MS

Hello, I’m Michael Sliwinski, founder of Nozbe - to-do app for business owners and their teams. I write essays, books, work on projects and I podcast for you using #iPadOnly in #NoOffice as I believe that work is not a place you go to, it’s a thing you do. More…

Book of the Week: The Knack - your ultimate entrepreneurship bible

📖Books

If you’ve been following my blog closely lately, you know I’ve become a great fan of audio content, especially podcasts and audiobooks. I even listen to them while skiing. This enabled me to consume not 1-2 books per year, but 1-2 books per week. It’s incredible and I’m learning a lot every week. And Audible now has a great customer :-)

This is why I decided to do a weekly review of a book I’ve recently “read” (ahem, listened to). I’ve already covered Rework and Switch and today it’s time for The Knack - How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham:

Book of the Week: The Knack - your ultimate entrepreneurship bible

Get this book on: Audible Amazon

It’s your ultimate entrepreneurship bible

Really, lots of real-world advice, lots of great content and each chapter brings something new to the table. These guys show you how wise entrepreneurs make their decisions, how to approach negotiation, competitors and opportunities.

Gross margin and profit are your friends. Not Sales.

Although they don’t mention it, they are preaching the “Apple” approach. It’s better to have less customers but with higher profit margins. We should ditch the “sales mentality” and not focus on sales and not close every sale. Focus on the high-margin sales only. After all, Apple has 3% of mobile phone market while Nokia 37% and Apple pulls more profits anyway!

Ethics, Integrity and Customer support

They dedicate lots of attention to customer support, to the ethics in relationships with customers, co-workers and competitors. How integrity inspires and makes sure you’re on the right track with your business.

Great advice, all in one.

This book is a complementary book to Rework - tons of great advice in each chapter about how to run a business. Highly recommended to all current and would-be entrepreneurs.

I’ll surely be listening to this book again in a few months to make sure the ideas from this book stick with me for a long long time.