Rich Kids - Paul Barry

The story of Australia's One.Tel.

Cat o'Nine Tales - Jeffrey Archer

Not so good.

Gunpowder Empire - Harry Turtledove

Cheaters - J.R. Carroll

More Lawrence Block

It's gonna take until 2007 but I'm planning to read through all of Lawrence Block's series.

I'll list the books that I read here.

Hit Man
The Burglar on the Prowl
The Burglar in the Library

Making Dough - Kazanjian and Joyner

A very positive view of the history of Krispy Kreme.

- a continuous factory line that sells retail.
- marketing then is on freshness of the bake goods (right off the line)

Total Poker - David Spanier

Hit Parade - Lawrence Block

Hunters of Dune

First part of two. The finale to Frank Herbert's Dune saga.

The Biggest Game in Town - Al Alvarez

The Agenda - Michael Hammer

A whole bunch of Stephen Frey

The Inner Sanctum
The Chairman
Shadow Account
The Day Trader

How to Make Big Money in your own Small Business - Jeffrey J. Fox

The Small Business Owner's Success Blueprint

1. Wirte a one-page description of why your business will succeed. And everyone must get it.
2. Know that there are customers for your business.
3. Calculate your breakevens.
4. Calculate the size of your market
5. Know why you can sell the minimum number of needed customers/generate the minimum needed revenue
6. Know how to identify, attract, get, and keep customers
7. Know how much money will be needed to get started, or to keep going
8. Know why a money source should make the money available to you
9. Know your product or service's points-of-difference (USP), and price that difference to its value to the customers (vs pricing to cover costs)
10. Know how to provide or deliver the product or service
11. Know what kind of people, if any, you will need, and have a plan to hire them
12. Know where your business will be located
13. Have a good name for your business
14. Be a rainmaker. Start selling and never stop!

Do what comes easy to you, but is hard for others.

Don't snub any business.

First: Have a customer. Get the customer. Keep the customer.
Selling is job 1.
Hire a salesperson first.
Hire ex-paperboys.

Priorities

• Focus on marketing and selling
• keep existing business
• grow existing business
• get new business
• do pricing, billing, collections
• have cash
• meet payroll
• have excellent people
• listen carefully to everyone
• train people
• have excellent product quality, defined by the customer
• know how your product or service is different from the competition
• set goals
• delegate tasks down, down
• coddle suppliers
• coddle lenders
• review expenditures over a cutoff amt ($1K US)
• complete necessary administrative tasks now
  

Have a penny saver not pincher.
Pay steak, eat hot dog.
Pick up paper clips, but overspend on customers.

Four Latin phrases

• quid pro quo - something for something
• carpe diem - seize the day
• illigitimi non carborundum - don't let the bastards (illegitimates) get you down
• aspirando et perseverando - aspire and persevere
  

60-30-10 Rules
market, make manage
keeping and growing, getting new short term, getting long term
enhancing strengths, learning new concepts, fixing weaknesses
winners, potential, others

Take fortune over fame.

Always price to value.

Customers only buy products for two reasons: 1) to solve a problem; or 2)to feel good, or some combination. For 1) the seller dollarizes the value of the solution, price just less than the value. For 2) the customer dollarizes the value. This will help how to express the value to a potential customer.

Alway take profitable business. (note a proviso from Innovator's Dilemma)

Never run out of cash.

Have regular billing and pricing meetings.

Take and keep contemporaneous notes.

You are working when you are not working. Never let anyone outwork you.

Work on the business, not just in the business (e-myth)

Strike out often. Accept nos and failures. It's okay to strike out often, not okay to strike out always.

The C's of business. customer, cash, collection, credit, costs, closing, confidence, calm, commitment.

Sign 500 Holiday cards.

Small business daily to-to list

• exercise
• reach out to new customers
• contact existing customers
• sell to existing
• achieve one important objective
• execute a marketing event
• do one important task
• train and employee
• listen to all employees. talk to them.
• inspect product quality
• inspect work on delegated tasks
• review progress to goals
• return all calls

Basically two types of small businesses: 1) lifestyle companies managed to provide the owner income; and 2) companies managed to be sold.

Smartsourcing - Thomas M. Koulopoulos

Destination Imagination

Creative Problem Solving (CPS) Alex F. Osborn

Creative Education Foundation

BetaBatt

Each age of humanity passes through incredible changes in society, economics, and technology, but common thread among all of these transformations has been the move towards integration of global disparity.

- In some ways, since the 'first' tribe of humanity people have been able to disperse into seperate silos of whatever cumulating into today's globalization structures. But at this 'limit' the world is reorganizing again into virtualized niches.

Taking Chances - John Haigh

Winning with Probability

In 6/49 lottos, the order of popularity of the numbers chosen are 7, 11, 3, 9, 5, 27, 31, 8, 17...

Least popular numbers ... 30, 46, 38, 45, 20, 41, 48, 39, 40

The "Kelly" Strategy

In unfavorable games, bold play is best, timid play is worst. Bold play means making as few bets as possible.

The Triumph of Numbers - I.B. Cohen

How Counting Shaped Modern Life

A collection of essays on the evolution of counting and statistics.

Interesting bits:

• How the Egyptian pyramids were built.
• The early days counting was the state taking a census for taxation or to determine the size of an army that could be raised
  

Ordinary Heros - Scott Turow

A different setting from his usual Kindle County law thrillers but the usual fine writing from Turow.

H2O : A Biography of Water

A very well written and engrossing book on just water!

Philip Ball ably narrates a lyrical tale of this simple molecule from the origins of the cosmos down to the atomic levels, how it flows on Earth and in our bodies, and from folklore to modern sciences. Easy to follow and constantly fascinating.

Highly recommended.