[Review] The Everyday Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurship books these days are a dime to a dozen. The bad ones run the gamut from being too preachy to being so academic they read like textbooks. The better ones, which are far rarer, extract simple, easy-to-apply lessons from personal experiences of seasoned entrepreneurs that also make concise reading. Thankfully, “The Everyday Entrepreneur” falls into the latter category.

“The Everyday Entrepreneur“, authored by self-coined “millionaire-next-door” and entrepreneur Rob Basso, is a personal account of his own entrepreneurial journey that distils powerful anecdotes and examples about almost every aspect of running your own business. Basso – who founded Advantage Payroll Services – also interviews other entrepreneurs, weaving their stories into the various chapters with much aplomb (just as Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams did with “The Big Enough Company“). You’ll hear of the experiences of Selena Cuffe of Heritage Link Brands, Jeff Hoffman of Priceline.com, and theater producer Ken Davenport, amongst others, from which Basso skilfully extracts tangible strategies and lessons that you can apply in your own business.

And boy are there precious lessons to learn – from managing risk and cultivating your reputation, to bootstrapping and learning to sell, the book offers bite-sized insights as well as case studies of where some entrepreneurs have gone wrong and what they had to do to right their own ship. Basso, who also hosts a monthly online interview series that features innovative entrepreneurs called Basso on Business, uses many examples from that program to flesh out business management lessons.

To give you an idea of what’s inside the book, I’m extracting some quotes for your reference:

Perceive a demand, and hang in there for as long as the venture proves viable. But that viability is open to interpretation – there is no single magic formula.

Never be afraid to start at the bottom. This is perhaps one of the most organic ways to build meaningful relationships as you make your way in your industry, whatever it happens to be.

If you can, work for a big corporation that offers in-depth training to the kinds of skill sets necessary for your industry. Consider training to be an opportunity to learn while also getting paid.

I’m not certain why Basso titled this book “The Everyday Entrepreneur“; in any case the advice in there is appropriate, practical, and usable. If you are a new business owner or one that has found it challenging to grow your company, this book is for you.