Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success


Shane Snow - 2014
    They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: to rethink convention and break "rules" that aren't rules.These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical "smartcuts" that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum. In Smartcuts, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn times tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.From SpaceX to The Cuban Revolution, from Ferrari to Skrillex, Smartcuts is a narrative adventure that busts old myths about success and shows how innovators and icons do the incredible by working smarter—and how perhaps the rest of us can, too.

The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook, Expanded Edition: Pressure Test, Plan, Launch and Scale Your Social Enterprise


Ian C. MacMillan - 2013
    MacMillan and Dr. James Thompson, director of the Wharton Social Entrepreneurship Program, provide a tough-love approach that significantly increases the likelihood of a successful social enterprise launch in the face of the high-uncertainty conditions typically encountered by social entrepreneurs.MacMillan and Thompson used their own systematic framework to publish The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook. To test the market, they offered the first phase in their start-up method (step 1) as a free ebook. Readers were invited to join The Social Entrepreneur's Advisory Group, and nearly 300 aspiring and active social entrepreneurs shared feedback that helped shape the complete edition of the book, which covers all three steps in the start-up to scale-up process.Based on this crowd-sourced feedback from readers of the free ebook and drawing on the authors' more than 26 years' combined experience developing and studying social enterprises in the field across Africa and in the United States, this new edition provides guidance for each phase:Phase One: Pressure Test Your Start-Up Idea. Based on the free ebook, this expanded section now includes advice on setting revenue and social impact goals, how to navigate the sociopolitical landscape, and how to develop a strong concept statement. In addition, MacMillan and Thompson provide advice on how to identify and test a proposed revenue-generating solution and define and segment your target population.Phase Two: Plan Your Social Enterprise. All new to this edition, this critical phase shows you how to frame and scope the venture, determine what it will take to actually deliver a sustainable enterprise, identify the key assumptions that have been made, and design checkpoints to test those assumptions before making major investments.Phase Three: Launch and Scale Your Social Enterprise. Available for the first time in this edition, you will learn how to effectively launch your enterprise, manage upside potential and downside risk, and strategically scale up.Filled with accessible frameworks and tools, as well as inspiring stories of social entrepreneurs, The Social Entrepreneur's Playbook is a must-read for any aspiring or active social entrepreneur, as well as philanthropists, foundations, and nonprofits interested in doing more good with fewer resources. Includes access to downloadable planning documents, including user-friendly spreadsheets

The Psychology of Selling: Increase Your Sales Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible


Brian Tracy - 1988
    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 Yogi Entrepreneur: A Guide to Earning a Mindful Living Through Yoga


Darren Main - 2011
    Finding a balance between sharing yoga with the world and running an ethical business can be challenging. The Yogi Entrepreneur is the definitive manual on starting and growing a yoga business. Whether you are an established teacher, looking to expand your student base, a new teacher fresh out of yoga teacher training, or you are simply considering signing up for your first yoga certification course—this book is for you.The Yogi Entrepreneur offers chapters on becoming a yoga teacher, marketing and branding, ethics, leading retreats and workshops, developing a Wordpress website, managing social media like Twitter and Facebook, and many other important skills for success as a teacher or yoga studio owner. With scores of resources, low-cost marketing tips, and time-saving tools, this book is a yoga teachers toolbox.The Yogi Entrepreneur has been used in hundreds of teacher training programs around the world and has helped thousands of yoga teachers to find their audience, define their brand, and share their unique approach to yoga more effectively. Whether your teaching is rooted in more traditional styles of yoga like Iyengar, Kripalu and Integral, or in more contemporary disciplines such as Forrest, Bikram, Baptiste and Anusara yoga, the simple and straightforward tools outlined in these pages will help you to reach your true potential as a yoga teacher.If you are ready to jumpstart your yoga and meditation business then look no further!__________Darren Main has written another exceptionally practical book for yogis, this one a gem that every yoga teacher should have at his or her fingertips in opening to make a livelihood. —Mark Stephens,
 Author of Teaching YogaWhen I read Yogi Entrepreneur, I was struck not only by Darren Main’s thoughtfulness about the topic and his experience in the field, but also by the personal and very real way he conveyed his information. It was more like having a very useful and interesting conversation with a wise and funny friend rather than reading a “how to” book. —Judith Hanson Lasater, Phd., PT,

 Author of Yoga Body, What We Say Matters and 30 Essential Yoga PosesFor the yoga teacher looking to make a career of doing what they love, Darren Main’s book, The Yogi Entrepreneur, is invaluable. We will highly recommend it to our teachers and those in our Teacher Training programs. 
—Trevor Tice

, Founder CorePower YogaFinally, a much needed book on the business art of yoga. Many of us have the skills and wisdom of yoga to proficiently reach out to people as teachers. Managing the business end of yoga is our downfall. Highly skilled and extraordinary yoga teachers whose careers are shining successes ultimately fail due lack of business skills. This book is a powerful guide to facilitate what teachers are qualified to offer and at the same time make a successful living for themselves. —Yogi Amrit Desai

, Founder of Kripalu Yoga and author of Amrit Yoga

Darren Main has done it again with the Yogi Entrepreneur. His in depth analysis and advice offers unique insight that you won't find in yoga manuals. This masterful book, like his second book Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic should be required reading in all teacher training courses. —Darren Littlejohn, 

Author of the 12-Step Buddhist
 
www.the12stepbuddhist.comDarren Main has created an incredibly clear road map on how to build your career as a professional yoga teacher! The Yogi Entrepreneur is an exceptional resource for new and seasoned teachers alike. We recommend this book to all of our Teacher Training graduates. —Rasha Pensanti Shakeri Director, YogaWorks Teacher Training

How to Start a Business


Jason Nazar - 2012
    This colorful and engaging eBook will break down how to develop your business idea, pitch to investors, hire your first employees, court mentors, attract excellent board members, monetize your product, track your revenue, market on a budget, get customers and keep them!

The Click Moment: Seizing Opportunity in an Unpredictable World


Frans Johansson - 2012
    It is a revealing paradox. The impli­cations are explosive and they obliterate every common-sense notion we have about strategy and planning.The Click Moment is about two very simple but highly provocative ideas. The first is that success is random—far more random than we would like to believe. The second is that there are a number of specific actions that we, as individuals and organizations, can take to cap­ture this randomness and focus it in our favor.According to Johansson, strategy, plan­ning, and careful analysis can no longer guarantee strong performance; today’s busi­ness environments are far too random and complicated. But when you dig deep into the actions of successful people and orga­nizations, you’ll find one common theme. A turning point occurs—a major client signs on, a new competitor redefines the market, an unlikely idea surfaces—and they take advan­tage of that serendipity to change their fate. Consider how . . .Diane von Furstenberg saw Julie Nixon Eisenhower on TV wearing a matching skirt and top, and the timeless, elegant wrap-dress was born. Microsoft Windows was on the brink of being shut down until two individuals met unexpectedly at a party and altered the fate of the world’s dominant computer operat­ing system. Starbucks sold high-end brewing equip­ment and coffee by the pound until Howard Schultz experienced his first latte in a café in Milan. Nike was stumped on how to invent a spike­less trainer when a legendary running coach poured latex on a waffle iron.Each of these individuals experienced a “click moment”—a rare point of opportunity that was completely unexpected. But they capitalized on their luck in ways that paid off significantly and altered their organizations’ strategies and the course of their lives.Johansson uses stories of successful people and companies throughout history to illustrate the specific actions we can take to create more click moments, place lots of high-potential bets, open ourselves up to chance encounters, and harness the complex forces of success that follow.

Big Things Have Small Beginnings: Learn to Play the Great Game


Wes Berry - 2018
     It’s these small things that have the greatest impact in the long-term.Neglecting small things can be the difference between failure and success.This book is NOT about failing; this book is about preventing, limiting and continually overcoming the small failures and obstacles so that you can achieve great success because when you take care of the small details, the big stuff takes care of itself.Do you find yourself missing the one thing in life that would help you achieve a desired goal, realize a long-held dream, or push you up the ladder to success?Big Things Have Small Beginnings will give you the blueprint you need to achieve those goals and dreams sooner rather than later.Some of what you’ll learn in this book are:•    The common characteristic our great leaders had that you must possess;•    How giving away flowers helped build a $60 million dollar company and go from surviving to thriving;•    The difference between goals and objectives and which one is more important to your overall success;•    How to be intelligently flexible so you can make massive progress;•    Why learning a new language can improve your business aptitude;•    How to grow a business when you don’t have the capital to do so;•    The importance of keeping a high integrity business model;•    And so much more!Wesley Berry started working at his family’s Detroit-based florist shop when he was just a teenager. He quickly demonstrated a strategic style of management that propelled it from a $65K per year business to a $65 million-dollar international business operating in 130 different countries. In 2016, after 40 years in business, he sold it to “retire” and follow other passions.Through the years, he's provided consulting services to over forty businesses and has appeared as a guest on NPR, The Wall Street Journal, The London Times, Entrepreneur and Time magazines, Fox News, Neil Cavuto, Geraldo Rivera, and John Stossel, to name a just few.Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power:  but they who do not the thing have not the power.” If you want the power and the keys to success, click the BUY NOW button and be the one who wins and has the power.

Niche Down: How To Become Legendary By Being Different


Christopher Lochhead - 2018
     Inspirational technologist Shaku Atre, who rose from second-class citizen in an Indian village to prominence as one of the first women in technology AND, the legendary Hal Elrod creator of the bestselling Miracle Morning series of books. Exclusively for you at: http://nichedownbook.com/thankyou “Be known for a niche that you own. This is a powerful idea. One that transforms how people think about their lives, careers and business ventures.” — Hal Elrod, author of the best-seller, The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life Do you have the courage to stand out? From the inventor of cubism Pablo Picasso to Spanx founder Sarah Blakely, the people we admire most in the world are original, unique, different. They take risks, claim new ground. They do not fit in, they stand out. And they do not compete for attention in the traditional sense. Most of us are tricked into believing that achieving personal and professional success means fitting in. What it really takes is the courage to stand out. Are you ready? In this dynamic, direct and succinct book, Lochhead and Clancy describe a research-based approach to thinking about your life and business called “category design.” Through a narrative stuffed with inspiring stories, they examine how legendary people — especially legendary entrepreneurs — introduce the world to new ways of thinking and solving problems. They reveal how to exploit the exponential value of what makes you different vs. the incremental value of what makes you better. And they show how to conquer a market category that you design, becoming its de facto queen or king. After reading this ground-taking book, you’ll gain the insights required to become known for a niche that you own.

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big


Bo Burlingham - 2005
    It has long been a business article of faith that great companies, by definition, constantly focus on maximizing their revenues year after year. Yet quietly, under the radar, a growing number of undeniably great compabnies have rejected the pressure of endless growth to focus on more satisfying business goals. Veteran journalist Bo Burlingham takes us deep inside fourteen of these remarkable comapnies that have chosen to march to their own drummer. He shows the leaders of these small giants recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create and made the choice to pursue greateness by placing other goals ahead of getting as big as possible as fast as possible. And he shows how we can all benefit by questioning the conventional definitions of business success."

The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice


Todd Henry - 2011
     It isn't enough to just do your job anymore. In order to thrive in today's marketplace, all of us-even the accountants-have to be ready to generate brilliant ideas on demand. Business creativity expert Todd Henry explains how to establish effective practices that unleash your creative potential. Born out of his consultancy and his popular podcast, Henry has created a practical method for discovering your personal creative rhythm. He focuses on five key elements: *Focus: Begin with your end goal in mind. *Relationships: Build stimulating relationships and ideas will follow. *Energy: Manage it as your most valuable resource. *Stimuli: Structure the right "inputs" to maximize creative output. *Hours: Focus on effectiveness, not efficiency. This is a guide for staying inspired and experiencing greater creative productivity than you ever imagined possible.

Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup


Rob Walling - 2010
    If you're a desktop, mobile or web developer, this book is your blueprint to getting your startup off the ground with no outside investment.This book intentionally avoids topics restricted to venture-backed startups such as: honing your investment pitch, securing funding, and figuring out how to use the piles of cash investors keep placing in your lap.This book assumes:* You don't have $6M of investor funds sitting in your bank account* You're not going to relocate to the handful of startup hubs in the world* You're not going to work 70 hour weeks for low pay with the hope of someday making millions from stock optionsThere's nothing wrong with pursuing venture funding and attempting to grow fast like Amazon, Google, Twitter, and Facebook. It just so happened that most people are not in a place to do this.

The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary


Joseph A. Michelli - 2006
    Since 1992, its stock has risen a staggering 5,000 percent! The genius of Starbucks success lies in its ability to create personalized customer experiences, stimulate business growth, generate profits, energize employees, and secure customer loyalty-all at the same time. The Starbucks Experience contains a robust blend of home-brewed ingenuity and people-driven philosophies that have made Starbucks one of the world's most admired companies, according to Fortune magazine. With unique access to Starbucks personnel and resources, Joseph Michelli discovered that the success of Starbucks is driven by the people who work there-the partners -and the special experience they create for each customer. Michelli reveals how you can follow the Starbucks way to Reach out to entire communities Listen to individual workers and consumers Seize growth opportunities in every market Custom-design a truly satisfying experience that benefits everyone involved Filled with real-life insider stories, eye-opening anecdotes, and solid step-by-step strategies, this fascinating book takes you deep inside one of the most talked-about companies in the world today. For anyone who wants to learn from the best-and be the best-The Starbucks Experience is a rich, heady brew of unforgettable user-friendly ideas.

Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time


Howard Schultz - 1997
    The success of Starbucks Coffee Company is one of the most amazing business stories in decades. What started as a single store on Seattle's waterfront has grown into a company with over sixteen hundred stores worldwide and a new one opening every single business day. Just as remarkable as this incredible growth is the fact that Starbucks has managed to maintain its renowned commitment to product excellence and employee satisfaction. Marketers, managers, and aspiring entrepreneurs will discover how to turn passion into profit in this definitive chronicle of the company that "has changed everything... from our tastes to our language to the face of Main Street" (Fortune).

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace


Al Ries - 1980
    Writing in their trademark witty, fast-paced style, advertising gurus Ries and Trout explain how to:Make and position an industry leader so that its name and message wheedles its way into the collective subconscious of your market-and stays therePosition a follower so that it can occupy a niche not claimed by the leaderAvoid letting a second product ride on the coattails of an established one.Positioning also shows you how to:Use leading ad agency techniques to capture the biggest market share and become a household nameBuild your strategy around your competition's weaknessesReposition a strong competitor and create a weak spotUse your present position to its best advantageChoose the best name for your productDetermine when-and why-less is moreAnalyze recent trends that affect your positioning.Ries and Trout provide many valuable case histories and penetrating analyses of some of the most phenomenal successes and failures in advertising history. Revised to reflect significant developments in the five years since its original publication, Positioning is required reading for anyone in business today.

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace


Gordon MacKenzie - 1996
    But too often, even the most innovative organization quickly becomes a "giant hairball"--a tangled, impenetrable mass of rules, traditions, and systems, all based on what worked in the past--that exercises an inexorable pull into mediocrity. Gordon McKenzie worked at Hallmark Cards for thirty years, many of which he spent inspiring his colleagues to slip the bonds of Corporate Normalcy and rise to orbit--to a mode of dreaming, daring and doing above and beyond the rubber-stamp confines of the administrative mind-set. In his deeply funny book, exuberantly illustrated in full color, he shares the story of his own professional evolution, together with lessons on awakening and fostering creative genius.Originally self-published and already a business "cult classic", this personally empowering and entertaining look at the intersection between human creativity and the bottom line is now widely available to bookstores. It will be a must-read for any manager looking for new ways to invigorate employees, and any professional who wants to achieve his or her best, most self-expressive, most creative and fulfilling work.