Product DescriptionTwo of Inc. magazine’s hugely popular columnists show how small-business people can deal with all kinds of tricky situations. People starting out in business tend to seek step-by-step formulas or specific rules, but in reality there are no magic bullets. Rather, says veteran entrepreneur Norm Brodsky, there’s a mentality that helps street-smart people solve problems and pursue opportunities as they arise. He calls it “the knack,” and it has made all the difference to the eight successful start-ups of his career. Brodsky explores this mind-set every month in Inc. magazine, in the hugely popular column he co-writes with journalist and author Bo Burlingham (best known for his acclaimed book Small Giants). In both their column and now their book, they tell stories about real companies facing real challenges, and show readers how to apply “the knack” to their own businesses. Brodsky and Burlingham offer essential advice such as: • Follow the numbers—that’s the best way to spot problems before they become life threatening • Keep focusing on your real goal–it’s amazingly easy to get sidetracked by secondary concerns • Don’t get so close to the problem that you lose all perspective Brodsky and Burlingham prove that street smarts and business acumen can be within any entrepreneur’s reach.
The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
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Written concisely and with vivid imagery, good stories, The Knack lays a good framework for the complete business novice.
If you’re familiar at all with what he explains, or have any latent instincts when it comes to business, you’ll be bored to tears.
Rating: 2 / 5
I liked this book. It’s more of a rant on the subject of starting a business instead of a how-to or checklist or guide. It kind of reminded me of “The Art of the Start” (ISBN: 9781591840565). But I thought Kawasaki’s book was better. The instant book being reviewed has 17 chapters as follows:
0. The knack … and how to get it
1. How to succeed in business
2. The right stuff
3. Why startups fail
4. Where the money is
5. Magic numbers
6. The art of the deal
7. It begins with a sale
8. Good sales, bad sales, and the ones that get away
9. Customers for keeps
10. How to lose customers
11. The decision to grow
12. Becoming the boss
13. The one thing you can’t delegate
14. Selling is a team sport
15. Help! I need somebody
16. When the student is ready, the teacher appears
17. Keeping up with the stones
I found the book to be well written and well outlined. I’d probably give it 5-stars if I hadn’t felt I’d read it before in other books. The same old material on how to start a new company can only be re-written in just so many different ways. And then there is the fact that there is no chapter devoted to business plans. That’s not good if an author wants 5 stars from me.
If the subject of this book interests you, then I recommend you consider reading two others along with it: “Startup Nation” (ISBN: 9780385512480), and “Growing Your Business” (ISBN: 9780671671648). I found the instant book being reviewed had wonderful insights that seemed to be based on a ton of real-world experience. And the suggestions and recommendations included were great. So I cannot poo-poo the book. But it just didn’t measure up to the three other books I cite in this review. 4 stars!
Rating: 4 / 5
Two businesses are what I’m remembering = delivery and records management. Norm may see them differently.
My debate on this book was four or five stars; five star books change my life and I’m not completely sure this will BUT: I read a library copy and his chapter on cash flow and the need to protect cash has changed my thinking. So, I’ll suggest you protect your own cash-on-hand and read a library copy and give him the (free-to-me) fifth star. He’s already saved me $45 on a purchase I actually don’t need today. YMMV.
Norm’s view of business opportunity is almost as far from mine as I can imagine. I have a boatload of schooling and want to own my own job. He aims at $100M revenues and employs a significantly under-educated work force. In as much as he writes specifically and in detail about exactly what he knows, I can map his experience to my situation. People who write in more general, superficially “universal” terms rarely provide as much take-away value.
After the cash-flow chapter, the next-most useful paragraph, to me, was his wife’s explanation of how they can work in the business together, and how it took them 20 years to be married enough to be able to do it.
While Norm does not say much about how TO write a business plan, he has a lot to say about how NOT to. The lesson about reality-testing expectations of the future is useful.
I’ll go back over my copy and take more notes before I return it. May also read some of the other books other reviewers have recommended. However, I came to this one first, after a host of essentially useless “you can make money” entreprenuerial how-tos. Infinitely readable and well worth the time you give it.
Rating: 5 / 5
Great examples of people who came from many different backgrounds that made their dreams come true. Should be required reading. Check out their FREE seminars coming up. I am going to the one in Los Angeles in November. These guys know their stuff.
Rating: 5 / 5
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” — Ezekiel 36:26
I’ve been teaching classes about how to start small businesses for many years and have many clients around the world who run small businesses. From these experiences, I’ve learned that those who want to learn about small business usually fall into one of the following categories:
1. They like the idea of being their own boss but have no idea of what’s involved . . . but they would like to learn more.
2. Someone in the family had a successful small business, and they liked what they saw and want to do it for themselves.
3. They do something very well and work for an employer who doesn’t treat them well enough. They feel they can strike out on their own, do well, and make more money.
4. The person has fallen in love with a dream of what a small business might be, but they aren’t interested in changing anything about the dream . . . including things that doom the dream to fail.
5. They have been successful in a managerial role in a medium-to-large business, have some money, and want to take on a situation where they can improve effectiveness.
Why am I tell you all this? It’s to help you understand who should read The Knack. This book will be highly valuable for those in the first category by filling in some of their knowledge gaps due to a lack of experience in running a small business. The book will also help them to realize they should find some experienced business people to learn from.
There’s a drawback for this group: This book is a little too advanced for people who have few ideas about what a small business does. Mr. Brodsky has a quite sophisticated sense of the moving parts involved in a small-to-medium-sized business that won’t be appreciated by those who don’t even know what the tasks are. As a result, a lot of this book’s wisdom will blow past its ideal readers. That’s why I marked the book at four stars.
The book would have to be firmed up and made more detailed in its conceptual roots to be highly valuable to people in second and third categories. They will know most of the basic lessons. Not much can help those in the fourth category except painful experiences. The last group will fail to grasp how small businesses are different from what they’ve been doing if they read this book.
I plan to recommend it to my students who have pretty good instincts for small business, but lack the perspective of experience. I’m sure it will speed their learning.
I’m pleased to be able to make that recommendation.
As for content, the authors wisely focus on the key fundamentals: positive cash flow, developing profitable customers and keeping them, keeping track of how you are doing, leading your employees, developing and maintaining discipline, and avoiding mistakes that can be very costly (such as weakening what’s working to start something that doesn’t work). The book’s strength is that it deals with the emotions and habits that underlie success and setbacks. Pay attention and be more deliberate in what you do, and the results will be better.
Rating: 4 / 5