Alpha Dogs is an easy read on various small companies and the lessons their owners have learned over the years as entrepreneurs. Written by a former contributing writer for Inc. magazine, Donna Fenn, the stories and lessons are diverse and eclectic. Ranging from an ice cream shop chain in Austin, Texas to Harley dealership in New England, each owner unabashedly reveals the mistakes and successful thinking that has elevated them to their current position.

These are not cutting edge industries but rather cutting edge companies in un-sexy niche areas like grocery stores in Ohio. The book does a good job demonstrating how creativity and passion can empower small businesses to carve out a niche and stand-up to Big Box competitors like Wal-Mart.

A key criterion for each company inclusion was the author’s insistence that each owner have a few skinned knees throughout their history. This was a smart move on Fenn’s part, as the text can be a bit monotonous at times. If it was all a Cinderella theme it could be tough to stomach. Reading these stories after digesting Good to Great, you start to see a company hitting its hedge-hog concept (Zane’s Cycle) or a leader realizing he is not Level 5 after a near-fatal stroke (THOR-LO socks).

Fenn summarizes the “key points” at the conclusion of each chapter and pulls in small anecdotes of other companies that attacked the same problem and their solution. Consistent themes emerge that exist at many larger successful enterprises, namely openness to innovation, early adoption of technology, and providing superior customer service.

There is nothing revolutionary in this text and that’s okay. It’s a good dispatch from the front lines of successful small businesses around the country. The biggest takeaway being that the fundamentals do still apply at any size and when executed properly can have impressive results.

Stay tuned for an upcoming review of Small Giants by Inc.’s Bo Burlingham, which covers similar ideas in a nice mashed up story line.

Are budding entrepreneurs wasting their time with writing business plans? The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that such an exercise may take valuable time away from the all important role of selling the product or service. This is similar to what Guy Kawasaki wrote about in Art of the Start and you can read the review from last March here.

I think the small business market gets overshadowed in the business book world. When you look at the titles that are released yearly they tend to focus either on the individual (leadership, effective communication, ect) or a broader base audience. Although they are considered great books, “Good to Great” by Jim Collins or “Freakonomics” by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner aren’t going to help you with your small business’s success. That’s why it was a breath of fresh air when I found “Small Business Cash Flow: Strategies for Making your Business a Financial Success” by Denise O’Berry show up in my mailbox.



In what I feel is aimed more towards the freshly minted small business, Small Business Cash Flow offers practical advice in a format which could be read in one sitting. It is vital for small businesses to understand the importance of cash flow because it is directly correlated with the probability of succeeding in your venture. There is more to the equation of succeeding in business than cash flow. This is a no brainer. But, if cash isn’t managed with a watchful eye you will find yourself in a predicament which could result in your businesses demise.

Some key points that I felt were worth mentioning;

• Denise stresses the importance of having a close relationship with an accountant, emphasizing that having the ‘right’ accountant is one of the most important pillars of your business foundation. What does ‘right’ accountant mean? It depends on the current state of your business. This is why she provides a questionnaire to bring with you when interviewing potential accountants.
• Understanding how money works in your business is another important skill to master. This may seem obvious, but for many small businesses (ma & pa shops for instance) this isn’t practiced. Leave the detailed number crunching for your accountant, but have knowledge of the various ways cash flows in and out of your business. Don’t be ignorant about your finances!
• Record keeping is your tool for future business decisions. Not keeping records of your business (budget, current cash flow, outflows, ect) is analogous to walking with your head pointed up to the sky. You don’t know where you are standing. How will you make future decisions (like taking on more business) if you don’t know the current state of your business?
• Denise also stresses the importance of marketing. Her rule of thumb is 50% of your time should be spent on marketing. Although this may not be viable for those small businesses that consist of 1 or 2 people, it’s a good figure to aim for. How else is the product or service you are selling going to be noticed by customers? One area which she doesn’t mention, which I find a weighty mistake, is not mentioning about maintaining a blog. Blogs are the best way to separate yourself from competition, keep customers informed, and help build a brand. For refrence on blogs, refer to a book we featured, “Blogging for Business” by Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos. It covers everything you need to know about blogs.

Overall this book is a good read for anyone interested in starting their own business. “Small Business Cash Flow” will provide them with the proper steps to take to increase their chances in succeeding.

Sometimes it’s the failures and mistakes of others where you can learn the biggest lesson. Bob Pritchard, CEO of Logos Bible Software has made his fair share of mistakes in his 14 year career as an entrepreneur. In his book, “First Someone Today”, Pritchard not only explains when to fire someone, he includes advice about other subjects which are important to entrepreneurs: cutting costs, understanding the vital role cash plays in your business’s success, the importance of understanding contracts, and the importance of having good systems estabished in your business.




Some key ideas taken away from this book are:

• Visit everyone connected to your business (customers, suppliers, partnerscompetitors) – These visits will liken your chance of positive things happening for your business. A visit to a customer may uncover room for improvement to your product or service which could lead to greater sales / business. A visit to a supplier could strengthen your relationship which could result in better service or better pricing on supplies.
• Read (a lot!) – Reading helps you stay current with trends and the latest happenings in your industry. Don’t limit yourself to your specific industry because there are many ways to incorporate new ideas from other industries into your business. Academic journals are especially helpful.
• Make decisions swiftly – Don’t over analyze decisions. Make them and live with them. In the words of the ancients, “one should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths.”

Check out the Fire Someone Today website which includes Bob’s blog and other reviews of the book!

I saw this Dilbert the other day and thought it was hilarious:

(Click image to get full view)

Now, as you all know, this doesn’t happen in the real world. There were a few who got lucky and stumbled across venture capitalists that practiced business like this in the late 90’s. But we all know how these VC’s ended up. Broke and back to reality.

Check out this graph from PricewaterhouseCooper’s ‘Money Tree Report’ to see how ridiculous VC funding was back in 2000:




The proper technique to gain venture capital investment is just one of the various topics that Guy Kawasaki discusses in his book, ‘The Art of The Start’, which could be considered the ‘start-up’ owners manual for entrepreneurs.

Guy, who has two decades of business experience (including being the current managing director for Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm), dives into topics such as: the art of writing the business plan, pitching your idea, and recruiting talent to help your business grow. The book should have had a label on the front: 100% No Fluff. As most business books can be heavy on theory and light on practical advice, Guy Kawasaki’s stears away from this common practice. Instead, he provides his advice in a usable format for all levels of entrepreneurs.“The Art of The Start” should be your first read when deciding to start your own business.

Check out Guy’s blog “Signum sine tinnitu”, a top 100 Technorati blog!

“Make things remarkable”



This is the mantra for the book “The Big Moo*”. The book, which is edited by Mr. Agent of Change himself, Seth Godin, is a collaboration of 33 top business thinkers. Each contributor provides advice on how to elevate you and your organization from ‘normal’ to remarkable! Take Seth’s words:

“You must remarkabalize your organization. Create a culture where the big moo shows up on a regular basis, where ‘normal’ is nothing but the short pause between remarkable innovations. In fact, where normal is gone and where the new normal is a constant stream of industry-busting insights and remarkable innovations that keep your organization growing.”

The stories are simple and short. But they’re worth their weight in gold.

Read it.
Be inspired.
Make things remarkable.
Pass it on.
Repeat.

Check out Seth’s blog for his daily insights.

*The proceeds from this book go 100% to charities: The Acumen Fund, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and Room to Read!!!

Enough with the left brain thinking!



That is what Daniel Pink would say to you if he could. Ok, maybe not completely stop thinking with the left hemisphere of our brains (because we wouldn’t be able to function), but instead condition our right brain to make more contributions in our daily work. Daniel Pink’s new book, A Whole New Mind makes the argument that traditional ‘left-brain’ dominant jobs are moving overseas quicker than you can say ‘India’. With the combination of these three factors:

1. Abundance (of products and choices)
2. Asia (providers of cheap labor)
3. Automation (computers being able to replace humans)

we are facing changing times. With this fact in hand, those who can adapt to a larger ‘right-brain’ contribution to society will sprint ahead in the years ahead. What are some ways to ‘right-brain’ think? Good question. Pink provides six senses we need to develop: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. By mastering these senses you will be able to provide value which can’t be outsourced. If you can answer ‘yes’ to any of the question below, this book should be in your queue to read:

1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in the age of abundance?

“A Whole New Mind is for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emerging world - people uneasy with their own careers or dissatisfied with their lives, entrepreneurs and business leaders eager to stay ahead of the next wave, parents who want to quip their children for the future…” - Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

Charge prices which reflect your value.

The sentence above is simple to understand, right? Why then do so many people face difficult decisions when choosing how to price their product/service? Well, for one, pricing isn’t easy. It’s the one decision that determines whether or not you make money. Organizations like the Professional Pricing Society can help, but you can still feel overwhelmed when making the decisions. Don’t be pigeonholed into thinking there is one ‘perfect’ price out there. If you do, Rafi Mohammed, author of The Art of Pricing: How To Find Hidden Profits To Grow Your Business believes you are leaving profits on the table.

Those who are placed with the responsibility to set prices of a product typically do so in the following basic equation:

(Cost of Supplies + Labor) * Markup % = Selling Price

This equation above has been the truism to pricing. Now let’s plug in some figures. Let’s say for instance we are selling a pitcher (of) lemonade (bear with me). Using the equation above:

Let’s assume we get 10 cups per pitcher:

($4.50 + $1.00) * 40% = $7.70 / 10 cups = $0.77 cents a cup

Our supplies cost us $4.50 per pitcher of lemonade, we are charging a fee of $1 for labor (cheap, I know!) and a markup of 40%. This leaves us selling the pitcher at $7.70, or $0.77 cents a cup. You could go ahead and sell all cups at $0.77 cents, and make your profit. But the key to this is there are hidden profits waiting to be discovered!

Implementing one of his pricing strategies, versioning, we could sell the same pitcher in the following fashion:

Have 3 different size cups. Large, medium, small. In one pitcher you can sell

2 Large @ $2.50 a cup
3 Medium @ $1.50 a cup
5 Small @ $0.77 a cup



With a total profit of: $13.35. That’s a 57% increase! Now this is a remedial problem. Think about if you were selling a more expensive item in higher volume. Rafi will help you discover all the possibilities in your pricing. He touches on subjects such as:

The Value Decoder – Finding the true value of your product and pricing it effectively to maximize your profits

Establishing A Culture of Profit – Empowering employees with information. If employees know which products offer the highest margin, you’re more apt to reap the benefits through profits

Strategies to Optimize Prices – When to rein in prices when you might not feel inclined

What’s important is that the methods discussed in this book can be implemented on Monday morning. It’s time you discover your hidden profits!

For those of you who’ve started your own business, and have taken up the title of an entrepreneur, you know why Barry Moltz wrote this book. The entrepreneur life is crazy! It revolves around daily heuristic learning, inevitable failures, and welcoming success. In You Need to Be a Little Crazy, the author chronicles the up and down roller coaster ride he experienced with starting three businesses. He lays it all on the table for us and candidly describes the problems he faced and the lessons he learned.

Although you can’t substitute real life experience, which is something he proclaims (read Chapter One’s section ‘Only Experience Teaches You’), Mr.Moltz’s book comes close to letting you ‘feel the pain’ of what entrepreneurs face when taking the plunge into the self-employed world. But the author isn’t the only one sharing advice and experiences; throughout each chapter we get the chance to meet 27 other successful entrepreneurs and their insights. My favorite entrepreneurial quote from the book, which also could be a whole discussion by itself, was from a featured entrepreneur Dean Rutter on making the entrepreneurial plunge:

“One of my big lessons in life is if you are going to fail, fail at something you don’t mind failing at.”

Doesn’t that quote resontate truth?

The author also deserves applause for his chapter on fitting (or at least attempting to) your family in with running your own business. This topic, which seems to be a taboo in the business world, was properly covered in 17 pages. If you’ve ever imagined starting your own business, and want a real life perspective from someone who has succeeded at it, You Need to Be a Little Crazy should be your next read.

Check out Barry Moltz’s site for his blog, articles, and information on speaking engagements.