Business Start-Up Kit by Steven D. Strauss

Product Description

Everything you need to know about starting and growing your own business, from USAToday.com's small business columnist, Steven D. Strauss.

Entrepreneurship has many potential rewards, and also carries unique challenges. Learn what works and what doesn't, along with scores of tips and hints in an easy-to-read compendium from one of the nation's foremost authorities on small business.

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #53911 in Books
Published on: 2002-12-12
Released on: 2002-12-12
Number of items: 1
Binding: Paperback
288 pages
Editorial Reviews

Book Info
An easy to read compendium of everything an aspiring entrepreneur needs to start and succeed in business. Strauss explains what works, and what doesn't, while giving entrepreneurs scores of tips and hints. Softcover.

About the Author
Steven D. Strauss is one of the world’s leading experts on entrepreneurship. A lawyer, public speaker, and author of The Big Idea, The Unofficial Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, and the Ask a Lawyer series. Steve’s “Ask an Expert” column is the most highly syndicated business column on the Internet, being seen weekly at USAToday.com, AT&T Small Business.com, workz.com, BizLand.com, and Staples.com, among others. Steve has spoken around the world about entrepreneurship, including at the United Nations, and he has been on CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, The O’Reilly Factor, and many other television and radio shows. You can contact him or sign up today for his free newsletter, Small Business Success Secrets! at his business Web site www.MrAllBiz.com.


Excerpted from The Business Start Up Kit: Everything You Need to Know About Starting and Growing Your Own Business by Steven Strauss. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface

Your own successful business can be many things. It can be your meal ticket, ensuring the economic health of you and your family. It can be your source of creativity, giving you an outlet for all of those ideas you have. It can be your security, the comfort that comes from knowing that there is no boss who can fire you. It can even be your pride and joy, an accomplishment that you point to with satisfaction, knowing that you alone created it out of whole cloth.

But more than anything else, I think that owning your own business and being an entrepreneur is about freedom. Yes, the money that comes from a successful business is great. And yes, being energized and enthused about your day is special. Being free is priceless. If you do it right, you are free to start whatever sort of business you want. You are free to start it where you want, and free to work the hours you choose. You are free to make as much money as you are capable of, without yearly limits or performance reviews.

But you will notice that all this only comes about if you do it right. When you choose to become an entrepreneur, there are no guarantees. In large part, whether you succeed or fail is up to you. So, how do you do it right? Read this book. It is dedicated to helping you succeed. And unlike other start your-own-business books on the market, what sets this book apart is that it offers a model of business success, a simple model that is easily duplicated.

It might help to think of your business as having two parts. The first part is found in Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of this book—choosing and doing something that you love to do. That is the "technical" aspect of the business. The dentist fills the cavities, the photographer takes the pictures. Practically every business is set up to allow the owner to make money doing some sort of technical work that he or she loves.

The second part of your business is everything else—the actual running of the business itself. That is found in the rest of this book, Chapters 4 through 20. The dentist must network and bring in new clients, and the photographer must get referrals, bill customers, and generate leads. There are myriad things that go into running the actual business, aside from doing the "thing" that you love to do. When I talk about a model of business success, it is all of these other things to which I am referring.

The vast majority of this book is dedicated to teaching you this second part of business. If the dentist and photographer follow the model laid out in this book, they will be free to spend more time doing what it is they love, rather than worrying about the business. Do it right and the business will take care of itself, and you, in turn, will be free. You can plug almost any "technical" job into this business model and it would work.

The model is neither complicated nor complex. It is simple, easy, and fun. Learn it and free yourself up to grow, make more money, and do what it is you love. When you learn how to run your business properly, you get to a point where the world will be paying you to do what you love most. And that, as Alan Ginsberg once observed, is the real trick of life.
Customer Reviews

Good Book for the Beginner
If you are really interested in starting your own business and have no idea how to begin or what it means to work in a small business, this is the book for you. Very simple presentation with easy to understand explanations will take you step by step through the process and the decisions you will have to make along the way. It is well worth the money. If you are already a small business owner and you are thinking about moving up in the business world with your organizational structure, this will also help to to decide what form of organization you might want.

Pretty complete. Great for the first-timer!
I just finished reading this book, and it was certainly a wealth of information that I did not know about. I found it useful as an introductory tool for someone, like me, that has never owned a business before and just wants the overall picture! Highly recommended.

Good book to have
I really like this book and am glad that I bought it.
It has lots of useful ideas for me and I'll be paying close attention to Mr Strauss's suggestions.
I've also recently read Untapped Wealth Discovered by Jeff Marquis and Kerry Harrison and this book is extremely different, refreshing, and brings a new approach to the business world.
I like this book too and strongly recommend that if you've recently lost your job then read it.