Book Review - The Small Business Bible

The Small Business Bible by Steven D. Strauss is absolutely fabulous! Every new entrepreneur should stop whatever they are doing and read this book right now. This book is a great overview of every aspect of business for all forms of business. It doesn't matter if your going to work from home or start a franchise. It doesn't matter if you have $100 to start your business or $10,000,000, you need to read this book.

One of the things I liked about the book is it will help you figure out what kind of an entrepreneur you are (or if you are one at all). It gives realistic looks at the different kinds of risks that an entrepreneur would take and helps you find out if you can handle that much risk.

This is the perfect book to read if you no nothing about starting a business. It is a wonderful overview of the entire business cycle. There is a great section on writing a business plan and there is a full sample business plan in the appendix. Strauss lists out the common expenses so you can be realistic about what it will take to get your business going for the first six months.

Strauss is a lawyer who has some really good legal insights. He not only describes all the different business forms, he gives advice on which ones would probably be the best for you. He talks about the various up front costs, tax benefits, and legal protections each kind of business structure offers. It's in nice and friendly English, no legalese anywhere.

You may not need/want to read the entire book because there are different sections for different types of businesses. If you are going to work at home you would want to read that section, but could skip it otherwise. The same goes for the franchise sections. There is some good advice for how to start a franchise and what to look for in a franchise. There is even a couple running the business on a shoestring sections which is great for me!

My one complaint about the book is that it wasn't always as detailed as I would like. This this is easily forgiving because of its breadth of knowledge. It's good to think of this book somewhat like a business encyclopedia. It will have a little but on everything but details on nothing.

All in all, everyone who is thinking about starting a business should read this book. It won't answer every question, but it will get the ball rolling. This will help you figure out where to start and what to do next.

1 Comments:

I liked this book as well and thought that it would be a valuable addition to any new entrepreneur's library. For an overview-type book, it was quite thorough in addressing the many different areas that a small business owner will need to consider. I thought that the legal section, in particular, was valuable -- Steven's background as an attorney certainly served him well in writing this section. As you mentioned as well, I liked that he began by addressing the traits of an entrepreneur. I'm a huge fan of small businesses, but I also believe that not everyone is meant to be a small business owner. Being honest with yourself up front about your skills and abilities is critical; don't skip this step in evaluating if small business ownership is right for you!

Lisa
www.StartYourOwnSmallBiz.com

By  Lisa Sperow, at February 21, 2011 at 2:19 PM  

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