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

We have more things to do than time to do them in and this is why these summaries of well known books can be so useful. They capture the big ideas without the padding.

Summary: The E-Myth Revisited: Review and Analysis of Gerber’s Book

I have a love and hate relationship with the full book, The E-Myth Revisited.

Will the summary have the best bits without the worst? Yes, it’s excellent and I gave the summary a full FIVE stars rating in my review on Amazon.co.uk.

Here is my book summary review.

An excellent summary that gives you the important ideas of Michael Gerber without the irritating bits

I believe The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It is one of the most important small business books ever written. I recently wrote a blog article about the 12 best business books for business owners and it was the first I mentioned. Not because it provides all the answers but it does a great job of highlighting the problems and their causes. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Matías Birrell and Javier Arévalo is

“Forget the Urgent!: Rather focus on the important: A business dialogue based on the best seller ‘The Goal’ by Eliyahu M Goldratt“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a rating of FIVE Stars. That means I think it is excellent.

Who Should Read This Book?

• Anyone interested in the Theory of Constraints.
• Small business owners who want to improve.

The Big Idea

Every business faces constraints unless it is able to generate an infinite amount of money. [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by John Haylock is

“Absolute Certainty: How to give your clients exactly what they want“.

In my review at Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a rating of Four Stars. This means I think it is good.

Here is my book review.

Ideas for improving service businesses contained within a novel

This is a book about improving service businesses with the ideas dressed up in a novel.

The main character in the story is an accounting partner from a local three partner firm. It’s doing OK but everybody is very busy. He meets with a client who has a design business that has made some fundamental changes in the way it works after getting feedback from customers that they were not happy but the firm was getting the work because the other designers were just as bad. [continue reading…]

Here is a video that’s just under 10 minutes long which explains the Business Model Canvas in a reasonable level of detail. It’s been produced by The Business Channel.

The Business Model Canvas was explained in the book Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. (I gave it a Four Star rating.)

It brings together nine components of a business in a one page form:

1. Key Activities
2. Key Resources
3. Partner Network
4. Value Propositions
5. Customer Segments
6. Channel
7. Customer Relationships
8. Cost Structure
9. Revenue Streams

Why I Like This Video

1. The business model canvas is a very useful way to think about the logic of a business. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a new start-up or whether it’s an established business which has got stuck and needs a turnaround in performance.
2. It gives you more details than the 2 Minute Business Model Canvas Video without overwhelming you or requiring too much investment of your time before you decide to dig in deeper.

Get To Know Me

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[6Steps]

The full title of this potentially misleadingly titled book by Dan Bradbury is

“Breeding Gazelles: Fast Growth Strategies For Your Business“.

In my review on Amazon.co.uk, I gave the book a rating of Four Stars. This means I think it is good.

Here is my book review.

Well worth reading for anyone who wants to grow their company

This is an important book that looks at why so many small businesses get stuck between the £500,000 and £1 million level of sales and what has to be done to make the transition into becoming a gazelle company with a consistent high growth rate that continues year after year.

Basically it can be summed up by the phrase “what got you here, won’t get you there.” [continue reading…]

The full title of this book by Max Saunders is

Ignite Execution: Discover Why You Are Stuck and How to Start Getting Results

In my review posted on Amazon.co.uk, I gave it 3 Stars.

Here is my review.

Not bad but not inspiring

This is a short book that briefly introduces ideas for how to make you more productive and successful.

I didn’t really quibble much with what’s there but I never found it inspiring. The style is to the point but it could do with examples and stories to make you feel that certain points hold the key to what’s holding you back.

[bestbooks]

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[6Steps]

If your business is stuck and your performance has stalled in terms of sales and profit, or worse if things have turned down, you need to take action.

The first thing to ask is…

Do You Know Why Your Business Is Stuck?

In detail? Meaning you have identified specific causes?

Or have you made an assumption based on gut instinct. If so, beware. These attributions are often wrong.

Do You Know What To Do And How To Do It?

For change to happen, you need three things:

• To know what to do.
• To know how to do it.
• To have the commitment to take the necessary actions.

[continue reading…]

Right from the start of my career, I’ve been fascinated by the idea of helping turn around businesses in trouble. When I was being interviewed as a trainee accountant in 1981, I expressed interest in the firms’ business recovery departments.

My career as an employee had its share of highs and lows. I was seconded to a start-up company in a group and had the true “cradle-to-grave” experience as I eventually closed it and sold off the assets. I was also the Finance Director of a business that found itself caught in a savage price war and I’ve never seen profit drain away from a business so quickly.

When I had to write a dissertation for my MBA, it seemed obvious to choose a topic that looked at how small businesses in financial difficulty might be rescued before collapse. It involved extensive research into the causes of failure and how businesses can achieve turnaround and I really threw myself into it. So much so that I had to ask for a six month extension. When finished, the dissertation was received a Grade A Distinction, which meant it qualified to be permanently bound and placed into the Manchester Business School library.

I’m telling you this because one of the interesting things thrown up by my research was the issue of causal attribution and how business managers and owners deceived themselves, at the risk of the future survival of the business.

Let’s have a look at what I discovered. [continue reading…]

When you have a problem as a business owner, it’s very easy to feel unsure about what you need to do next to improve your business.

You feel stuck (see symptoms of being stuck) and it’s hard to get unstuck on your own.

Quite simply, you’re too close to see things objectively.

This makes it hard to move from the symptoms to the underlying problem so the temptation is to try to cure the symptoms again and again.

It’s like playing whack-a-mole. [continue reading…]