Adams Streetwise Small Business Start-Up: Your Comprehensive Guide to Starting and Managing a Business (Adams Streetwise Series)

Bob Adams

This layman's guide to establishing a small business not only explains the daunting challenge of getting started but helps readers through the even more intimidating processes necessary to keep the operation running. Packed with detailed instructions and colorful, illustrated examples, Small Business Start-Up is a neatly organized and easy-to-follow book. Even though Adams uses plainspoken language, he covers a comprehensive range of subjects, such as creating press kits, hiring strategies, the pros and cons of advertising mediums, and lessons in accounting. His advice is logical and straightforward, and will appeal mainly to those new to the world of business. He demonstrates that with enough foresight, knowledge, and self-motivation, it is possible to build a successful business--without a $50,000 MBA. --Cate Bick

1 A complete "how to" workshop under one cover
Bob Adams' Small Business Start-Up: Your Comprehensive Guide To Starting And Managing A Business is a complete "how to" workshop under one cover and provides the aspiring entrepreneur and small business proprietor. Every aspect of aspect of getting a business up and running is comprehensively covered beginning with developing a business strategy and plan, to advertising, promotion and publicity, to financing, cash management, and employee recruitment. Regardless of the service or product your anticipated venture will be producing for today's highly competitive marketplace, begin with a thorough, cover-to-cover reading of Bob Adams' Small Business Start-Up.

2 I sent it back!
If you are in the kindergarden and you need a book, take this one

3 This could be the only business guide you'll ever need.
Whether you are planning to start a business or already own one, the Adams Streetwise Small Business Start-Up could be the only business guide you'll ever need. Organized into eight major sections covering strategy, marketing, sales, advertising, people, money, legal, and office, this book takes you from the very basics of starting a business through how to get the best and most effective marketing for your particular situation. It helps you deal with people problems that can waste your time and money. And it always keeps your eyes focused on your sales, costs and profits.

4 A cartoonish oversimplification of a complex subject
What do you look for in a business book? If you answered weird-looking fonts, cartoonish graphics, and breezy text, then Bob Adams' "Streetwise Small Business Start-Up" may be for you.

Bob went to Harvard, but don't worry, this book won't be over your head. Mr. Adams' tips are long on folksy charm and short on hard facts. Often, he simply points out the obvious. Example (p.99): "Consumers tend to pay a lot more attention to feature coverage in newspapers, television, and radio than they do to advertising." You don't say, Bob?

Mr. Adams tries to jazz up his limp writing by using strange fonts and dingbats, plenty of (uninformative) graphics, and even tilting whole pages diagonally, but these gimmicks merely underscore the book's emptiness. The graphics throughout are as vapid are as the text, and look like they were snatched from a bargain-basement clip-art collection.

Would-be entrepreneurs, do yourself a favor and buy a different book.

5 Excellent foundation book-hits a lick on all aspects.
Great reference book for starting a business. Covers all aspects from accounting & tax issues to marketing, and much more. I heartily recommend this book in all my seminars. Very useful three way presentation style: in depth; Q & A; and stories with graphics. One of them is bound to match your learning style.

6 Full of easy to understand advice for any small business
This book is not just for start-ups. It's for anyone operating or considering starting a small business. Bob Adams knows his stuff. Not because he's some guy from Harvard, but because he has been through the small business wars.

The book presents information in short, easy to digest bites, and runs the gamut from where to get ideas for a business, to hiring your first employee, to firing your first employee, to selling the business. And everything in between. Legal matters, cash management, customer service, taxes, accounting, buying equipment...

I really like the Q&A sections for each topic and the use of bullets and lists. They make it easy to find what you are looking for without having to hunt for it.

My only complaint is that you have to order a separate CD to get templates and forms, but even without them this book is a bargain

Ed Martin Small Business Information Guide http://sbinformation.miningco.com

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