Small Business Management

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.

What does it take to get the job done? How do you get the men in your unit to do what you say? To follow you into battle and shoot to kill? How do you build the confidence that spurs men on to do their jobs, to stand by their leaders and each other? Find the answers to these questions and more, in this classic for those who have to get the job done---military or not.

In Secrets of Silicon Valley, entrepreneur and media commentator Deborah Perry Piscione takes us inside this vibrant ecosystem where meritocracy rules the day. She explores Silicon Valley's exceptionally risk-tolerant culture, and why it thrives despite the many laws that make California one of the worst states in the union for business.

Family business enterprises, found in virtually every country, are the backbone of most economies. However, the leadership challenges they present are complex and unique. Most executives and family members in these firms eventually discover that their education and years of hard work have not prepared them to address many of the interpersonal demands that come with the territory. After years of study and reflection, David Bentall came to realize how ill equipped he had been to be a part of the solution for his own family business.

“Everyone wants everyone else to change.” That is the fundamental reason why most organizational transformations fail. Leaders want their people to exhibit behaviors that they don’t exhibit themselves. Team members feel powerless to make significant change just because of where they are situated on the organization chart. Improvement Starts with I provides you with a framework to change this through a simple plan that, when followed, will deliver outstanding engagement, improvement, and results, helping you avoid the potholes into which countless companies have fallen.

In Gorillas Can Dance, distinguished international business strategy professor and expert Dr. Shameen Prashantham delivers a proven roadmap for large corporations collaborating with startups. Drawing on over a decade of international research, Dr. Prashantham explains the "why," "how," and "where" of corporate-startup partnering.

The definitive account of India’s biggest start-up that redefined ecommerce, entrepreneurship and the way we shop and live.

Cybersecurity as a whole can be overwhelming for startup founders. Start-Up Secure breaks down the essentials so you can determine what is right for your start-up and your customers. You'll learn techniques, tools, and strategies that will ensure data security for yourself, your customers, your funders, and your employees. Pick and choose the suggestions that make the most sense for your situation-based on the solid information in this book.

Gary Hamel lays out an innovative action plan for any company or individual intent on becoming and staying an industry revolutionary, for years to come. By drawing on the success of "gray haired revolutionaries" like Charles Schwab, Virgin, and GE Capital - companies that are always thinking ahead and growing in new directions - and profiling individuals such as Ken Kutaragi, one of the pioneers behind Sony's PlayStation, Hamel explains how companies can continue to grow, innovate, and achieve success.

Your brand is the stories people share about you when you're not in the room, and it's these brand stories that determine if people buy from you, employ you, work for you, or invest in you. When the stakes are that high, wouldn't you want to take control of it? In Magnetic Stories, business storytelling expert Gabrielle Dolan reveals how you, too, can create and share stories that stick.

Brand Renegades shows listeners how to develop a nontraditional success formula to disrupt and innovate their industry. Club Tattoo founders and industry disruptors Sean and Thora Dowdell share their experience as a woman-run company in the male-dominated world of tattoos and piercings. The lessons taught in this book are about learning to admit failure and learning to fail forward.

Sort Your Brain Out includes brain-powered self-help advice that will improve your mood, help you deal with stress, and be better and smarter at work or in your everyday life. You'll discover how to shape and control the most adaptable organ in your body to think more creatively, keep your memory sharp, and live a better life on a daily basis.

Why do so many entrepreneurs found innovative enterprises, only to find themselves failing as leaders once the business gets off the ground? Because, according to Derek Lidow, being an entrepreneur is fundamentally different from being a business leader. In Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas into Successful Enterprises, Lidow shows how to avoid the mistakes that confounded thousands of "geniuses" - even Steve Jobs - and become an Entrepreneurial Leader who combines the opposing natures of the entrepreneur and the leader.

Big data - the enormous amount of data that is created as virtually every movement, transaction, and choice we make becomes digitized - is revolutionizing business. Offering real-world insight and explanations, this audiobook provides a roadmap for organizations looking to develop a profitable big data strategy...and reveals why it's not something they can leave to the I.T. department. Think Bigger is an essential resource for anyone who wants to ensure that their company isn't left in the dust.

Project Management for Small Projects shows you how to tailor bureaucratic planning processes to a sleek minimum while still keeping your project running like a well-oiled machine. This third edition has been updated to align with the Project Management Institute’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®) and provides new tools, templates, and techniques to support the revised processes. In addition, there is new material on agile project management and on the essential leadership skills for small-project managers.

Yet what training has prepared you to run a business? E-Myth Real Insurance Store fills this knowledge gap, giving you a complete toolkit for either starting a successful business from scratch or maximizing an existing business’ performance. Loaded with practical, powerful advice you can easily use, this one-stop guide helps you realize all the benefits that come with a thriving insurance business.

In Applied Empathy, Michael Ventura, CEO and founder of Sub Rosa, a design firm that finds creative solutions for iconic brands and institutions such as GE, Nike, Citibank, Nikon, and Warby Parker and also West Point and the White House, offers entrepreneurs and executives a radical new business book and way forward. Applied Empathy presents real strategies, based on Sub Rosa’s design work as well as the popular class Ventura and his team have taught at Princeton University, on how to make lasting connections and evolve your business internally (your employees, culture, and product/services) as well as externally (your brand, consumers, and value).

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.

Are You Fully Charged? reveals the three keys that matter most for our daily well-being, as well as our engagement in our work. Drawing on the latest and most practical research from business, psychology, and economics, this audiobook focuses on changes we can make to create better days for ourselves and others.

With over $500 million a year in sales, the Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. But beginning in the 1980s, the Bassett company suffered from an influx of cheap Chinese furniture as the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately was forced to send its production offshore to Asia. Only one man fought back. That man is John Bassett III, a descendant of the Bassetts who is now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of over $90 million.