The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up (Hardcover)

by Norm Brodsky (Author), Bo Burlingham (Author)
Key Phrases: records storage business, creeping expenses, sales mentality, The Knack, Point Four, Point Three (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Brodsky and Burlingham, both Inc. magazine columnists, offer a host of advice to budding businesspeople in this thoughtful guide. Having seen businesses fail and succeed, the authors have served as mentors to a wide variety of self-starters and use their experiences as object lessons. The book focuses mainly on big-picture practicalities—the protection of startup capital and the necessity of focusing on high–profit-margin sales—but also expounds on overcoming the sales mindset in favor of the entrepreneurial mentality and facing mistakes with grace and an eye to learning. With a clear, conversational style, the authors give advice on raising capital, maintaining relationships with banks and lenders, customer relations, dealing with unexpected roadblocks and hiring good management. But in the end, they contend that entrepreneurship is not only a passion but a way to achieve a happier, richer, fuller life for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren—and with the right mental habits and skills, anyone can achieve entrepreneurial success. Encouraging, succinct and informative, this is an excellent guide for anyone looking to dive into a new business or expand an existing one. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Brodsky and Burlingham offer an excellent handbook for entrepreneurs, stressing the thinking necessary to deal with many different situations and to identify and capture opportunities as they arise. Brodsky is an entrepreneur and mentor for numerous other entrepreneurs, and the authors use the experiences of one small business as an example of the challenges and growing pains common to all new ventures and what the owners learned along the way to their success. Excellent attention to detail is provided, including the basics of accounting, establishing a goal, determining the viability of a business, and the importance of gross profit. Each chapter, which concludes with important summary points, covers a critical step in a start-up journey including the “right stuff,“ handling inevitable mistakes; why start-ups fail; finding investors; how to lose customers; and what it takes to be the boss. This road map for success should be required reading for those planning a new venture, and will appeal to a wide range of library patrons. Excellent book. --Mary Whaley

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (October 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591842212
• ISBN-13: 978-1591842217
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #54,837 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A toolbox that every executive must have, October 9, 2008

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As I began to read this book, I was reminded of comments by then CEO Jack Welch at one of GE's annual meetings when he explained why he admired entrepreneurial companies: "For one, they communicate better. Without the din and prattle of bureaucracy, people listen as well as talk; and since there are fewer of them they generally know and understand each other. Second, small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace. Third, in small companies, with fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen. Their performance and its impact are clear to everyone. And, finally, smaller companies waste less. They spend less time in endless reviews and approvals and politics and paper drills. They have fewer people; therefore they can only do the important things. Their people are free to direct their energy and attention toward the marketplace rather than fighting bureaucracy."

Although there is a great deal of valuable material in this book for those who are planning to launch a new company or have only recently done so, what Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham provide can also be of substantial value to all other executives who also wish to establish and then sustain the kind of a company that Welch describes. Their choice of a first-person narrator is a wise one because it ensures an immediate and personal rapport with the reader. Presumably the voice is Brodsky's. but those who have read Burlingham's Small Giants will immediately realize that Brodsky speaks for both of them. It should also be noted that Brodsky launched seven successful start-ups and now provides a monthly column, "Street Smarts," in Inc. magazine.

They are impiricists whose insights are based a wealth of real-world experience; they are also pragmatists who understand what works...and what doesn't...in the contemporary business world. The "toolbox" metaphor is especially appropriate because the reader will find in this single source just about all they need to achieve and then sustain success. For example, in the first two chapters, Brodsky and Burlingham explain how to

Make the right decisions
Manage cash flow properly
Balance the sales mentality with the business mentality
Anticipate and then prepare for changes with analytics

Be resilient when countering failure and learn from it
Identify root cause rather than respond only to symptoms
Balance focus and discipline with resiliency
Recognize answers and solutions with peripheral vision

Then in Chapters Nine and Fourteen, Brodsky and Burlingham explain how to

Build relationships that retain your most profitable customers
Help those customers to become "smarter buyers" by understanding your business
Treat long-time customers like new prospects so they won't feel taken for granted
Allocate sufficient time for face-time with customers

Select salespeople who will be appropriate representatives of the company
Determine criteria for determining who should not be hired to sell
Compensate salespeople to avoid internal competition and division
Involve all other employees as an extended sales force

My references to "how to" are deliberate because all of Brodsky and Burlingham's suggestions and recommendations throughout their lively narrative are results-driven. They also explain various "how not to's" so that the reader can avoid unfavorable results. (As noted in the Introduction, "A smart person learns from his or her mistakes. A wise person learns from other people's mistakes.") In this context, I am reminded of what Peter Drucker said in a Harvard Business Review article in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."

To repeat, this book will be of great value of those preparing to launch a new company or have only recently done so. It will also help an owner/CEO of a small company that is currently struggling to survive, especially given recent developments. But it will also be of substantial value to other executives who are under many of the same pressure to produce more and better (fill in the blank) in less time and at a lower cost, to retain both valued workers and valued customers, and meanwhile to be well-prepared to respond effectively to inevitable changes in the given competitive marketplace. Over a period of several decades, Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham have acquired the "street smarts" needed to cope with these pressures, and share them in this book. It is a brilliant achievement for which I congratulate them. Now it is up to their readers to absorb and digest the material, then apply what has been learned with both passion and determination. The choice is theirs.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Resource for Entrepreneurs at Every Stage, October 3, 2008

By	Steven K. Gold "Serial Entrepreneur & Author ... (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Norm Brodsky has been a hero of mine for many years through his column in Inc. Magazine. His advice is a mixture of common sense and pragmatism -- ideas that make sense and can be used right away -- something that Brodsky and Burlingham provide in spades in their new book. The Knack isn't your typical guide to entrepreneurship. You're not going to learn about whether you should incorporate or form a LLC, or the latest marketing tactics. Rather, it's filled with stories about real entrepreneurs that illustrate several "Big Picture" concepts. In essence, this book will get (or keep) you thinking about fundamental ideas that can make your business more successful, including the value of focus, and the critical role for certain metrics. As a serial entrepreneur and teacher of entrepreneurship, I highly recommend The Knack and suggest that it's an investment that will provide a very high rate of return over the years.

Steven K. Gold
Author of Entrepreneur's Notebook: Practical Advice for Starting a New Business Venture

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For anyone who is considering becoming an entrepreneur and wants to become a better business owner, November 29, 2008

By	Craig Matteson (Ann Arbor, MI) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Almost everyone dreams of having their own business. Unfortunately, most of those who dream about having their own business dream about "not having a boss", which is exactly wrong. Every customer is your boss, and the best owners even work to serve their employees rather than trying to bully them into the right behaviors. If you want to understand how you have to think and what you have to learn to do as an entrepreneur you really should read this book. Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham have written a terrific guide to help you understand what it means to have "the knack" of being a successful entrepreneur. Whether you already have these skills or are willing to work hard to learn them, you simply must have them in order to meet the challenges every startup business faces.

They show you what it means to have a viable business idea, not a dream you are merely passionate about, but also doing the hard work of fitting that dream into the hard reality of business, competition, and financials. Not only do you not want to give away your money to customers and vendors without reward for yourself, you simply cannot do so indefinitely. You must make a profit to justify the operations and paying yourself for your hard work and the risks you take.

The book has seventeen short chapters that average fifteen to twenty pages each. The authors make everything real by telling stories from their own consulting, from businesses they know, and from people they have rubbed elbows with. After the showing you how to evaluate a business plan for viability, they take you through the importance of perseverance, being able to look at yourself and your business clearly and without excuse, discipline, and how to see solutions. You then get to see that businesses fail because they build businesses for which there is no demand (competitors can be a good thing because they demonstrate market viability), why starting a business is better than buying one, why a simple business is good, and why your time is precious. And you get to see what it takes to get money to back your business and the pitfalls that many startups face in the money markets.

Most entrepreneurs are not trained in financials or accounting, but the authors show that they key numbers you have to know are your gross sales, gross margins, how to spot your own key indicators so you can watch your business in real time, the vital nature of your cash flow numbers, and what EBITDA is (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) and why you should look at that as well as knowing your net income number. Entrepreneurs also need to be great negotiators and the authors show you how to do it with listening, and open mind, assuming that your negotiating partner is smarter and knows more than you, looking behind the apparent, and realizing that the best deals can leave both sides feeling a little unfulfilled. Along with this, they show you why you must be able to sell and how you can learn to offer what it is your customers want. This will become your niche for a time, but you also have to learn to follow how the market wants you to change. Of course, your reputation is key to your success and they show you why.

Most new business people are anxious to land any deal, but soon learn that some customers are not worth having, some deals end up costing you money, and other deals can absorb so much of your time and resources that you can't make profitable and quick sales. You should also learn that price cutting is the last resort of the desperate and is often the prelude to your exit from the marketplace. Brodsky and Burlingham also teach you the importance of repeat customers and how to create them along with the nightmare of driving good customers away (some before they ever make their first purchase).

I especially enjoyed their discussion on the decision to grow. Too many entrepreneurs pursue growth as if it were a given and without much consideration to the fact that growth is a means not an end in itself. You have to know why you want to grow, how you should do it, and where you want to be at every step along the way. You should choose to grow rather than following the path of rapid growth and sudden death that too many businesspeople follow. Growth will also require you to hire employees. The transition from the guy or gal who does everything to becoming the boss who works through other people is difficult for many entrepreneurs. They like doing the work of the business and find the abstractness of managing others to do that work strange and unappealing. OK. But if you don't learn how to do that your business will experience pains that will cause it to shrink down to your capacity to do those tasks (and it may even fail). The one thing you can't delegate is the spirit, culture, and the team spirit of the company. You have to get the employees (and customers) working with you and not against you.

The authors offer solid advice on building your salesteam. Heed what they have to say and don't try to take a shortcut by poaching salespeople from your competitors because you will weaken your own position with them and probably overpay for their "help". They also show you how to identify when you need outside help (such as legal and accounting help) and how to get the right fit for your business. You will also need to prepare now so you will be ready when your business enters a new stage. Finally, they teach you how to develop your employees, especially your salesteam, and your personal enthusiasm is crucial for business success.

This is a terrific book and I give it my strongest recommendation. Even if you are just thinking or dreaming of starting a business, you will find this both an entertaining and informative read. Enjoy and learn!

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI