Two former corporate executives, entrepreneurs, and now professors Hess and Goetz combine their wisdom and experience to offer new and wannabe business owners some critical thinking, management strategies, and tried-and-tested pointers. Their book is written in a simple albeit very academic style, with logical headlines, practical sidebars, and summarized “lessons learned” at the end of each chapter.
Although the authors are generous about sharing the ABC’s of business, whether it’s how to find and keep good employees or explanations of financial gotta-haves, the overall subtitle—8 Steps to Take—gets buried in a welter of other numbers: the 8 mistakes business owners make (e.g., pricing incorrectly), the 7 techniques to get a customer to try your product (references/testimonials), the rule of 3s and the rule of 7s (only manage 7 or fewer people at any given time). Use this as a novice’s springboard.
Included in this book is great content related to what the author claims to be 124 Business Lessons spread over 10 chapters as follows:
0. Introduction
1. Can you be a successful entrepreneur? (15 lessons)
2. Basic rules of business success (8 lessons)
3. What is a good business opportunity? (10 lessons)
4. How do you choose the right business customers? (9 lessons)
5. How do you design your product or service? (14 lessons)
6. What is the right price for your product or service? (9 lessons)
7. How can you overcome customer inertia? (9 lessons)
8. How to manage your business (22 lessons)
9. How do you find and keep good employees? (15 lessons)
10. How do you manage growth? (13 lessons)
11. Conclusion
Build the Successful Company You’ve Always Wanted to Own!
- Avoid the 8 disastrous operational mistakes that kill new businesses
- Walk step-by-step through the entire process of building a winning business
- Master 55 amazingly simple rules of business success
- For every entrepreneur and potential entrepreneur…no previous business experience necessary!
- Launch the winning business you’ve always wanted…or make more money in the business you’ve already started!
More than 5,000,000 new businesses are started each year…but 70% of them will fail. Now, two renowned experts on entrepreneurship identify the 8 “killer mistakes” that cause most business failures–and give you the knowledge, tools, and hands-on advice to avoid them, so you can build a business that thrives.
Unlike other books on entrepreneurship, this book focuses on the crucial operational issues associated with consistent profitability. You’ll learn how to identify the right opportunities and customers; design winning products and services; set the right prices; overcome customer inertia; avoid common day-to-day management mistakes; find and keep good employees; and finally, smoothly manage growth.
Throughout, the authors draw on real life entrepreneurial experiences, case studies, and leading-edge research. There’s nothing theoretical here: This is fast-paced, 100% practical advice you can use to make your business dreams and goals come true–starting right now.
Related Books:
- The Truth About Starting a Business : Bruce Barringer
- The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It : Michael E. Gerber
- Business : William M. Pride
- Java Concurrency in Practice : Brian Goetz
- Business Law: Text and Cases (West’s Business Law) : Kenneth W. Clarkson, Roger LeRoy Miller, Gaylord A. Jentz, Frank B. Cross
- Understanding Business : James M. McHugh
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t – By Jim Collins
- Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Revised Edition – Deborah Stone
