Small Business Success

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.

The statistics are grim: Less than 20 percent of the businesses started each year survive their fifth anniversary. Jay Myers, founder of Interactive Solutions, Inc. in Memphis, Tennessee is one such survivor. Jay has built a company that, by tapping into the demand for high-tech video conferencing and communication equipment, continues to grow even beyond the 10 year anniversary.

Bill Hansen is considered one of the top caterers in the United States, having served U.S. presidents, celebrities, Pope John Paul II, and scores of Fortune 500 corporations in a career that’s spanned over five decades. He’s catered more than 10,000 weddings across South Florida—and has the bridezilla and success stories to prove it.

Mental models help you filter information, which allows you to see things more clearly and make better decisions. Mental models are also a shortcut to finding the quickest and the best route to solve your problems, whether work-related or personal. The beauty of mental models is that their variety is virtually infinite, and they help you come up with solutions for just about any issue.

You don’t need a massive shop, expensive tools, or a big budget to build a thriving woodworking business. In fact, staying small can be your biggest advantage—with the right strategy. In Garage Shop Income, seasoned woodworking professional Stoane Loudenslager shares the insider strategies he learned from working in multimillion-dollar cabinet and furniture shops and now applies these to his own independent shop, aiming to guide other small, independent woodworking businesses.

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.

Relationship Marketing³ uses structured word-of-mouth referrals to build your business and your reputation as a valued professional resource. It makes people want to know you and work with you as you build your reputation, one satisfied customer at a time. Through Relationship Marketing³, you’ll build a network of colleagues with compatible values who keep each other in mind and on the lookout for opportunities to refer and partner together. Once you have the system in place, you'll find that you can grow your business exponentially and work with people who are exactly the clients you want.

Million Dollar Builder 2.0 delivers a proven system to break through the chaos—and build a seven-figure net profit business with clarity and control. Kurt Hegetschweiler shares the advanced strategies and systems he’s used to help thousands of builders across the globe create high-profit, low-stress businesses—and live life on their terms.

Mindful Business Leadership presents a new model of leadership. It introduces 10 very different leadership roles that are required to meet the challenges of modern business. Memorable metaphors and images are created for each, and they are placed in a matrix. Listeners are shown how to develop these roles within themselves. Potentially negative aspects of each are discussed, along with material on how to put these to creative use.

Leadership Hacks is the business leader's guide to getting things done. Over the years, the leader's role has expanded to encompass more duties, more responsibility, and more accountability - yet we're still stuck with the same 24 hours in every day. The evolving business environment leaves many of us struggling to achieve against constantly shifting priorities, competitors, and deadlines, and we are forever expected to do more with less. Is it even possible to make a real impact? Yes! This book shows you how to sort through the madness and get back to getting results.

This isn't just another self-help book. It's the culmination of my amazing wife Sofia and I's life experiences. It's a testament to our challenges and perseverance, and a tangible tool to create real, lasting change in your life. Unravel the truths about controlling your mindset and attitude, avoiding distractions, and setting your life on the path of transformation. My assurance in writing this book stems from a life filled with struggle, resilience, and personal growth. I don't shy away from sharing my setbacks and challenges because I wanted you to get the raw value of these lessons.

In this audiobook Habit Flip: Transform Your Life with 101 Small Changes to your Daily Routines, you'll uncover 101 habits that can quickly improve your life. You'll also discover just how to build routines filled with habits that are consistently repeated with the use of a checklist. Further, you'll also find tools that will assist you in staying motivated on a daily basis, even when you're stressed out.

Hopping over the Rabbit Hole chronicles the rise, fall, and resurgence of SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci, giving you a primer on how to thrive in an unpredictable business environment. The sheer number of American success stories has created a false impression that becoming an entrepreneur is a can't-miss endeavor—but nothing could be further from the truth. In the real world, an entrepreneur batting .150 goes directly to the Hall of Fame. Things happen. You make a bad hire, a bad strategic decision, or suffer the consequences of an unforeseen market crash.

Do you want to start a business? Do you want to be your own boss? Are you confused on how to make it happen? Want to make money online or from home or on the side? Then this book is for you. This beginner's guide to starting a business is the aspiring entrepreneur's first step to personal success and business ownership.

Working for yourself is fun, exciting, and liberating. It is also scary, demanding, and exhausting. You want to succeed so badly that you will put in any number of hours to make your business work, but there are ways to exceed your expectations without killing yourself in the process. Being your own boss means making the decisions and standing or falling by them. There is nobody else to take the blame when things go wrong, and you are the one who will reap the rewards when you get it right.

"Streamlining Success: A Practical Guide to Automated Information Management for Small Businesses" provides small business owners with a clear, actionable roadmap to harness the power of automation. This concise guide covers the essentials of Automated Information Management (AIM), from understanding its core benefits to overcoming the challenges of manual processes.

Why did we form Kingdom Business Mentors? As many Christians have been erroneously taught that wealth is something evil and not meant for the children of God, we align with biblical scripture that we were born to rule, reign, and prosper. We believe that abundance is the ONLY way to be sustainably generous, so we, the Body of Christ, can be the catalyst to help heal our hurting and dying world. We believe that God has opened the business platform as the extension of the Church for a great harvest in the last days, increasing the Kingdom of God, day by day.

The number-one reason most people don't reach their biggest dreams and goals is what international business coach Howard Partridge calls F.T.I. Failure to Implement. Many times, people know what to do and how to do it; they just don't do it. This book reveals the causes of F.T.I. and offers a proven path to overcoming the tendency toward inaction.

Open a door into the complex and active mind of Sharper Image founder, Richard Thalheimer. This successful entrepreneur shares stories about creating his visions, taking risks, sharing rewards, cultivating generosity, and showing respect, as well as knowing there always is a way to solve every problem.

Green to Gold is an essential guide for forward-thinking business leaders who see the Green Wave coming and want to profit from it. This audio explores what every executive must know to manage the environmental challenges facing society and business. Based on the authors' years of experience and hundreds of interviews with corporate leaders around the world, Green to Gold, shows how companies generate lasting value.