"Gerber's books never disappoint. These Ten Principles help you dig in to create newer, bigger ideas during our deeply troubled times, ultimately producing a great renewal--of mind, of body, of spirit, and leading to a new operating system where anything is possible and growth is built into the culture."
--Stephen M. R. Covey, author of the New York Times and#1 Wall Street Journal bestseller The Speed of Trust

"This book doesn't just describe great business principles--it MAKES business history. Your economic survival hinges on you reading this book "
--Jack Canfield, coauthor of the New York Times #1 bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul(R) series and author of The Success Principles

"Gerber is the master in giving us the essence. Every business begins small, then grows and endures in accordance with its founding principles. His new book scores a perfect 10 "
--Denis Waitley, author of The Psychology of Winning

"New books recycle old ideas. This one is brand-new thinking for our deeply troubled times. Gerber takes on the tough issues of the day, and provides liberating insight and compelling principles on creating small business success in any economic or political environment."
--Dr. Ivan Misner, New York Times bestselling author and founder of BNI

"Entrepreneurship has been the high road to success and satisfaction for 200 years. In this book, Michael shows you how to start and build your own business better and more meaningfully than you ever thought possible. Good Luck "
--Brian Tracy, bestselling author of The Psychology of Achievement

This book presents case material on modern small business enterprises, in the form of profiles. These are constructed on a consistent basis for 17 small firms, and use a contemporary framework drawn from business strategy and industrial organization. Each profile is designed to show how an entrepreneur has tried to achieve a competitive advantage in the market-place by fighting against "extended rivalry", market competitors, buyers, suppliers, substitutes and potential entrants. As well as looking at comprehensive and defensive strategies, the book extends analysis to financial structure, including discussion of reasons for cash flow problems and problems associated with excessive "gearing". A comparative analysis of the profiles, grouped according to the degree of market concentration and associated market structure, enables new conclusions to be reached about resources of competitive advantage. The authors bring varied insight from managerial economics, industrial organization and small firms' consultancy. Their criterion was that the analysis should always be well-grounded in the reality of small business existence.

For private business owners, managing a successful exit from their business is one of the most important events in their business lives. This book shows you how to do so with the minimum of fuss and maximum return. It is unique because the author writes from the owner's point of view, bringing together in one place all you need to know about planning this complex process. Exit Strategy Planning emphasises the need to place exit planning on a firm foundation, with taxation planning and business continuity planning providing the basis to ensure a smooth transition that will yield the maximum return. The first three parts of the book ('Laying the Foundations', 'Choosing your Exit Strategy' and 'Preparing and Implementing your Plans') present a best practice approach to this complex subject. Here the book highlights the importance of planning, often several years in advance, and explains the need to make the business 'investor ready' by identifying and removing impediments to sale. Part 3 culminates in a step-by-step guide to producing and implementing your Master Exit Strategy Plan. Following on from this the extensive appendices in Part 4 discuss in detail each of the exit options open to you (many of which you have probably never considered) and show how to choose the optimum exit route. Exit Strategy Planning is a book that will do more than save you time and money now and in the future; it will help you to maximise on what may well be a lifetime's investment.

There is a growing class of entrepreneurs who, for a range of reasons, are working to create viable alternatives to mainstream production and consumption models. Existing literature that cuts across multiple fields illustrates the unique features, challenges, and value propositions of alternative forms of entrepreneurship. Yet, the complexities associated with how alternative marketscapes form and function remain "fuzzy." Volume 29 of Advances in the Study of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth asks, "How alternative are alternative marketscapes?" In doing so, greater clarity is gained on the underlying economic, organizational, and social conditions and environments within which alternative marketscapes develop. The volume includes theoretical arguments and case studies that view alternative entrepreneurship not as co-existing with, but rather transforming mainstream entrepreneurship, and challenge the understanding of alternative entrepreneurship as being inherently altruistic. The exploration of ingenuity and innovation, in conjunction with cases that illustrate the diversity of alternative market contexts, generates organizational and system-level applications. The volume authors provide entrepreneurs and companies a concise understanding of alternative marketscapes that paves the way for development and success.

This book is concerned with one of the major contemporary issues of industrial organization: the role of small business enterprise in a mature market economy. Key issues covered are start-up and its financial features; static and dynamic scale economies; enterprise case histories; small business strategy; competitive forces; strategic pricing policy; determinants of growth and survival; and the political economy of fair trade and enterprise. The treatment is analytical and empirical, well grounded in business reality, and set within the context of the political economy of small business. It is based on a unique and extensive database of small business enterprise, containing over 40,000 data points gathered by fieldwork within the firm. The book starts with a section on the database and then applies diverse methods; statistical analysis; enterprise and case histories; econometrics; and political economy. In this way, a picture of the modern small business emerges, it is viewed from different perspectives.

Avoid legal pitfalls for your business from day one A common characteristic of entrepreneurs is the attitude: "I'm not going to do that until I absolutely have to." And it's understandable why: with limited time and resources it seems logical to focus on tasks like product development, production, marketing, and delivery--the ones that get your product or service out into the marketplace. The last thing you want to do is spend money and effort on legal issues, which is why they often drop to the bottom of the pile. But this can be a costly mistake--and Go Legal Yourself is here to make sure it's one you avoid. Attorney, inventor, and businesswoman--named Top Woman Entrepreneur by LA Dreams Magazine in 2017--Kelly Bagla knows about doing business from both the entrepreneurial and legal sides of the fence. And in Go Legal Yourself, she guides you through the four key legal lifecycle phases every business experiences--and sets you up for worry-free success from day one. Establish yourself as the correct legal entity Gather and complete the relevant documentation Protect your brand Identify and avoid common (and expensive) pitfalls Plan and manage growth, enter new markets, and keep a sharp competitive edge Wherever you are with your business, this book is your guarantee you have all your legal ducks in a row--and that no nasty legal surprises stand between you and your target: success.

If you are seeking access to equity or finance from a bank or bank-related institution, your company will need a Basel II rating. How does the Basel II Rating differ from previous credit ratings? What specific information will your bankers require for the rating? What can you do to ensure the most favourable outcome? Unfortunately there is no mathematical or scientific solution to these questions. Approval of your request will largely depend on your ability to provide not simply the relevant information, but a tactically effective line of argument. If you under-represent your project, even if it does not fail the rating test outright, it is likely to get it assigned to a grade below its merit. The penalty is reflected in the conditions of the desired facility, especially, the rate of interest. Marc B. Lambrecht's The Basel II Rating shows you what information to assemble and exactly how to make your case in order to maximise your rating results. His book will help you argue the success potential of your business; accurately define the financial basis on which that success can be realised; and present your credentials convincingly. Follow the framework, use the advice and the techniques he suggests and you will make a convincing case for your business and the value and risk of the project for which you are seeking finance. This book can help you ensure continued access to business finance and equity on the best possible commercial terms.

A place-led perspective of entrepreneurial development is becoming increasingly important, given narratives around entrepreneurial ecosystems, contexts, and the design of entrepreneurial institutions. In a world where we recognise entrepreneurial means, ends and values in terms of locations with meaning, this latest volume in Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research explores the phenomenon of Entrepreneurial Place Leadership. Defining Entrepreneurial Place Leadership in terms of how locations with entrepreneurial meaning are created, maintained, exploited, and amplified to generate future value, this edited collection considers how entrepreneurs lead in a complex entrepreneurial landscape. Leading international scholars act as guides through a heterogeneous landscape of individual dwellings, communities, and planned settlements. Topics include: an exploration of entrepreneurial responsibility to place in rural Nova Scotia; an analysis of culture in Entrepreneurial Support Organisations in Spain; a discussion of entrepreneurial implementation of policy in Italy; and the introduction of a tool for managing a complex solution ecosystem in Australia. Each chapter reflects upon the contribution of the author's research to academic theory and makes policy and practice recommendations - as such this book is a useful resource for academics, students, and entrepreneurial place leaders. Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research is an official book series of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE). Each volume is designed around a specific theme of importance to the entrepreneurship and small business community with articles collectively exploring and developing theory and practice in the field.

Nothing but good ownership makes long-lasting family companies. Yet, during our international consulting, research, and teaching engagements, we have encountered many ill-equipped next generation owners or owners-to-be, especially among women. We coined this phenomenon 'the daughters' inclusion challenge'. The Power of Inclusion in Family Business is a guide for grooming the next generation of responsible women owners, so they can thrive, achieve, and become leaders and wealth stewards in their multigenerational family businesses and family offices. We aspire to help enterprising families come across the power of including valuable women pertaining to the business-owning family in the family firm management, governance, ownership, and investment structures. In this book, outstanding global family business scholars and practitioners from 10 different countries, come together to serve a common purpose: provide novel insights, gender sensitive-consulting practices and culturally-adapted recommendations to advance the daughters' inclusion challenge and to shape a more inclusive family-in-business and family firm environment.

Traction. Startups Need It. Learn How To Get It. Vision, groundbreaking ideas, total commitment, and boundless enthusiasm characterize most startups, but they require capital to go from promising product to scalable business. More than 80 percent of all early-stage startups fail. Most of them can build a product, but the vast majority stumble when it comes time to take those products to market due to poor "market engineering" skills. Traversing the Traction Gap exposes the reasons behind that scary failure rate and provides a prescriptive how-to guide, focused specifically on market engineering techniques, so startups can succeed. The go-to-market hurdle is insurmountable to many startups. Just when they most need to establish a foothold in the market, they run short on time and money. This is the Traction Gap, that period of time introducing a new product into the marketplace and being able to scale it during a rapidly closing window of opportunity. Traversing the Traction Gap is a practical guidebook for navigating the tumultuous early life of a startup. Based on real-life examples, the advice from Cleveland and the members of the Wildcat Venture Partners team provides a roadmap and metrics for succeeding where others have failed.

In Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Business Clusters, Panos Piperopoulos provides a comprehensive introduction to what entrepreneurship is all about, how and why entrepreneurs innovate and how innovation systems operate. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) constitute the backbone of most economies, so the author examines their characteristics and the crucial role played by the owners and entrepreneurs who innovate to ensure the survival and continued growth of their firms. He also includes the particular phenomena that arise where the entrepreneurs are either female or from ethnic groups, or where the context is that of a developing region or country. The importance of co-operative strategic alliances and networks between firms is discussed, along with how these strengthen SMEs' competitiveness. The concept of open innovation has been proposed as a new paradigm for the management of innovation and the author presents a hypothetical model for enhancing the competitiveness and performance of SMEs by properly utilizing employees' creative potential, emotional intelligence, tacit knowledge and innovative ideas. The contemporary model of business clusters, involving partnerships with competitors, agents, universities, research centres and local, regional and national governments is discussed. The ways, means and methods through which SMEs' competitiveness and innovation can be enhanced within business clusters is illustrated by cases that identify four types of SMEs, that behave differently and play different roles in the networks and clusters of which they form a part, but all of whose performance and competitiveness is a function of their position and role in the wider scheme of things.

Recent decades have seen substantial growth in the range of assistance programmes for SMEs and entrepreneurs across the world. Once regarded as peripheral to the economy and public policy, the role of small firms and of entrepreneurship is now recognized as of key importance in the economic growth and development strategies of many nations. The range of interventions and support focused on promoting SMEs and entrepreneurship is substantial and expanding, so Government, SMEs and Entrepreneurship Development asks 'what are some of the main policy instruments being used, and how effective are they?' It considers policies in different countries, examines key interventions and tools used to promote entrepreneurship and SME development and concludes with contributions on how to best evaluate their effectiveness. The contributor chapters by academics and practitioners from businesses, enterprise development agencies and governments, are empirical or evidence-based and use both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Drawing on experience from a wide range of both developed and emerging countries and economies, the contributions focus on the broad strategies that different governments and communities have adopted to foster entrepreneurship and SMEs; the policy tools and instruments that can be used to promote small business and entrepreneurship; and on the outcomes of policy instruments and the methods used to evaluate interventions. Their findings will help researchers, policy-makers, economic development officers, civil servants, elected officials, and business associations to better understand the issues in this important field.

The Routledge Companion to Family Business offers a definitive survey of a field that has seen rapid growth in research in recent years. Edited by leading scholars with contributions from the top minds in family business from around the world, this volume provides researchers and scholars with a comprehensive understanding of the state of the discipline. Over 25 chapters address a wide variety of subjects, providing readers with a thorough review of the key research themes in the modern family firm, such as corporate social responsibility and bank debt rationing. International examples cover a wide range of economies including China, Europe, and Latin America. The book will appeal to undergraduates, postgraduates and business instructors seeking a definitive view of the issues and solutions that affect and support family business.

Once relegated to the dusty shelves of ancient muses, research and scholarship on entrepreneurship has exploded as a field of research, with impactful additions from a range of disciplines rendering the field a tricky one to traverse. The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Modern Entrepreneurship offers a comprehensive guide to entrepreneurship, providing an authoritative exploration of the key people and their ideas. This book tells the stories of the scholars who have set the standard and tone for thinking and analysing entrepreneurship. Edited by two of the world's leading entrepreneurship scholars, this comprehensive volume offers a platform for understanding and future research that is both state-of-the-art and authoritative. It expands on how modern entrepreneurship has developed, with a focus on the key "makers" of the field - including theories, such as social psychology; concepts, such as neuroeconomics; and types, such as political entrepreneurship. The contributions to the collection are grouped into three sections: Emergence of Entrepreneurship Research Theories in Modern Entrepreneurship Concepts and Makers in Modern Entrepreneurship This companion is essential reading for students and academics interested in entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial management and business management.

'Business Development' provides a readable and practical book for the growth and development of businesses. This is primarily a textbook for the NVQ4 Business Development qualification, the Institute of Management Certificate in Owner Management courses, and HND Small business modules, but the text is also an invaluable practical guide to owner-managers of small businesses. All businesses pass through several stages of growth and it occurs for a number of reasons, such as change in the commercial market, increased customer demand for services or product, higher numbers of customers. Business Development shows how to make the most of this growth and also how to deal with the different types of problems that are encountered along the way. The book is structured to follow a logical sequence of questions that makes it readily accessible: Where are we now? Where do we want to go? What resources are needed to get there? What sales and marketing policies do we need to develop? It examines the personnel and staffing implications, the efficiency of the current financial management process, and the owner's own abilities to make it all happen. Most important of all it makes the owner-manager takes a long, hard look at the business and where it is really going.

Originally published between 1982 and 1996, and addressing issues of central importance to the competitiveness of firms and economies, the volumes in this set draw together research by leading academics in the area and provides a rigorous examination of key issues relating to employment in small businesses. They: Study both the growth and the barriers to growth of small firms Examine problems of rurality Investigate the variation in rates of new venture initiations across manufacturing industries Include a wide range of national case studies from Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Greece, Spain, Israel and Indonesia. Discuss marketing in the small business and the relationship between small and large firms in an advanced capitalist economy Reassess economic theories concerned with concentration and competition the relationship between small and large firms in an advanced capitalist economy Analyse the managerial factors most closely associated with successful small firms

This volume provides a rigorous examination of key issues relating to employment in small businesses. These include an anlysis of the true extent of job crreation provided by small firms, the rleative quality of jobs in small firms, the growth of self-employment during the 1980s and the way in which the small firm interacts with its local labour markets. These issues are examined in an international context, wth comparative examples from the USA, the UK and Europe.

This book, originally published in 1989, studies both the growth and the barriers to growth of small firms. It examines market and industrial structures, also the role of investment institutions and their handling of small business accounts. There are chapters on management attitudes and ability considered as a potential barrier to development, and other problems such as lack of finance and of a suitably qualified workforce. The book stresses the importance of communicating the latest advances in technology to small firms, and urges the need to re-think government tax and procurement policies.

Originally published in 1989, this book analyses the economic and political position of the small firm in the 1980s, and in particular the relationship between small and large firms in an advanced capitalist economy. Focusing on the printing and clothing industries, it examines the industrial relation practices in these two contrasting sectors and shows that apparent industrial relations harmony - for example, the lack of strikes - should be put down to the powerlessness of the workforce rather than to contentment.

This volume, originally published in 1995, examines the mechanisms by which businesses that have the capacity to grow - whether in terms of output, innovation or export - acquire the cash that enables growth. Addressing an issue of central importance to the competitiveness of firms and economies, this book draws together research by leading academics in the area. Throughout, research studies develop the themes of market failure, finance gaps and failure of demand. They also bring out the linkages between the financing choices facing the growing firm and the issues of organisation and of corporate governance that have to be address during the process of growth and maturity. Contributors challenge financial orthodoxy throughout, providing coherent analyses of the difficulties faced in the finance of the growing enterprise, from its early dependence on banks and informal finance to the pinnacle of a stock exchange listing.

When originally published in 1993 this book was one of the first to present a systematic comparison of small enterprises in both urban and rural areas in contemporary Britain. Key issues such as relative performance levels and the relevance of recent develoopments to the economy as a whole are discussed by well-known contributors. Throughout, insights derived from dialogues with real entrepreneurs are provided. An internatinal dimension is added with a comparative discussion of the problems of rurality suffered in many areas of North America and Europe, and the continuing effects of the recession of the late 80s and early 90s are also examined and important policy recommendations made.

This book, originally published in 1988, analyzes the regional importance of small and medium sized enterprises, supplmenting a discussion of key issues in both regional development and th eeconomics of small firms with a wide range of national case studies from Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Greece, Spain, Israel and Indonesia.

Originally published in 1989, this book was the first comprehensive and analytical account of the Italian small firm economy to appear in English. Dealing principally with the area of central and north-east Italy where small business flourishes, the book relates to the concentration of such companies to the concept of 'industrial districts' developed by Alfred Marshall, and provides both a theoretical and statistical basis for Italy in the latter part of the twentieth century. The success of Italian manufacturing is explained in terms of political and social factors as well as economic and technical ones and the working practices within the technology companies discussed.