Small Business Leadership

In the new edition of this fascinating book, a book that has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, Slashdot.org, Lifehacker.com and in the New York Times, best-selling author Scott Berkun pulls the best lessons from the history of innovation, including the recent software and web age, to reveal powerful and surprising truths about how ideas become successful innovations - truths people can easily apply to the challenges of today.

On the 10th night of co-owning the first restaurant, Cliff thought they would run out of money. Eight days later, there was a line at the front door, and for the next five years, the restaurant hit sales and record profits. Next, Cliff co-founded one of the best wine bars in Atlanta and then one of the best steakhouses in the United States. From there, he opened one of the best seafood restaurants in the county. Over the next 14 years, he helped make the restaurants more profitable than the average independent restaurants.

Patagonia, named by Fortune in 2007 as the coolest company on the planet, has earned a reputation as much for its ground-breaking environmental and social practices as for the quality of its clothes. In this exceptionally frank account, Chouinard and Stanley recount how the company and its culture gained the confidence, by step and misstep, to make its work progressively more responsible, and to ultimately share its discoveries with companies as large as Wal-Mart or as small as the corner bakery.

Traditionally, an entrepreneur develops a detailed plan, finds money to fund it, and then pursues it to its conclusion. But conditions can change drastically at any point - you can end up locked into a process based on now-obsolete assumptions. The lean startup is all about agility and flexibility. Its mantra is "build, measure, learn": create small, experimental initiatives, get real-world feedback on them quickly, and use that data to identify what works and discard what doesn't. And then test some more.

So many HR professionals crave the freedom and flexibility of being an independent HR consultant, and then the fear kicks in about whether they can make the transition from corporate to consulting and maintain their income whilst learning how to be a consultant. This audiobook guides you through not only the knowledge but also the mindset needed to be successful as well as building your confidence so that you too can make this move.

The easy-to-implement guide to driving organizational change by applying the proven concept of kaizen UCLA psychologist and organizational consultant Dr. Robert Maurer provides a simple and proven effective technique for making major changes with minimal disruption. Applying the operational...

In addition to his work as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, and consultant, for the last 16 years August Turak worked alongside the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey, watching firsthand as they undertook new enterprises and sustained an incredibly successful business practice. Service and selflessness are at the heart of this 1,500-year-old monastic tradition’s remarkable business success, an ancient though immensely relevant economic model that preserves what is positive and productive about capitalism while transcending its ethical limitations and internal contradictions.

Being a startup CEO is a job like no other: it's difficult, risky, stressful, lonely, and often learned through trial and error. As a startup CEO seeing things for the first time, you're likely to make mistakes, fail, get things wrong, and feel like you don't have any control over outcomes. Author Matt Blumberg has been there, and in Startup CEO he shares his experience, mistakes, and lessons learned as he guided Return Path from a handful of employees and no revenues to over $100 million in revenues and 500 employees.

Owning a small business can be challenging enough even in the best of times. And when times get tough - whether the challenges are brought about by pandemics, recessions, or any other volatility, you need every tool sharpened and ready to go. You'll find them all in Your Small Business Boom, with the latest in entrepreneurial thinking from USA Today small-business columnist Steve Strauss. Packed with strategies, ideas, savvy tips, and noteworthy trends, it's an indispensable guide to rebuilding in a post-pandemic world - and thriving when the next crisis hits.

Crack the Funding Code will show listeners how to find the money, create pitches that attract investors, and then structure fair, ethical deals that will bring them new sources of outside capital and invaluable professional advice. It will give listeners the broader perspective - how funding works, how investors think, and what they need to hear to put their money where your mouth is.

Lifelong learning has become a multibillion-dollar business, with more than 60 million adults currently engaged in webinars, webcasts, in-house training, continuing education classes, and more. But it is also an industry in flux, as newcomers topple old-guard organizations that can’t keep pace with the need for instant access to materials and flexible delivery methods, as well as demands for community and connection.

Ben & Jerry's has always been committed to an insanely ambitious three-part mission: Making the world's best ice cream, supporting progressive causes, and sharing the company's success with all stakeholders: employees, suppliers, distributors, customers, cows, everybody. But it hasn't been easy. This is the first book to tell the full, inside story of the inspiring rise, tragic mistakes, devastating fall, determined recovery, and ongoing renewal of one of the most iconic mission-driven companies in the world.

Demographics not only define who we are, where we live, and how our numbers change. For those who can read beyond the raw figures, they open up hidden business opportunities that lie ahead. What will happen when retiring Boomers free up jobs? How will Generation Y alter supermarkets? Which states will have the most dynamic workforces? Will American manufacturing rebound as Asia's population declines? Upside puts this powerful yet little-understood science to work finding answers.

In Small Business Revolution president and CEO of Deluxe Corp. Barry C. McCarthy delivers a stirring combination of uplifting narrative and small business instruction manual. Featuring inspiring stories from the company's 106-year history and anecdotes from its Emmy-nominated TV show Small Business Revolution, this book offers listeners the opportunity to learn how to grow and thrive in their business in any environment, from a booming economy to a post-pandemic marketplace.

Featuring a foreword by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, this fascinating handbook inspires potential founders and provides essential guidance and advice for people who want to create their own start-up and build a successful company. This audiobook answers the question “how do I get started?” It takes the listener from making the decision to plunge into entrepreneurship, through the process of choosing and developing an idea and team, all the way to raising capital and working with VCs and angel investors.

Leadership succession made easy. Leaders leave. It's inevitable. It might even happen today. Are you prepared? Every organization needs a plan for leadership succession, but few leaders know how to start the process. Who Comes Next? solves that problem and easily guides you through the steps of creating and implementing a viable succession plan. This essential guidebook simplifies the process and gives you the tools you need to build and activate your leadership succession.

A successful optometry practice is a juggling act. You need to know your field of optometry, as well as how to run a small business. Your education has prepared you for the technical ins and outs of optometry practice. But what has prepared you to run a business? The E-Myth Optometrist fills this knowledge gap, giving you a complete toolkit for starting a successful practice from scratch or maximizing an existing practice’s performance.

Art Ciocca orchestrated the creation of the largest wine brand that has dominated the industry for over twenty years. It is an achievement that even the best entrepreneurs can only dream of, yet perhaps you've never even heard his name. Inspired by Art, Andreas Widmer crafts a practical model of principled entrepreneurship that anyone can adopt in their work. Widmer outlines five pillars that form the foundation of an entrepreneurial mindset that places the human person at the center of work.

With Peter Drucker's five essential questions and the help of five of today's thought leaders, this little book will challenge readers to take a close look at the very heart of their organizations and what drives them. A tool for self-assessment and transformation, answering these five questions will fundamentally change the way you work, helping you lead your organization to an exceptional level of performance.

The myth of innovation is that brilliant ideas leap fully formed from the minds of geniuses. The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization's products or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.