Entrepreneurship Small Business

Under the aegis of machine learning in our data-driven machine age, computers are programming themselves and learning about - and solving - an extraordinary range of problems, from the mundane to the most daunting. Today it is machine learning programs that enable Amazon and Netflix to predict what users will like, Apple to power Siri's ability to understand voices, and Google to pilot cars.

We are living in an epic period of change, danger, and opportunity. The economy is crashing and booming every few years. People are getting fired and replaced by computers and Chinese workers. The stock market crashes with regularity. Every fix from the government makes things worse. The old world has been demolished, and people are desperate for answers.

With more than 1 million copies in circulation, it remains the best-selling family business book of all time. Much of its success is owed to the deeply original message about the dangers of gifting an operating business to family. It offers business owners and their family a proven process for building wealth and protecting family relationships by exploring whether the business should be sold inside or outside the family. Every Family's Business includes 12 questions to help guide this emotional transition.

In 2010, Tommy Mello became the sole owner/operator of a single garage door service business with $50,000 in debt. Today, A1Garage generates over $30 million in annual revenue, with over 250 employees in 12 states. He shows home service business owners how he did it, and they, too, can in Home Service Millionaire. If you’re like most home service business owners, you are probably just scraping by. You can’t grow your business because there aren’t any more hours in a day.

Stop networking. Seriously, stop doing it. Now. It is time to ditch the old networking-for networking's-sake mentality in favor of a more powerful and effective approach to creating and enhancing connections. In Superconnector, Scott Gerber and Ryan Paugh reveal a new category of professionals born out of the social media era: highly valuable community-builders who make things happen through their keen understanding and utilization of social capital. Superconnectors understand the power of relationship-building, problem-solve by connecting the dots at high levels.

Robert Kelsey's What's Stopping You? has become a self-help classic. His What's Stopping You? books have helped thousands of people worldwide overcome their limiting beliefs and bash through their barriers to success. Now Robert is back to help us defeat the obstacles that stop us achieving more in our everyday lives. Many of us have the greatest of intentions but find ourselves procrastinating, which results in low attainment and frustrated ambitions.

Having lived nearly her entire life below the poverty line before going on to attain wealth and success as an entrepreneur and investor, Arlan Hamilton knows that money is power—but not for the reasons most people believe. Money is power, she says, because it provides us with options: to pursue our passions, take risks, and change our situation in life.

The best financial advisors are well equipped to succeed regardless of market conditions. Based on interviews with 15 top advisors, each doing several million dollars worth of business every year, The Million-Dollar Financial Advisor distills their universal success principles into 13 distinct lessons. Each is explained step-by-step for immediate application by veteran and new financial professionals alike.

Winning today isn't about beating the competition at the old game. It's about inventing a whole new game - defining a new market category, developing it, and dominating it over time. You can't build a legendary company without building a legendary category. If you think that having the best product is all it takes to win, you're going to lose. In this farsighted, pioneering guide, the founders of Silicon Valley advisory firm Play Bigger rely on data analysis and interviews to understand the inner workings of "category kings".

You don't have to starve to be an artist. Build a career doing what you love. In this practical guide, professional artist Lisa Congdon reveals the many ways you can earn a living by making art - through illustration, licensing, fine art sales, print sales, teaching, and beyond. Including industry advice from such successful art-world pros as Nikki McClure, Mark Hearld, Paula Scher, and more, Art, Inc. will equip you with the tools - and the confidence - to turn your passion into a profitable business.

People Skills is a communication-skills handbook that can help you eliminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bolton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, showing how these "roadblocks" damage relationships by increasing defensiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations.

Growing on just one and a half acres, owners Jean-Martin and Maude-Helène feed more than 200 families through their thriving CSA and seasonal market stands and supply their signature mesclun salad mix to dozens of local establishments. The secret of their success is the low-tech, high-yield production methods they've developed by focusing on growing better rather than growing bigger, making their operation more lucrative and viable in the process.

In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth. In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company - the Exponential Organization - that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology.

This is the first book to present innovation and entrepreneurship as a purposeful and systematic discipline. It clearly explains and analyzes the challenges and opportunities of America's new entrepreneurial economy. Peter Drucker, the most influential and widely-read thinker and writer on modern organizations, gives us a superbly practical book that explains what established businesses, public service institutions, and new ventures have to know, have to learn, and have to do in today's economy and marketplace.

From a third-generation farmer and successful entrepreneur, Redefining Rich is an entrepreneur’s guide to balancing work and family with the pleasures of the good life, with simple exercises and important lessons to serve everyone from the new sole proprietor to a seasoned CEO.

Since the Industrial Revolution, much of human history has revolved around conquering Nature. But just as species have been hunted to extinction and forests have been leveled to create farmland and factories, the wildness inside you, too, has been suppressed. You’ve been taught that your wildness is unsafe. You’ve distanced yourself from the untamed parts of your soul: your creativity, your prolific ideas, your truest life. But to become the business owner you long to be, you need to unleash your wildness.

A seasoned deal lawyer demystifies the process of buying a small business. Learn about what happens before, during and after the closing of the deal. Learn what typical purchase agreement provisions mean. Educating yourself about the process, what to expect, and how to resolve common issues can help reduce stress, save time, and save on legal fees.

RGH breaks down the problem of creating cash flow and big money into overcoming five curses, of which have to be broken. Of course, Ron not only articulates the curses, as you’d expect from a Wizard, but he gives a whole chapter of extremely pragmatic advice and highly creative ideas and suggestions on how to destroy each curse. Follow his directions and you can’t miss.

In this book, Melissa Perri explains how laying the foundation for great product management can help companies solve real customer problems while achieving business goals. By understanding how to communicate and collaborate within a company structure, you can create a product culture that benefits both the business and the customer. You'll learn product management principles that can be applied to any organization, big or small.

How do you cut through the noise, commotion, and bad information that is right now cluttering up your customers' digital space? Epic Content Marketing. One of the world's leading experts on content marketing, Joe Pulizzi explains how to draw prospects and customers in by creating information and content they actually want to engage with. No longer can we interrupt our customers with mediocre content (and sales messages) our customers don't care about. Epic Content Marketing takes you step by step through the process of developing stories that inform and entertain and compel customers to act - without actually telling them to.