Product Description

Starting a business is easy! Successfully running a business can be a challenge. Jim Muehlhausen has traveled the country collecting best and worst practices from business owners. The 51 Fatal Business Errors provides a quick and easy format to learn from other business owner's successes and failures. Each error contains a real-life example and definitive action-steps needed to improve your business. The 51 Fatal Business Errors is not full of fancy theories or fluff. It is chock-full of real-world experience learned at the world's most expensive business school: The School of Hard Knocks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90235 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• 192 pages

Review
Anyone can own a business, to be a professional CEO, you need to practice the techniques taught in this book --John Murray, CEO, Counter Intelligence. I continually review my copy of the 51 Fatal Business Errors. As a business owner, there are many daily decisions that to be made.....it s nice to rely on such a great tool. --Jeff Hastings, President, I.S.E.. The 51 Fatal Business Errors is a power-packed and most useful tool. Different that many business books that try to draw the reader in with stories and case studies, this one simply hits fifty-one crucial areas that small business leaders need to be excellent in, shows the common error(s) that many CEOs make, and offers a solution for every one. Every business owner will find at least one idea in this volume that could make or save them thousands of dollars. --Dan Devling, President, Midland Radio Corporation

I continually review my copy of the 51 Fatal Business Errors. As a business owner, there are many daily decisions that to be made.....it s nice to rely on such a great tool. --Jeff Hastings, President, I.S.E.

The 51 Fatal Business Errors is a power-packed and most useful tool. Different that many business books that try to draw the reader in with stories and case studies, this one simply hits fifty-one crucial areas that small business leaders need to be excellent in, shows the common error(s) that many CEOs make, and offers a solution for every one. Every business owner will find at least one idea in this volume that could make or save them thousands of dollars. --Dan Devling, President, Midland Radio Corporation

About the Author
Over the past eight years, Jim Muehlhausen C.P.A., J.D. has traveled the country speaking to business owners as well as has personally coached hundreds of business owners in over 3000 face-to-face coaching sessions. Jim will now share a condensed, everything you need to know version of those 3000+ coaching sessions in this book. Before becoming a full-time business coach, Jim Muehlhausen became the youngest franchisee in Meineke Discount Muffler history. The first time he set foot in a store, he set the single-day corporate store sales record. He ended up with three successful locations and sold the businesses for a healthy profit. Jim then started a manufacturing company that he ran for nine years. In 1999 Jim s company was honored by Inc. Magazine and Michael Porter from Harvard Business School as the 53rd fastest growing company in the Inc. ICC 100.

Customer Reviews

51 business errors and how to fix them. Which are afflicting your company?
If you play golf, you know that you cannot stand over the ball and fill your head with all the possible bad shots you might hit and expect to hit a good shot. In performance you must focus on what you are trying to accomplish rather than on what you might do wrong. However, when not in active performance it is good to analyze your performance for weaknesses, mistakes, and all the details you might improve. This book is for those times.

Jim Muehlausen provides a book for small businessmen (and women), especially entrepreneurs, full of common mistakes that can prevent your success and actually lead to business failure. This book has 51 common business mistakes and most of us who have worked in business have seen most of them made at one time or another. Maybe we have made a few of them ourselves.

Each mistake is explained in a paragraph or two, a brief real life example is given, and a solution for the problem is offered. About half of the problems also have boldface paragraphs where the author really gets in your face about this problem. A few of these problems contain a bonus that you can view on the web.

The author offers a subscription web service to help you improve you business that is based on this book. You don't need to subscribe to benefit from this book, but I thought you should know that the author will try to sell you that service as your read this book.

The book deals with errors that have to do with hiring, organization, selling & marketing, how you lead, common worst practices, and the errors that flow from trying to be the only one in your company who can actually do anything and then blaming everyone else when things go wrong.

I like this book and you might benefit from it, too.

No, I did not subscribe to the service.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Reference manual for success
I was blown away by the content in this book. The 51 Fatal Business Errors is more like a reference manual for successfully operating a profitable business. As someone who has started and run several different businesses, I only have time for practical, real-world advice and ideas. 51 Fatal Business Errors definitely delivers in that regard. I highly recommend this book for any business owner or anybody who wants to become one, while avoiding the many pitfalls too many of us have tended to make.

No-nonsence, practical advice for every small business owner...
Deciding what books to accept/read/review can be a rather eclectic process for me. One of my genres is business books, and author Jim Muehlhausen offered me a review copy of his book The 51 Fatal Business Errors and How to Avoid Them. Although I'm quite far behind in books to read and review, I accepted because it looked interesting and he also had the same last name of my sister-in-law. Not too many Muehlhausens running around that I've seen. Fortunately, my luck paid off, as 51 Fatal Errors is an excellent book filled with practical advice for the CEO of any small business. He cuts through the conventional wisdom hype and the "fad d'jour" to offer up solid ways to keep yourself on track (and out of the bankruptcy courts).

Contents:
Introduction - Using the Gym Membership; Enter At Your Own Risk; What's Good for G.E. Isn't Always Good for G.E.; Is It Time to Fire Your C.E.O.? (Yes, I'm Talking About You); Best and Worst Practices; Mule-Kicks; What Now?

Muehlhausen is a business coach who has worked with thousands of people and groups to help them succeed in the business world. From that experience, he's distilled 51 "fatal errors" that, if not caught and dealt with, could mean rough times for your organization. For instance, right out of the gate we get Fatal Error #1 - Hiring Your Competitor's Rejects. You may think that you'd never hire the worst people that your competitor let go. But think about it. For some reason, the previous employer didn't think this person was valuable enough to keep at any price. Yes, there are people who are let go or who leave that are exceptions to the "reject" rule. But the odds of you being able to deduce the exceptions from the rules every time are very small. Do keep your eyes open for the stellar individual you might want to hire away or that left through no fault of their own. But also pay attention to finding high-aptitude people who can be trained for a position, and that will become great. Another one that was eye-opening was Fatal Error #14 - Paying Yourself Below Market Value. Many small-business CEOs feel they can't take a salary out of the business as they need to plow all of the profits back into the business. But realistically, that means you're giving the business an artificial subsidy that will never be paid back. Paying yourself *some* level of salary avoids the temptation to view the business as more profitable that it actually is, and puts you in a more realistic mindset as to how the business is doing.

The format of each chapter (one fatal error per chapter) is concise and easy to follow. There's the explanation of the error, a real-life example, a solution, a "mule-kick" (a jolt of reality), and a place to jot down notes. There's also quite often a "bonus" which is a reference to his website for more information or actual forms/products to use. Written in a blunt, no-nonsense style, it's nearly impossible not to find at least a handful of mistakes you're currently making. Couple that with solutions that are also just about as blunt, and you have a guidebook that will serve you well as you try and become a success in the business world. And trust me, you'll get a whole lot more out of this book than you will from some hot business guru who is touting their "fad d'jour"...