Book: Be The Elephant (2006, Workman Press)
Author: Steve Kaplan
Read in: Seattle, Vancouver BC
Rating: ****
Review:
If I were in a bookstore, I never would have bought this book. It's coated thick with superlatives and overpromises of success like:
A foolproof road map to success. Don't grow your business without it.
Nothing is a foolproof road map to success. That statement would have made me distrust the book from the outset.
As it was, I ordered the book from Amazon which meant I read the Amazon recommendations before the cover of the book. As you can see, I gave this a 4 star rating - so I obviously enjoyed it.
My 4 stars came from three qualities of this book.
1. It's concise - business books love to over-explain or try to micromanage their readers. Be the Elephant is less than 220 pages.
2. It provides tools - There are more than a few very helpful, simple tools for business analysis that I began using before finishing the book.
3. Website - the book is backed up by a website that has templates for the tools.
All in all, the book is built to quickly give people necessary tools to avoid failure. The tools don't guarantee success, but they go a long way to helping you avoid failure while also avoiding analysis paralysis.
So, even though I apparently don't recommend the cover quotes, the book is an excellent toolkit for small business owners.
Blogged at Monique's Yaletown Flat in Vancouver, BC Using Windows Live Writer
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