Small Business Development

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’re a facilitator, instructional designer, or L&D department of one, you don’t need a fancy DSLR camera or film crew to create successful training videos. All you really need is a learning strategy, a good production plan, and a smartphone camera. Informed by his 30-year career in training and media, including his time as learning executive with the BBC, author Jonathan Halls is committed to best practices in video production that will actually help your learners to learn, and without a giant strain on your resources.

We’ve heard it all before: AI will upend industries, kill jobs and remake everything from healthcare to art. But between the hype and the hand-wringing lies a simpler, more pressing question: Is AI actually useful? And if so, useful for what, and for whom?

Do you want to save hours a day and do more in less time? Feel productive instead of stressed, defeated, and overwhelmed? If (1) you wonder where your time goes, (2) you can't motivate or organize yourself, and (3) you struggle to buckle down and concentrate when it really matters - newsflash! Your to-do list is not cutting it anymore. You need to develop superhuman focus and all that comes with it. Superhuman Focus teaches the most important of skills - the ability to get stuff done.

While Erik Z. Severinghaus has been to the top of the physical world (literally climbing Everest) and the business world (exiting companies for hundreds of millions of dollars), what has defined his journey is not the successes...but rather, the hard times of loneliness and self-doubt that nearly cost him his accomplishments and his life. This guidebook passes along the lessons needed in those dark times, with the hope that it will help every entrepreneur who is going through this struggle understand their journey and build the mental resiliency to succeed.

Renowned entrepreneur and executive director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship Paul Cheek delivers an actionable field guide to transforming your one great idea into a functional, funded, and staffed startup. Building on the ideas presented in the bestselling Disciplined Entrepreneurship, the author delivers a comprehensive set of solutions you can implement immediately to advance your company to its next stage of growth.

Maybe you’re trying to make new friends, get that job promotion, be a charismatic leader, or get lucky in love. Do you want to become more than just another one of the crowd? Effective communication verbally, physically, and online will open these doors for you. Through a series of engaging and practical exercises, you'll learn how to banter and build rapport with anyone you meet. You'll discover the secrets of confident body language, effective listening, and engaging storytelling.

We've combed through the ideas, insights, and best practices from the past year of Harvard Business Review to help you get up to speed fast on the relevant concepts driving business today. Discover new ideas and sample the latest thinking of our vast array of management experts. Revisit these topics now to make sure your organization is incorporating the best, most up-to-date practices, or keep this book as a reference so you can turn to these memorable pieces when you need them the most.

As a former aerospace scientist, Fortune 500 executive, chief innovation officer of two major companies, inventor and software entrepreneur, David Murray has made a living by coming up with new and innovative ideas. In Borrowing Brilliance he explains the origins and evolution of a business idea by showing you how new ideas are merely the combination of existing ideas.

"She" is an entrepreneur who pursued her goals, designed her life, and loved every inch of it. She wasn’t worried about what “they” were doing or how they defined success. She didn’t listen to what they had to say, because she wasn’t doing it for “them”. She set her own standards and priorities. She pursued her goals and lived life to its fullest potential. She kept her head in the clouds and her feet on the ground. She stayed focused on the joie de vivre, celebrating the joy of life with each and every tiny victory.

This radical and rigorous rethinking of the traditional MBA program combines solid business principles with a commitment to environmental and social justice.

In an impatient world of infobesity, people don't want more information - they want to be intrigued and they want to be intrigued fast. After all, goldfish have longer attention spans than humans - nine seconds to our eight. So, right now, people want to know, "How is this relevant and useful to me? Why are you worth my valuable time, mind, and dime?" Bestselling author and ace communication strategist Sam Horn reveals her "secret sauce" for truly connecting with people - whether it's one or one million.

In Selling Your Business with Confidence: A Practical Playbook for Mid-Market Owners, veteran M&A advisor David McCombie delivers an insider's guide to navigating the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) sales process. In plain English, this book covers every essential topic for owners considering the sale of their business. Listeners will fully understand the process, the range of options available, and their implications.

Avoiding the Continuous Appearance Trap: 12 Questions to Understand What’s Truly Underneath Your Culture is a transformational book that weaves together the stories of two companies that, on the surface, appear to be quite similar. Underneath, however, they couldn’t be more different.

Want to make a living by making people laugh? The comedy industry is bursting with opportunities—find out how to claim your place in the spotlight with 10 Steps to Be a Working Comedian. Comedy is a business, and there’s work waiting for anyone funny enough to take the stage. Greg Dean, the renowned Professor of Stand-Up Comedy, shows you how to turn your passion for laughs into a lucrative career, from one-nighters to week-long gigs. This book reveals how to build a show to get work, secure it, and what it takes to thrive in an ever-expanding industry.

No matter what position you hold within the medical spa industry, you could be a founder, an entrepreneur, or a medical professional. You may be a physician, NP, PA, RN, an injector, any type of provider, an aesthetician, a laser tech, a patient coordinator, a marketing professional or hold any other position, this book is a must read and a must have for your success library.

This book takes an entertaining approach to teaching practical strategies for success in everyday decision-making. Its 101 lessons can change your life by teaching you to see competition from a completely new perspective. The book is full of stories, jokes, and quotes based on strategic principles that go back 2,500 years to Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Do you ever sense that you're not using your mind to its fullest potential? Being "stuck" means your brain is repeating the same neurological firing patterns again and again. It happens in business, relationships, personal goals, and mental health, over and over.

Did you know that women only currently make up around 25 percent of the C-Suite? And they lead less than 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies? Hard to believe right? But things are slowly starting to change, and people are starting to realize that women can bring qualities to the table that men simply can’t.

Millions of people hate their jobs, or have recently lost one, and would love to start a small business. Yet very few actually try, because the process feels as scary as jumping off a cliff. No matter how boring or stressful a job might be, it's hard to give up a salary and benefits. But for some, it can be the smartest, happiest decision of a lifetime.