First Business

The world’s most trusted guide for leaders in transition. Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success.

During economic contractions, it becomes much more difficult to sell your products, maintain your customer base, and gain market share. Mistakes become more costly, and failure becomes a real possibility for all those who are not able to make the transition. But imagine being able to sell your products when others cannot, being able to take market share from your competitors, and knowing the precise formulas that would allow you to expand your sales while others make excuses.

Construction industry business coach, speaker, and author, Shawn Van Dyke, has taken the core concepts of Mike Michalowicz's Profit First and customized them to address the specific needs of the construction industry. Profit First for Contractors addresses the major struggles contractors face and provides clear and actionable guidance on how to overcome them. Shawn shows contractors how to go from simply getting by to becoming permanently profitable.

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.

Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows.

If you want to start and grow a landscaping business or if you want to demolish self-limiting beliefs and transform yourself into a warrior of a self-employed lawn and be a landscape contractor, then this audiobook will change your life.

Learn to conquer every challenge like a pro with the clear, candid advice in The First-Time Manager. For nearly four decades, this trusted guide has brought newcomers up to speed on the nitty gritty realities of managing people. The updated seventh edition delivers new information that helps you manage across generations, use online performance appraisal tools, persuade with stories, oversee remote employees, build a team dynamic, match a boss’ style, and more.

Learn all the essentials for making your first year of teaching a success! In this exciting audiobook, internationally renowned educator Todd Whitaker teams up with his daughters - Madeline, an elementary teacher, and Katherine, a secondary teacher - to share advice and inspiration. They offer step-by-step guidance to thriving in your new role and overcoming the challenges that many new teachers face.

High-performance psychologist Michael Gervais presents a groundbreaking guide for overcoming what may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential: our fear of people's opinions (FOPO).

Martha Piper and Indira Samarasekera had vastly different career paths on their way to becoming the first (and so far only) female presidents of two of Canada's largest and most respected research universities and directors of some of the nation's largest market cap companies, but what they had in common was their gender, their willingness to take risks when leadership opportunities presented themselves, and a work ethic second to none. It was not always easy, pretty, or fair, but it was always the result of choosing to answer the call to lead.

As a high-ranking officer of the FDNY, John Salka is an expert at both practicing and teaching high-stakes leadership. In First In, Last Out, he explains the department's unique strategies and how they can be adopted by leaders in any field - as he has taught them to organizations around the country. In a tough-talking, no-nonsense style, Salka uses real-world stories to convey leadership imperatives.

First Things First is a revolutionary guide to managing your time by learning how to balance your life. Traditional time management suggests that working harder, smarter, and faster will help you gain control over your life, and that increased control will bring peace and fulfillment. But the authors of First Things First apply the insights of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to our daily problems of struggling with the ever-increasing demands of work and home life.

As a top-performing sales professional, you know how to own your calendar, focus your energy, create opportunities, navigate the sales process, negotiate, and close deals. Yet, if you are like most new sales managers, there is still so much you don’t know and that can trip you up if you aren’t careful. Luckily, Mike Weinberg knows the pitfalls to avoid and mindset changes needed to successfully make the leap. This powerful new resource contains candid guidance on how to master your expanded responsibilities like a pro.

Too often, team dysfunction leads to abysmal productivity and zero innovation for your organization, as well as misery and wasted time for you. Most team members sit and wait, feeling trapped in a team that just isn't working. You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done presents a radical new idea: You can change your team. Author Liane Davey shows how you, from any seat at the table, even without support from your colleagues or your team leader, can transform even a toxic team.

Your successful career in real estate starts here! The first 365 days of working in real estate can be one of the most tumultuous times in your career - full of hard lessons, heart breaks, and hard work. Just because you have a license, doesn’t mean you have a business. But if you get the important stuff right, a great future is yours for the taking. This honest, eye-opening, and completely practical insider's guide shows you how to get where you want to be - even if you're starting from nothing.

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.

For therapists, profit is too often an afterthought. You focus on caring for clients and paying rent and clinicians, and take home the leftovers—if there are any. In Profit First for Therapists, Julie Herres adapts the popular profit first cash flow system specifically for private practice owners. Through client stories and case studies, powerful frameworks, and simple tips, she lays out a clear path to profitability.

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.

Author Matt LeMay explains agile in clear, jargon-free terms and provides concrete and actionable steps to help any team put its values and principles into practice. Examples from a wide variety of organizations, including small nonprofits and global financial enterprises, bring to life the on-the-ground realities of agile across industries and functions.

Developed for business professionals, The First Two Hours teaches you how to design your day, rather than be at the mercy of it. Using research on neuroscience, energy flow, and the body's natural rhythms, it divides the workday into manageable blocks and helps you determine when you are most resourceful, and therefore when you should complete your most demanding tasks.