq.com

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

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And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

Marsha Shandur - our persuasive story expert - has a simple framework that makes everything you write for your business more persuasive.

That's every presentation, email + piece of sales copy more effective. So helpful.

She walks us through the whole thing - normally only taught in her workshops - as we look at Two Homes, a picture book about a kid with separated parents that turns out to be a masterclass in persuasive communication.

It's fresh, easy to apply + will change how you communicate with your clients.

Look for more Classic episodes + go back to catch #1 in this Classic Storytelling mini-series if you haven't already.

Books discussed in this episode:

Two Homes - Claire Maserelle, illustrations by Katie MacDonald

Dinosaurs Divorce - Laurene Krasny Brown

Mama, Mummy and Me in the Middle - Nina LaCour

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle

Little Gorilla - Ruth Bornstein

Winnie the Pooh - A A Milne

Marsha’s Instagram: @yesyesmarsha

Marsha’s Website + Secret Page - Made Just for Us: www.yesyesmarsha.com/BizBookBroadcast

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

As a keen reader - teetering on the obsessive actually, I read upwards of 600 books a year - I've had to get very good at choosing which books to focus on. I want to lock-on to the right ones fast + ditch the wrong ones for me faster.

AI has changed how I do that. In this solo show I share exactly how I use it to get better recommendations, decide whether to abandon a book + extract the good bits from a dull one without suffering through 19 hours of dry-as-dust prose with no pay-off. Ask me how I know that last one...

Plus, how to use it when there are topics you just can't face right now. More useful than it sounds in these turbulent times

Look for more solo shows where I share ideas you can use immediately.

Books discussed in this episode:

Becky Chambers' entire oeuvre

Most of Alan Hollinghurst's books

Books - Brett Easton Ellis

Midnight and Blue - Ian Rankin

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

Is the sky actually falling in? Or are marketers just very good at making you think it is?

Forrest Linden - strategic advisor to knowledge entrepreneurs - joins me to take the Chicken Little story apart as a business tale. Because the panic merchants of the internet have a lot to answer for.

We dig into what's genuinely changing in online business right now, what's just fear-mongering + why email is the cockroach of the internet and will outlive us all.

Look for more Classics episodes - where we happily answer the business questions nobody's asking.

Forrest 's Website: claritylab.co

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

When did you last read a novel from a Kiwi author? If it's been a while, we’ve got some cracking books for your list. 

Kathryn McGarvey - marketing expert + founder of Nosy HQ - is back for a special New Zealand edition of our Fiction Pop-Up. 

NZ literature is brilliant, yet sadly, criminally underrepresented in most people's libraries. Including, ahem, mine.

We cover dystopian dread, a detective series set in Auckland + a prolific golden age crime writer you may well have never heard of. Intrigued?

Look for more Fiction Pop-Ups - roughly every other month.

Books discussed in this episode:

The Book of Guilt - Catherine Chidje

Remote Sympathy - Catherine Chidje

Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

Mr Pip - Lloyd Jones

Zone of Interest - Martin Amis

Fagin the Thief - Alison Epstein

Better the Blood - Michael Bennett

A Surfeit of Lampreys (also known as Death of a Peer in the US) - Niall Marsh

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Kathryn’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kathryn-mcgarvey

Kathryn’s Website: nosyhq.com

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

Publishing scams are everywhere right now. And the truly frightening thing? They're catching out really smart people - judges, lawyers, high-powered business owners. People who should know better.

Emily Hitchcock - CEO of Columbus Publishing Lab + hybrid publisher Boyle & Dalton - is back to walk us through exactly what to look for. From dodgy website tells to the cold call that sounds too good to be true.

Plus, what you should expect to actually pay to self-publish your book - because if the price feels wrong in either direction, it probably is.

Look for more in the Red Flags strand - and do check out Emily's earlier shows on publishing scams + why smart people fall for long cons.

Books discussed in this episode:

The Confidence Game - Maria Konnikova

Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

Emily's Websites: ColumbusPublishingLab.com +  BoyleAndDalton.com 

Emily's Website + Secret Page - Made Just for Us:: columbuspublishinglab.com/liz

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

What makes a story actually land? Oddly, it’s not the big dramatic moments - it’s the really small ones.

Marsha Shandur, of Yes Yes Marsha - our expert on persuasive storytelling - is back to discuss what a picture-book about a little girl missing her mum gets oh so right.

We dig into why action scenes beat narrative every time + why business storytellers skip the thing that makes people actually care. Plus why story short cuts deep connection + why that's so powerful.

Look for more Classics episodes - where we use kids books to answer the business questions nobody's asking.

Books discussed in this episode:

Mama and Mommy and Me in the Middle - Nina Lacour (our featured book)

Mommy, Mama, and Me - Lesléa Newman (not our focus for today)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle

Little Gorilla - Ruth Bornstein

The Memoir Project - Marion Roach Smith

How to Lose Everything - Krista Couture

Marsha’s Instagram: @yesyesmarsha

Marsha’s Website + Secret Page - Made Just for Us: yesyesmarsha.com/BizBookBroadcast

====

If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

The description on the back of a book is doing much more work than first appears. Get it wrong and readers feel genuinely betrayed - there's actual neuroscience behind why.

Biz Book regular Rachel Allen - founder of Bolt from the Blue Copywriting - joins me to uncover what makes a great book description. We discuss the pitfalls that will lose readers + why the person who wrote your favourite book probably didn't write the words on the back cover.

And how one sentence can pull double duty across the Amazon listing, the book sales page + even the author's social media.

Look for more in the Your Biz Needs a Book strand

Books discussed in this episode:

Think Like a Film Crew - Liz Scully

Happy All the Time - Laurie Colwyn

Circe - Madeline Miller

Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller

Rachel’s Website:  boltfromthebluecopywriting.com

Rachel’s Instagram: instagram.com/boltfromthebluecopywriting

Rachel's Substack: boltfromtheblue.substack.com

Rachel’s email : hello at boltfromthebluecopywriting.com

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

No business books today. Just me, a pile of fiction + strong opinions. (Would you expect anything less of me?)

This is our second speed reviews solo - a quick run through of recent books from the finished pile. We start with a debut novel that everyone loved... except me. So often the way. 

We look at a Glasgow crime series I can't get enough of - and the audio book narrator of dreams. Plus, my fave book of 2026 so far - a razor sharp workplace comedy.

With plethora of other books - including a historical crime novel narrated by someone who quite possibly should narrate everything + a brief appearance of radioactive toothpaste. Who'd have thought. 

Look for more solo shows + the monthly Fiction + History Pop-Ups.

Books discussed in this episode:

Yesteryear - Caro Clare Burke

Seascraper - Benjamin Wood

Word Monkey - Christopher Fowler

The Book of Forgotten Authors - Christopher Fowler

The Cutting Room - Louise Welsh - #1 The Rilke Series

The Second Room - Louise Welsh - #2 The Rilke Series

The Cut Up - Louise Welsh - #3 The Rilke Series

Bookish - Matthew Sweet

Help Wanted - Adelle Waldman

Children of Radium - Jo Dunthorne

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.

Click here lizscully.com/reading to get your book list

It's time for another History Pop-Up with Ron Tester.

We’ve got a mix of assassinated Presidents, smuggled books, a surprise for the beer drinking book nerd + a disagreement about a murder victim. 

Look for more History Pop-Ups where we abandon business books entirely + indulge our other book nerd tendencies.

Books discussed in this episode:

Destiny of the Republic - Candice Millard

The CIA Book Club - Charlie English

Thunderstruck - Eric Larson

The Five - Hallie Rubenhold

Story of a Murder - Hallie Rubenhold <--- this is the Crippen murder

Hitler's People - Richard J. Evans

Beer Stained Pulp - Adam Kimberley

Ron's Website: rontestercoaching.com

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If you’d like my help with your Business go to www.lizscully.com/endlessClients

====

And don’t forget to get your reading list of the 10 essential reads for every successful biz owner - these are the books Liz recommends almost on the daily to her strategy + Mastermind clients.

This isn’t your usual list of biz books, these answer the challenges you’ve actually got coming up right now. Helpful, quick to read and very timely.