The Boss of You: Everything A Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run, and Maintain Her Own Business [Paperback]

Emira Mears (Author), Lauren Bacon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2008

Female entrepreneurs are a growing force to be reckoned with. Each year, more and more women take the initiative and start their own business ventures—at twice the rate of men. Women continue to reshape the business world with innovative models, both large and small. So why is there a lack of clear-cut, expert advice aimed at this dynamic female audience?

In The Boss of You, Emira Mears and Lauren Bacon, founders of Raised Eyebrow Web Studios Inc. and co-editors of the well-known webzine Soapboxgirls, set out to answer this question. As intelligent entrepreneurs and straightforward writers, Emira and Lauren offer insight into beginning—and sustaining—small businesses from the female perspective. Peppered with stories from women who have been there, from cautionary tales to success stories, The Boss of You provides readers with real advice and career options that will allow them to live their values and achieve their own version of work-life balance.

Whether you are an established professional or an entrepreneurial newbie, The Boss of You is the definitive guidebook for starting, maintaining, and enjoying your own business.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Female entrepreneurs start businesses at twice the rate of their male counterparts , and in this book they will find a practical compendium of everything there is to know about launching and sustaining a small business. Mears and Bacon emphasize building an individualized business plan and developing a firm foundation by establishing clear goals, frankly evaluating your skills and refining answers to the Big Questions: what are you really selling? Who is your target audience? How should you best package your business's public image? The authors cover the fundamentals of crafting a mission statement, developing branding, handling finances and legal issues, hiring good employees and expanding your business with admirable clarity, bolstered by success stories, helpful exercises and sample budgets. Women with dreams of owning their own businesses and looking for a place to start will find much to aid them—and much to enjoy—in this thoughtful guide. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Web design partners and strategists and now coauthors Mears and Bacon make sure that the rational side is well-prepared before venturing into a new business, with lots of straightforward talk. Take finances: there’s not only a laundry list of all the money angles to consider but also a sample budget to help a wannabe manufacturer figure out the cost of goods sold. They’ll walk you through a naming session, complete with defining mission, personality, and target audience. And possibly overwhelm you with marketing and business-building ideas, including PR, advertising, collateral, and networking. Sidebars expand in a lively fashion on some of the hottest trends, like blogging and business coaches. Then, there’s the quieter and realistic side, handling “the ease with which we find ourselves sacrificing our own basic needs in the quest to succeed.” --Barbara Jacobs

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Seal Press (April 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580052363
• ISBN-13: 978-1580052368
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #112,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #82 in Books > Business & Investing > Women & Business

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I have to recommend this book to wanta-be entrepreneurs as a small business book worthy of being purchased and read., May 9, 2008

By 

Jeff Lippincott "JLIPPIN" (Princeton, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Boss of You: Everything A Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run, and Maintain Her Own Business (Paperback)

This book was pretty good. The authors have written a small business book that includes what most other startup guides or workbooks include that are packed with good content on the subject. However, these ladies have written the book specifically targeting young women or stay-at-home moms. The writing style is very similar to the book by Michelle Goodman entitled "The Anti 9-5 Guide" (ISBN: 1580051863).

Interestingly "The Boss of You" is endorsed by Ms. Goodman and it shares the same publisher as Ms. Goodman's book. And we learn from reading the book that the authors and Ms. Goodman have become friendly while writing the book. If you liked Ms. Goodman's book, then you will like this book, too - I'm pretty sure.

This book is full of questions a wanta-be entrepreneur needs to ask when trying to conceptualize a startup and get it up and running. In a way this was a workbook as well as a guide. Early in the book there are exercises that the authors want the reader to complete in writing. I thought that was wonderful. They cover the following topics quickly and well:

1. Business goals
2. Success
3. Identify your strengths (and weaknesses)
4. Identify your product and/or services
5. Identify who you are going to sell to
6. Figure out your costs
7. Create an appropriate and good name for the biz
8. Jot all this down in some sort of a plan

I would have liked the book more if it had gone more heavily into home-based businesses and Internet marketing. It's my hunch that those topics are on the mark with the target audience of this book. I also would have liked to have seen a discussion of a formal business plan. I know the authors say there probably is no need to write a formal plan, but they do indicate some sort of plan is a good idea. By providing a brief overview of a formal plan the reader could put together a "some sort of plan."

The authors talk about having formed a partnership when they started their Web design business in 2000. And they talk about the importance of having a written Partnership Agreement. But on the back cover of the book the name of their company has an INC at the end of it. So did they start a partnership or did they start a corporation? The book doesn't say much about Choice of Legal Entity - either theirs or the options available. I personally would recommend that readers consider a Limited Liability Company (LLC)instead of a mere partnership. And for the multi-member variety of LLC I would highly recommend creating a written Operating Agreement which is much like a partnership agreement.

I loved the little sidebars in this book. And I thought the book was well outlined. However, it came across a little wordy in the beginning for me when it was clear the authors were trying to create a certain feel for the book and cater to young women and housewives. That just was not my cup of tea. But the book is packed with good real life experiences and words of wisdom from two ladies (and others) who have successfully started their own small business. And, as a result, I have to recommend this book to wanta-be entrepreneurs as a small business book worthy of being purchased and read. 4 stars!

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I am simply blown away..., September 29, 2008

By 

Dawn Anderson (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Boss of You: Everything A Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run, and Maintain Her Own Business (Paperback)

I started my own publishing business in 2006 and am wanting to recreate it. I came across this book at the library and have been amazed by the way it has opened up my relationship to my business. The authors avoid business jargon (actually, they pleasantly mock it) and present their information and exercises in simple language. I believe that has been the key, for me, in reveling in this book.

This is the first entrepreneurial book I've read that wasn't about me trying to fit myself into a bunch of business jargon. It allowed me to ask "How will I take these business aspects of myself and present them to the world?" The book still leads me through the process of creating a business, but I would have to say, it internalizes the process. A few years ago, I did the business plan, set the goals, researched the markets, etc, and while that was useful for organizing my mind and timeline, somehow, it removed "me" from my business. What business calls "branding", the authors call "personality" and with that simple language, it clicked for me.

This is a book targeted for women business owners, but it is not exclusive to them. It presents an organic, feeling approach to creating a business, and that is exactly what was missing for me from all the other business start-up books I've read. I truly hope people can recognize that the approach this book takes with helping a person develop their business is a vital one - our current economy is demanding that we recreate how we do business and this book sets up an approach that gets it right from the start. The authors show how I can be a business-owner and be happy, and they do it without a lot of hype.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just another 'cod liver oil' business book, June 5, 2008

By 

S. Field (Vancouver, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Boss of You: Everything A Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run, and Maintain Her Own Business (Paperback)

Having started my own business "accidently" - one contract led to another, led to another and before I knew it I was juggling clients - I hadn't done a lot of the planning they discuss in the first half of the book. So despite already being up and running, reading this book was a fantastic opportunity to bring some clarity/structure to what I was doing. Its so easy when you are self employed to never turn down work and The Boss of You, really helped me identify what work is good for me and my business to be doing, and what stuff I should be trying to phase out of. I help businesses plan and develop their own communications. A lot of my clients are new businesses and haven't necessarily done all of the thinking/planning that Mears/Bacon walk readers through - it was helpful to be given a framework to help my clients do that on the way to identifying what their messaging is. And, the book was a refreshing departure from what I call the "cod liver oil" business books - good for you but yucky. Nice to be able to enjoy something that was good for me. The humour was greatly appreciated.