My Big Idea - 30 Successful Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Found Inspiration

Every entrepreneur needs a big idea and Rachel Bridge's inspiring second book brilliantly captures the challenge, frustration and excitement of turning a big idea into a successful business. Essential reading for every budding entrepreneur





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Confessions of a Street Addict, James J. Cramer

It's hard to think of anyone more intense or opinionated, or who wears as many hats as James Cramer. In Confessions of a Street Addict, the man who first made a name for himself on Wall Street successfully managing his hedge fund--and then became famous on Main Street with his manic appearances on CNBC--tells the improbable story of his career as journalist, Wall Street pundit, Internet entrepreneur, and television commentator. For the most part, Cramer manages to avoid the self-congratulatory hype that mars so many books of this ilk; in fact, what makes Confessions so compelling are the shots that Cramer takes at himself, be it his now infamous capitulation during the stock market panic of October 1998, when he wrote a piece for TheStreet.com advising readers of an impending crash just as the market began to rebound, or the callous way he treated so many around him in pursuit of the next trade. Here's an informative, honest, and rollicking read for fans of CNBC, TheStreet.com, or anyone who has ever lost sleep thinking about their portfolios.
Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

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Jam Amp Your Team, Rock Your Business

Praise for JAM! "Breaking into the music business is difficult at best; sustaining success even more so. Jeff Carlisi is both a musician and a businessman, and he and Dan Lipson have penned an entertaining and extremely useful book. Read JAM!, and you should be blowing your competition off the stage in no time." —Terry Stewart, president and CEO, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum "Jeff Carlisi's story is worth a book all by itself. But combine it with Dan Lipson's sound and practical business advice, and you've got a combination that's indispensable for any executive looking to make some noise of their own. Highly recommended."—Dave Sutton, founder and managing partner, TopRight Strategic Marketing, and coauthor, Enterprise Marketing Management "We've all dreamed of standing on stage before a packed house of screaming fans. Jeff Carlisi has done it, and he and Dan Lipson have built a business dedicated to giving that experience to kids and executives alike. The two of them have crafted a business advice book unlike any other, one that will help you find your own spotlight."—Gary Byrd, president and CEO, Pratt Financial Services "Bands that make great music do so with lots of practice, a keen sense of vision, creativity, and the ability within the group to listen and play parts. The same holds true in great organizations. Jeff and Dan understand this, and do a great job of communicating the magic that occurs when individuals within an organization tune up, tune in, and listen to each other playing their directed parts."—LARRY THOMAS, chairman emeritus, Guitar Center Inc. "In the entertainment world, there's almost always a difference between the persona that you see and the real persona. Not with Jeff. He's the same guy on and off stage, and he's had his eyes wide open his whole career. He and Dan offer the kind of practical business advice that anyone can use. You'll learn a lot from Jeff's story."—John W. Mecom, Jr., former owner of the New Orleans Saints

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Internet Riches: The Simple Money-making Secrets of Online Millionaires

Now anyone can be an online millionaire! These days it's easier, cheaper, and safer than ever to start an Internet business using readily available technology and turnkey opportunities. In this strategy-packed guide, Scott Fox reveals the powerful but simple methods he and thousands of others have used to strike it rich on the Net. Exclusive interviews with "mom and pop" entrepreneurs prove how easy it is to get started and build a million-dollar enterprise.


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Stephan Schiffman's Sales Essentials: All You Need to Know to Be a Successful Salesperson

Having trouble closing your deals?
Hitting a frustrating plateau with your sales numbers?
Feel that upselling is a lost cause?

Let sales guru Stephan Schiffman drive your sales pitches up a notch with his tried-and-true techniques-and get results immediately! Stephan Schiffman's Sales Essentials includes time-tested tips on:

* Mastering the cold call
* Using e-mail as a selling tool
* Raising the steaks to "up" your next buy
* Closing the deal-every time!

Plus! You'll also find 50 surefire questions to ask to make deal after deal, year after year. Packed with insider information you need to beat the competition, you can't afford not to read Stephan Schiffman's Sales Essentials!

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The Principles of Successful Freelancing

Thinking about becoming your own boss and embarking on the wonderful and rewarding journey of freelancing? The Principles of Successful Freelancing is for you. In this easy-to follow guide you’ll learn what’s important in transforming your skills into a booming freelance business.

This book leads you through the entire process, from getting started, through to winning and keeping loyal clients. Running a successful freelance business is easy, and with the information in this book, you’ll confidently turn your freelancing dream into a profitable reality.

* Learn how to make a smooth transition into freelancing
* Understand how to effectively manage your money
* Ensure you spend your time on the right activities
* Discover why a work/life balance is important
* Learn how your network can support you and your business
* Overcome your fear of selling
* And much more …

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30 Minutes to Succeed in Business Writing

Part of a series of pocket guides aimed at enabling the reader to learn a new skill in just 30 minutes, this text provides useul tips to improve business writing from common grammatical errors to letter layout.





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Entrepreneurship: The Engine of Growth

Entrepreneurship–”creativity plus ambition”–is credited for technological invention and the rise of corporate empires and directly linked to economic development around the world. This multi-volume set of original essays showcases emerging theory and practice in entrepreneurship to illuminate its many facets. From technology commercialization to new venture spinoffs, entrepreneurial personality characteristics to government policies in support of small business, these volumes cover the full spectrum of issues relating to entrepreneurship, including business models, entrepreneurial “mindset,” market research, capitalization, intellectual property, risk and uncertainty, and organizational culture. Volume 1, “People,” focuses on the intersection between individuals and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on the cognitive, economic, social, and institutional factors that influence people’s behavior with respect to entrepreneurship. Volume 2, “Process,” explores such topics as idea generation, market entry, financing, team building, and growth strategies, following the lifecycle of a new venture. Volume 3, “Place,” considers the context in which entrepreneurship is practiced, including corporate venturing, family enterprise, franchising, and public policies designed to promote entrepreneurship and economic development. Featuring contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, and with a global perspective throughout, this unique set illuminates the dynamic role that entrepreneurship plays in promoting knowledge and economic opportunity, exploring new models, trends, and practices in entrepreneurship that will be of interest to a wide array of academics, professionals, and newcomers to the field.

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Eric D. Beinhocker, "The Origin of Wealth: Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics"

Over 6.4 billion people participate in a $36.5 trillion global economy, designed and overseen by no one. How did this marvel of self-organized complexity evolve? How is wealth created within this system? And how can wealth be increased for the benefit of individuals, businesses, and society?

In The Origin of Wealth, Eric D. Beinhocker argues that modern science provides a radical perspective on these age-old questions, with far-reaching implications. According to Beinhocker, wealth creation is the product of a simple but profoundly powerful evolutionary formula: differentiate, select, and amplify. In this view, the economy is a "complex adaptive system" in which physical technologies, social technologies, and business designs continuously interact to create novel products, new ideas, and increasing wealth.

Taking readers on an entertaining journey through economic history, from the stone-age to the modern economy, Beinhocker explores how "complexity economics" provides provocative insights on issues ranging from creating adaptive organizations, to the evolutionary workings of stock markets, to new perspectives on government policies.

A landmark book that shatters conventional economic theory, The Origin of Wealth will rewire our thinking about how we came to be here—and where we are going.

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Auerbach Leading IT Projects The IT Managers Guide

Senior level IT managers are responsible for a wide variety of development projects. For the most part, these individual
projects are handled by project managers. However, IT managers must be conversant in the field of project management.
Additionally, they must understand the dynamics of managing the project manager and be familiar with the skill sets.

Leading IT Projects: The IT Manager’s Guide provides a detailed roadmap for project success. The book provides information on
the technical aspects of project management and also focuses on the human side of project management—leadership skills, team
building, and promoting creativity. Overall, it facilitates an extensive understanding of the planning, monitoring, and
control of the people, process, and events that occur as a computer system evolves from preliminary concept to operational
implementation.

Using ready-to-use forms and templates, this valuable resource enables you to increase productivity and ensures that projects
come in on time and within budget.

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The Networking Pocketbook

This text details four basic steps that lead to effective networking relationships: learning, investing, nurturing and keeping, the so-called LINK.





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Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy

Bringing together leading activists and writers from the US and beyond, this book unmasks the covert and undemocratic world of corporate spin.

Wherever big business is threatened, spin doctors, lobbyists, think tanks and front groups are on hand to push the corporate interest, often at the public's expense.

The public relations industry is not just about celebrity gossip. The authors show how PR techniques are in use across a wide range of political fields, driven by corporate interests. They reveal the secrets of the PR trade including deception, the use of fake "institutes", spying and dirty tricks. The impact can be devastating—when the public is denied access to the truth, the results are rising inequality and environmental catastrophe.

The book exposes the misdeeds of famous companies including BP, Coca Cola, British Aerospace, Exxon and Monsanto. It also reveals startling new information about the covert funding of various apparently independent think tanks and institutes.

What can we do about it? The authors offer a guide to concrete campaigns that will help to roll back corporate power and show us how to raise awareness about resisting deceptive PR.

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Turning Lead into Gold: The Demystification of Outsourcing, Peter Bendor-Samuel

Outsourcing has unparalleled power to generate value and wealth for those who learn to apply its principles effectively. Yet, the pitfalls are many and deep for those who outsource without first taking the time to understand its underlying principles. Shrouded in mystery, outsourcing has been a source of confusion and frustration for many executives. Now for the first time, the principles of outsourcing have been clearly explained and illustrated in Turning Lead into Gold. Peter Bendor-Samuel, a world-renowned outsourcing authority, shares his insights on how and why outsourcing works, and how it can work for your organization. He presents documented evidence of success with examples from the real-life experience of major corporations, including EDS, IBM, AT&T, British Petroleum, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, J.P. Morgan & Co., Andersen Consulting, and JCPenney, among others.

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The Rules of Risk: A Guide for Investors, Ron S. Dembo, Andrew Freeman

"A powerhouse in the understanding of risk. With their ingenious blend of psychology and rigorous quantitative analysis, the authors have created an authoritative and innovative handbook of risk management that is essential for both practitioners and theoreticians."——Peter L. Bernstein, Author, Against the Gods, Capital Ideas, and The Power of Gold

"This excellent and readable book provides an innovative approach to choosing actions when the outcomes are uncertain. Anyone with an interest in improving their decision-making skills would benefit from reading this. Anyone with a professional interest in risk management must read it."——Stephen A. Ross, Fisher Black Visiting Professor of Finance, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sloan School of Management, Sterling Professor of Economics and Finance, Yale University

"Ron Dembo and Andrew Freeman have done an excellent job of describing how to think about and measure risk. This will become required reading for businesses and personal investment executives."——Ned C. Lautenbach, Senior Vice President and Group Executive, IBM

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Breakthrough: How Great Companies Set Outrageous Objectives and Achieve Them

"Teams that embrace bold goals and breakthrough strategies can accomplish remarkable results. This book will be invaluable to anyone embarking on that path."
– Bart Butzer
Executive Vice President, Target Corporation

"Yellow’s continued industry leadership will result in large part from embracing Bill Davidson’s philosophy and approach."
– Bill Zollars
CEO, Yellow Corporation

"Strategic change is a high-risk, high-return proposition. Davidson’s framework provides a sure, firm foundation for success."
– Roger MacFarlane
CEO, UTi Worldwide

"This is a serious piece of work which should be required reading for all business leaders. If you plan on remaining or becoming number one in your industry, have your top management team read this right away."
– Bob Herson
CEO, Executive Focus International, Inc.

"I could not put it down–stunning insights into corporate strategy and tactics."
– Randall Lunn
General Partner, Palomar Ventures

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Contract Theory

Despite the vast research literature on topics relating to contract theory, only a few of the field's core ideas are covered in microeconomics textbooks. This long-awaited book fills the need for a comprehensive textbook on contract theory suitable for use at the graduate and advanced undergraduate levels. It covers the areas of agency theory, information economics, and organization theory, highlighting common themes and methodologies and presenting the main ideas in an accessible way. It also presents many applications in all areas of economics, especially labor economics, industrial organization, and corporate finance. The book emphasizes applications rather than general theorems while providing self-contained, intuitive treatment of the simple models analyzed. In this way, it can also serve as a reference for researchers interested in building contract-theoretic models in applied contexts.

The book covers all the major topics in contract theory taught in most graduate courses. It begins by discussing such basic ideas in incentive and information theory as screening, signaling, and moral hazard. Subsequent sections treat multilateral contracting with private information or hidden actions, covering auction theory, bilateral trade under private information, and the theory of the internal organization of firms; long-term contracts with private information or hidden actions; and incomplete contracts, the theory of ownership and control, and contracting with externalities. Each chapter ends with a guide to the relevant literature. Exercises appear in a separate chapter at the end of the book.

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Smart Green: How to Implement Sustainable Business Practices in Any Industry

"Do you think going green will give you a competitive advantage, even save you money? Do you think your customers are more likely to buy if you are green? Do you want to do better by the environment and your community? If so, you are not alone. Many feel the need to go green. Jonathan Estes in Smart Green turns this need into value and lays out the steps for going green.?Read it and get ahead of your competition and the green tsunami sweeping the country."
—Frank Phoenix, PE, LEED-AP, Partner, Greenbridge Developments, LLC

"Estes's book articulates the opportunities, challenges, and trends of the blossoming conscious consumer movement using insightful research to make the case for growing a green business. His compendium examines and dissects our cultural shift in which a handful of people are optimists, many are ambivalent, and everyone is a skeptic."

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The Essential Drucker

The Essential Drucker has two purposes. First, it offers, I
hope, a coherent and fairly comprehensive Introduction to
Management. But second, it gives an Overview of my works on
management and thus answers a question that my editors and I have
been asked again and again, Where do I start to read Drucker?
Which of his writings are essential?



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Advertising and Promotion

Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 6/e, by Belch and Belch, is the number one text in the Advertising market. As the field of advertising and promotion continues to dramatically change since the dominant days of high-powered Madison Avenue agencies, marketers must look beyond traditional media in order to achieve success. In order to best communicate with consumers, advertisers must utilize a myriad of tools (advertising, public relations, direct marketing, interactive/Internet marketing, sales promotion, and personal selling); Belch/Belch is the first book to reflect the shift from the conventional methods of advertising to the more widely recognized approach of implementing an integrated marketing communications strategy. The text underscores the importance of recognizing that a firm must use all promotional tools available to convey a unified message to the consumer. The integrated marketing communications perspective, (the theme of the text), catapults the reader into the business practices of the 21st century.


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Build Your Money Muscles: Nine Simple Exercises for Improving Your Relationship with Money

Shows how permanently improved financial circumstances arise naturally from changing how people treat themselves and others and from acquiring practical money skills. This takes new muscles that must be developed gradually, just as getting in shape physically requires steady body conditioning. To assist, each of the book's nine exercises concludes with a series of actions to help readers build the stamina necessary for achieving lasting wealth. Among them are hands-on instructions for keeping close track of spending, recording progress in a prosperity journal, and examining entrenched behaviors established in childhood. Success, while not immediate, is almost guaranteed.

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