Articles And Book Reviews About Moving From Being Stuck To Getting Unstuck

The full title of this book by Ray Noble with Clara Noble is

Stunted Growth: 100 Reasons why your business is going nowhere and how to fix it

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Three Stars. This means it is Worthwhile.

Here is my book review.

What has stopped the business from growing?

I like the idea of this book but I’m not so keen on the execution of it.

The authors are right. There are many reasons why a business stops developing in a valid, meaningful way and gets stuck. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Howard Mann is

Your Business Brickyard: Getting back to the basics to make your business more fun to run

In my review on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Five Stars. This means it is Excellent and is Very Highly Recommended.

Here is my book review.

Put the fancy stuff to one side and get back to basics

I read a lot of business books but rarely do I find one that connects so strongly with the frustrated, stressed-out business owners from the very start.

It’s not the best of book titles but it’s a metaphor that refers to a catching exercise for wide receivers in American football. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Tom Shapiro is

“Rethink Your Marketing: 7 Strategies to Unleash Revenue Growth”.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave it a FIVE star rating, meaning that I rate it as excellent.

Here is what I posted.

An excellent and thoughtful book to get your business back on track

The book encourages you to rethink seven different areas:

1-your audience
2-how they think
3-your goals
4-your marketing mix
5-your metrics
6-your revenue model
7-your future

The aim is to get your business growing again. Too often, companies get stuck and the owner-managers don’t know what to do other than more of the same, copying competitors or jumping on the latest fad. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by William Van Hoy is

Stop Banging Your Head: Break through the wall of frustration in small business

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Three Stars. This means it is Worthwhile.

Here is my book review.

Enough is enough. Stop being frustrated and do what’s necessary to make progress – financial services industry

If you’re a business owner, you’ll be familiar with the wall of frustration. No matter how often or how hard you hit your head against the wall, you don’t seem to make significant progress. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Richard Dotts is

“What To Do When You Are Stuck And Nothing Seems To Work“

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I rated it as a FOUR Stars book, this means I think it is good to very good.

Here is what I posted.

Focuses on your inner game

This book focuses on what I call your inner game, how your thoughts, beliefs and emotions control your actions or inactions. [continue reading…]

If your business is finding it tough to win enough sales volume to give you the profit level you want, you may be trying to solve it the wrong way.

To get the best improvement in results, you need to tackle the right problem in the most effective way. Sometimes, business owners can make faulty diagnoses of the underlying issue and this happens particularly when the business owner is under too much pressure.

If you don’t focus your time and attention on the key constraint or bottleneck, you’re likely to get disappointing results. (see The Theory Of Constraints For Small Businesses)

This diagnose the problem to prescribe the right solution is a similar process to your doctor uses to make sure that his prescribed treatment is tackling the most likely cause. For example, there are many different reasons for a patient having a headache – from eye strain to general tension to too much alcohol… all the way through in severity to a brain tumour or a fractured skull.

Sales being too low is a symptom but, without looking in detail, it’s not clear what the underlying problem is and therefore it’s not clear

What Causes A Business To Have A Sales Problem?

[continue reading…]

First let’s look into the problem of being stuck as a business owner:

• What does it mean if a business is stuck or of a business owner is stuck?
• What are the symptoms of being stuck?
• How does “being stuck” fit into the cycle of business growth and decline?
• What can you do to move from being stuck to being unstuck?

What Does It Mean If A Business Is Stuck Or If A Business Owner Feels Stuck?

If a business is stuck, it means that it has lost its forward momentum:

• The rate of growth in sales and profits has slowed down, stalled or perhaps even gone into a small decline.
  .
• It’s become harder to convince customers to buy because you’ve lost key factors of differentiation that gave you an edge over your competitors.
  .
• If you don’t get unstuck, your business is likely to go into decline and the future of your business may be threatened. The amount of time you have to take corrective action depends on the buffers you’ve built up in  terms of cash and reserves of profit and the rate of decline in cash and profit.

[continue reading…]

The full title of this book by a collection of authors is

Unstuck: 10 Proven Strategies for Breaking Through the Barriers to Small Business Growth

In my review posted to Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Two Stars, meaning the book is Disappointing.

Here is my book review.

Articles by different authors

Since I help business owners to get unstuck, I try to read all the books on the topic.

This one is a compendium of long articles from different authors rather than a deep dive into the topic by one expert. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Dennis Becker is

80/20 Power: Following Pareto’s Principle to Maximize Your Small Business Success

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book Two Stars, meaning Disappointing.

Here is my book review.

A fundamental concept but this is not the book to start with

The 80/20 principle that a small numbers of things or activities produce the majority of results is a vital improvement concept. In theory, you can get more results by switching from low value activities to high value activities.

This is basic common sense that can all too easily get overlooked. [continue reading…]