Street Smarts: An All-Purpose Tool Kit for Entrepreneurs Paperback – February 23, 2010

Great book

This is a great book that reads like a very practical, informative, and sometimes entertaining business reference guide. The book contains the accumulation of knowledge, experiences, and advice given in the authors' column in Inc. magazine. It is a great book for: (1) new or aspiring entrepreneurs, (2) executives in establshed small/medium sized companies, (3) 2nd tier executives in small/medium companies, (4) 2nd generation family business leaders, (5) bankers who lend to small and medium sized businesses, and (6) government officials who deal with small and medium businesses as part of their job. All will benefit from understanding the mindset, the thinking, and the energy that goes into succesfully managing a small or medium sized business.

It is an easy read, plain and simple he wrote it in layman's terms so you don't need a college degree to understand the book. Bo is very insightful and lays a lot of the groundwork for the average Joe who wants to become their own boss. One is example he used was how he started a bike messenger company in the late 1980s, sounds like a simple concept right. Wrong he said the cost of acquire customers was much higher than he expected because the services he provided were new to the market. Bo said up until that point the firms would just send a secretary out in a cab for a few hours to make any crosstown deliveries. The secretaries liked this they got to leave the office and get a change of scenery. The other thing was the firms were set in their ways. Eventually Bo prevailed and had a large cap company with 9 figure working capital. Ironic to is the title of the book because he has a knack for breaking down complex problems to their simplest form then he works from the ground up. Bo also takes on about ten new people each year to mentor. The man should be a professor, lastly the man also has a column in INC magazine that has been published for the last 20 years. This is a quintessential book for anybody thinking about becoming their own boss.

Amazing read for any entrepreneur at any stage.

There are many tips on this book I can implement. I particularly liked four ideas:a) Letting people know it is ok if they don't want to do business when they are not calling back.b) Working on the customer culture inside and outside the company.c) Walking visitors to their car.d) Walking away from a bad negotiation a little unhappy. It is akin to "a bad compromise is always better than a good fight".This is the first book I've read that has recognized there are some parties with whom you can hardly negotiate at all, and suggests having both parties walk away a little unhappy.Very good book, where the main message is "make your life-plan first, and your business-plan second".

This book is an invaluable resource for start-ups and small businesses who want to get wise on how to avoid pitfalls and common mistakes in running/growing a business. I've been an avid reader of Inc. Magazine, where I've followed Norm's Street Smarts column for years. It's great to have all of that wisdom distilled into a book.The book is also an enjoyable read, with small anecdotes sprinkled throughout the already prose-like format. The book is filled with Norm's no-nonsense, down-to-earth style. This is the next-best thing to having your own personal business mentor guiding you for less than 20 bucks.Norm is a numbers sort of guy (which he is fond of pointing out), and that is what many small business owners are most inexperience with. Plenty of his solid and practical numbers-oriented advice grounds this book. The only thing I'd love more of (or maybe this would be more appropriate in a follow-up book) are more details on business formulas and accompanying examples to help figure out your own numbers (like COGS, gross margins, etc.)All in all, this book is an engaging read and gives you a steady stream of good tips you can actually apply to your business today.

I have been self employed since 1984, with the past twenty years spent helping self employed folk and small business owners. This advice is pure gold. The many stories offer deeper guidance than any lecture can. And I saw myself and many of my clients in many of these same dark holes.If you are already in business for yourself, read this book. And if you are planning to start out, read this book. It will be the best advice you can possibly get, from an impartial source that has no agenda to steer you into their way of thinking. (Maybe therein lies the true value?)

This book is a thoroughly engaging collection of anecdotes and lessons from the front lines. The authors are clearly business people with a lot of experience and their didactic stories can guide us all.The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that I really didn't love the way the chapters were organized. At least in the kindle version, there wasn't a readily-accessible way to figure out which points went with which anecdotes and which points and anecdotes were in which chapters. It's not a major issue, but I like to reserve the 5 star reviews for the all-time classics.GREAT book, though...I'd highly recommend it--especially to early-stage businesses. Might be OK for start-up entrepreneurs, as well, but I think it would be a little better to be in business for 6-12 months, as this is graduate-level stuff.

I rarely write reviews but this book was fantastic from cover to cover and I would highly recommend it to any business owners, particularly in the first few years of their journey.

This book contains so many insights for any entrepreneurs.I have applied many of his teaching to how I run my business

Escrito en un estilo muy coloquial y sin grandes aspavientos, transmite ideas bastante claras y contundentes.Creo que en realidad su posicionamiento se podría representar como un poco en contra de todos los términos y nuevos impulsos en el mundo del emprendimiento (El Canvas, Lean, Client Development, Scrum, etc.) y ofreciendo algo muy refrescante: en gran medida se trata de cosas de sentido común.Pero, ¡Ay! el sentido común viene de vivir y cometer errores y es poco probable que alguien vaya a aprender de los errores que el autor explica. Por ejemplo, dice que prefiere un negocio "aburrido" y desfasado, con muchas empresas en el sector- lo que se llama un mercado maduro - por que lo que puede ofrecer es mejoras a clientes dentro de mercados que ya está comprobado que funcionan y donde la mayoría de las empresas en estos mercados están, probablemente, acomodadas. Pero esto es todo lo contrario de busca tu creatividad, invéntate un modelo de negocio, pon en marcha una start-up (tecnológica a ser posible), "pivota" constantemente, busca capital riesgo...Para dar una idea de su estilo, otra sugerencia es su propuesta de que hagas a mano (con papel y lápiz) los números del plan inicial de negocio. Afirma que esto hace que conozcas mucho mejor tu negocio. Estoy de acuerdo con él. Parece anti-intuitivo, pero es mucho mejor que dediques tiempo a poner por escrito los números de tu negocio y te pelees con ellos, que dejar que un algoritmo o una plantilla de Plan de Negocio te lo haga.Su perspectiva es "rompedora" en el sentido de que invita a la sensatez, a la" cuenta de la vieja", y al tipo de atención que realmente necesita tu negocio (tu mirada sobre las cifras y sobre la satisfacción de tus clientes). O que se trata de trabajar día a día en mejorar tu negocio y vender más. Hoy día ser tradicional puede ser innovador. O por lo menos, llamar la atención.El libro, en general, es ameno y, supongo que por la tendencia a contar historias que pueden dificultar recordar de qué va el capítulo, ofrece al final de cada uno de ellos, 4 ideas clave.No obstante, no me parece que ofrece suficientes cosas, ni tampoco un camino más o menos claro, que alguien pudiera seguir, como por ejemplo El Mito del Emprendedor, como para merecer las 5 estrellas. Y quizá por el contenido sólo deberían ser 3. Le doy 4 por el aporte de sensatez y sentido común que creo que, en sí mismo, es muy necesario en todos los ámbitos, y en este en particular.

One of the excellent book, how can a simple short story gives you a lesson of life time, you can get from this book. As soon as you start reading the you can relate your self from litte characters sniff, scury, hem or ham and it will definitely change the way of your thinking. This book not only help you in your professional life but in your personal life too.

Easy to read and understand. You don't get bored. What the author says is really interesting. He shows you all the problems and solutions through entrepreneurses eyes.