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| Acknowledgments | |
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| About the Authors | |
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| Introduction | |
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| Who Should Buy This Book? | |
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| Why Is This Book Important? | |
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| What Topics Are Covered? | |
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| Why Are We Qualified to Write This Book? | |
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| How to Use This Book | |
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| Can You Be a Successful Entrepreneur? | |
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| What Do Successful Entrepreneurs Do? | |
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| Who Are Successful Entrepreneurs? | |
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| Key Definitions | |
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| Two Common Paths to Entrepreneurial Success | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| Basic Rules of Business Success | |
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| The 8 Common Start-Up Mistakes | |
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| Choosing a Bad Business Opportunity | |
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| Choosing the Wrong Customers | |
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| The Wrong Product | |
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| Pricing Products or Services Improperly | |
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| Not Selling to Enough Customers Fast Enough | |
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| Not Executing Well | |
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| People Problems | |
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| Mismanaging Growth | |
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| Basic Rules of Business Success | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| What Is a Good Business Opportunity? | |
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| Pencil It | |
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| The Best Sandwich Shop | |
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| What Is the Average Price You Can Sell Your Sandwiches For? | |
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| Competitors | |
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| Back to the Math | |
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| Children's Clothing Shop | |
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| Customer Conversion Ratio | |
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| Customer Conversion Rates | |
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| Two Different Types of Businesses | |
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| Estimating Your Costs | |
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| What Does Net Profit Margin Tell You About Costs? | |
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| Why Do You Need to Know Your Costs? | |
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| 7 Ws | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| How Do You Choose the Right Customers? | |
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| The Right Customers | |
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| Who Is a Prospect? | |
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| Example Survey Questions | |
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| The Competition | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| How Do You Design Your Product or Service? | |
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| Give Customers Only What They Truly Need | |
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| Features or Benefits | |
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| What Is Value? | |
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| Example: Enhancing Your Product/Service Value | |
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| Your "Reason for Being" | |
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| Low Innovation | |
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| It's Now Time to Build Your Product/Service | |
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| Can You Build or Produce It? | |
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| The Prototype-The Test | |
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| What Is a Prototype and How Does It Work? | |
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| Other Tips | |
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| 3 Ws | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| What Is the Right Price for Your Product or Service? | |
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| Competitive Pricing | |
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| Break-even Formula | |
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| Number of Products Required to Be Sold to Break Even | |
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| Additional Pricing Factors | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| How Can You Overcome Customer Inertia? | |
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| Obstacles to a Sale | |
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| The Risks of Buying from You | |
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| Making Sales Takes Practice | |
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| The Psychology of Sales | |
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| The Customer Buying Timeline | |
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| Time Is Your Enemy-Your Money Is Burning | |
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| Selling Is Like Fishing | |
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| Customer Referral Programs and Customer Loyalty Programs | |
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| Start with a Customer | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| How to Manage Your Business | |
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| Start-Up Overload | |
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| Your Value Chain | |
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| Your Supply Chain | |
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| Your Manufacturing (Assembling) Chain | |
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| Why Do You Flow Chart Your Business? | |
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| Management by Objectives | |
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| Management by Exceptions | |
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| The Power of Simplicity | |
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| Rule of 3s | |
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| Rule of 7s | |
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| Measurements and Rewards | |
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| Stay on the Front Lines | |
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| Iteration | |
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| Make Work Fun | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| How Do You Find and Keep Good Employees? | |
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| This People Stuff Is Hard | |
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| What Do Employees Want? | |
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| Why Is High Employee Turnover Bad? | |
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| Hire for Fit | |
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| Hiring Tools | |
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| Probationary Hiring | |
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| Buy-In | |
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| The Rules of the Game | |
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| Best Practices of Managing Employees | |
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| Promote from Within | |
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| The Meaning of Work | |
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| Mental Rehearsal | |
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| Mental Replay | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| How Do You Manage Growth? | |
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| Growth Can Be Good or Bad | |
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| The Two Absolutes | |
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| Process | |
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| Financing Growth | |
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| Financial Controls | |
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| Managing the Unexpected | |
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| People | |
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| Small Business Services | |
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| Check-Off | |
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| Legal | |
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| Legal Structure | |
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| Small Business Networks | |
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| Upgrading People | |
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| Customer Diversification | |
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| Growth Changes Your Job | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| Conclusion | |
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| Business Rules | |
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| Lessons Learned | |
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| Bibliography and Resources | |
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| Books | |
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| "Building a Company" Books | |
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| Business Strategy Books | |
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| Entrepreneurship Books | |
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| Family Business Books | |
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| Finance, Accounting, and Measurement Books | |
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| Leadership Books | |
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| Books on Lessons to Learn from Bad Leadership | |
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| Management Books | |
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| Marketing and Sales Books | |
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| Articles | |
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| Information Portals | |
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| Author's Commentaries | |
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| Index | |