General Books

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

Jim Collins

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 706 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It

Michael E. Gerber

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 315 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A must read for any business owner. 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

If you are going to start a business or already have a business, you have to read this book or at least get the audio version. This book is definitely a great choice. Instead of learning from your mistakes, take the short cut and get this book and learn from someone else's mistakes.

You'll be happy you did.

Editorial Review:

In this first new and totally revised edition of the over two million copy bestseller, The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business -- from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed -- and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether it is a franchise or not. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

Guy Kawasaki

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

More uncommon common sense from the bestselling author of The Art of the Start.

In Silicon Valley slang, a “bozo explosion” is what causes a lean, mean, fighting machine of a company to slide into mediocrity. As Guy Kawasaki puts it, “If the two most popular words in your company are partner and strategic, and partner has become a verb, and strategic is used to describe decisions and activities that don’t make sense” . . . it’s time for a reality check.

For nearly three decades, Kawasaki has earned a stellar reputation as an entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and irreverent pundit. His 2004 bestseller, The Art of the Start, has become the most acclaimed bible for small business. And his blog is consistently one of the fifty most popular in the world.

Now, Kawasaki has compiled his best wit, wisdom, and contrarian opinions in handy book form. From competition to customer service, innovation to marketing, he shows readers how to ignore fads and foolishness while sticking to commonsense practices. He explains, for instance:

• How to get a standing ovation
• The art of schmoozing
• How to create a community
• The top ten lies of entrepreneurs
• Everything you wanted to know about getting a job in Silicon Valley but didn’t know who to ask

Provocative, useful, and very funny, this “no bull shiitake” book will show you why readers around the world love Guy Kawasaki.

QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life

John G. Miller

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 184 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Teaching you to ask what you can do for your company... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I read this book for the first time a little over a year ago. At the time, I tried to soak in the message, but since I thought it didn't really apply to me, I think it went in one ear and out the other, so to speak.

Fast forward to today. This book is required reading for my work, and I read it a little more closely this time around. As it turns out, this little book is jam-packed with morsels of good advice. It's all about using a JFK-esque philosophy: ask not what your company can do you for you but what you can do for your company. You can insert almost any words you'd like to replace "company": team, client, etc. The whole point of the book is encouraging people to take a moment to think before placing blame. Instead, look in the mirror first and see if YOU can resolve the issue instead of passing the buck as we are so wont to do in this society.

Editorial Review:

QBQ! by John G. Miller is a motivational primer aimed at purging the "blame, complaining, and procrastination" from the workplace. Miller believes that one of the hallmarks of today's business culture is a lack of personal accountability; he prescribes the cure in this series of short stories and personal observations drawn from his years of experience running his organizational development firm. His main point is that positive change begins with individuals changing themselves: "Instead of asking, 'When will others walk their talk?' let's walk our talk first." The result is choppy (39 chapters in 115 pages), and at times Miller's advice boils down to truism and cliché. Nevertheless, managers whose workplaces demand remedial, straightforward advice should find a useful tool here. --Harry C. Edwards

The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

Guy Kawasaki

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 184 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers.

The Art of the Start will give you the essential steps to launch great products, services, and companies—whether you are dreaming of starting the next Microsoft or a not-for-profit that’s going to change the world. It also shows managers how to unleash entrepreneurial thinking at established companies, helping them foster the pluck and creativity that their businesses need to stay ahead of the pack. Kawasaki provides readers with GIST—Great Ideas for Starting Things—including his field-tested insider’s techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz.

At Apple, Kawasaki helped turn ordinary customers into fanatics. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested his iconoclastic ideas on real- world start- ups. And as an irrepressible columnist for Forbes, he has honed his best thinking about The Art of the Start.

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators

Patrick M. Lencioni

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Quick turn-around - Great Condition 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Thanks much - I needed the books for work and had them quicker than expected.
Nancy

Useful field guide 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an essential guide for managers and team leaders of all levels. It contains practical exercises and models for addressing each dysfunction as well as additional resources for further education. No team leader should be without it!

Editorial Review:

In the years following the publication of Patrick Lencioni’s best-seller The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, fans have been clamoring for more information on how to implement the ideas outlined in the book. In Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni offers more specific, practical guidance for overcoming the Five Dysfunctions—using tools, exercises, assessments, and real-world examples. He examines questions that all teams must ask themselves: Are we really a team? How are we currently performing? Are we prepared to invest the time and energy required to be a great team? Written concisely and to the point, this guide gives leaders, line managers, and consultants alike the tools they need to get their teams up and running quickly and effectively.

Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your SmallBusiness

Jay Conrad Levinson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Not Exactly...... 2 out of 5 stars.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful.

On page five, bullet point three: Mr. Levinson states, "Traditional marketing is geared toward big business.... The soul and spirit of guerrilla marketing - is small business: companies with big dreams and tiny budgets." However that was not my experience reading this book. Instead he seemed to promote laborious and expensive marketing tactics. I thought I was going to be reading a book about low / no-cost, surprise attacks, launched in the dead of night with no warning. Instead what I read was kind of stale, old school stuff.

For example; Chapter 3, The Sixteen Monumental Secrets of Guerrilla Marketing, starts with the sentence, "If you're a guerrilla, these sixteen secrets are not secret to you at all." OK, then why am I reading this book? Then the secrets end up being more general philosophy rather than tactics, such as commitment, investment, consistent, confident, patient, assortment, subsequent, etc., etc. In my opinion, he spent too much time making things rhyme and not enough into research into successful low / no-cost product launches or common themes and marketing techniques that sky-rocketed the success of the Zero to Two-Hundred-Mile-an-Hour companies. That's what I call a 600 pound Marketing GUERRILLA.

The chapter on MiniMedia Marketing was mildly interesting but nothing new as of the fall of 2007.

Then you have MaxiMedia and everything here costs some big bucks, sorry Jay I'll pass..

I'm not going to say that this book is without merit; it has good stuff in it if you haven't been in the sales and marketing business very long. It's a book that the novice can learn a good deal from, but more and more the younger aggressive person learns most of these things on the go and has picked up 90% of this stuff in a year or two in the business. If you are just starting or are unfamiliar with sales and marketing; then by all means get this book and dive in. However, the title Guerrilla Marketing implies something completely different to me than a book of general principles and tactics on the subject of marketing.

Editorial Review:

When Guerrilla Marketing was first published in 1983, Jay Levinson revolutionized marketing strategies for the small-business owner with his take-no-prisoners approach to finding clients. Based on hundreds of solid ideas that really work, Levinson's philosophy has given birth to a new way of learning about market share and how to gain it. In this completely updated and expanded fourth edition, Levinson offers a new arsenal of weaponry for small-business success including

* strategies for marketing on the Internet (explaining when and precisely how to use it)

* tips for using new technology, such as podcasting and automated marketing

* programs for targeting prospects and cultivating repeat and referral business

* management lessons in the age of telecommuting and freelance employees

Guerrilla Marketing is the entrepreneur's marketing bible -- and the book every small-business owner should have on his or her shelf.

Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story

Jerry Weissman

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Total reviews: 37 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Presenting to Win: Persuading Your Audience Every Time, the world's #1 presentation consultant shows how to connect with even the toughest, most high-level audiences--and move them to action. Jerry Weissman shows presenters of all kinds how to dump those PowerPoint templates once and for all--and learn to tell compelling stories that focus on what's in it for their listeners. Drawing on dozens of practical examples and real case studies, Weissman shows presenters how to identify their real goals and messages before they even open PowerPoint; how to stay focused on what their listeners really care about; and how to capture their audiences in the first crucial 90 seconds. From bullets and graphics to the effective, sparing use of special effects, Weissman covers all the practical mechanics of effective presentation--and walks readers through every step of building a Power Presentation, from brainstorming through delivery. Unlike the techniques in other presentation books, this book's easy, step-by-step approach has been proven with billions of dollars on the line, in hundreds of IPO road shows before the world's most jaded investors.Foreword to the Paperback Edition xxiii Preface: What's Past Is Prologue xxvii Introduction: The Wizard of Aaaahs xxix Chapter One: You and Your Audience 3 Chapter Two: The Power of the WIIFY 15 Chapter Three: Getting Creative: The Expansive Art of Brainstorming 27 Chapter Four: Finding Your Flow 51 Chapter Five: Capturing Your AudienceImmediately 83 Chapter Six: Communicating Visually 109 Chapter Seven: Making the Text Talk 123 Chapter Eight: Making the Numbers Sing 143 Chapter Nine: Using Graphics to Help Your Story Flow 157 Chapter Ten: Bringing Your Story to Life 189 Chapter Eleven: Customizing Your Presentation 215 Chapter Twelve: Pitching in the Majors 231 Chapter Thirteen: Animating Your Graphics 237 Chapter Fourteen: The Virtual Presentation 257 Appendix A: Tools of the Trade 273 Appendix B: Presentation Checklists 277 Acknowledgments 283 Index 287

Will Work from Home: Earn the Cash--Without the Commute

Tory Johnson, Robyn Freedman Spizman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Escape the cube. Ditch the commute. It’s not just a dream anymore.

Many people already spend 12 hours a day getting to work, working, getting home from work. Here’s some good news: thanks to advances in technology, acceptance of outsourcing, the trend towards corporate flextime, and other factors, working from home is easier than ever.

Good Morning America’s Workplace Contributor Tory Johnson and consumer advocate Robyn Freedman Spizman tell readers exactly how to turn today’s cultural change to their advantage without giving up an income. Specific business plans will teach them how to:
• Take their current position home
• Find a new company whose policies will allow them to work from home
• Reseach a product they believe in, and sell it from home
• Start their own business, doing something they love, for a minimal initial investment

With real-life stories, a step-by-step plan, resource guides, and lists of scams to avoid, this is the book that will help readers finally make the leap––and show them that they don’t have to give up their family, creativity, or peace of mind to earn a decent salary.

The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth (or Anything Else) From the Inside Out

Joe Vitale

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Discover the secret to lifelong wealth and happiness!

Now in an expanded paperback second edition that includes an Attractor Factor IQ test, exercises for putting lessons into practice, new stories, and more, Dr. Joe Vitale presents his even more powerful and effective five-step plan for attracting wealth, happiness, and success to your life.

"Whatever you want to attract to your life, Joe Vitale has the secret to make it happen. I highly recommend you get this book and get started today."
-Morris Goodman, author of The Miracle Man

"I got enough by the end of chapter one to create a major energy shift in my life! Joe's easy, direct, and knowledgeable presentation allowed me to embrace important principles effortlessly."
-Dee Wallace, actress and star of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

"Joe Vitale not only appeared in The Secret, he is one of the few who knows and lives attraction! Contained in the five steps that Joe maps out in The Attractor Factor are the keys to endless abundance. This book instructs on how to take control of your beliefs and focus, ultimately attracting the life of your dreams. If you just do what Joe tells you, you will create an abundance far beyond what you can currently imagine. The Attractor Factor is the secret that The Secret doesn't tell you."
-David Schirmer, wealth coach and star of The Secret

"Just when you think you understand how the world works, Joe Vitale comes along and takes you to a whole new place. He's engaging, entertaining, enlightening, and, oh boy, does he ever stretch your thinking."
-Ian Percy, registered psychiatrist and member of the U.S. and Canadian public speakers halls of fame

"This book has the potential to change humanity."
-Dr. Rick Barrett, author of Healed by Morning