Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46812 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 312 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781580052368
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Female entrepreneurs start businesses at twice the rate of their male counterparts , and in this book they will find a practical compendium of everything there is to know about launching and sustaining a small business. Mears and Bacon emphasize building an individualized business plan and developing a firm foundation by establishing clear goals, frankly evaluating your skills and refining answers to the Big Questions: what are you really selling? Who is your target audience? How should you best package your business's public image? The authors cover the fundamentals of crafting a mission statement, developing branding, handling finances and legal issues, hiring good employees and expanding your business with admirable clarity, bolstered by success stories, helpful exercises and sample budgets. Women with dreams of owning their own businesses and looking for a place to start will find much to aid them—and much to enjoy—in this thoughtful guide. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Web design partners and strategists and now coauthors Mears and Bacon make sure that the rational side is well-prepared before venturing into a new business, with lots of straightforward talk. Take finances: there’s not only a laundry list of all the money angles to consider but also a sample budget to help a wannabe manufacturer figure out the cost of goods sold. They’ll walk you through a naming session, complete with defining mission, personality, and target audience. And possibly overwhelm you with marketing and business-building ideas, including PR, advertising, collateral, and networking. Sidebars expand in a lively fashion on some of the hottest trends, like blogging and business coaches. Then, there’s the quieter and realistic side, handling “the ease with which we find ourselves sacrificing our own basic needs in the quest to succeed.” --Barbara Jacobs

Review
"On bad days, when the boss demands the impossible or the office politics are particularly toxic, it's comforting to think you could just walk away. Start your own business, stop being an employee. Be your own boss. It may be a fantasy that might fade on better days, but if the idea of working for yourself is more than a vague concept, two Vancouver entrepreneurs want to help you make it real. Lauren Bacon and Emira Mears launched their Web site design and development company eight years ago, and have just published a guide to assist other women who dream of having their own business. The Boss of You (Seal Press, $15.95), is an engaging book that mixes business basics, worksheets to help hone an idea, as well as personal stories from Ms. Bacon, Ms. Mears and other entrepreneurs across the country and the United States." -- Financial Post Business, June 30, 2008

Canadian entrepreneurs Mears and Bacon offer their personal experiences in setting up their web-design company, as well as real-life scenarios from dozens of other women in start-up ventures. After helping readers define the vision for their business and understand why they need to be their own boss, this practical guide follows the stages of a start-up and offers down-to-earth advice backed up with real-life scenarios. -- Library Journal, March 15, 2008

Female entrepreneurs start businesses at twice the rate of their male counterparts, and in this book they will find a practical compendium of everything there is to know about launching and sustaining a small business. Mears and Bacon emphasize building an individualized business plan and developing a firm foundation by establishing clear goals, frankly evaluating your skills and refining answers to the "Big Questions": what are you really selling? Who is your target audience? How should you best package your business's public image? The authors cover the fundamentals of crafting a mission statement, developing branding, handling finances and legal issues, hiring good employees and expanding your business with admirable clarity, bolstered by success stories, helpful exercises and sample budgets. Women with dreams of owning their own businesses and looking for a place to start will find much to aid them--and much to enjoy--in this thoughtful guide. -- Publishers Weekly, March 3, 2008

The ultimate Bible for female entrepreneurs, this book covers everything from creating a marketing plan and hiring employees to handling legal issues and firing a friend. Plus, it's written in a quirky, light-hearted tone that is a joy to read. --WOW! Women on Writing, November/December 2008

Who should read it: First-time women entrepreneurs who like the idea of starting small and working with people they know.

Why this book stands out: Few business books have the courage to go for the humble angle that this one does. Before creating their startup, Raised Eyebrow Web Studio, authors Mears and Bacon noticed that every business book "seemed to assume that every businessperson was pushing for big growth, plenty of staff and massive profits." The authors, however, took a different approach. "We knew that we wanted to start out small (just the two of us), work with people we loved and grow at a sustainable rate over time while still being paid what we were worth."

Because it doesn't give the mainstream "grow big and fast" message on business, the book offers unconventional advice on running a business where every aspect of it is close to your heart. -- Entrepreneur.com, March 04, 2008

Customer Reviews

I have to recommend this book to wanta-be entrepreneurs as a small business book worthy of being purchased and read.

This book was pretty good. The authors have written a small business book that includes what most other startup guides or workbooks include that are packed with good content on the subject. However, these ladies have written the book specifically targeting young women or stay-at-home moms. The writing style is very similar to the book by Michelle Goodman entitled "The Anti 9-5 Guide" (ISBN: 1580051863).

Interestingly "The Boss of You" is endorsed by Ms. Goodman and it shares the same publisher as Ms. Goodman's book. And we learn from reading the book that the authors and Ms. Goodman have become friendly while writing the book. If you liked Ms. Goodman's book, then you will like this book, too - I'm pretty sure.

This book is full of questions a wanta-be entrepreneur needs to ask when trying to conceptualize a startup and get it up and running. In a way this was a workbook as well as a guide. Early in the book there are exercises that the authors want the reader to complete in writing. I thought that was wonderful. They cover the following topics quickly and well:

1. Business goals
2. Success
3. Identify your strengths (and weaknesses)
4. Identify your product and/or services
5. Identify who you are going to sell to
6. Figure out your costs
7. Create an appropriate and good name for the biz
8. Jot all this down in some sort of a plan

I would have liked the book more if it had gone more heavily into home-based businesses and Internet marketing. It's my hunch that those topics are on the mark with the target audience of this book. I also would have liked to have seen a discussion of a formal business plan. I know the authors say there probably is no need to write a formal plan, but they do indicate some sort of plan is a good idea. By providing a brief overview of a formal plan the reader could put together a "some sort of plan."

The authors talk about having formed a partnership when they started their Web design business in 2000. And they talk about the importance of having a written Partnership Agreement. But on the back cover of the book the name of their company has an INC at the end of it. So did they start a partnership or did they start a corporation? The book doesn't say much about Choice of Legal Entity - either theirs or the options available. I personally would recommend that readers consider a Limited Liability Company (LLC)instead of a mere partnership. And for the multi-member variety of LLC I would highly recommend creating a written Operating Agreement which is much like a partnership agreement.

I loved the little sidebars in this book. And I thought the book was well outlined. However, it came across a little wordy in the beginning for me when it was clear the authors were trying to create a certain feel for the book and cater to young women and housewives. That just was not my cup of tea. But the book is packed with good real life experiences and words of wisdom from two ladies (and others) who have successfully started their own small business. And, as a result, I have to recommend this book to wanta-be entrepreneurs as a small business book worthy of being purchased and read. 4 stars!

I am simply blown away...
I started my own publishing business in 2006 and am wanting to recreate it. I came across this book at the library and have been amazed by the way it has opened up my relationship to my business. The authors avoid business jargon (actually, they pleasantly mock it) and present their information and exercises in simple language. I believe that has been the key, for me, in reveling in this book.

This is the first entrepreneurial book I've read that wasn't about me trying to fit myself into a bunch of business jargon. It allowed me to ask "How will I take these business aspects of myself and present them to the world?" The book still leads me through the process of creating a business, but I would have to say, it internalizes the process. A few years ago, I did the business plan, set the goals, researched the markets, etc, and while that was useful for organizing my mind and timeline, somehow, it removed "me" from my business. What business calls "branding", the authors call "personality" and with that simple language, it clicked for me.

This is a book targeted for women business owners, but it is not exclusive to them. It presents an organic, feeling approach to creating a business, and that is exactly what was missing for me from all the other business start-up books I've read. I truly hope people can recognize that the approach this book takes with helping a person develop their business is a vital one - our current economy is demanding that we recreate how we do business and this book sets up an approach that gets it right from the start. The authors show how I can be a business-owner and be happy, and they do it without a lot of hype.

Not just another 'cod liver oil' business book
Having started my own business "accidently" - one contract led to another, led to another and before I knew it I was juggling clients - I hadn't done a lot of the planning they discuss in the first half of the book. So despite already being up and running, reading this book was a fantastic opportunity to bring some clarity/structure to what I was doing. Its so easy when you are self employed to never turn down work and The Boss of You, really helped me identify what work is good for me and my business to be doing, and what stuff I should be trying to phase out of. I help businesses plan and develop their own communications. A lot of my clients are new businesses and haven't necessarily done all of the thinking/planning that Mears/Bacon walk readers through - it was helpful to be given a framework to help my clients do that on the way to identifying what their messaging is. And, the book was a refreshing departure from what I call the "cod liver oil" business books - good for you but yucky. Nice to be able to enjoy something that was good for me. The humour was greatly appreciated.