First Business

A gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism. Founder of a dynasty, builder of the original Grand Central, creator of an impossibly vast fortune, Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt is an American icon. Humbly born on Staten Island during George Washington’s presidency, he rose from boatman to builder of the nation’s largest fleet of steamships to lord of a railroad empire.

Harvard Business Review is the foremost destination for smart management thinking. Now, at its 100th anniversary, this commemorative volume brings together the most influential ideas since its inception. With thought leaders including Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Peter Drucker, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book puts HBR's greatest concepts at your fingertips. You'll learn how these groundbreaking ideas continue to be relevant in today's business context—and what to keep in mind as you prepare for the future.

Content Inc. is the go-to guide to building a solid small business by establishing a loyal audience before you sell products or services. In this audiobook, Joe Pulizzi provides a lower-risk, more effective way to create a path to startup success by re-engineering the process that so often leads to failure: You’ll learn how to develop valuable content, build an audience around that content and then create a product for that audience. Content Inc. walks you through the entire process.

It's weird and frankly bewildering that the most talented women in the world are often the ones struggling to make fabulous money from their talents. In Get Rich, Lucky Bitch!, you'll get the tools and inspiration you need to go to the next level of wealth - whether you're starting from scratch or itching to break through the million-dollar mark.

The Miracle Morning for Network Marketers uses Hal Elrod's global phenomenon to give you the strategies, mindset, and daily rituals that match the top 1 percent of all network marketers, so you can grow yourself and your business faster than you ever thought possible. Once you've nailed down your miracle morning, Hal Elrod and Pat Petrini's book shows you exactly what you should be doing with "the rest of your day".

In this Practical 2 in 1 boxset, you'll learn how regular people are getting richer than ever using real estate investing and how you can too. This book will show you how to start and expand your real estate empire beyond your wildest imagination.

As a manager, you are prepared to face any challenge when it comes to the work at hand, but you may not be ready to overcome a hostile work environment, a catastrophic disruption in workflow, or any other of a multitude to challenges that can arise, seemingly from nowhere.

It’s time to stop feeling guilty and lean into the sacrifice. Your willingness to chase your dreams is what sets you apart, and your personal competitive advantage and the strategies presented in True Founder will help you double down on the sacrifice.

From Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First, Clockwork, and The Pumpkin Plan, comes the ultimate diagnostic tool for every entrepreneur.... The biggest problem entrepreneurs have is that they don't know what their biggest problem is. If you find yourself trapped between stagnating sales, staff turnover, and unhappy customers, what do you fix first? Every issue seems urgent—but there's no way to address all of them at once. The result? A business that continues to go in endless circles putting out urgent fires and prioritizing the wrong things.

Winning new customers is the number one challenge 80 percent of entrepreneurs face—and a big reason half of small businesses fail within five years. In Buyer First, Carole Mahoney—who once struggled to pay bills and is now a top sales coach and influencer—says the reason so many of us are bad at selling is, well, we think selling is bad. Mahoney shares her revolutionary sales-success formula that draws on data from 2.2 million professional sellers, plus solid research on the psychology of decision-making and behavior change

Author Cyndi Thomason has taken the core concepts of the Profit First methodology, created by Mike Michalowicz, and customized them to address the specific needs of the ecommerce business. Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers addresses the four major struggles and provides clear and actionable guidance on how to overcome them, taking the online seller from simply getting by to becoming permanently profitable.

Business partnerships are wonderfully complex entities. As with all relationships, they are vulnerable and subject to fallibility. If you think the fact that one in every two marriages in the United States ends in divorce (that's one every 36 seconds!) is unbelievable, then consider this: The number is significantly higher for business partnerships; about 70 percent of them fail. As a business partnership relationship coach, my mission is to help flip this fail/succeed ratio.

In The Employee Advantage, behavioral economist Stephan Meier explains why organizations must value their employees as much as—if not more than—their customers: those that pivot toward an employee-centric model will be more profitable, innovative, and appealing to top talent.

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.

From the CEO of the Pavilion community, Sam Jacobs, Kind Folks Finish First weaves practical business lessons with fresh perspectives on how you can achieve success. The ideas in this book are backed by the author's personal experience building a nearly $200-million business rooted in kindness, reciprocity, and deeply held values. More than that, they're proven principles that have helped thousands reach their goals in every arena.

Do you have trouble keeping your team focused, motivated, and committed to the pursuit of their assigned goals? The truth is, the majority of bosses fail to inspire their employees to be engaged and productive at work. And they're often frustrated by their inability to incite their team to action.

Here's the hard truth about leadership: It either forces you to get stronger or it slowly destroys your life. There is no in-between. Kevin Lawrence has discovered 17 habits that allow any leader to transcend the perils of success and keep achieving - habits that have already helped hundreds of CEOs and executives become stronger and more resilient.

It is estimated that we make approximately 35,000 decisions every day. Right now, there is at least one decision we can make that will have a powerful ripple effect across all aspects of our life. But One Decision isn't about taking one overwhelming big step; it's about starting with a single, important step that we have the choice to make every day: the decision to be authentic. To be you, and to do so without doubt, without second-guessing, without worry or anxiety.

Master Your Next Move answers a distinct need, focusing on the most common types of transitions leaders face and the unique challenges posed by each. Based on years of research, and now with a new introduction, this indispensable book explores eight crucial transitions virtually everyone encounters during their career, including promotion, leading former peers, onboarding into a new company, making an international move, and turning around a business in crisis.

You Win in the Locker Room First draws on the extraordinary experiences of Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon - consultant to numerous college and professional teams - to explore the seven powerful principles that any business, school, organization, or sports team can adopt to revitalize their organization.