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Hoover's Vision: Original Thinking for Business Success

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Have you ever begun a book at your normal reading speed, then felt forced to slow down because you might miss something? That's Hoover's Vision, from start to finish. This is the unusual book that you'll read carefully from cover to cover, then want to read again and use as a reference book. This is a book to treasure.

Why do I characterize Hoover's Vision this way? Let's begin with the author. Gary Hoover is an entrepreneur, a highly successful visionary entrepreneur. He's the sort of person that you listen to especially carefully if you meet him at a cocktail party. He started reading FORTUNE magazine when he was 12 and moved into a career with Citibank (securities analyst), May Department Stores (Manager of Strategic Planning), and then his first entrepreneurial venture. He created BOOKSTOP, an innovative large-space retail operation that he sold to Barnes & Noble for $40 million after just seven years. His work was the foundation of the now familiar book superstores. Then he went on to found Hoover's, Inc, the company behind Hoover's OnLine, a premier source for information about corporations.

Now, the book. Start with the introduction: The Art of Enterprise: Thinking Differently. Hoover explains that he has been on a mission to discover the reasons for success of enterprises of all kinds, what separates winners from losers. This book presents the findings of his 38 years of research. He suggests that the book is meant for people who own their own business or dream of creating one, for executives or leaders of departments or divisions of large organizations, for people charged with thinking strategically or who serve on boards of for-profit or not-for-profit enterprises, for those looking for enterprises to invest time or money in, and for those passionately devoted to goals achieve through the combined efforts of a group of people. A nugget I gleaned from this section was "Great businesses succeed because of their leaders' ability to see things that others do not see. To ask questions that others do not ask. And then to chart their own course, combining insights and strategies into the blueprint for a uniquely focused enterprise."
Hoover postulates that the secrets of success are 1. observing and understanding other people and how their needs, desires, interest, values and tastes change over time; 2. serving other people by making their lives better; and 3. developing a business style that expresses your own dreams and passions even as it serves the needs of others. He stresses the importance of learning new ways of thinking. Readers are now set-up to honor curiosity . . . right where Hoover wants us to be.

The first section of the book, Exploration, is organized into three sections: Curiosity: The Foundation of Creativity, History: The Study of Change Through Time, and Geography: The Study of the World Around Us. While I'm tempted to share some of the wealth of Hoover's nuggets of wisdom, I will restrain myself so you can enjoy this book unspoiled. Chapter after chapter will stimulate your thinking. Each chapter closes with "TryThis," a recommended exercise to extend and enrich the work done in each chapter. In his "Gateways" section at the end of chapters, Hoover recommends topic-related supplemental readings. As I read this book, I found my head bobbing up and down, then my pace slowing to look deeper and ponder a thought Hoover expressed. In chapter after chapter, Hoover covers things to watch and learn from. Each chapter is thought-provoking, which is the author's purpose.

Part 2, entitled Essence: The Power of Vision, explores vision from a number of directions. Here Hoover emphasizes clear and consistent visions, unique visions, the value of the customer and more. He demonstrates how vision makes a powerful difference in how the organization is driven and how successful it may become. When you can see your vision, you can go anywhere. Without a clear vision, you may go nowhere.

Part 3 focuses on Execution: Enterprises at Work. Hoover looks at various industries and enterprises, evaluating merger mania. customer focus, and the critical need of having the Right Stuff. Some appendices and a good table of contents round out the value of this provocative book.

Expect to move a bit slower than your normal reading pace. You'll gain a lot as you mull over ideas, consider alternatives, and feel your mind extending beyond your normal thought range.

Veteran entrepreneur Gary Hoover (founder of BOOKSTOP, Hoover's, and TravelFest) takes you through the ways he gets ideas to turn into new, differentiated business models for the start-up companies he founds.

The typical CEO business book is a history of one enterprise, along with a few key lessons wrapped around it.

Mr. Hoover has far exceeded that standard. He is a thoughtful and focused entrepreneur who has created a process to locate ways to help "people joining together to serve other people" succeed in ways different from what the established companies are doing. He points out that many entrepreneurs simply try to copy the business model of the leader or most effective company in an industry, and fail to do that well. The results are often disappointing.

Mr. Hoover's prescription is to use curiosity to expand your scope of awareness; establish a clear, consistent, unique, and service-inspired vision; and tie a customer focus with a passion that is energized by self-confidence, urgency, and a desire to make a difference.

To me, the core of the book was mostly found in chapters 28 (where he shows specific ideas to check out for new business models) and 32 (where he discusses the mental and emotional states required to succeed with inspired implementation).

The earlier material on curiosity will be most helpful to those who are not very familiar with the creativity literature, business model innovation history, and the major worldwide trends.

Every chapter includes a section called "Gateways" that points you towards book and materials that can expand your knowledge, and some chapters also have exercises to try that will expand your awareness and perception.

The book is filled with references to Southwest Airlines, Wal-Mart, and Dell Computer as models of companies that established better business models that embody the principles in the book. Mr. Hoover also makes modest and appropriate use of his own successes and failures as examples.

Although Mr. Hoover presents much interesting material for entrepreneurs, he feels that much of it is relevant to executives in existing companies. My own research shows that business model innovation in established companies is much different from doing it as a founding CEO of a start-up. So, I think this book is of primary value to those founding CEOs as they think through their next enterprise.

Use business model innovation to create enterprises that will better the world for everyone they touch upon!

Gary Hoover's book is just the thing for managers, executives and entrepreneurs who want to learn Hoover's unique methods for seeing and seizing opportunities for new business in markets of all types. If you've every had a chance to hear Hoover speak during one of his many lecture engagements, then you know just how dynamic his ideas can be. Pick up this book as soon as you can and you'll be dreaming up new business ideas of your own starting with page one!

While there are plenty of "business books" available by armchair CEOs, what made Gary's book stand out is his experience. When Michael Jordan talks about basketball people listen...and when Gary talks about business people listen. Here's why:

At the age of 30 Gary founded BOOKSTOP-the first bookstore super chain-which was acquired by Barnes & Noble in 1989 for $41.5 million. A year later he founded Hoover's, Inc. which became the world's largest internet-based provider of information about companies. Hoover's, Inc. sold in 2003 for $117 million.

Hoover's Vision offers a glimpse into the thoughts of one of the great business minds of the past two decades.

The book walks a fine line. On one side Gary uses examples from his entrepreneurial successes and failures to paint a picture of the principles that guide business today. On the other side Gary provides practical exercises throughout the book to bring the principles home.

Jason C. Steinle.

Gary's book is the right book to learn the principles for building your business, no matter what your business is or what size it is.

Gary's book is truly about vision -- about seeing truly what the landscape is about and what it could be, and developing the right path that indeed turns that vision into reality. Isaac Newton once remarked "Innovation is tough to sell." Isaac Newton was a vicious optimist. Beyond optimism is entrepreneuriality, as it takes steel-jawed resolve to create the future. Gary's book is nothing less than a manual for creating the future.

There are great books about business philosophy, and there are great books about business execution that are very rubber-meets-the-road.

Gary Hoover's book takes great business philosophy and vulcanizes right into one's tire treads.

In this intriguing volume, entrepreneur Gary Hoover, founder of Hoovers Inc., the corporate data Web site, lets readers tap into his lifetime of business experience. Much of his advice is intriguingly simple. To be a successful entrepreneur, Hoover says, figure out what people want, then find a way to give it to them. Hoover's instructions on thinking creatively are particularly useful. His observations about the state of global trade are, perhaps, less useful. Readers won't learn much from his pronouncements that China is poised to become the world's largest economy, or that India and Brazil have risky economies with great potential. Still, Hoover offers readers plenty of rewarding material about how to build their entrepreneurial curiosity and mental scope. We recommend this resource to entrepreneurs who want to hone their analytical skills.

Copying success is a waste of time, is the provocative observation of entrepreneur Gary Hoover. Instead, entrepreneurs and business managers need to develop our own, original views of the world. This mind-set requires curiosity, the study of history and geography, and the formation of their own unique vision. Hoover's Vision: Original Thinking For Business Success aptly describes how to employ those elements to identify trends and create commercial ventures to capitalize on them.

Every so often a book comes along that affirms everything you think about the world and the way you look at it. For me, "Hoover's Vision" is that book. Gary has this incredibly wide perspective on the world: he takes in everything; it all seems unrelated; he synthesizes the components into a whole; draws out the important lessons, ideas and trends; and then translates those ideas into a winning business model.

"Hoover Vision" lays out that process in detail. It seems like alchemy. His point: it's not. You need to discover what's out there, develop your unique perspective on the world, embody that perspective into your business idea, and then sell that vision to the world.

It's a beautiful thing.

Great Book! Combines original thinking with proven techniques to help business, association and entrepreneurs be more creative and to generate success! This is a book you need to dig into and think about and use the concepts. This is something we need in America. Think outside the box.

Success is often achieved because of a leader's ability to see things in ways that others do not.

Daily living is full of inputs and messages, says Gary Hoover, a former Wall Street securities analyst and bounder of BOOKSTOP and Hoover's, Inc. The successful leader strives and thrives on formulating unique and creative interpretations of them. The way the most innovative, successful people do this, he says, is to:
* Possess an open and absorbent mind.
* Understand complexity.
* Understand the difference between the expected and the serendipitous.
* Recognize details that others do not.

For enterprises to be successful, Hoover says, their leaders have to appreciate how historic trends are impacting and will impact their organizations. For instance, the author notes that the baby boom, the largest single population bulge in United States history, impacts business in different ways as those in the generation age.

Hoover suggests transforming your business vision into your enterprise's reason for being. To be easily communicated to your employees, the vision must be clear, consistent and have a central service focus. To sustain that vision and reap the harvest of success, the author notes, you will have and demonstrate passion, persistence, energy, self-confidence, an inclination towards action, individuality and leadership.