Small Business Management

In 1962, Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley created a software company when the concept of software barely existed. Freelance Programmers employed women to work on complex projects such as Concorde's black box recorder from the comfort of their own homes. Shirley empowered a generation of women in technology, giving them unheard of freedom to choose their own hours and manage their own workloads. The business thrived, and Shirley gradually transferred ownership to her staff, creating 70 millionaires in the process.

While today's technological, social, and economic changes have helped the business world, they have also increased anxiety for employees, business owners, and especially managers. Experts Ken Blanchard and Michael O'Connor offer practical, proven solutions to help managers and their organizations reduce pressure while enhancing productivity.

The exact qualities that bring an individual to found a start-up company (their brilliance and expertise) are what prevent them from achieving the success they are looking for - this is the paradox that is entrepreneurship. What starts out as freedom and financial independence turns into grueling hours and added stress and bills. But successful five-time entrepreneur Curtis Morley is here to help. He shares that every entrepreneur is typically doing the same 15 things wrong or just not doing them at all - regardless of industry or business type.

“What would Jeff do?” Since leaving Amazon to advise start-ups and corporations, John Rossman has been asked this question countless times by executives who want to know “the secret” behind Amazon’s historic success. In this step-by-step guide, he provides 50½ answers drawn from his experience as an Amazon executive - and shows today’s business leaders how to think like Amazon, strategize like Bezos, and beat the competition like nobody’s business.

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.

Imagine what Atari might have achieved if Steve Jobs had stayed there to develop the first massmarket personal computer. Or what Steve Case might have done for PepsiCo if he hadn't left for a gaming start-up that eventually became AOL. What if Salomon Brothers had kept Michael Bloomberg, or Bear Stearns had exploited the inventive ideas of Stephen Ross? Scores of top-tier entrepreneurs worked for established corporations before they struck out on their own and became self-made billionaires.

The general data protection regulation or GDPR is a 57,500+ worded legislation that applies to every business or organization that handles personal information of those citizens living in EU and the UK, regardless of the size of the organization. For many small businesses, complying with GDPR is a daunting task, but it doesn’t need to be.

Do you have a hobby or passion that has nothing to do with your nine-to-five job? Do you craft vintage jewelry, make handmade furniture, or offer expert negotiating advice to family and friends in your spare time? Then you, too, could join the one-third of Americans who turn their talents into a lucrative side hustle. In What If It Does Work Out? life coach and professional side-hustler Susie Moore offers expert tips and guidance to help you earn an extra source of income by doing something you love.

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.

Nothing in business is a mystery. Success comes through careful study and dedication to the process. I was a professional hockey player who grew up in a hockey family. My dad is Al Rollins, NHL player and professional coach. In my childhood and as a young man, I was surrounded by the greats: Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, and Wayne Gretzky. I was lucky enough to learn a lot from them about life, sportsmanship, and excellence. But this is not a hockey book.

Seeing What's Next is a framework for predicting industry winners and losers. Every day, individuals take action based on how they believe innovation will change industries. Yet these beliefs are largely based on guesswork and incomplete data, and can lead to costly errors in judgment. Internationally renowned innovation expert Clayton M. Christensen and his research partners, Scott D. Anthony and Erik A. Roth, present this guide for predicting outcomes in the evolution of any industry.

In Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley's Best Kept Secret, growth consultants Raymond Fong and Chad Riddersen deconstruct the phenomenon used by Silicon Valley's fast growing tech elite, growth hacking. Raymond and Chad's framework, the ASP™, is an easy to understand blueprint that empowers any business to apply growth hacking.

You’ve tried the productivity hacks. You’ve read the playbooks. You’ve chased the next big thing—only to find yourself stuck, burned out, or still searching for the missing piece. Next Level Self is not another advice book. It’s a blueprint for transformation, told through the stories of real entrepreneurs who reinvented themselves by doing less, aligning more, and finally building businesses that felt like them. In this powerhouse collection, ten growth-minded experts reveal the moment everything changed—the pivot that unlocked clarity, confidence, and sustainable success.

Positive Leadership shows how to reach beyond ordinary success to achieve extraordinary effectiveness, spectacular results, and what Kim Cameron calls “positively deviant performance” - performance far above the norm. Citing a wide range of research in organizational behavior, medical science, and psychology as well as real-world examples, Cameron shows that to achieve exceptional success, leaders must emphasize strengths rather than simply focus on weaknesses.

Robert Kiyosaki's new audiobook 8 Lessons in Military Leadership for Entrepreneurs draws from his years at the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point and his service in the United Sates Marine Corps. With compelling stories and examples and an engaging way of comparing and contrasting two very different cultures and value systems, Robert shares the challenges he faced in transitioning to civilian life.

Debra Traverso tells you how to prepare for the surprises most likely to throw small businesses off course. She helps you anticipate both predictable hurdles and devastating ordeals, so that no crisis will catch you off guard. No need to waste emotions, time, and money when a crisis hits: you can get a good night's sleep!

Throughout history, there are some events that stand out as so groundbreaking that they completely change life as we know it. The Apollo moon landing of 1969 was one of those events - the invention of the Apple personal computer was another. In this book, John Sculley - former CEO of both Pepsi and Apple - claims we are in an era that is giving birth to numerous groundbreaking events and inventions - moonshots - that will change the way we live and work for generations to come.

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.

Trust is a basic, intuitive human reaction; it holds the fabric of our society together. Unfortunately, trust is at an all-time low in our institutions, governments, health care, and law enforcement. Losing someone’s trust is easy—building it back is much harder. Darryl Stickel, one of the world’s foremost experts on trust, moves away from the traditional approach of influencing people’s willingness to trust—the con artist’s tactic—to employing levers which leaders can “pull” to close the gap between how much they are trusted and how much they should be.

Problem: Most Americans don't realize the potential gold mine in blue-collar business. By blue-collar business I mean a business providing a specialized service requiring a trained employee and manual labor. In my case it is chimney sweeping, but it can range from construction to gardening to plumbing and junk removal. There are literally thousands and thousands of opportunities, but many people don't consider blue-collar work as an option and are missing out as a result.