Showing results by publisher "Ascent Audio" in Business Development & Entrepreneurship

Big new ideas rarely make great businesses. Laboring on a business plan can be a waste of time. You are going to need dramatically more start-up money than you think you do. Counterintuitive concepts like these have helped the world's best entrepreneurs succeed. Yet most of us only learn them the hard way. Len Green, an experienced investor, entrepreneur, and business professor, shares inside secrets and proven tactics for launching a business.

Innovation is the subject of countless books and courses, but there's very little out there about how you actually innovate. Innovation and entrepreneurship are not one and the same, although aspiring innovators often think of them that way. They are told to get an idea and a team and to build a show-and-tell for potential investors. In Innovating, Luis Perez-Breva describes another approach.

Green Giants examines nine companies that are merging social responsibility with wild profitability - and reveals the six factors responsible for their success, including: iconoclastic leadership fueled by deep conviction and a rebellious streak; disruptive innovation that uses sustain ability to spur the development of radically better products and services; a higher purpose that ignites the company - when the mission leads, profits follow.

Everyone thought Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry were crazy to start Method, a new cleaning products company. The category had long been dominated by P&G, Unilever, and Colgate-Palmolive. Those giants had so much clout with the retail chains that their soaps had barely needed updating for decades. But by taking advantage of its underdog position, Method carved out a very profitable niche: environmentally sound products in stylish, innovative packaging.

The American dream continues to resonate with immigrants from around the world. Millions of people hope to come to the United States to build a better life for themselves and their families, often by creating and growing new ventures and companies. While not everyone succeeds, many do. Mei Xu is one of those successes. In Burn, entrepreneur and international business­woman Mei Xu tells her story of ingenuity, determination, and luck.

We all have ideas - things we want to do or create - but only some of us will do what it takes to see those ideas come to pass. In Good Idea. Now What? listeners will discover some of the essential values and principles that guide successful idea-makers, including the leveraging of mixed environments for creativity, working through resistance and setbacks, developing a practical plan for implementation that works, navigating collaborative opportunities, and communicating your idea to make it truly remarkable.

Part The Art of the Deal and part Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun, The Peebles Principles distills the lessons Mr. Peebles has learned on his journey from congressional page to CEO of the largest black-owned real-estate development firm in the nation. These crisp, straightforward principles can help any motivated entrepreneur go from dirt poor to filthy rich in a hurry.

The Remedy is a compelling a business fable that shows how Lean quality improvement business practices - traditionally associated with manufacturing - can dramatically improve the service areas of your business - including design, engineering, sales, marketing and all processes in between. Written by Pascal Dennis, a leading Lean consultant, the story follows Tom Pappas and Rachel Armstrong, senior leaders at a desperate automotive company as they try to implement a Lean management system across an entire platform, the Chloe, a breakthrough "green" car.

Africa's Business Revolution provides the inside story on business in Africa and its future growth prospects and helps executives understand and seize the opportunities for building profitable, sustainable enterprises.

In Yes, You Can Do This! Claudia shares her own reasons for starting a business and makes a call to action for women to consider entrepreneurship so that they can create businesses with the rules they want and change the playing field for others, making a significant impact in the world. More than a how-to guide on building a business, Claudia provides clear examples and practical resources to help others create the life they want through entrepreneurship.

Breaking into freelance writing has gotten much easier for word-savvy entrepreneurs like you. But even in the golden age of content creation, you still need to know what it takes to launch and consistently pitch your services so you can grow and scale your freelance writing side hustle into a full-fledged career you really love. Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business is an easy-to-understand, introductory, and nontechnical approach to the world of freelance writing.

For the first time ever, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Forbes' Richest Self-Made Woman Liz Elting shares her story on how she cofounded and grew TransPerfect, the billion-dollar translation and language solutions company that began as a dream in an NYU dorm room. In Dream Big and Win, Elting divulges practical and inspiring tips you can implement immediately, teaching why success is not solely about attaining and wielding power.

When Bex Band started an online community, Love Her Wild, she positively changed her life and the lives of many others in ways she could never have imagined. That click of the mouse was the best thing she ever did! Love Her Wild is now one of the biggest outdoor communities in the world, winning multiple awards, receiving international recognition, and taking thousands of women on adventures. Bex Band also made a dream career for herself in the process—running a community built on passion and a drive to make a difference.

In The Toolbox: Strategies for Crafting Social Impact, celebrated nonprofit executive Jacob Harold delivers an expert guide to doing good in the twenty-first century. In the book, you'll explore nine tools that have driven world-shaking social movements and billion-dollar businesses--tools that can work just as well for a farmers market or fire department or small business.

How do rainmakers consistently and continuously sell their ideas and grow their client base? They succeed by adopting the mindset, mastering the strategies, and employing the tactics at the heart of rainmaking. In Selling Your Expertise, veteran communications, sales, and leadership consultant Robert Chen provides a practical guide to selling knowledge-based services in a market that demands credibility and subject-matter authority. Whether you're a national practice partner or an independent attorney just starting out, this book equips you with the knowledge you need.

Kim Hvidkjaer was twenty-nine years old when he became a millionaire. Two years later, after a cluster of disasters, he found himself basically broke. Now, having rebuilt his fortune as the founder of several successful enterprises and studied thousands of failed startups, Hvidkjaer has become an expert in failure: what it means, what it looks like, and the strategies that business owners can use to prevent it. In How to F--k Up Your Startup, he takes us on an entertaining and enlightening journey through the complex patterns of failure in the life cycle of a business.

Social innovation and entrepreneurship are rising forces in the world. As stakeholder capitalism takes root, and as the extent of systemic challenges becomes clear - from climate change to income inequality to food security to health care and beyond - more and more of the best and brightest will hear the calling to become innovators and entrepreneurs who develop and deploy solutions to the world's thorniest problems.

In today's complex, highly competitive, global environment, those who will survive and thrive in this new world of work are individuals, teams, and organizations who can maintain high levels of accountability and remain focused on must-achieve desired results. Achieve with Accountability is your personal handbook for awakening your (or your team or organization's) inner confidence, drive, perseverance, determination, resolve, and can-do mindset.

The Art of Opportunity offers a path toward new growth, providing the perspective and methods you need to make innovation happen. Written by a team of experts with both academic and industry experience - and a client roster composed of some of the world's leading companies - this book provides you with the necessary tools to help you capture growth instead of chasing it.

Professional athletes, surgeons, first responders - all perform remarkable feats in the face of intense stress. Why do they thrive under pressure while others succumb? What separates the two is attitude. Resilient people meet adversity head on and bounce back from setbacks. They seem to naturally exude an inner strength - but studies show that resilience is something that anyone can build.