Small Business Success

Former consultant Dr. Paul Friga distills the guiding principles first presented in the best-selling The McKinsey Way and the tested-in-the-trenches methodologies outlined in The McKinsey Mind, and combines them with many of the principles and procedures implemented by the military and other organizations. The result is nothing less than the business equivalent of a Special Forces Field Manual.

Where does the startup journey begin? Startups are the epitome of untapped potential–turning “unsolvable” needs into a whole new opportunity for growth. Companies aspire to learn from the startup rulebook. Yet, when it comes to our personal lives, we opt to avoid those “unsolvable” problems and stick with the familiar and safe options: Do as instructed, walk the line, don’t stick out. In short: Don’t live your life like a startup.

There are 28.8 million small businesses in the United States alone - and a vast majority of them have three things in common: They desperately need more customers. They know that they have to advertise online in order to get them. They don’t know how to do it - and even if they knew, they don’t have time to do it by themselves.

In The Perfect 10, Dave Liniger, cofounder of RE/MAX, the company that revolutionized real estate for agents and home buyers everywhere, shares fifty-plus years of business insights to help guide future generations of entrepreneurs as they pursue their professional dreams. Beyond being a real estate magnate, Liniger is a major philanthropist, a serial investor in new ventures, a franchising expert, an educator, a former NASCAR team owner and driver, and the proprietor of one of the world’s most successful Arabian horse breeding operations.

Supermaker is a guide to business and career development by Jaime Schmidt: acclaimed entrepreneur, founder of Schmidt's Naturals, and icon of the Maker Movement. In Supermaker, she shares how you too can start or grow your own business with advice on branding, product development, social media marketing, scaling, PR, and customer engagement, all based on her own hard-won mastery.

Lifestyle changes can be overwhelming: It’s hard to take on major goals without falling prey to self-doubt. But with kaizen, big goals become small, approachable steps. This Japanese method first made waves in the business world by launching Toyota to success; it also adds magic to Marie Kondo’s life-changing method of tidying up. As Kondo puts it: “You can take the first small step toward your dream today, and keep taking small steps to grow your passions.” Now, Sarah Harvey unlocks kaizen’s amazing potential to enhance our everyday lives.

Too many businesses start with a big idea and ultimately fail because nobody wants to pay for their product. What are they missing? The audience-driven approach of an embedded entrepreneur. Instead of building solutions looking for customers, embedded entrepreneurs find customers and build a solution with them. When you begin building your business with your future audience in mind, the guesswork ends. The audience-driven approach of an embedded entrepreneur is the path to a sustainable, customer-centric business.

Not all heroes wear capes. You might not think of yourself as a hero, but every time you create value for others, you're benefiting people and making life easier or better for them in some way. The question is, "Who do you want to be a hero to?" By identifying the key audience you want to create value for, you focus yourself on the most crucial people in your life, helping them to grow their capabilities - and growing your own as well.

As a solopreneur, you can take control of your life, use your unique talents, and choose the work you love. But avoiding the pitfalls of being your own boss can be a challenge. Money-Smart Solopreneur gives you the essential knowledge, tools, and inspiration you need to live a successful solopreneur life as a full- or part-time freelancer, independent contractor, or side-hustler in the on-demand economy.

Authors Imran Rashid and Soren Kenner have sparked an international debate by revealing the "mind hacks" Facebook, Apple, Google, and Instagram use to get you and your children hooked on their products. In Offline, they deliver an eye-opening, research-based journey into the world of tech giants, smartphones, social engineering, and subconscious manipulation. This provocative work reveals how digital devices change individuals and communities for better and worse.

What if wellness isn’t about achieving another set of impossible standards, but about finding what works­ - for you? Radically simple and ridiculously doable, The Feel Good Effect helps you redefine wellness, on your own terms. Drawing from cutting-edge science on mindfulness, habit, and behavior change, podcast host Robyn Conley Downs offers a collection of small mindset shifts that allow for more calm, clarity, and joy in everyday life, embracing the idea that “gentle is the new perfect” when it comes to sustainable wellness.

After founding or co-founding over 15 start-ups and investing in another 50 early stage ventures as an angel investor, author Howard Love came to understand that a start-up unfolds in a predictable pattern. The more aware entrepreneurs are of this pattern, the better able they will be to capitalize on it.

In Shark Tales, Barbara shares her hilarious stories about growing up, getting into trouble, failing miserably, and then starting over again. In each chapter, she comes back to one of her mom's unconventional lessons, and how it applies in the real world of business. Whatever your calling, the homespun lessons that work for Barbara will help you use what you've got to create success in your life.

In 1883, Napoleon Hill was born into poverty. In 1910, while working as a reporter, he was assigned to interview billionaire industrialist Andrew Carnegie. During this interview, Carnegie gave hints about the "secret" he had used to attain wealth. Carnegie believed the process of success was a simple formula which could be duplicated by the average person. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie commissioned him (without pay and only offering to provide him with letters of reference) to interview over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.

Qu'est-ce que les plus grands patrons ont de plus, qui leur donne l'envergure et la dynamique nécessaire pour construire leurs empires ? Il suffit de le leur demander. Voici 100 citations sélectionnées avec soin parmi les paroles des plus grands entrepreneurs, leurs découvertes fondamentales et leurs enseignements en matière de business. De Richard Branson, patron de Virgin, à Henry Ford, en passant par Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett et Malcom Forbes, toutes les solutions sont là : sachez comment se construit une pensée visionnaire en apprenant à connaître la leur.

In 12 Disciplines of Leadership Excellence, bestselling author and motivational expert Brian Tracy teams up with global learning expert Dr. Peter Chee to reveal simple, straightforward principles any business leader can use to make lasting positive changes in his or her organization.

What if the smartest people in the world understand something that the rest of us don't? (They do.) What if they know that in order to achieve success, they will sometimes have to do things that others may initially perceive as stupid? The fact of the matter is that the smartest people in the world don't run from stupid, they lean into it (in a smart way). In The Power of Starting Something Stupid, Richie Norton redefines stupid as we know it, demonstrating that life-changing ideas are often tragically mislabeled stupid.

Kotter and co-author Dan S. Cohen delve deeper into the subject of change to get to the heart of how change actually happens. Through compelling, real-life stories from people in the trenches, in all kinds of organizations, the authors attack the fundamental problem that underlies every major transformation: How do you go beyond simply getting your message across to truly changing people's behavior?

Seth Godin, one of today's most influential business thinkers, writes best-selling books like Purple Cow and All Marketers Are Liars. And in between those annual books, he delivers a daily stream of ideas on one of the world's most popular blogs.

Can a short 18-minute conversation I overheard from a millionaire make you a fortune? It did for me. And it can do the same for you. Go back to 1996 and eavesdrop on the tense 18-minute argument I unwittingly heard. An altercation between two friends. One living a dream. The other faking it. Listen in on the powerful conversation that changed the trajectory of my life and ultimately made me a millionaire - many times over.