The Small Business Owner's Manual: Everything You Need to Know to Start Up and Run Your Business

This is an excellent book that gives practical, invaluable and enlightening advice to entrepreneurs. It covers a wide range of relevant topics including such areas as the start-up process, marketing the business on a small budget, cash-flow forecasting, resource gathering, business plans, legal entities, financing, e-commerce/e-business and insurance and it does so in a simple and remarkably engaging manner. Joe Kennedy's life as a `successful entrepreneur is fascinating and inspiring, and his first class education coupled with his wealth of entrepreneurial success, give his advice and insights the maximum credibility. He reinforces his message with interesting, witty and enlightening stories. The book is an invaluable resource to any person who is either currently involved or thinking about getting involved in any type of new venture. The book is an excellent companion that contains a wealth of useful and helpful information and ideas on starting a small business and ensuring that it is viable and successful that is well worth having.

When I signed up with an Internet company they sent me a copy of this book as some kind of promotion but it's well worth the full retail price. Sometimes "sign up" gifts turn out to be not so good but I do get a lot of mileage out of Kennedy's new book. Many entrepreneurs (like me!) are very good in one particular area, say e-commerce, but are not so aware of the many other facets of running a business - and that's why this book is great. I am an Internet kind of guy but "The Small Business Owner's Manual" or "TSBOM" as they call it has a lot of relevant info on building and promoting web sites and e-stores, however there are also has several chapters of very solid material in the other dimensions of running a business - like forming the entity and "hiring and firing" and minimizing taxes and my favorite part is when the book explains a businesses' "unique selling proposition." I keep it on the shelf just behind my desk and whenever something comes up this is often the first place I look. Even though I am happy to jump to the Internet, this book is better and faster than most searches, since it's focused on small business owners and not on selling something and it is solid information and not a lot of obvious things you already knew. PS The book also has an Internet site, [...], where you can ask the author questions - which he does answer - and there are free downloads of most commonly used business documents and agreements. It's nice to get a coffee cup as a promotional gift but this book is about operating a serious business. If Kennedy ever writes a new version I'll buy it.

I operate a media-related business and let's just say I like dealing with people more than some of the nitty-gritty details of running a business. Since my business is growing I needed advice in many different areas like hiring employees or contractors, getting my accounting finished, finding an attorney/partner and all of the different taxes that must be reported and paid. Believe me all of this can be a headache to those who just want to concentrate on a business they are passionate about, so I like this book because it gets down to details without going through a lot of obvious or useless information. The author (Joe Kennedy) also provides a lot of comments on how these things really manifest in the real-world. For example he explains about how some taxes should be reported and paid exactly on time to avoid problems, but he gives examples of others where business owners can fudge a little. This alone can pay for the book many times over. I also like how the information is organized. Everything is explained in macro terms as each section begins, but then heavy-duty details follow. So you can open up to just about any section (for example payroll taxes or medical savings accounts) and get right into it. Finally get ready because the book is thick with information but the writing style makes it easy to follow. I recommend reading one chapter per day over two weeks and this will allow time to think about all of the new information overnight. The only problem I saw with the book is that the chapters on Hiring/Firing and Taxes were maybe a bit too long but who can complain for getting too much information? This is not one of those "feel-good" cheerleader type business books, but instead offers lots and lots of practical information that you will need every day. The web site [...] is also useful especially as they add more and more documents to the document downloads section. Readers get free access to the goodies on this site. Jeff Heckler, The Solutions Group

I have operated a consulting and services firm for many years now and purchased this book as soon as it was available. At first I thought "so what can I learn from a book at this point" but there is some really good stuff here that made this an important read in bringing me up to date in some areas, and in consolidating my knowledge in others. For example, there is a chapter on web sites and e-stores. I have had a site up for some years now but the book brings out a lot of important new concepts. Heck, things change. Kennedy (the author) makes a good point that a web site is never finished but is always a marketing work-in-progress. He describes many possibilities but the book is grounded in reality since he understands that small businesses cannot try everything like bigger firms. So now I reduced my marketing budget away from some print ads and I am getting better results through a Search Engine Marketing program outlined in the book. This alone is saving me about $200 per month. The book also does an excellent job of outlining many types of insurance that can be considered (I knew something about all of these but, as Kennedy points out, the "half-life" of insurance information is very short) and this is the only summary I have ever seen and is a must-read for any business owner. He also outlines about ten new financing sources that can be considered but perhaps most importantly gives a realistic assessment of when each should be considered abd when to not waste your time. Finally our business now accepts credit cards for retainer payments and this is the first description I have ever seen about how the entire system works, and why the word "approved" doesn't really mean approved at all. In summary, my business has been in operation for many years and I have much experience in many of these areas but the book was a real help and I will be keeping it in my office as a reference.

Recently, I just started a brand new business. I have read alot of books of this type in the last few months, but I truly like this one the best. Mr Kennedy's place in the market is that he has owned and operated many small businesses, and has worked with many business people in just about all the industries it seems. So he talks from the perspective of someone who has actually lived through all of this and he werites from the perspective of an entrepreneur who knows how to manage people and operate businesses. That is a lot different from someone who writes because they are a writer, or because the need to sell extra books at seminars. Consequently, Mr. Kennedy knows how to keep it short and tellwhat an entrepreneur needs to know--not too much and not too little. He is right in that business owners want to know enought to make an informed decision and keep moving. Mr. Kennedy has an MBA in marketing and he shares his knowledge with the reader, because you can see this in separate chapters dedicated to sales and marketing. He is very up to date on the Internet and E-Commerce, and says somewhere that he knows everyone can do searches these days and he doesn't want to just provide the same material that can be found easily in a Google search. I found this to be true. On the other hand, he knows business owners don't want to read an entire book on a particular subject, and they don't want a lot of extra fluff to puff out a book. So, he keeps to the essentials and therefore very covers a lot of territory in the 312 pages that I read, rather than overkill in just a few areas. I like his writing style, since it is very quick to the point and informative, yet easy to follow along. There are also many real-life stories that he tells in a humorous way that reinforce lessons from the book. There are many other books out in this same niche, but this is the only good one I could find written by someone who actually has current up-to-date experience in operating and growing a small business. I give this book 10 stars!