Business Know-How: An Operational Guide for Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses With Limited Budgets

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Summary: Tackles real-life concerns of small business owners.
Review: Business Know-How tackles all the real-life issues that we small business owners really care about in a straight-forward and sensible way. The chapter on websites, Build and Promote Your Web Site Without Going Broke, is worth the price of the book alone.

The author also handles issues many small business books leave out, like Making Cash Flow.

As an entrepreneur, I'm always trying to promote my services on a very limited budget yet it is critical that I come across as professional. There are some great tips here on how to do that in ways I feel comfortable with.

If you're a small business owner, or thinking about starting a business, Business Know-How has the basics of what you need to know in a format that is both fun to flip through and rewarding to read from cover to cover.

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Summary: One of the Best Small Business Books Available!
Review: I got the copy of Business Know-How the other day. What a great book! In fact, within hours after getting it I was on the phone with my accountant asking "Why aren't I doing this? What about this? And what about this?" I wish I would have read this book several years go. I know it would have saved me money--and probably a few hard lessons and aggravations too. I especially like the "Shoestring Marketing Secrets" chapter. This is a great book!

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Summary: Don't do business without Janet.
Review: Janet Attard is a familiar name to most people doing business on the Internet, especially on AOL.

She has been the force behind the growth of the Business Know-How discussion boards & newsletter. She plans over 70 weekly live chats, as well as compiling thousands of articles, tips, & hints on every aspect of small business you can name.

This book begins after you've done all the basic start-up work for your business. There is no discussion of the best legal form for your business to take & you won't find questionnaires to test your entrepreneurial skills. Attard assumes you've passed that point & are ready to go to work.

What you will get is insight on topics such as:

=> finding suppliers => mailing & shipping strategies => trade show savvy => selling to the government => building a web site without going broke => making cash flow => how to make a big impression on a small budget => using the mail to build business => choosing & using office equipment

I must admit that I thought Attard would have nothing new or of interest to me. After all, I've been in business for some time. (egotistical, isn't it?)

But, she surprised me with a number of interesting & useful ideas. Briefly, here are a few:

=> make use of a CD-ROM phone directory. Attard suggests one called SelectPhone costing about $150. It will allow you to find customers & suppliers. (p. 84)

=> ask for an editorial calendar. The editorial calendar briefly lists the types of stories that will be covered each month for the calendar year. Newspapers & magazines plan far ahead for special topic issues. (p 91)

=> advertise where your competitors advertise. If your competitors have been advertising for many months in a specific media, their ads are probably working.(p. 104)

=> familiarize yourself with advertising laws. Just because you're small doesn't mean you can ignore or avoid complying with laws regulating advertising.(p 120) There follows a page and a half of laws that might trip up a small business owner.

=> buy US postage stamps at less than their face value. Buy your stamps from a stamp dealer rather than the post office. Stamp dealers often buy stamps in quantity hoping they will go up in value.(p. 149) I really liked this one and * never * would have thought of it.

I could give many more examples, but that wouldn't be fair to Attard, who's obviously put blood & sweat into this book

Let me leave you with some more topics of interest:

=> using the web ferret for quick web searching => the when & how of yellow page ads => what's a press room & why you want to use it => your trade show toolbox -- what's in it & why => what you should know about credit card fraud

You're all getting used to the fact that I'm as much a stickler about the design of a book as I am about content.

This book is well laid out, the type is large enough to read easily, & typefaces are consistent through out the book.

The few gray boxes used are well placed & don't interrupt the flow of the text. My only dislike is this: to make the * tips * boxes stand out from the other gray boxes, all the text contained within them is underlined. They are the only part of the book I found difficult to read & found myself skipping over them most of the time. I know I missed valuable information because of it.

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Summary: Articulate, comprehensive, practical, reader-friendly.
Review: Janet Attard's Business Know-How tells how to make a small business profitable, from obtaining publicity and locating customers without expensive ad budgets to cutting business costs and becoming involved with the Internet. All are excellent business guides with practical information for those just starting out.

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Summary: Janet has outdone herself this time!
Review: Over the years I've come to expect excellence from Janet Attard -- whether at her website, in her books, or on her excellent AOL forums.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that, when reading her newest offering "Business Know-How," I was once again blown away by her ability to take topics that are near and dear to the hearts of all micro- and home-based business owners and make them not only helpful but enjoyable.

The subjects she covers are especially important for smaller businesses -- like how to keep your costs down and how to maximize your exposure and publicity (on and off line). The book is written in a very "user-friendly" style -- short, pointed paragraphs and lots of practical bullet charts and lists.

It's a must read and a good investment in your business.

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Summary: Must Have Business Book
Review: This is a must have business book to add to your shelf. It has very practical simple advise that you will want to start implementing right away.

Rating:
Summary: Must Have Business Book
Review: This is a must have business book to add to your shelf. It has very practical simple advise that you will want to start implementing right away.

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Summary: Great Advice For Running A Small Business
Review: While some books, such as "The Entrepreneurial Mindset" and my own "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur," are great at providing philosophical guidance and strategic insight into becoming an entrepreneur, other books are great at providing practical, hands-on information for dealing with specific, small business situations. "Business Know-How" provides excellent, hands-on information which will help you run your small or home business.

"Business Know-How" is jam-packed with hints, tips, resources, and suggestions for saving money, growing your sales, and running your business more effectively. The lessons are particularly useful to small and home-based businesses.

Half of U.S. small businesses are home-based. Attard says that although hard work and good products are necessary to succeed in small business, hard work and good products alone aren't enough. Attard writes: "To be successful, you need to know how to do business. You need to know the best ways to find customers, to sell to them, to use technology, to cut costs, and to deal with problems that inevitably arise. And you need to know how to do it all on a shoestring."

The First Chapter, Finding the Real Opportunities, will help you generate ideas for a new business. Attard suggests: "Businesses don't just happen. They are made... your success relies on what you bring to the business. If you love what you do, your passion for the business will drive you to be knowledgeable, creative, and persistent."

One of Attard's recommendations is "Look for Avalanches" which will help carry you in a successful direction. As an example, Attard discusses Cheyenne Software, which jumped on the Local Area Network trend by developing enhancements to Novell LANs. She also discusses demographic trends and points out a few particularly lucrative areas, such as corporate training. We learn that corporate training is a $50 billion market.

We also learn that African Americans represented a $300 billion market by 1994. Attard advises: "The secret to successfully targeting these and other cultural markets is to pay attention to your audience's heritage and lifestyle. Don't just replace pictures of white people with pictures of African Americans or Latinos, and don't translate English word for word into any other language. Your marketing efforts will fail if you do. Instead, tailor the sales literature or ads to accurately reflect the lifestyle of the targeted market."

But, your business doesn't need to be earth shattering or target a huge market. One of Attard's first businesses was making beanbags shaped like frogs. Attard writes: "I filled them with birdseed instead of beans to make them pliable and less lumpy to the touch. ... I could produce them quickly and kept my costs low by making the frogs from inexpensive fabric remains."

Attard also suggests considering "Mundane Moneymakers," such as home cleaning or plumbing for your start-up business. Attard writes: "The key to making money with the mundane is to sell something your customers can't do, don't want to do, don't have the time to do, or can't get done elsewhere."

As a great example of a mundane, but potentially profitable, business, Attard tells us about a doggy do-do clean-up business which cleans up doggy waste in dog owners' back yards. Now, there's a good example of an unromantic business! After a few years, the founding entrepreneur sold the company for a quarter of a million dollars.

(Passion for doggy clean-up probably doesn't last too long. Attard doesn't say how big a market doggy do-do clean-up represents. But with the help of her outstanding chapter on business research, you probably could make a fairly good estimate. Exercise for Entrepreneurship students: Estimate the market size of the doggy do-do business. Extra credit: Measure the market size in Kibbels N' Bits.)

Most of "Business Know-How" isn't about starting a business. It's about operating your business effectively.

One money saving tip from Business Know-How's Chapter, Keeping the Tax Collector at Bay, is "Employ Your Spouse and Deduct the Entire Amount of Your Medical Insurance Premiums."

Because there are limitations on the tax deductibility of medical insurance premiums providing coverage to sole proprietors and S-corporation owners who hold more than 2% of the corporate shares, but no such deductibility limits on health insurance coverage provided to your other employees, Attard suggests employing your spouse.

Attard writes: "There are no such limitations on the deductibility of medical insurance premiums you make on behalf of your employees, however. If your spouse is an employee of your business, the business can pay for (and deduct the cost of) his or her medical insurance. Your spouse would then add you as a dependent on his or her policy. This would make the entire premium deductible by your business as a business expense. If you don't have employees other than your spouse, and don't have any other good source of health insurance, this strategy offers significant tax savings by converting a personal expense to a [tax deductible] business expense."

Attard notes one important caveat. If you have other employees, you might be required by law to provide them the same health care coverage as your spouse.

"Business Know-How" has outstanding chapters about conducting business research, finding suppliers, shoestring marketing, selling to the government, home office equipment, and dealing with taxation of your home-based business. A primary focus of the book is saving money and reducing your costs, which is crucial to success. The book also provides a wealth of referrals to gather more information.

Peter Hupalo, Author of "Thinking Like An Entrepreneur."