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Saturday, December 11, 2004Although the book is written in the typical motivational, "how-to" style of short, punchy chapters, and peppered with vague motivational platitudes, it also has it's share of practical, useful information - whether your dream is to start a tech firm or a medical practice or a cleaning service. (You can "test drive" it here.) Chapters on refining a sales pitch (keep it short and to the point), writing a business plan (ditto), giving a presentation (down to the ideal number of slides and text size) how to talk to potential investors, creating a partnership (very good advice on when to bring in the lawyers), and how to "boot-strap" (live on nearly nothing until the money starts coming in) cover all the essential bases of any start-up. I was skeptical at first, but the more I read the book, the more I wished I had it when I started my medical practice. (Instead, I had The Complete Idiot's Guide to Starting Your Own Business and a manual from the American Academy of Family Practice.) And, although those two sources had a lot of the nuts and bolts information I needed, such as how to get a tax ID, and how to decide between an S Corporation or an LLC, they lacked the motivational inspiration and people-skill advice that Kawasaki's has. I never had to worry about explaining to the bank exactly what it is my business does since everyone knows what a doctor's job description is, nor did I have to worry about marketing myself since I already had an established patient base. But I certainly could have used the tips for interviewing potential employees and for interpreting today's vague words of recommendation from former employers. And the chapter on solidfying the details of a partnership, is alone worth the price of the book. (She said as she recalled the ruins of a failed partnership.) But perhaps the best part of the book is the reminder that even though you may have never had any prior experience running a business, the world is full of corporate masters who had similarly barren backgrounds. Think Oprah Winfrey. (Cross-posted at Blog Critics.) UPDATE: Alwin at Code The Web Socket clarifies the term "corporate evangelist" for me: A corporate evangelist is not a salesman in the classic sense. The job Guy had was simple in description, difficult in execution: he had to convince companies writing software for the Apple II and IBM PC to port it or write new software for the Macintosh. The new Mac had a lot of expanded abilities that the other two platforms didn't, but getting companies to learn and exploit those new resources - to invest time and effort in training employees to do it - was a task of Herculean proportions. My own opinion is that Apple's success - and survival - was due in no small part to Guy's abilities to bring Apple's corporate vision to the rest of America. posted by Sydney on 12/11/2004 11:11:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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