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Be the Elephant

by Steve Kaplan

(Workman Pub Co, 224 Pages)

Get big! A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Business Week bestseller, Steve Kaplan’s 2005 book Bag the Elephant helped smart businesspeople win and keep those all-important elephants—the big, make-or-break customers. Now Be the Elephant shows businesspeople how to grow their businesses and become bigger. Steve Kaplan has owned 35 businesses, sold 30 of them, and has consulted with more than 100 companies, helping them to grow. Be the Elephant combines dynamic advice, deep real-life experience, and a friendly, no-nonsense writing style to take the mystery and fear out of achieving significant business growth. Kaplan gets readers to understand, without blinkers or delusion, the exact nature of their business. He then shows how to define objectives, identify risks, and get the operation on solid footing in preparation for growth. There are tips on creating the right strategy; how to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of business growth—grow too slow and wither, or grow too fast and lose control; how to create a timeline; develop the all-important USP—unique selling proposition; and avoid the Five Killer Mistakes that can ruin your company. The book is illustrated throughout, including, of course, the many faces of Nellie the elephant.

No Man's Land

by Doug Tatum

(Portfolio, 256 Pages)

If starting a company is difficult, leading a company once the business has caught fire is infinitely more so. Thousands each year approach the dangerous transition that Doug Tatum calls No Man’s Land—when they are too big to be considered small but still too small to be considered big.

Rapid growth is every entrepreneur’s dream, but it never comes easily and is usually rife with dilemmas. During No Man’s Land, as in human adolescence, such growth should spark self- discovery, acquired discipline, and positive but difficult transition. Unfortunately, it often becomes an agonizing battle between the natural tendencies of a lonely entrepreneur and certain immutable laws of growth. The result is confusion, frustration, stagnation, loss of employee morale, and, at worst, financial failure.

Sounds pretty bleak. The good news is that Doug Tatum knows exactly what it takes to get through No Man’s Land: a map, a high place from which to orient yourself, and navigational rules to help you track your progress. And these tools are here in this book.

Through case studies and stories of successes and failures, No Man’s Land will help you learn how to:
* Align your growing company with its market.
* Execute the necessary changes in your management.
* Confirm that your financial model is scalable.
* Attract money and make smart decisions about financing your business.

If you’re an entrepreneur, this book will help you make your company all it can be and all you want it to be. It will prepare you for a ride that just might be wilder than you ever imagined.