Tag Archives: Goal Setting

7 Books every start-up entrepreneur should read

There is a great number of books out there which is aimed at Entrepreneurs and the skills and techniques they need. However if you are starting a business you don’t have time to read too many, so I have limited it to seven, which you should be able to read in one week. Enjoy!

Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business That Works by Daniel Priestley

I very much agree with the theme of this book “The age of the entrepreneur, the agile small business owner, the flexible innovator. The days of the industrial age are over.” and every student I meet, its about developing this mindset. This book should mainly provide some motivation and inspiration for your plunge into the next books.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Building a business is no longer about “the business plan” which is cast in stone, its about doing and then creating small changes or pivots to the plan as you move forward. He goes over the a number techniques an entrepreneur can use in order to create a business.

Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder

Great for the visual entrepreneur or those not interesting in writing a 50 page business plan. The book teaches us the right way to create a visual business plan and act on it. With pictures, graphs and timelines, this book is a must-have for every visionary young entrepreneur.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

This classic book will turn your relationships around and improve your interactions with everyone in your life. Business is all about relationships, employees, investors, partners and customers all need you to be the best at dealing with their interactions.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Godin is one of the greatest entrepreneurial minds in the world and you should be taking a look at www.sethgodin.com. In Purple Cow, he advocates building something so amazing that people can’t ignore you and then allowing them to be your brand ambassadors. There are a lot of great case studies in this book.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

While working on his doctorate in the 1970’s, Stephen R. Covey reviewed 200 years of literature on success. He noticed that since the 1920’s, success writings have focused on solutions to specific problems. In some cases such tactical advice may have been effective, but only for immediate issues and not for the long-term, underlying ones. This is why a lot of entrepreneur books have case studies or information which is of little help to you in your situation.

Covey presents an approach to being effective in attaining goals by aligning oneself to what he calls “true north” principles of a character ethic that he presents as universal and timeless.

The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy

Every entrepreneur knows that the key to a successful business is good sales technique. Not only do you have to sell your product, but you also have to sell yourself and your idea.

This book gives you valuable information and strategies about how to make more selling by focusing on one thing – the person. Young entrepreneurs tend to forget the basics of selling and jump right over to getting results, but in order to get results, you need to know the basics. Brian Tracy goes over those major points thoroughly.

Goals Goals Goals

At this time of year there are two types of businesses, those which are the middle of their best sales and distribution period and those winding down for the Christmas break.

Which one are you?

For those of you winding down, it’s the best time to start planning for the New Year. Don’t wait until you need to make a financial plan. It’s now the time to think about what you want to achieve next year. The best way is to split your goals into three, short, medium and long. What you define as short, medium and long in terms of time scale is up to you and depends on your business. However, what is important is you think about them, write them down and communicate them to everyone involved.

The Short term goals are there to motivate you, get you up in the mornings and also ensure the New Year goes off with an amazing quick fire win. So some of these goals should be achieved during the first few weeks of the year, maybe one should be to communicate the 2011 plan to staff, customers and suppliers, it maybe email all your customers to say thank you for their loyal custom in 2010, call your most valued customer and ask how you can do it better.

For the Medium term goals, we are looking at the hard work and this means customer acquisition, increased revenue per customer and reducing costs, i.e. making you business better, faster and more efficient so you can ensure your success in 2011. The target dates for these should be from June through to September.
Your Long term goals should be the great big airy audacious goals which will make sure your business stands out from the rest. These goals will not just make your business a good business but a fantastic one, a business which others in the market follow, a brilliant success. So take a long hard think about them. They (because there should be more than one) may take less than a year but the timing of these is not important, the fact you assign a date to every goal is.

Now you know your hat-trick of goals, it’s time to go and buy the Christmas presents now, knowing that 2011 is going to be your best ever.