Breaking stone to be success

5 Responses to “The Small Business Owner’s Manual: Everything You Need To Know To Start Up And Run Your Business”

1. Faith J. Adrian
   January 16th, 2010 at 1:42 am

   I was extremely disappointed with this book. This book is full of Mr. Kennedy’s and his buddies adventures in business but has very little for a person starting up a business. Don’t waste your money on this book. I found better information on the internet.
   Rating: 1 / 5

2. T. Clark
   January 16th, 2010 at 3:18 am

   The Small Business Owners Manual is a practical addition to any office. I didn’t have to read the whole book and map it out to make it useful. Using the Contents page and the bold face paragraph titles, I can go quickly to the subject of interest and get crisp, meaningful information. It’s the best I’ve seen – not bulked up with wasted words. You can order it with a few keystrokes and put it to use within minutes after receiving it.
   Rating: 5 / 5

3. Elijah Chingosho
   January 16th, 2010 at 5:15 am

   This is an excellent book that gives practical, invaluable and enlightening advice to entrepreneurs. It covers a wide range of relevant topics including such areas as the start-up process, marketing the business on a small budget, cash-flow forecasting, resource gathering, business plans, legal entities, financing, e-commerce/e-business and insurance and it does so in a simple and remarkably engaging manner.

   Joe Kennedy’s life as a `successful entrepreneur is fascinating and inspiring, and his first class education coupled with his wealth of entrepreneurial success, give his advice and insights the maximum credibility. He reinforces his message with interesting, witty and enlightening stories. The book is an invaluable resource to any person who is either currently involved or thinking about getting involved in any type of new venture.

   The book is an excellent companion that contains a wealth of useful and helpful information and ideas on starting a small business and ensuring that it is viable and successful that is well worth having.

   Rating: 5 / 5

4. Francois Laurient
   January 16th, 2010 at 7:00 am

   I have operated a consulting and services firm for many years now and purchased this book as soon as it was available. At first I thought “so what can I learn from a book at this point” but there is some really good stuff here that made this an important read in bringing me up to date in some areas, and in consolidating my knowledge in others. For example, there is a chapter on web sites and e-stores. I have had a site up for some years now but the book brings out a lot of important new concepts. Heck, things change. Kennedy (the author) makes a good point that a web site is never finished but is always a marketing work-in-progress. He describes many possibilities but the book is grounded in reality since he understands that small businesses cannot try everything like bigger firms. So now I reduced my marketing budget away from some print ads and I am getting better results through a Search Engine Marketing program outlined in the book. This alone is saving me about $200 per month.

   The book also does an excellent job of outlining many types of insurance that can be considered (I knew something about all of these but, as Kennedy points out, the “half-life” of insurance information is very short) and this is the only summary I have ever seen and is a must-read for any business owner. He also outlines about ten new financing sources that can be considered but perhaps most importantly gives a realistic assessment of when each should be considered abd when to not waste your time.

   Finally our business now accepts credit cards for retainer payments and this is the first description I have ever seen about how the entire system works, and why the word “approved” doesn’t really mean approved at all.

   In summary, my business has been in operation for many years and I have much experience in many of these areas but the book was a real help and I will be keeping it in my office as a reference.

   Rating: 5 / 5

5. B. Chase
   January 16th, 2010 at 8:42 am

   Recently, I just started a brand new business. I have read alot of books of this type in the last few months, but I truly like this one the best. Mr Kennedy’s place in the market is that he has owned and operated many small businesses, and has worked with many business people in just about all the industries it seems. So he talks from the perspective of someone who has actually lived through all of this and he werites from the perspective of an entrepreneur who knows how to manage people and operate businesses. That is a lot different from someone who writes because they are a writer, or because the need to sell extra books at seminars.

   Consequently, Mr. Kennedy knows how to keep it short and tellwhat an entrepreneur needs to know–not too much and not too little. He is right in that business owners want to know enought to make an informed decision and keep moving. Mr. Kennedy has an MBA in marketing and he shares his knowledge with the reader, because you can see this in separate chapters dedicated to sales and marketing. He is very up to date on the Internet and E-Commerce, and says somewhere that he knows everyone can do searches these days and he doesn’t want to just provide the same material that can be found easily in a Google search. I found this to be true. On the other hand, he knows business owners don’t want to read an entire book on a particular subject, and they don’t want a lot of extra fluff to puff out a book. So, he keeps to the essentials and therefore very covers a lot of territory in the 312 pages that I read, rather than overkill in just a few areas. I like his writing style, since it is very quick to the point and informative, yet easy to follow along. There are also many real-life stories that he tells in a humorous way that reinforce lessons from the book. There are many other books out in this same niche, but this is the only good one I could find written by someone who actually has current up-to-date experience in operating and growing a small business. I give this book 10 stars!
   Rating: 5 / 5