Fresh out of college, I made a brilliant (or lucky) decision to join a small software company in the SF Bay Area that ended up going public and landed me a nice wad of cash. Instead of blowing it on ’stuff’, I decided to go to business school and learn about creating and running businesses. Afterward, I entered the world of small business and entrepreneurship… only to fall flat on my face five (yes, f-i-v-e) different times. (Read more…)
 
I’ve got the reading bug. It started about 2-3 years ago. My wife thinks I’m nuts for reading so many books that have to do with entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, & business success. As she puts it, “why don’t you read something fun?!”. Well, to me, these books ARE fun, interesting, insightful, and have really propelled me. So, which are my favorites for entrepreneurs and small businesses?
I recently came across a blog post by Mike Michalowicz on CNBC.com with his list that looked pretty solid. I’d love to know what books you’ve read that you think should be on the list… Contributed by Carolyn Acker, Infusion Marketing Supervisor Look, no matter how long you’ve been a small business owner–there is always something you can be doing better. Too often small business owners get caught up in running the daily gauntlet. They forget to invest in growing and improving their businesses. That’s why conferences, like the Small Business Summit 2008 which I attended last weekend, are such powerful tools for breaking out of the same old rut. As I left the conference Monday night my mind was spinning. What an amazing opportunity to be part of the true small business community! I don’t see how anybody can walk away from a conference like that uninspired. I left my hotel anxious to start incorporating the dozens of tips “successful” small business owners were more than happy to dish out to their peers. Here are just a few of the ideas I left the conference with: Ramon Ray, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com and author of Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses, spoke about:
Brent Leary of CRM Essentials LLC had insightful tips on the growth of small business.
The real excitement of entrepreneurship is not in the daily grind of managing a business. It is the potential of the business, waiting to be unleashed. It is in realizing possibilities and incorporating them. The real excitement comes from watching a simple idea transform into greater profits. It is in feeling that YOU can take on the world and conquer it. And, if you no longer feel that way…it’s time to attend the next small business conference. (There’s nothing quite like 400 small business owners in one little room to bring out the entrepreneur in you!) Super Bowl XLII is right around the corner and I’ve got front row seats! Well, not really. My front row seat will be on my nice, soft couch watching the game in high def on my Samsung DLP. You see, even though the game is just a few miles away from my home here in Phoenix, Arizona, I just can’t swallow $4300 PER TICKET! And that’s just the average going price. According to an article on Yahoo tickets are going for as high as $19,446!!! It doesn’t take long to figure out who’s attending the Super Bowl these days. Like the local country club or golf course, the Super Bowl has has become a place where clients are schmoozed and deals are made. So, what does the Super Bowl have to offer the rest of us? Half-time ads, of course! I’m sure we’ll see the typical beer ads and I’m betting our neighbor down the street, GoDaddy.com, will show their latest version of ’skin selling domain names’ (I guess it’s the only way to make registering a domain name interesting). What I’m still waiting for… and hoping to see this year (or someday) is a great Super Bowl TV ad with a solid call to action. Successful small businesses almost always have a solid call to action in their marketing & advertising. Somewhere along the way, the big boys forgot or stopped caring about direct response marketing. Make sure as you grow your small business that your marketing and advertising doesn’t go the way of million-dollar TV spots that are viewed simply as ‘entertainment’. A recently released book, The Illusions of Entrepreneurship, has me completely distressed (and I haven’t even read the thing yet!). In the book, economics professor Scott A. Shane shares some of the “less than pleasant” facts about entrepreneurship. As a precursor to the book’s release, a “quiz” circulated the Internet. You can find the quiz here. Although I did poorly on the quiz, it didn’t bother me. I found the information interesting, nothing more. It’s okay that I’m not an “expert” on entrepreneurial statistics. Unfortunately, the quiz alarmed many would-be entrepreneurs. I read several similar blog posts which said, “This quiz/book makes you reconsider owning your own business.” The quiz (and book) focus almost entirely on small business statistics. And, it’s true that most small businesses fail within the first 5 years. But, it is not statistics that cause failure. It is what business owners are doing (or not doing) that makes the difference. Michael Gerber, author of The E-Myth (and Infusion Software endorser), exposed many entrepreneurial myths with the same cold, hard facts. However, by the time you finish his book, you feel like business ownership isn’t only possible, but exhilarating as well. And that’s the way it ought to be. If you have a desire to own your own company - DO IT! Just make sure that you know the real causes of small business failure. Study what successful entrepreneurs have done. Read books by the experts. Learn the tricks of the trade, and then jump in with both feet. Don’t be frightened off because you don’t know the ratio of men to women who own their own companies! I’m a big fan of conferences and events. Not the touchy-feely, rah-rah ones, but the events where you convince your spouse that it’s going to be good and then you travel forever to get there… and within the first hour you think to yourself, “I could go home right now and it would have totally been worth it!”. During 2007, I experienced a number of these events including Michael Gerber’s “In The Dreaming Room“, Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle “SuperConference” and “InfoSummit”, and a handful of others. Recently, I had the opportunity to exchange emails with Ramon Ray with Smallbiztechnology.com. He has a an event/summit he is putting on in February that appears to be one of those ‘killer conferences’ every small business should attend. The lineup of speakers is impressive (Brent Leary, Anita Campbell, and many others). Michael Gerber told me once, “we are leaving the information age and are now entering the age of the entrepreneur.” Events like this are helping facilitate this new age and helping entrepreneurs and small businesses become more successful. For more info about the event: www.smallbiztechsummit.com. « Older Posts |
