The Leap: How 3 simple changes can propel your career from Good to Great

The Leap: How 3 simple changes can propel your career from Good to Great

Author: Rick Smith

This book starts with the author?s quest to understand how in 18 months he had gone from completely unremarkable to writing a best seller, founding a new company that he eventually sold for more money than he ever dreamed of. He wanted to find people who had achieved extraordinary success without the talents and drive that might have marked them as special from an early age. The book was meant to be a ?Good to Great? manual for individuals. I have read Good to Great, so…we?ll see.

Smith shares how in 2003, his co-written book, The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers took off. The book was very successful and after 3 months of touring his company let him go. He felt like his career had crashed and burned. He was looking for a new job and going to networking meetings. After a while he realized the networking meetings had plenty of people but hardly ever did you see top ranking executives from any companies. He created his own and named it w50. This was almost instant success also. He wanted to learn how this had happened.

Smith has also added lots of stories of how other people did it. This can give you some good ideas and perhaps insight on what creates success. He has a create take on memes however, makes no point of what the reader should do with a meme. Should they get one, make up one, use one? I like the book; I am always interested in how other people go to their success.
This book is an L.A. 7

Catapult Your Business to New Heights- Sure-fire strategies to Increase Profit

Book: Catapult Your Business to New Heights- Sure-fire strategies to Increase Profit

Author: Glory Borgenson

The author pin-points the reasons for business failure in the first few chapters. She also has a think about Stress. She is convinced that business owners allow stress to get to them, using the early death of her father at 53 as an example. This book is filled with exercises to make sure you get the point and figure out what you really want to do.

One chapter makes you go into details about how you envision your business to be. The questions encourage you to think bigger and challenge you to be aware of your current beliefs. In another chapter she tells you to make room for more profit in your life by reducing the stress. I told you, she has a thing about stress. She really means getting rid of the tyranny of the urgent and spends time explaining what that is and how to get rid of it. Then at the end you have an exercise that will help you change your way of doing business.

This book is for business owners willing to work and look at them. There is no gloss over and no place to hide. Either you read and book and do it or you don?t. If you don?t, then of course you cannot expect to see any good results. There is a chapter to learn business systems, which will really serve new business owners. Borgenson covers leading great teams, delegation and marketing and sales. All with exercises that will actually make your work through it, not just think about concepts.

If you are brave and are willing to do the work, this book very well might get what it promises in the title. There are many important concepts to learn from the book. This book is an L.A. 8

From Concept to Consumer: How to turn ideas into money

Book: From Concept to Consumer: How to turn ideas into money

Author: Phil Baker

This author comes in the been there/done that category. He has actually done what he writes about. Baker is an expert on product and market development and Far East manufacturing. He has had a role in developing products for Apple, Seiko, Polaroid and many others. I won?t spoil it for you; however you will be pleasantly surprised to see what helped to develop. He warns the reader that creating a successful product is more than just coming up with a great idea. If you are working on your idea and do NOT have a huge company behind you, then this is perfect for you.

Baker tells you the basics of what you need on your team: a person in Finance, Engineering, Industrial Design, Marketing and Manufacturing. You cannot create the dream without a team. I like that he just doesn?t tell you to grab 5 other people who don?t think like you do. He explains product development with segments on Concept Design, Pre-production and Product and a few more elements that are needed.

Baker? segment on marketing is a little light and asks you to estimate if you can capture 5% or 30% of the market with a caveat that it takes time to capture a market. You get someone on your team that does marketing, and then they should be able to handle that for you. Baker shares why you should outsource and answers manufacturing questions that left unanswered would sink your entire project. I love that he covers PR for your product. So few business books ever do, unless of course they are about PR.

I recommend this book for the person at home or in his office inventing something new. If you learn from someone who has been successful at it, you can duplicate their success. This book is full of meat and I rate it an L.A. 8!

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