Small Business Trends

A few years ago I stumbled onto a website called “Escape from Cubicle Nation.”  At the time I remember thinking, ‘this is the BEST name’ for a target audience of corporate employees longing to start (or who had recently started) businesses of their own.

I could identify with it.  After all, I once had been in cubicle nation and left to start my own business.  How well I knew the feeling that the name evoked — it truly felt like an escape.

Eventually I “met” the owner of that website, a former corporate trainer by the name of Pam Slim, virtually over the Web.  For the past several years I have enjoyed reading online her outlook on life and business.

So I was thrilled to receive a review…

If there is anything that small business owners can agree on, it’s that leadership isn’t what it used to be.

Whenever I get together with any group of business people, it seems that the consensus is that we seem to be running a little short on inspiring leaders in all facets of life.

I refuse to participate in that conversation. It’s easy to criticize and complain about the state of business or leadership. What’s more difficult is actually knowing and using leadership behaviors and making a difference.

This is where my latest read comes in.

“The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life” is a book that will show you how ordinary business leaders were placed in unbelievably difficult conditions and made changes…

The biggest mistake we small business owners can make is being too general and trying to be all things to all people. It seems counter-intuitive to focus your sales and marketing on one segment and appear to ignore or reject another.

But if you want to be successful, that’s what you have to do.  Find a niche and serve it.

But how are you supposed to do that? This has always caused me frustration – and I do this for a living! So when I heard about this new book “Riches in Niches,” I had to get it. At first, I was giddy with anticipation to get the book because I always think that the next book that lands in my mailbox will be the holy grail of…

It shouldn’t surprise any of you that I’m reading and reviewing Emanuel Rosen’s “The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited:  Real-Life Lessons in Word-of-Mouth Marketing.” Any book that’s going to get the word out and get me and my clients chosen over another alternative is very high on my reading list.

I read the “Anatomy of Buzz” years ago and thought that this version might be the same thing with a few updates here and there. But it isn’t. There is actually so much updating, that I experienced this book in a whole new way.

So, if you’re like me and have the previous version — don’t overlook this one.  There are a ton of new insights and updates for today’s economy, technology and culture that will make the…

How many success books do you have on your shelf? I’ve just counted mine and there are exactly 32 of them. This does not include the 20 or so that I’ve loaned out and forgotten about. So why would I bother adding another one to the mix?

You know why. Because you either read success books - and read them all. Or you don’t. It’s like trying one diet after another, losing weight and then packing it back on only to start another diet. It’s because we love that euphoric, dreamy feeling when we read a success book title and all the health and wealth it promises. We love the inspirational language, the whack-on -the-side-of-the-head insight and the promise of a life that will somehow be…

Several weeks ago we ran a giveaway of Dan Schawbel’s new book, “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success” (see original announcement).

We asked you as readers to give us YOUR best personal branding tip in the comments section. There were 47 excellent responses. (Thank you, everyone!) Using the Randomizer tool, we randomly chose 5 lucky winners to receive copies of Dan’s book.

Here are the 5 winners and the tips they shared on personal branding:

Cecilia Edwards:
“A brand is people’s expectation of their interaction with you based upon perceptions of past interactions. Therefore, I believe that a strong and valuable personal brand can be established by focusing more on solving others problems and less on promoting yourself. While doing this, always make it easy…

We are giving away 5 copies of the new book by Dan Schawbel that’s making waves, “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success.”  (See the review of Me 2.0 by Ivana Taylor, our book editor.)

For a chance to win a copy of the book, all you have to do is give us YOUR best personal branding tip, by leaving a comment below.

Out of the tips we get, we will randomly choose 5 people to receive a book (courtesy of the author). I’m happy to say, this drawing is open to readers anywhere in the world. You have until Monday, April 13, 2009 at 11:59pm California time to leave your tip and be entered in the random drawing.

To get your creative juices flowing to think up a good tip, we’ve…