Small Business Growing
Books and Business: The Difference Between Success and Failure?
To survive and prosper, small business owners need a sharp sense of what correlates with success and failure for their own business.
Some success and failure factors are nearly universal, while others may be particular to your industry’s product or service.
Here is one factor that I’d nominate for the universal category: a mindset of continual learning.
An obvious but overlooked business success factor: your personal learning.
Have you met many successful business owners who are able to survive the ups and down of cycles, that are not serious learners? I have not.
People learn in different ways. Whatever your preferred mode of learning, the key is to be in a state of constant learning. Being more skilled in this state of mind and way of being will change your business life in a big way. And it will add a deeper level of survivability and prosperity to your bottom line.
Here is a simple way to enhance this learning mindset: Read at least one book per month. When I say “read” I don’t necessarily mean cover to cover. Just pull out the author’s main idea. Get the core concept out, and let it be part of your ongoing repertoire of tools and ideas.
If this is not currently part of your business discipline, you may be amazed at how valuable this practice can be. By the way, those Amazon book reviews can be valuable sources of insight on the quality and content of business books. They will help you select books that others have found useful. Some of these reviews are sufficiently thorough that you may feel you don’t need to order the book because the reviewer has provided such a good summary of the key ideas.
If some form of structured learning is not currently part of your business life, give this “one book a month” practice a shot.
Getting habitual exposure to high quality business thinking will add immeasurably to your growth potential.
Where to start? A book I am currently enjoying, that is brimming with insights on how great strategy is formulated, is “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy” by Richard p, Rumelt. This is a terrific explanation of how good – and bad - strategy is formulated by an author who speaks from many years of practical experience.
[Fran O'Neal provides consultation and installation of a simple, low cost, easy to use marketing and business retention system that helps small business owners get and keep more customers. Email Fran with questions or for more information on this resource.]
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