A useful, informative startup primer blending nuts-and-bolts knowledge with cleareyed motivation.
Learn both the specifics of setting up a hair-sales business and the larger ethos of entrepreneurship in this self-help book.
Moran, co-host of the Hair Biz Radio podcast and founder of Private Label Extensions, a wholesaler of wigs, extensions, and cosmetics, offers advice to people planning to open a retail hair-sector business and anyone else with the startup bug. Much of the guide covers basic mechanics, including legally establishing your business, opening bank accounts, registering a domain name, and building a website. The author also discusses higher-level business issues, such as whether to carry inventory and deliver products yourself or farm those tasks out to drop-shipping companies, the niceties of crafting a name and logo—avoid eccentric spellings that potential customers won’t remember, he cautions—and which advertising platforms to use. (Facebook ads are “the only advertising worth paying for” when your business is starting out, he asserts.) And he reminds readers of the importance of consistent performance, especially in communicating and engaging with consumers. He recommends handwritten thank-you notes to customers and massive blogs with weekly 1,000-word posts to keep readers returning to your website. Moran goes on to explore some deeper mental and emotional aspects of starting a business. He suggests that budding entrepreneurs closely observe and analyze other businesses and constantly ask, “How did they do that?”—whether “that” is an eye-catching display or an attractive lighting scheme. Most of all, he contends, startup entrepreneurs need to set actionable goals, make detailed plans, have realistic expectations—anticipate endless hours of work before you even quit your day job—and learn to live with and overcome the inescapable fear of doing something new and risky. The author brings a wealth of hard-won experience to the subject from his own business successes and failures, and he deftly conveys it to readers. His prose is lucid, straightforward, and replete with aphoristic distillations of wisdom. (Those seeking feedback on their businesses’ performance from friends and family should “be careful of false validation, the tendency of people to shield those they love from uncomfortable truths.”) The result is a lively and judicious how-to that will give readers a superb introduction to the rigors of the marketplace.
A useful, informative startup primer blending nuts-and-bolts knowledge with cleareyed motivation.Pub Date: April 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-54-452008-7
Page Count: 206
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
