First Business

The world’s most trusted guide for leaders in transition. Transitions are a critical time for leaders. In fact, most agree that moving into a new role is the biggest challenge a manager will face. While transitions offer a chance to start fresh and make needed changes in an organization, they also place leaders in a position of acute vulnerability. Missteps made during the crucial first three months in a new role can jeopardize or even derail your success.

Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows.

During economic contractions, it becomes much more difficult to sell your products, maintain your customer base, and gain market share. Mistakes become more costly, and failure becomes a real possibility for all those who are not able to make the transition. But imagine being able to sell your products when others cannot, being able to take market share from your competitors, and knowing the precise formulas that would allow you to expand your sales while others make excuses.

Award-winning author William Kent Krueger has gained an immense fan base for his Cork O’Connor series. In Ordinary Grace, Krueger looks back to 1961 to tell the story of Frank Drum, a boy on the cusp of manhood. A typical 13-year-old with a strong, loving family, Frank is devastated when a tragedy forces him to face the unthinkable - and to take on a maturity beyond his years.

It's time to level the playing field! You are accustomed to being the first - the first to go to college, the first to start a business. You often enter rooms where no one else looks like you. You're a trailblazer on a mission to create a new legacy for your family. And yet, despite your success, you still work too hard for too little cash. In Profit First for Minority Business Enterprises, Susanne Mariga, CPA, shows you how to implement the proven Profit First cash-management system that has lifted thousands of entrepreneurs out of the struggle and into success.

Learn to conquer every challenge like a pro with the clear, candid advice in The First-Time Manager. For nearly four decades, this trusted guide has brought newcomers up to speed on the nitty gritty realities of managing people. The updated seventh edition delivers new information that helps you manage across generations, use online performance appraisal tools, persuade with stories, oversee remote employees, build a team dynamic, match a boss’ style, and more.

High-performance psychologist Michael Gervais presents a groundbreaking guide for overcoming what may be the single greatest constrictor of human potential: our fear of people's opinions (FOPO).

Many owners of lawn care and landscape businesses found their companies on the belief that they would make more money working for themselves than they would as employees. Dedicated to the maintenance and beautification of properties, they believe that their hard work and expertise in softscape, hardscape, irrigation, or snow plowing will guarantee their success. But technical knowledge alone won't generate profit or help a company grow.

Master Your Next Move answers a distinct need, focusing on the most common types of transitions leaders face and the unique challenges posed by each. Based on years of research, and now with a new introduction, this indispensable book explores eight crucial transitions virtually everyone encounters during their career, including promotion, leading former peers, onboarding into a new company, making an international move, and turning around a business in crisis.

Construction industry business coach, speaker, and author, Shawn Van Dyke, has taken the core concepts of Mike Michalowicz's Profit First and customized them to address the specific needs of the construction industry. Profit First for Contractors addresses the major struggles contractors face and provides clear and actionable guidance on how to overcome them. Shawn shows contractors how to go from simply getting by to becoming permanently profitable.

First Things First is a revolutionary guide to managing your time by learning how to balance your life. Traditional time management suggests that working harder, smarter, and faster will help you gain control over your life, and that increased control will bring peace and fulfillment. But the authors of First Things First apply the insights of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to our daily problems of struggling with the ever-increasing demands of work and home life.

Winning new customers is the number one challenge 80 percent of entrepreneurs face—and a big reason half of small businesses fail within five years. In Buyer First, Carole Mahoney—who once struggled to pay bills and is now a top sales coach and influencer—says the reason so many of us are bad at selling is, well, we think selling is bad. Mahoney shares her revolutionary sales-success formula that draws on data from 2.2 million professional sellers, plus solid research on the psychology of decision-making and behavior change

For fifteen years, Steve Chou has run two successful seven-figure businesses in twenty hours a week or fewer, leaving plenty of time for family, friends, and leisure. In The Family-First Entrepreneur, he shares profound insights and practical advice on business and life, demonstrating that you can, in fact, pursue your dream without sacrificing what matters most. Chou offers a series of simple principles that can guide every decision you make, helping you establish a solid foundation upon which you can build the life you’ve dreamed of while comfortably supporting those you love.

You Win in the Locker Room First draws on the extraordinary experiences of Coach Mike Smith and Jon Gordon - consultant to numerous college and professional teams - to explore the seven powerful principles that any business, school, organization, or sports team can adopt to revitalize their organization.

As a high-ranking officer of the FDNY, John Salka is an expert at both practicing and teaching high-stakes leadership. In First In, Last Out, he explains the department's unique strategies and how they can be adopted by leaders in any field - as he has taught them to organizations around the country. In a tough-talking, no-nonsense style, Salka uses real-world stories to convey leadership imperatives.

Network marketing is one of the fastest-growing career opportunities in the United States. Millions of people just like you have abandoned dead-end jobs for the chance to achieve the dream of growing their own businesses. What many of them find, however, is that the first year in network marketing is often the most challenging---and, for some, the most discouraging.

If you want to start and grow a landscaping business or if you want to demolish self-limiting beliefs and transform yourself into a warrior of a self-employed lawn and be a landscape contractor, then this audiobook will change your life.

Harvard Business Review is the foremost destination for smart management thinking. Now, at its 100th anniversary, this commemorative volume brings together the most influential ideas since its inception. With thought leaders including Michael E. Porter, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Peter Drucker, and Clayton M. Christensen, this book puts HBR's greatest concepts at your fingertips. You'll learn how these groundbreaking ideas continue to be relevant in today's business context—and what to keep in mind as you prepare for the future.

Ronit Enos has been there and in Profit First for Salons, she walks you through exactly what she did to take control of her business — and her life — in this must-listen book for salon, spa, and barbershop owners. Enos teaches you the proven Profit First formula so you can master it to build profits, destroy debt, eliminate the work-overwork cycle, and become financially sound – no matter where you’re starting from.

You never dreamed being the boss would be so hard. You're caught in a web of conflicting expectations from your subordinates, from those above you, and from your peers and customers. You're not alone. As Harvard Business School's Linda Hill and manager and executive Kent Lineback reveal in Being the Boss, becoming an effective manager is a painful, difficult journey. It requires trial and error, endless effort, and slowly acquired personal insight. Many managers never complete the journey and instead just learn how to get by. At worst, they become terrible bosses.