Small Business Leadership

What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers.

It has never been harder to find good employees. Government handouts and programs, publicly traded behemoths with an insatiable appetite for front-line staff, and a burgeoning gig-economy has made hiring extremely hard for small business owners. The golden question is how do we attract good talent and then retain them long-term? How do I determine rates of compensation for my highest performers that are always demanding raises? How do I scale my business without having to constantly micro-manage my Team when they are in the field working? The answer is Pay-For-Performance (P4P).

In 1965, John Brink left the Netherlands for Canada equipped with only a single suitcase and $25.47 in cash. He had no connections, he didn’t speak the language, and he’d never finished elementary school, yet he was convinced he could make his dream to build his own sawmill come true. With a tenacity bordering on obsession, John achieved his dreams...and then some. In this lively autobiography, John distills a half-century’s hard work to share 10 simple takeaways.

Far from a dry listen, The Lean Law Firm is the first book published by the ABA to employ the novel to teach business lessons. Follow the engaging story of lawyer Carson Wright, who suddenly finds himself responsible for saving a small law firm, as his mentor Guy Chapman imparts the lean techniques that transformed his factory from the brink of bankruptcy to new heights of profitability. As you hear the The Lean Law Firm story unfold, you’ll see how your own firm is really just a system.

What does it require to take a concept rapidly and effectively from mind to market? The Benevolent Dictator recognizes that entrepreneurship is a gauntlet. Those who succeed are benevolent dictators able to make the intricate process happen in days, weeks and months to win. The Benevolent Dictator gives you no-nonsense how-to advice and examples that have worked.

Every start-up founder feels overwhelmed and uncertain at various times. From Start-Up to Grown-Up gives you, the founder and CEO of a great start-up, the knowledge and experience that executive coach Alisa Cohn has gained from helping companies such as Etsy, Foursquare, InVision, and The Wirecutter become headline names. The audiobook provides you with effective and practical ways of maximizing your strengths, defusing your triggers, controlling your self-doubt, and building on your motivators.

How do people come up with truly original ideas? The answer is to think outside the box - way outside. For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.

The Business of Expertise, David’s previous book, set the stage by suggesting a narrow focus and then capitalizing on the patterns that emerge from repeated application of your expertise. This book builds on that work by suggesting how to craft a consulting practice with those insights.

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It's their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly.

Who is this material designed for? This manual includes all my knowledge on how to start and grow a million-dollar cleaning company in a short amount of time. This is not for lazy people looking to make a quick buck. This is for serious cleaning business owner ready to grow their companies to millions of dollars. Here I include all the information I provide on my video course found at www.tremendouslife.com called The Six Figure Cleaning Business Master Class which is a video class explaining in detail all the content you'll see in the screenshots throughout this manual. I have also included all the content from my previous book where I discuss all the lessons I have learned throughout the years.

In The One Minute Entrepreneur, Ken Blanchard (coauthor of the number-one best selling business classic The One Minute Manager); Don Hutson, CEO of U.S. Learning; and Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Learning, tell the inspiring story of one man's challenges in creating his own business.

What does an executive director actually do? And how can you lead your organization to a stronger place? Nonprofit expert Erik Hanberg wrote The Little Book of Nonprofit Leadership to speak directly to executive directors of small (and very small) nonprofits who are asking these questions. EDs, especially at small nonprofits, tend to be dropped into the deep end of the pool with the expectation that they know how to swim. The Little Book of Nonprofit Leadership will be a welcome rescue line.

Best-selling author and serial entrepreneur Dale Partridge provides a concrete, easily executed plan for listeners looking to start a business that will result in greater freedom, a stronger family, and healthier finances.

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.

We explore various proven methods of implementing AI within your organization, drawing inspiration from the principles advocated by esteemed scholars such as Chris Argyris, Michael Porter, and Larry Greiner. We will examine top-down approaches, where leadership drives AI adoption throughout the entire organization, as well as bottom-up approaches, empowering individual employees to explore and implement AI solutions in their daily work.

Competition is moving beyond industry to ecosystem. Are you ready? In the shift from pipeline to platform, value is no longer created by your company's product or process alone - it's created through interactions. And the strategy you used to become an industry leader won't help you compete in an evolving and complex ecosystem. If you listen to nothing else on platforms and ecosystems, listen to these 10 articles by experts in the field.

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!

In my book, I will show you exactly how to go about starting and running your own pre-loved clothing business. You gain not only the monetary benefits of selling a high-demand product, but you will also be saving the world’s landfills from unnecessary waste. In 2012 alone, an estimated 14.3 million tons of textiles were discarded to the landfill as reported by the Environmental Protection Agency - an alarming number for something seemingly harmless as discarding old clothes.

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.

After 15 years stuck behind a desk in the software industry, Bob Clagett walked away from a well-paying, stable job to make the things he was interested in and show the world how to make them, too. His company, I Like to Make Stuff, started as a hobby but quickly grew into a passion project. In "Making Time", Bob recounts his history and build-up to becoming a full-time content creator, and shares his process, experiences, and mistakes from his first two years of self-employment.