Why did Ray Kroc's plan for McDonald's thrive when many burger joints failed? And how, decades later, did Krispy Kreme fail to heed Kroc's hard-won lessons? How did Walt Disney's most dismal day as a young cartoonist radically change his career? When Estée Lauder was a child in Queens, New York, the average American spent $8 a year on toiletries. Why did she spot an opportunity in selling high-priced cosmetics, and why did she pound on Saks's doors? How did Thomas Watson Jr. decide to roll the dice and put all of IBM's chips on computing, when his father thought it could be a losing idea? We learn about these CEOs' greatest challenges and failures, and how they successfully rode the waves of demographic and technological change.New Ideas from Dead CEOs not only gives us fascinating insights into these CEOs' lives, but also shows how we can apply their ideas to the present-day triumphs and struggles of Sony, Dell, Costco, Carnival Cruises, Time Warner, and numerous other companies trying to figure out how to stay on top or climb back up.The featured CEOs in this book were not candidates for sainthood. Many of them knew "god" only as a prefix to "dammit." But they were devoted to their businesses, not just to their egos and their personal bank accounts and yachts. Extraordinarily fresh and deeply thoughtful, Todd G. Buchholz's New Ideas from Dead CEOs is a truly enjoyable and fun—yet serious and realistic—look at what we still have to learn and absorb from these decomposing CEOs.

    He has incurred substantial debt and his marriage is on shaky ground. Through pure happenstance, Owen finds himself pondering this problem while advancing steadily as a contestant at the World Series of Poker. His Las Vegas path quickly introduces him to Samantha, a beautiful and mysterious mentor with a revolutionary approach to entrepreneurship. Sam is a fountain of knowledge that may save his company, but her sexual advances might prove too much for Owen's struggling marriage. All In Startup is more than just a novel about eschewing temptation and fighting to save a company. It is a lifeline for entrepreneurs who are thinking about launching a new idea or for those who have already started but can't seem to generate the traction they were expecting. Entrepreneurs who achieve success in the new economy do so using a new scientific method of innovation. All In Startup demonstrates why four counterintuitive principles separate successful entrepreneurs from the wanna-preneurs who bounce from idea to idea, unable to generate real revenue. You will likely get only one opportunity in your life to go all in in on an idea: to quit your job, talk your spouse into letting you drain the savings account, and follow your dream. All In Startup will prepare you for that all in moment and make sure that you push your chips into the middle only when the odds are in your favor. This book holds the keys to significantly de-risking your idea so that your success appears almost lucky. Join Owen and Sam for this one-of-a-kind journey that will set you on the right path for when it's your turn to put everything on the line.

    He received his Ph.D. at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Kyungmook Lee is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at Seoul National University Business School where he currently serves as Senior Associate Dean for academic affairs. He received his Ph.D. at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

    Air Force, and USAA. He teaches his clients that innovation isn't just about generating occasional new ideas; it's about staying consistently one step ahead of the competition.Hire people you don't like. Bring in the right mix of people to unleash your team's full potential. Asking for ideas is a bad idea. Define challenges more clearly. If you ask better questions, you will get better answers. Don't think outside the box; find a better box. Instead of giving your employees a blank slate, provide them with well-defined parameters that will increase their creative output. Failure is always an option. Looking at innovation as a series of experiments allows you to redefine failure and learn from your results.Shapiro shows that nonstop innovation is attainable and vital to building a high-performing team, improving the bottom line, and staying ahead of the pack.

    I hope this book will help and inspire you to pursue your passion while avoiding some of the mistakes I made.”It’s easier than ever before to launch a startup. But in a world where barriers to entry are virtually nonexistent and everyone wants to be the next Facebook, competition is fierce. If you’re just beginning and lack the money and clout to make an automatic splash, how do you differentiate yourself from all the rest?Jason Baptiste knows firsthand what it takes. After launching his first company while still in college, he cofounded his current venture, Onswipe, in his early twenties, turning it into a multimillion-dollar company in less than a year. Now, drawing on his own experience as a bootstrapping but hungry entrepreneur, as well as on examples from today’s most famous companies, he guides would-be tech moguls through every stage of the process—from testing a concept to acquiring customers to determining the best pricing model—in a cheap, practical way. Among his strategies: • Build the product you wish you had: Four­square founder Dennis Crowley created an early version of his product because he wanted to keep in touch with former colleagues. • It doesn’t have to be sexy to make money: Dropbox took the world by storm by offering a great solution to a mundane problem—online storage. • Be bold when promoting yourself: Online payment service WePay capitalized on dissatis­faction with industry leader PayPal by dumping six hundred pounds of ice in front of a developer conference.• Attract fans to attract customers: Budget tracking site Mint.com created its initial user base by offering original and useful content about per­sonal finance.Baptiste shows you don’t need an MBA, a trust fund, or even experience running your own com­pany to become a star in the tech world. The Ultralight Startup is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow guide that will prepare any entrepreneur to take his or her idea to the next level.

    This hands-on guide shows you how to maintain a successful bar, manage the business aspect of it, and stake your place in your town's nightlife. It provides informative tips on:Understanding the business and laws of owning a bar Developing a business plan Creating a menu, choosing decor, and establishing a theme Stocking up on equipment Choosing and dealing with employees Handling tough customers Controlling expenses, managing inventory, and controlling cash flow Getting the word out about your place Preparing for your grand opening, step-by-step This guide cues you in on how to keep your bar safe and clean, making sure everyone is having fun. It warns you about the pitfalls and no-nos that every owner should avoid. There are also helpful resources, such as contact information for State Alcohol Control Boards and Web sites with valuable information.

    

    We'd like nothing better than to sit down with an experienced professional who could help us evaluate our assets and guide us through the bewildering array of choices. Charles Schwab's Guide to Financial Independence offers you precisely that. Reading this easy-to-understand book is like having the founder and CEO of a $300 billion brokerage firm sit at your kitchen table and distill his 40-plus years of accumulated wisdom in a one-on-one session with you.        This is a comprehensive, step-by-step guide that, once and for all, will take the mystery and the fear out of investing. With Charles Schwab's expert guidance you will learn how to define and set investment goals, whether you're saving for your children's college education or planning for retirement; prepare an investment plan; put the plan into action; and regularly update the plan to incorporate life's changes. Helpful worksheets and charts are included so you have what you need to get started immediately.        Also available as a Random House Audio BookFrom the Hardcover edition.

    Traditionally, creating a marketing plan has been a difficult and time-consuming process, which is why it often doesn't get done. In The 1-Page Marketing Plan, serial entrepreneur and rebellious marketer Allan Dib reveals a marketing implementation breakthrough that makes creating a marketing plan simple and fast. It's literally a single page, divided up into nine squares. With it you'll be able to map out your own sophisticated marketing plan and go from zero to marketing hero. Whether you're just starting out or are an experienced entrepreneur, The 1-Page Marketing Plan is the easiest and fastest way to create a marketing plan that will propel your business growth. In this groundbreaking new book you'll discover: • How to get new customers, clients, or patients and how make more profit from existing ones. • Why “big business” style marketing could kill your business and strategies that actually work for small and medium-sized businesses. • How to close sales without being pushy, needy, or obnoxious while turning the tables and having prospects begging you to take their money. • A simple step-by-step process for creating your own personalized marketing plan that is literally one page. Simply follow along and fill in each of the nine squares that make up your own 1-Page Marketing Plan. • How to annihilate competitors and make yourself the only logical choice. • How to get amazing results on a small budget using the secrets of direct response marketing. • How to charge high prices for your products and services and have customers actually thank you for it.

    

    A reformed succubus. LA’s supernatural underground will never be the same … UCLA sophomore François Lemieux had thought his biggest challenge would be scoring a summer internship. Everything changes, though, when a trio of vampires tries to run his car off the road. He’s saved by a mysterious, heavily armed girl named Cassie Chu, but his troubles are far from over. It turns out Cassie is a succubus who works for the Supernatural Intelligence Agency. She informs François that he’s a wizard who was hexed at birth to prevent him from casting spells. If that weren’t enough, evil forces in a magical underground he never knew existed are out for his blood. To survive, François partners up with the beautiful yet eccentric Cassie to learn the ins and outs of magic. He barely has a chance to study the basics when a prominent alchemist goes missing and a destructive power falls into the wrong hands. If François and Cassie can’t track down the alchemist in time, the new world he’s grown to love may soon come to a bitter end … True Magic is a fun, fast-paced new adult urban fantasy novel. If you like simmering chemistry, action-packed adventure, and fantasy worlds within a Hollywood setting, then you’ll love Colin Sims’ witty coming-of-age tale. Buy True Magic to uncover an imaginative new Hollywood today!

    This is a ride on the Google wave, and the fullest account of how it formed and crashed into traditional media businesses. With unprecedented access to Google's founders and executives, as well as to those in media who are struggling to keep their heads above water, Ken Auletta reveals how the industry is being disrupted and redefined.Auletta goes inside Google's closed-door meetings, introducing Google's notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as well as those who work with - and against - them. In Googled, the reader discovers the 'secret sauce' of the company's success and why the worlds of 'new' and 'old' media often communicate as if residents of different planets. It may send chills down traditionalists' spines, but it's a crucial roadmap to the future of media business: the Google story may well be the canary in the coal mine.Googled is candid, objective and authoritative. Crucially, it's not just a history or reportage: it's ahead of the curve and unlike any other Google books, which tend to have been near-histories, somewhat starstruck, now out of date or which fail to look at the full synthesis of business and technology.

    More sales people have become millionaires as a result of listening to and applying his ideas than from any other sales training process ever developed.

    The first book to reveal how thinking like a designer can help solve the greatest challenges we face in business, society, and our daily lives. What can we learn from the ways great designers think--and how can it improve our world? In this highly original book by journalist Warren Berger, in collaboration with celebrated designer Bruce Mau, ten groundbreaking principles of design are shown in action--addressing business, social, and personal challenges and improving the way we think, work, and live. "Glimmer" takes readers on a journey through today's fascinating world of design, where the formerly distinct disciplines of graphic, product, and social design are undergoing "smart recombinations." In the cutting-edge studios of Mau and other visionaries, everything is ripe for reinvention--including the ways businesses function, children learn, and communities thrive. Designers are solving problems at an unprecedented pace today by using improved technology and the highly practical design principles described in this book, such as "Ask stupid questions," "Make hope visible," "Work the metaphor," "Embrace constraints," and "Begin anywhere." "Glimmer" inspires readers to apply these same principles to their own life challenges. While celebrated designers work on re-creating the world, Berger reveals the growing grassroots "glimmer movement" in which everyday people are emerging as designers and problem solvers. Readers will be fascinated by how "transformation design" is reinventing companies and addressing thorny social problems. Berger shares stories of how burned fingers, wrenched backs, and mixed-up pills all led to ingenious new product designs. In a time of anxiety and retrenchment, this hopeful yet hardheaded book illuminates "the glimmer of possibility and potential--that first spark of an innovative idea or a life-changing plan." According to Berger, "This faint light is all around us and also within us, if we can learn to recognize and nurture it." The best designers already know how to transform that glimmer of possibility into the steady glow of creation and innovation --and with the inspiration of "Glimmer," we're now all able to do the same.

    Sears distils over 20 years’ experience as a management consultant and coach into six simple conversational structures that cover every management situation. A natural storyteller with a great narrative gift, Sears delivers his message in an entirely unique manner – as a work of business fiction. In this compelling and highly instructive tale you can follow the journey of newly promoted Operations Manager Sam Mitchell as he faces the everyday pressures and challenges of managing a team, and then relate his experiences to real life scenarios in your workplace. Conversation #1 – What can you do about that? Conversation #2 – Who should really own this? Conversation #3 – How should we be behaving? Conversation #4 – Who’s really doing this? Conversation #5 – Where are we heading? Conversation #6 – How are we doing?   This highly practical guide concludes with a simple how-to chapter, explaining why and how each conversation works, and when to use them, as well as providing accompanying tips and techniques. The Six Conversations of a Brilliant Manager is an instantly-applicable and hugely powerful toolkit for every manager and HR department looking to get the very best out of their people.