Guest Post by Joe Thoron
http://websitemomentum.com.

Would I recommend ‘Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money?’
Definitely. It’s a book that helps you stay focused on what’s really important when you’re starting or growing a business. I have often recommended it to friends who are working on their businesses. Too many times we sit around lamenting that we don’t have enough money to do what we want, but the solution is right in front of us. This book gets you off the couch and selling products with a plan toward long-term growth.

Application: (5)
This book is all about application. It’s about making a clear plan of action and then executing that plan. A “bootstrapper” is a business owner who builds a business without significant external funding. This makes for a business that’s nimble and responsive. It’s more than just watching every penny (though that’s important). It’s about delivering value in every transaction. Greg Gianforte bootstrapped his own business and walks you through the exact steps to determine customer needs, define your niche, and close sales.

Ideas: (5)
“Bootstrapping Your Business” is packed with many ideas and strategies, but they’re all in the service of two big ideas. 1) Find out what the customer really wants and 2) Sell it to them.

It seems simple, but most of us go into business with an idea we think is great. We jump at it without research, investing hundreds or thousands of hours in product design, creating a website, writing marketing pieces, applying for patents, setting up manufacturing systems, and so on. And we don’t know, until we’re in too deep, whether anyone actually wants to buy what we’ve made.

For me, these two concepts are crucial to any new endeavor. And I keep re-reading this book because it’s so easy to forget how central they are. Sometimes new technologies and new fads are so interesting and distracting it’s easy to think that the new tactic of the month is enough to create a business around. But unless you’ve built something that real customers are willing to pay real dollars for, you don’t have a business.

Style: (4)
Bootstrapping is written in a direct and engaging style. It’s well organized and filled with stories of real people who’ve built successful companies using the same techniques that are discussed in the book. These stories are inspiring and help to make the concepts more concrete.

My Biggest Insight
The fastest way to learn how to sell your product is to start selling your product. Not planning it, marketing, or publicizing it. Selling it. It’s another version of the “fail fast, fail often, keep learning” philosophy.

The idea of Bootstrapping is that instead of relying on infusions of capital to get your business going, you build it by developing a solid revenue stream. This means CUSTOMERS, which means you need a product or service that solves a real problem, so that customers will actually want to buy it.

Also, Greg Gianforte’s vision of sales is very hands on and direct. He asks you, the bootstrapper, to be the chief salesperson and to put yourself on the line with each customer contact.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today):

1. Bootstrapping is a quick and sure way to build a solid business because you have to deal with customers and fulfill their needs from day one.
2. Having a lot of cash on hand only delays the onset of the sales learning process.
3. Pre-sell your product before you put it into production. Make sure there’s demand for what you want to produce. If people don’t like what you’re offering, change it. Use sales for market research.
4. Focus on what makes your business unique.
5. Listen — really listen — to your customers.
6. Be thrifty with your startup expenses (Gianforte provides detailed examples).
7. Manage your cash. The chapter on cash management is worth the price of the book. Like the advice on selling, it goes to the root of how to build a strong business. Gianforte argues that your cash flow forecast–which should be revised daily if necessary–is even more important than a formal business plan.
8. You can do marketing and public relations on a budget (and the author tells you how).

Where To Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)
At Amazon.com : ‘Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money’

* Author: Greg Gianforte with Marcus Gibson
* Publisher: Adams Media (2005)
* Language: English
* ISBN-10: 1-59337-387-2

Thanks to Joe Thoron
http://websitemomentum.com.

Guest Sticky Book Review by Bob Bare

Would I recommend The FOUR OBSESSIONS of an EXTRAORDINARY EXECUTIVE?
Are you a one man show, or working with a small team? Forget this book, it’s not written for you. Are you part of a small to medium sized business, but don’t have the authority to make major changes? Then don’t read this book, either. You’ll be as frustrated as a pilot in coach section during a storm. You’ll see all the danger signs, but won’t be able to do anything about them.

If you are an executive or owner of a company that has at least one level of management between you and the ground troops, and you are concerned about the long term viability of your company, I would definitely recommend this book to you.

This isn’t a book about tactics for growth or market share, although your business will flourish if you become obsessive about the four obsessions. The book is about the health of your business, the culture and fitness of the organism of your company. It’s not like drinking a Red Bull to jazz you up for the moment, but it’s about a company management lifestyle that keeps your company healthy and kicking well after most others are relegated to the nursing home.

Overall stickiness:
I’d rate this as a four-sticky book—if you fit the target audience. The reason it gets lowered to a four-sticky has nothing to do with the readability or ideas. The lower rating comes because the applications are not easy for most people to do. There isn’t a quick check-off list for next week’s to-do list. Some of the applications involve real change, both in yourself and your organization. And as you may have already discovered, significant change is neither always quick nor easy.

Application:
Why only a 3 sticky? Even though there is an entire section called “Putting the Disciplines into Practice”, the solutions offered are not easy. Most of us get so busy “spinning plates” (did you see the same Ed Sullivan show I did as a kid?), that we don’t have time to contemplate principles and disciplines. If you’re serious about the long term success of your business (think generational), you’ll need to spend time thinking about and discussing how to implement these ideas.

Take just this one concept from Lencioni: “Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team”. That requires a greater commitment than most executives will give. It includes conflict, transparency, accountability, and committing to group decisions. If you want an enjoyable read and challenging ideas, you’ll get both in this book. But to implement it takes a “Braveheart” attitude.

Ideas:
I give this book a five sticky on ideas. Not only are there ideas on how to handle present team dysfunctions, but also on how to prevent future ones. Besides executives, there are ideas here that anyone involved in interviewing, hiring, and training employees should read and implement.

Have you seen conflict, jealousy, or personality conflicts in your organization? Patrick Lencioni not only points out why they occur, but gives great ideas on how to handle them, especially from the viewpoint of the management team. Old school management may have worked fine in the 1950s, but business and culture has changed. The same old carrot may not be appealing to your younger employees, and the stick that managers used to shake may not make them frighten them anymore.

Style:
O.K., I must admit I enjoy the “story telling” approach to business books, such as Og Mandino’s “The Greatest Salesman” approach. I can pick up the implications, and it keeps my interest. If you are a “what’s the bottom line” type of person, you can skip the novel and go directly to the back of the book, but you’d probably miss a lot of the “aha” moments. The story for the first two thirds of the book is what gives it a “five sticky” for me. The story is like going to a play, and the last third puts what you just read into perspective and tells you what needs to be done to bring the culture to your company.

My Biggest Insight:
My biggest insight was the realization of what only one bad apple on the management team can do to undermine the CEO, and cause havoc in the entire organization. Like an airborne bacterium in an elevator, only drastic treatment can sometimes bring the team back to health. The required cure may not be fun, but it may be necessary. The contrast between the two competing consulting companies helps evaluate the health of your own company.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today):
Remember the old Wall Street Journal sales letter? Two young men start out from college, on turns into a successful executive who owns and runs a company, the other ends up as his employee. The pitch was that the man who was successful became so because he subscribed to the Wall Street Journal. Nice story, and it has sold millions of subscriptions, but I really doubt that reading the Wall Street Journal every day would have that dramatic an effect.

This book could be the story of those two men. If so, it would explain the real reasons for their success. What they did, besides read the newspaper, that made one the head of a healthy enterprise, and the other always trying to figure out how the other guy was so successful.

A person that reads this book at the beginning of his career, and applied the concepts, in my opinion, would get the kind of results promised by that sales letter. This is not a list of tactics to apply, but a book of foundational principles that can build a long lasting, healthy enterprise if followed.

The most powerful concept in this book is that the health of the entire organization is affected by the attitude, priorities, and emotional health of the person at the top. To improve your company, you have to improve yourself.

Introductory concepts:
1) Build and Maintain a Cohesive Leadership Team

a) Knowing one another’s unique strengths and weaknesses
b) Opening engaging in constructive ideological conflict
c) Holding one another accountable for behaviours and actions
d) Committing to group decisions

2) Create Organizational Clarity
a) Why the organization exists
b) Which behavioural values are fundamental
c) What specific business it is in
d) Who its competitors are
e) How it is unique
f) What it plans to achieve
g) Who is responsible for what

3) Over-Communicate Organizational Clarity
a) Repetition
b) Simplicity
c) Multiple mediums
d) Cascading messages

4) Reinforce Organizational Clarity Through Human Systems
a) Hiring
b) Managing performance
c) Rewards and recognition
d) Employee dismissal

Where To Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)
http://www.amazon.com/Four-Obsessions-Extraordinary-Executive-Leadership/dp/0787954039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268324865&sr=8-1

·        Author: Patrick Lencioni
·        Hardcover: 184 pages
·        Publisher: Jossey-Bass – 1 edition (September 1, 2000)
·        Language: English
·        ISBN-10:   0-7879-5403-9
·        ISBN-13: 978-0787954031

Guest Author: Bob Bare
www.hearinghaven.com
www.expertclick.com/19-3158

Would I recommend the Long Tail?
Imagine you wanted a song. Just one song, not the entire CD. Or DVD. How could you get the song? Your answer would be simple. You’d go to a site like iTunes and download the song, right? And the Long Tail digs deep into this single song download phenomenon. And starts to unravel how most products can have a shelf life of forever.

Forever?

Yes, forever!

Understanding this simple concept of ‘forever’ is what will make your business realise just how your revenues can be linked to this ‘forever’ concept too. And how a lack of understanding, can cause you to lose revenue (and customers). Yes, forever!

Overall stickiness:
I’d rate it as a four-sticky book. And it gets that slightly lower rating, not because of the concept (which is superb, by the way). But more so, because of the application-factor (see below). Over time, however, we may see the ‘Long Tail’ change software and the way we work–at which point, I’ll be glad to revise this review.

Application:
It’s a three-sticky on application. And that’s not because the book itself lacks ideas, but it’s kinda hard for a small business owner to wrap their heads around how to apply the concepts effectively. The concepts are simply: Put everything up there that you have to sell. And then help me find it.

Which is a great idea, but requires a fair bit of back-end programming and most certainly the ability to do a mini-Amazon.com or mini-iTunes.com. With many of the bigger sites, the client already knows a bit about what they’re looking for. It’s much easier to get to Amazon.com looking for a book or a DVD. It’s much harder getting to an anonymous site, and then knowing what to look for. So yeah, I’d be looking for a sequel that gives me examples of application.

Ideas:
Despite the application being a little hard to wrap your database around , the book scores a perfect five-sticky on ideas. There’s a good reason why. The ideas are progressive. You quickly see how certain formats are going the way of the dinosaur (CD Sales have plummeted like, forever). And why these formats aren’t working. But more importantly, the book also gives you an insight into how you can take new technology (e.g. Facebook, mySpace etc.) and still muck up big time. The Long Tail delves deep into distribution (and why it works/and why it doesn’t). It looks at how democratisation of tools of production and distribution changes all the rules we know so well.

But most importantly, it explores markets without end. And it does so, with solid data and tons of style.

Style:
Talking about style…well, here we go. Chris Anderson slides you through several new concepts quite effortlessly. The style of writing is simple, and if anything slows you down at all, it’s the realisation of what you’re going to have to do to live in a world where several ‘Long Tails’ extend forever. Your business brain is going to hit quite a few speed bumps, but it’s not for want of style. I read this book thrice (maybe four times) and each time it just flowed from page to page.

Click to see bigger image

My Biggest Insight
Well, that’s kinda hard to say, because this book has a lot of ‘emerging technology and consequent customer behaviour’ stuff. But what really took me by surprise, was the concept of the 80:20 Rule. And how the 80 and the 20 don’t have to add up at all. I know it sounds obvious, but you do get taken aback when you learn that 80:10 works just as well as 80:35 or 80:20 for that matter.

Some of the powerful concepts in this book (and how you start applying them today): (Note: The links go to similar-kinda Psychotactics articles.I’ll add more links as I write more articles.)

Introductory concepts:
1) The ‘Internet-Only’ Generation: How do you market to a generation that won’t watch TV?
2) The 98% Rule: How tiny, tiny, tiny niches sell via the digital medium at least once.
3) How Geography Matters in distribution (And why it may not matter any more).
4) Markets without end? Is there such a concept?
5) How Long Tails exist everywhere: And the rise and fall of ‘hits’.
6) Is Choice good or is it bad? I’m saying it’s bad. Chris says it’s good. (Read my version: The Curse of Choice)
7) The Three Forces: Why the world of supply and demand is changing.
Why ‘My Chemical Romance’ succeeded, but Bonnie McKae failed in an almost identical environment (and despite the best of stats and data).
9) Why Context is King. And how filters work for or against you.

Where To Get This Book (Nope, this ain’t an affiliate link)
At Amazon.com : ‘The Long Tail’

• Author: Chris Anderson
• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (July 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401302378
• ISBN-13: 978-1401302375

Another website you’ll find useful to understand customer psychology:
www.psychotactics.com

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