Book Review: The Big Book of Small Business

Rating:

All businesses start out small – even if it’s just the seed of an idea. But the secret to turning small businesses ‘big’ is absolutely entrenched in practicality, no matter how soaring and idealistic the dream.

Andrew Griffiths has been writing about the topic of good business for over ten years and is one of Australian’s best known small business professionals, speakers and trainers. His latest book – The Big Book of Small Business – is a compendium of realistic and powerful advice on how to help any small business reach its full potential.

Griffiths believes we are entering ‘the age of the entrepreneur’, which is good news to any woman keen on growing her own company. He believes we are heading into some of the finest and most exciting times for business owners, ever, and this seriously thorough book certainly puts forth a solid argument that small business has every chance to grow and prosper in today’s uncertain and ever-changing marketplace.

What I like about this book is the author’s belief that solid business practices are all good and well… but fostering a seriously entrepreneurial attitude is what gives small business owners a competitive advantage. And Griffiths will show you how to do that. He’ll also show you how to work with friends and family (an increasingly popular small business option), how to budget, promote, stand out in retail, and very importantly for women… balance business and home life.

Chapter headers include such gems as:

What is the difference between success and failure?

What do truly spectacular entrepreneurs all have in common?

Learning from the anti-businesses of the world

Question everything – often

Smart marketing is simple marketing

Customer service commandments

Networking is not a dirty word

…and my personal fave:

If you lie down with dogs, expect to get up with fleas

The author also covers priceless advice on staffing (especially that old good’un about changing yourself rather than your staff), setting a pace for your competitors to follow, mastering the lost art of selling, changing the face of advertising, making rock-solid relationships, ensuring your business looks the part, how to make profit online, and more. There’s even notes on business karma, vital information on what to do in case of a business emergency, and how to survive if your business doesn’t.

The Big Book of Small Business is like flipping through the brain of a masterful business consultant. Reading through it made me feel supported, encouraged, enlightened, ambitious and… surprisingly powerful. The book also left me feeling – dare I say it – clever. The author dumbs nothing down yet makes even the most nervously hopeful (and perhaps somewhat business-clueless) entrepreneur feel they have every chance of securing a slice of that elusive Success Pie… with whipped cream and perhaps even a cherry on top.

Engagingly-written, warm but no nonsense, Andrew Griffiths most cleverly combines reality with heart, hard business with heartfelt passion… and, well – he kind of trumps it with this book. Grab your business idea by its high-flying coat tails and get set for a powerful ride.