American Business

Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin’s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall.

The AmeriCAN-do spirit is what propelled our prosperity and success for more than 200 years. It is our responsibility to perpetuate this gift for future generations of AmeriCAN freedom and advancement.

Ken Chenault’s life confounds stereotypical presumptions about and expectations for a Black American man. Born in Mineola, New York, to a dentist and a hygienist as the civil rights movement began to gather steam, much of his childhood and early adult years unfolded in a modest middle-class setting during the political and social tumult of the 1960s—the Vietnam War, the struggle for racial equality, the fight for women’s rights, the rise of the counterculture. Though he was partly informed by these inescapable influences, even then, Chenault displayed an independence of thought.

Molly McClain tells the remarkable story of Ellen Browning Scripps (1836-1932), an American newspaperwoman, feminist, suffragist, abolitionist, and social reformer who used her fortune to support women’s education, the labor movement, and public access to science, the arts, and education.

Are we living the good life - and what defines good, anyway? Americans today are constructing a completely different framework for success than their parents' generation, using new metrics that TEDWomen speaker and columnist Courtney Martin has termed collectively the "New Better Off".

In this far-reaching examination of contemporary American culture, John Zogby, one of the nation's foremost pollsters, explores who today's Americans are, identifying patterns in our social makeup that hint at the way we'll be. Companies from multinational corporations down to family-owned small businesses can benefit from this detailed information about where we are and where we're going.

Times of crisis call for revolutionary leadership. What better model could we have for courage and creativity under fire than those who found themselves in positions of leadership during the American Revolutionary War? Now Pat Williams helps you apply their genius to your sphere of influence. Through the remarkable stories of more than 25 leaders of the American Revolution, you'll discover fresh insight into how great leaders are formed, refined, tested, and strengthened.

Kathy Sidell’s earliest memories bring her back to food. At age five she was taken with her grandmother’s artistry in the kitchen, and even more so by the big family meals shared on the front porch of their seaside home. Though raised among foodies - her mother, a talented home entertainer; her banker father who single-handedly is credited for building the restaurant business in Boston; and her sister, now a chef and restaurateur - Kathy’s route to food was not as linear.

Barry Becher and Ed Valenti set the stage for today’s infomercials with their now-famous television techniques. Their zany commercials - advertising such products as the Miracle Painter, Armourcote cookware, and, most famously, the Ginsu® knife - captured both the imagination and pocketbook of the American public. And they became millionaires in the process. But wait, there’s more! You’ll learn how to get a better price on anything you buy, how to get better service anywhere, even how to get easily get bumped from coach to first class on an airline.

Broadway’s most esteemed visionaries tell all - how they got started in the business, how they chose projects, how they raise money, why some of their shows were huge hits and others flopped, and much more. From Flo Ziegfeld and David Merrick, from Joseph Papp, from Cameron Mackintosh, from today’s up-and-coming new generation of producers - here are priceless words of wisdom.

It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The iconic institution was in its heyday synonymous with supplying secretaries to male executives. In Expect Great Things! Vanda Krefft turns the notion of a “Gibbs girl” on its head, showing us that while the school was getting women who could type 120 words per minute into the C-suite, its more subversive mission was to get them out of the secretarial pool to assume positions of power on the other side of the desk.

Ignite your entrepreneurial fire and unlock the indomitable force of grit with "The Grit Factor" by Seneca Badger. This transformative, easy-to-understand, concise power book is your one-way ticket to the entrepreneurial roller coaster, specially crafted for the 50+ crowd (or any age person thinking about transitioning into a new work life) and ready to rock the business world with enthusiasm.

Dr. Orison Swett Marden triumphed over his tragic childhood to become a man who was revered by millions and who became known worldwide as "The Father of the American Success Movement".

In this engaging, inspiring, and educational Holocaust survivor memoir, Ben Lesser invites listeners to revisit a time in history when the world went mad. Learn how this ordinary, young Jewish teenager from Krakow, Poland, survived through extraordinary times living in ghettos, enduring four concentrations camps -- including Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau -- two death marches, and two death trains. After liberation from Dachau, the Holocaust survivor slowly healed, eventually recovering physically from his near-death experience.

While many have decried that email is dead, a handful of marketers have quietly been using little-known email marketing techniques to generate massive results. In Email Marketing Demystified, digital marketing expert Matthew Paulson reveals the strategies and techniques that top email marketers use to build large mailing lists, to write compelling copy that converts and to generate substantially more sales using nothing but their email lists.

Learn what makes the African American market unique, why marketers should care, and how you can effectively connect with black Americans. Drawing on her wealth of experience and ongoing research and consulting on the African American market, Pepper shares with listeners her thoughtful insights on this influential segment.

Just as no football team can be successful without a solid game plan, you can't be successful without one either. This book is full of Matt's inspirational, motivational, and prescriptive advice, such as: be authentic, create opportunities, power through adversity, reaffirm your goals, rebuild, and many other strategies for developing your own personal game plan to succeed in business and in life.

A provocative look at the remarkable contributions of high-skill immigrant entrepreneurs in America.

Sex, lies, conflicts of interest, international intrigue, and a double-cross of thousands of union employees in the heart of America. Add to that three major companies' futures on the line and an assassination by anarchist terrorists in Paris of one of the company's chairman that almost kills a deal to save at least two of the companies. Hollywood? No. This was real. The Last American CEO is the ultimate insider's view of one of the biggest global business deals in history: Chrysler's 1987 purchase of American Motors.

The triumphant story of Thomas W. Felder, who began his life as a poor kid in the South Bronx. During that time he lived in rat-infested, crime-ridden tenements and even experienced homelessness. Thomas went on to become a high-powered attorney and a key player in one of the largest television network mergers in US history.