Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs and over 670,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle – Amazon’s new wireless reading device. Learn more

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
Kindle Edition
Read the Kindle edition on Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, and Mac.
 
   
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
More Buying Choices
27 used & new from $6.48
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside another edition of this book
Start reading Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs on your Kindle in under a minute.

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Norm Brodsky (Author), Bo Burlingham (Author)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
List Price: $25.95
Price: $10.38 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $15.57 (60%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Want it delivered Thursday, September 9? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
15 new from $6.98 12 used from $6.48
This is a bargain book and quantities are limited. Bargain books are new but could include a small mark from the publisher and an Amazon.com price sticker identifying them as such. See details.

Formats

 Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition --   $9.99 --
Hardcover, Bargain Price $10.38   $6.98 $6.48
Paperback $10.88   $6.87 $6.00
Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged $26.39   $22.78 $45.02
Audible Audio Edition, Unabridged $13.63 or $7.49 with new Audible.com membership

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Frequently Bought Together

The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up + Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big + Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell
Price For All Three: $33.47

Some of these items ship sooner than the others. Show details

Buy the selected items together

  • In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham Paperback$10.88

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell by John Warrillow Paperback$12.21

    Usually ships within 1 to 4 months.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

by Bo Burlingham
4.5 out of 5 stars (48)  $10.88
Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell

Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell

by John Warrillow
4.8 out of 5 stars (24)  $12.21
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll.

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll.

by Mike Michalowicz
4.8 out of 5 stars (225)  $17.96
The Accidental Entrepreneur: The 50 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Starting a Business

The Accidental Entrepreneur: The 50 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Starting a Business

by Susan Urquhart-Brown
4.8 out of 5 stars (6)  $14.00
Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat (Agora Series)

Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat (Agora Series)

by Michael Masterson
4.4 out of 5 stars (74)  $23.07
› Explore similar items

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
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (October 2, 2008)
  • ISBN-10: 1591842212
  • ASIN: B002BWQ56S
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #30,569 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Authors

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Bo Burlingham
Bo Burlingham
Norm Brodsky
Norm Brodsky

Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
records storage business, creeping expenses, sales mentality, messenger business, percent gross margin
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
The Knack, Point Four, Point Three, Point Two, Perfect Courier, Ask Norm Dear Norm, New York, The Bottom Line Point One, Hot Pants, Ones That Get Away, Good Sales, The One Thing You Can't Delegate, Teacher Appears, The Right Stuff, Bad Sales, Team Sport, Magic Numbers, Need Somebody, The Night Stuff, The Art of the Deal, Lose Customers, Groundhog Day, Becoming the Boss, Park Avenue, Long Island
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up
80% buy the item featured on this page:
The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up by Norm Brodsky Hardcover 4.7 out of 5 stars (38)
$10.38
Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big
6% buy
Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big by Bo Burlingham Paperback 4.5 out of 5 stars (48)
$10.88
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll.
6% buy
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll. by Mike Michalowicz Hardcover 4.8 out of 5 stars (225)
$17.96
Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell
5% buy
Built to Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell by John Warrillow Paperback 4.8 out of 5 stars (24)
$12.21
› Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(6)
(4)
(3)
(3)
(3)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
Agree with these tags?
See all 19 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags
 

Customer Reviews

38 Reviews
5 star:
 (31)
4 star:
 (4)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (38 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A toolbox that every executive must have, October 9, 2008
This review is from: The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up (Hardcover)

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.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Resource for Entrepreneurs at Every Stage, October 3, 2008
This review is from: The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up (Hardcover)
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
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Helpful to Get Your Started, July 8, 2009
By rry007 (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Knack: How Street-Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up (Hardcover)
This is an excellent book for anyone thinking about starting their own business. It tells you how to think and what you need to understand in order to run a small business, from understanding cash flow to understanding and nurturing a healthy relationship with your bank to treating customers. The chapters are relatively short, and Brodsky talks alot about the companies he started, and what he learned from them. He breaks down gross margin, why the customers with the highest gross margins are the most important (and not sales), what makes a good business plan (and what makes a bad one), and what numbers are important to look at (EBITDA).

One of the best parts of the book is when he discussed whether or not to grow a company. Once people reach a certain level of success, they feel that the next natural step is to expand. Brodsky discusses what you really have to think about before you decide to expand: things such as how much money do you need to expand, why you want to grow, and how you should do it.

Another part I thought was noteworthy was the discussion on letting go of the day-to-day activities and hiring a manager. Not that I'm at that point, or will be in the future, but its an interesting take on how to view the transition.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone starting a business: it is informative and entertaining. Trust me, it doesn't drag.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Business book every biz owner should have or at least read once
I've read abt 80 business books (I have notes written from most of them) over the past years - this one stands out in particular. Read more
Published 15 days ago by C. Cheong

5.0 out of 5 stars Put your highlighter away please
You will end up painting the book yellow.
Robert Morris is correct in his statement that all executes need...err should read this book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Tabatabaei, Ehsan

3.0 out of 5 stars good info, but slow moving and sometimes basic
This book was excellent in parts, but I felt it could have been edited down to be able half the length. Read more
Published 2 months ago by C. Small

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth buying more copies
I originally purchased this as an audio book. It is not only readable but a wealth of information and insights for anyone in business or thinking of going into business. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Robert Adams

5.0 out of 5 stars The Knack
I bought this book a couple of years ago and decided to pick it up and read it again. Reading it for the second time gives you perspective on what small to medium size business... Read more
Published 5 months ago by M. Bommarito

3.0 out of 5 stars A very personal exploration of business development and entrepreneurship.
I thought the first quarter of the book was pretty basic, anyone with experience in a business planning class will have gone through similar material, but it was a good review... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Dan Burleigh

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the Best Book Ever for Startup Entrepreneurs
It's been a long time since I've read a book on running a business that is written so well, and provides practical, real world examples from the author's experience. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Daniel Limbach

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply phenomenal
Basic information that unfortunately gets overlooked when most people get out and start businesses. Essential.
Published 7 months ago by Keith Cappuccio

5.0 out of 5 stars A captivating book that also serves a reference material
I wish I had Norm as a business adviser when I started out. As I read this book I was completely captivated from beginning to the end. Read more
Published 7 months ago by mopman

4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful War Stories Distilled into Thought-Provoking Perspectives
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Professor Donald Mitchell

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   


Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:















i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.