The Complete Entrepreneur: The Only Book You'll Ever Need to Manage Risk and Build Your Business Wealth

The Complete Entrepreneur is a must have for any aspiring business owner. Personally I have fallen prey to many of the unrealistic schemes, or often scams, that are advertised on television and promoted as "easy" ways to get rich quick. If only I would have read this book several years ago it would have saved me a lot of time and money. It is a REALISTIC version of what it takes to become successful in the real world.It is very well organized, and written down to earth for anyone to understand and enjoy. It clearly dictates things I did not understand years ago, namely the patience one must go throgh in dealing with the struggles and challenges of being successful, and frequent mistakes you should avoid. Unlike many others, this book is not about FLUFF, and should be taken as a priceless and required handbook for becoming a successful entrepreneur. It paints a picture of so many lessons that are better learned sooner than later, and uses comical examples to nail the point down. I attended the UW-Madison for four years, and college does not teach you the lessons you can get from Mark's book. I'd highly recommend it to anyone serious about being a successful entrepreneur. Read it, read it again, follow the lessons in here, and then succeed.We've all heard the phrase, Most learn from their own mistakes, but "smart people learn from other peoples mistakes." These are the individuals that often become successful sooner. This book will help you to do just that.

Homer Simpson, the obese, slow-witted, and reproachable patriarch of Fox TV's notorious cartoon sitcom, The Simpsons, once said the following when looking at a colleagues farcical misfortune: 'It's funny because it is happening to somebody else.' That one comment aptly summarizes Mark A. Peterson's guide for, or shall I say warning to aspiring entrepreneurs. Taken one way, the complete entrepreneur is a riot, a side-splitting, witty, and very cynical account of the often wild and crazy world of the entrepreneur. Taken another way, the book is a sobering look at the challenges, pitfalls, and (often) titanic struggle the entrepreneur must immerse oneself in to build wealth in his or her enterprise. Make no mistake, this book is deadly serious about its chosen topic, building wealth in a fledgling enterprise. Peterson asserts boldly that the entrepreneur is in business to build wealth, and that wealth building can only be achieved via patience, successful time management, and most importantly, taking prudent risks. You will not find the usual how to start a home business verbiage here, nor will you be inundated with a lot of marketing hype and promotional spin. What you will find in this book is a lot of skillfully crafted, highly readable lessons about those little, but often fatal things that run an infant enterprise aground. These things are, by the way, the very things that all the high brow business books avoid. In the book, you will learn, among other things, about the various kinds of risks the entrepreneur faces in being in and doing business and how to ameliorate (lessen) them. You will also learn about how banks and lease providers really think and view your operation (whether well-run or mismanaged), and most crucially, you will learn a more realistic way of viewing your customers and employees. Unlike the other entrepreneurial books which present you with a formulaic outline for a successful business, this book adds a hefty, sobering dose of reality to the pot, and gives the reader the much needed jaded, experienced outlook of a seasoned entrepreneurial pro without the years of pain, frustration, lost wealth, and failure. All the other business books out there make it sound so simple, so easy to start, build and maintain a profitable, successful business, and I just keep saying to myself as I read them, it just can't be this easy. As someone looking for the real deal on start-ups, Peterson's wry sarcasm is infectious. I laughed out loud more than a few times while reading this book. Every business rule he states is followed by an often comical example of how it was broken. Though I often shook my head and swore that I would never do this or that, I am personally aware of individuals and corporations, from aspiring entrepreneurs to seasoned professionals, who have gone out and done many of the not-so-smart things he lectures against. Peterson dispenses with the follow-the-ten-easy-steps

This book is written in a format that is very easy to learn. It couples practical advice written by the author with some real-world examples of the ideas applications (or lack thereof). Highly recommended!

Enjoyed reading this book. My partner and I are using it to guide us through our first start-up business. Hopefully, we've learned the lessons. It was great to find all the answers about business in one place. The reading was easy and you could literally start from any page in the book and not feel like you missed the first 10 chapters. Strongly recommend this to anyone starting a business, whether you think you know what you're doing or not

This book could have saved me two or three businesses if it had been written a few years back. It's practical, understandable, and well written. Humorous, too