Small Business Leadership

The Risk-Driven Business Model will help you manage risk better by showing how the key choices you make in designing your business models either increase or reduce two characteristic types of risk - information risk, when you make decisions without enough information, and incentive-alignment risk, when decision makers' incentives are at odds with the broader goals of the company. Leaders who understand how the structure of their business model affects risk have the power to create wealth, revolutionize industries, and shape a better world.

How did Apple rebound from a decade-long slump? By creating a product, the iPod, that transformed not just the company, but the entire music industry. How did Whole Foods turn itself into a supermarket empire? By challenging the sacred cows of the food business. And how did Dove differentiate its line of beauty products? By creating the concept of "real beauty". In Big Think Strategy, Bernd Schmitt shows you how to "think big" by sourcing and implementing bold ideas that change markets.

Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Economists call matchmakers multisided platforms because they provide physical or virtual platforms for multiple groups to get together. Dating sites connect people with potential matches, for example, and ride-sharing apps do the same for drivers and riders.

In 2003, Diane Tavenner cofounded the first school in what would soon become one of America’s most innovative public-school networks. Summit Public Schools has since won national recognition for its exceptional outcomes: Ninety-nine percent of students are accepted to a four-year college, and they graduate from college at twice the national average.

The ultimate guide to managing your career - at every level, through every transition - The McKinsey Edge culls the best practices of an exclusive group of executives and consultants from McKinsey & Company, the legendary consulting firm that services eighty percent of the world's largest corporations. Drawing on his time as an engagement manager with McKinsey, Hattori presents rigorously selected, battle-tested tips that will give you the edge you need to up your game, raise your profile, and take your career to the next level-using a proven four-step program:

Whether you own a garage gym, a CrossFit box, or a martial-arts studio, Two-Brain Business can help you get running, get organized, get members, keep people happier, and make more time for yourself. Chris Cooper of TwoBrainBusiness.com shows you how!

The curtain is about to rise, say Pine and Gilmore, on the Experience Economy, a new economic era in which every business is a stage, and companies must design memorable events for which they charge admission. With The Experience Economy, Pine and Gilmore explore how successful companies, using goods as props and services as the stage, create experiences that engage customers in an inherently personal way.

Many business audiobooks fuel unrealistic notions about what a good idea looks like, how fast a founder should attract investment, and how quickly growth will take off. The problem with this mythology is that it can sometimes end with entrepreneurs abandoning their dreams too soon if they don't see immediate results. In The Hockey Stick Principles, author Bobby Martin shifts his focus away from all the hype about rapid growth and the pursuit of funding and instead takes a look at the real process behind getting a good idea off the ground.

Overwhelmed by the intricacies of small business bookkeeping? Don't worry. This book is packed with practical, easy-to-implement strategies to transform your approach, maximize profit, manage cash flow, and ensure tax compliance.

Richard Branson, one of the world's most famous and admired business leaders, argues that it's time to turn capitalism upside down - to shift our values from an exclusive focus on profit to also caring for people, communities, and the planet as he writes: "People often associate me with challenges, with trying to break records while sailing the Atlantic or flying in a jet stream in a balloon or going into space with Virgin Galactic. But this audiobook isn't just about fun and adventure and exceeding one's wildest dreams."

For the first time ever, founder of Sprinkles Cupcakes, Candace Nelson, is sharing the recipe for success in her new book, Sweet Success. She will walk you through the steps she took to build a globally beloved brand, so you can do it too. Although she deals in frosting, there’s no sugarcoating here. Candace pushes back the kitchen door to reveal mistakes, misses, and lessons learned the hard way. Sweet Success dispels the myth that entrepreneurship is reserved for an elite few and is a must-have for anyone with a passion needing a place to start.

Although it may not seem like it, cleaning is big business. A residential cleaning business can earn you substantial amounts of money (to the tune of $50,000+ per year). However, many people intent on starting this business tend to underestimate the amount of preparation and effort that goes into establishing such a business. After all, we all clean, right? Right, but cleaning another person's home for monetary gain is infinitely different from cleaning your residence.

Do you want to make a difference? There are many ways someone in a leadership role can have a positive impact on the lives of their employees. Perhaps there is no leadership responsibility more profound than creating a sustainable, injury-free workplace. This audiobook is a collection of leadership concepts, thoughts, words, and actions that (when strategically implemented) can move your organization toward a better safety future.

Around the world, a new generation is looking beyond greater profits, for meaningful purpose. But, unlike business, few social interventions have achieved significant impact at scale. Inspired by the modern innovation practices popularized by best seller The Lean Startup that have fueled technology breakthroughs touching every aspect of our lives, Lean Impact turns our attention to a new goal-achieving radically greater social good.

Good coaching is a skill that requires a depth of understanding and plenty of practice if it is to deliver its astonishing potential. This extensively revised and expanded new audio edition of Coaching for Performance clearly explains the principles of coaching and illustrates them with examples of high performance from business and sport. It continues to follow the GROW sequence (Goals, Reality, Options, Will) and clarifies the process and practice of coaching.

In Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur, Charlene Walters provides the tools you need to successfully launch and grow your side hustle, start up, or small business. As a mentor on Entrepreneur magazine's "Ask an Expert" forum and developer of a digital entrepreneurship MBA program, Walters knows what you're facing - and can help you avoid common mistakes, find your niche, build up your personal brand, and reach your entrepreneurial goals.

In Driving Innovation from Within, strategist and advisor Kaihan Krippendorff disproves one of today's biggest business myths to highlight lessons for innovators and leaders. He reveals how many of the modern world's most impactful creations were invented by passionate employee innovators. Distilling more than 150 interviews with internal innovators and leading experts along with insights from the latest research and today's most successful companies Krippendorff lays out a step-by-step playbook to unlock innovation from the inside. He maps the barriers that frustrate efforts to disrupt from within and provides tools to remove them.

Chris Guillebeau, the best-selling author of The $100 Start Up, has created a practical, actionable guide that can help you turn your passion into paychecks - whether within a traditional company or business, or by striking out on your own.

The Startup Checklist is the entrepreneur's essential companion. While most entrepreneurship books focus on strategy, this invaluable guide provides the concrete steps that will get your new business off to a strong start. You'll learn the ins and outs of startup execution, management, legal issues, and practical processes throughout the launch and growth phases and how to avoid the critical missteps that threaten the foundation of your business.

Every day, a new silver bullet comes out, promising to grow your business, increase your profit margins, and make your life as a business owner easier. Unfortunately, most of them don't work, wasting your time and money. Plus, they take your attention away from other more worthwhile opportunities. The ones that do work for others just never seem to work for you. Blanket prescriptions are like that - never quite hitting the mark for all but the few with the exact symptoms.