Recommended reading
-
E-myth Revisited
In this book Michel Gerber explains the problems of setting up and running a business and explains why so many small businesses don’t work. He takes you through, in clear format, the steps you need to take to move from being what he calls ‘a technician’ to becoming a successful entrepreneur. He also draws the vital distinction between working in your business and working on your business. Reading this will provide all the groundwork for generating a thriving business that really works for you.
Buy Now »
-
Guerrilla Marketing for Free
Jay Conrad Levinson has written a whole series of books on marketing for small businesses. This excellent and easy to read small book sets out a hundred ways to market yourself effectively and, most importantly, for free. It is a great introduction to the whole Guerrilla Marketing system and will trigger your imagination to find dozens of effective methods for increasing your customer base.
Buy Now »
-
Getting Everything You Can Out Of All You've Got
Marketing for small businesses can often be an uncertain activity. This is a very accessible guide to making the most of your marketing efforts from one of the US’s best known marketing experts. His creative thinking and innovative ideas will help any business owner develop a successful marketing plan which can be easily implemented at minimum cost.
Buy Now »
-
The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
For anyone interested in truly efficient operations and manufacturing, ‘The Goal’ provides a stimulating introduction to the ‘Lean Production’ process. It is written in the form of a novel about a pressurised factory manager trying to improve performance and save the factory in a short space of time. Extracting the principles from the narrative and applying them in new situations will enable business owners to improve their efficiency significantly.
Buy Now »
-
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
World renowned Stephen Covey sets out this essential guide to what separates the truly successful people from the rest. He sums these up in 7 key attitudes, or habits, and explains each in detail so that the principles can be easily adopted by anyone who wishes to develop themselves and reach the top.
Buy Now »
-
Effective Teamwork
Building a well-motivated and effective team is so important in today’s marketplace. This is a clear guide on how to build, inspire and manage a great team. It covers all the important areas of teamwork and is based upon solid research and understanding of what makes teams work well.
Buy Now »
-
The One Minute Manager
There is so much written about managing people and few business owners will have the time to wade through it all. The ‘One Minute’ series is a collection of short books that set out their topics clearly and simply. This is probably the best known of the set, and guides you through the essential elements of good people management in a way that will enable you to get started immediately.
Buy Now »
-
The Power of Focus
There is an old saying; “Be careful what you wish for – you might get it!” If you really want to achieve something, then firstly you need complete clarity about what you want and why you want it. But then you need to back this up with clear focus on how to achieve it. This book sets out how to develop your ability to focus and implement the best strategies to become truly successful.
Buy Now »
I would like to take this opportunity to recommend a few books to you. There are so many business books on the market that it can be difficult for any business owner to know exactly where to begin. I don’t want to give such a long a list that might add to the confusion, so I have restricted myself to just a few of the more relevant ones that are both easy to read and yet provide useful information.
Many of the books on business development have been written and published in America and some might feel that what they say is not relevant for the British culture. However, I believe that most of the principles outlined in these books can be just as profitably applied to businesses in UK as well.
I hope that you enjoy them, and please let me know if you would like further recommendations or advice on any particular topic.