Make It Your Business

The 75% Right Rule

75% works! Don't shoot for perfection. Shoot for 75% of your business efforts working, and pointed at the right audience, 75% of the time. That's an excellent (and realistic) goal for someone who's launching a new business: If three-quarters of what you're shooting for works out three-quarters of the time — in terms of pricing, quality control, financial planning and management, person-to-person management, marketing, whatever — you'll be doing quite well.

• Part I: Starting Out
1. Time for a Change: Working for Yourself
2. What It Takes
3. Your Financial Requirements
4. Ten Myths About Running Your Own Business
5. What Is Work to You?
6. The Seventy-five Percent Right Rule, or Failure and Success Revisited
7. The Pros and Cons of Starting from Scratch
8. Why You Are Always Your Own Best Salesperson
9. Handling Family Issues
• Part II: Branching Out
10. Your Most Important Asset: What You Focus On
11. Finding Your Business Niche
12. Thinking Your Way Through the First Year — and Beyond
13. Establishing Your Goals: The Art of Thinking Big
14. Reviewing What's Happening: Building Quiet Time Into Your Day
15. Your Strategy Map
16. Getting a Fix on Your Ideal Customer
17. "Help! I Need Money."
18. "Help! I Need Good People."
19. "Help! I Need More Time."
20. Dealing With Attorneys (Yours or Someone Else's)
21. Dealing With Business Relationships That Don't Work
• Part III: Finding Out
22. Marketing: Why People Buy
23. Customers: Must Drive the Process
24. Going Directly to the Customer
25. The Advertising Agency Trap
26. The Daily-Call Routine
27. The Sales Cycle
28. Prospect Management Is Business Management
29. One on One
30. Second Meetings, Second Contacts
31. The Preliminary Proposal
32. Winning Commitment
33. Monitoring the Solutions You Deliver
• Part IV: Growing Up
34. Managers: Being One, Hiring One
35. Why Growth Is Expensive
36. How to Handle a Market Crisis
37. Managing Your Business Over the Long Term
38. When the Business Isn't Performing the Way You Want
39. When the Business Is Performing the Way You Want
40. Redefining Your Role
41. Selling Your Business
42. Successful Exit Strategies
43. Epilogue
1. Appendix A: Your Formal Business Plan
2. Appendix B: Interview Questions You Can Use to Evaluate Candidates for Employment

A pretty good book about what to think about when starting your own business, even tough it is supposed to be about sales technique.