Entrepreneurial Management
Author: Robert J J Calvin
Successful entrepreneur and author Robert J. Calvin uses his own knowledge and experienceplus in-depth examinations of real-world start-up successes and failuresto detail the human, technical, and financial issues that confront every new business. From spotting the right opportunity and writing a successful business plan to raising capital, enhancing productivity, and building customer loyalty, Entrepreneurial Management helps budding entrepreneurs master the planning and growth issues required to make any new business a success.
Soundview Executive Book Summaries
A Well-Developed Plan
Starting a new business takes careful consideration, determined preparation and a well-developed plan. Robert Calvin, president of an international consulting firm for startups and a business professor at the University of Chicago, has compiled the strategies, tools, techniques, models and methodologies for starting a new business on the right track into a comprehensive guidebook. Along with organizing the interrelated aspects of launching a business, Calvin's informative textbook offers numerous hands-on business skills and the motivation to help new business owners move toward success while conquering the entrepreneurial challenges along the way.
Entrepreneurial Management begins with a sound justification of why people should set out on the road to entrepreneurship, despite the fact that 60 percent of all new businesses fail within their first two years, and 70 percent fail within the first five years of their existence. By thoroughly describing the rewards and risks entrepreneurs must face and the strengths and weaknesses of many kinds of ventures, Calvin prepares the new entrepreneur with the lessons others have learned through hard work and difficult odds. "This book attempts to bridge the old and new economy with a proven strategic and tactical formula for entrepreneurial success," he explains.
How To Avoid the 'Growth Busters'
The first step to creating a new business venture is writing a plan. Calvin's first chapter describes the steps involved in writing an effective business or strategic plan, and explains what should be included. His proven formula for success involves ways to avoid the "growth busters" that can holda company back, including using target marketing to focus resources; dealing with change; using market segmentation to differentiate and customize the offering; and having a cost-efficient sales organization and marketing approach.
Once the plan is set, the proper financing will be necessary to launch the business. According to Calvin, this starts with engaging a qualified attorney to help in raising cash. To avoid extra later-stage expenses and restrictions, he writes that it is crucial to prepare correctly during this early stage. Asking other entrepreneurs and conducting several interviews can help new business owners find the right attorney. Calvin offers additional advice that can help entrepreneurs get a loan, set up a workable loan structure, and find equity financing.
Chapter 3 describes the financial controls that must be set in place before a business can take shape. These deal with accounts receivable aging, inventory, capital expenditures, balance sheet ratios, sales forecasts, critical operating margins and line-item expense budgets.
The second part of Entrepreneurial Management is dedicated to keeping the money flowing through the business, and includes chapters that describe differentiation, segmentation, target marketing and target customers. By placing his ideas into the context of real-world examples, including a North Dakota trash removal service and a Virginia lawn care service, Calvin develops numbers which help his readers understand "the strong relationship between profitability, customer loyalty and employee satisfaction, retention and productivity."
Next, Calvin delves into ways to create a cost-efficient, effective sales organization and marketing approach; how to inexpensively develop a demand for your products and services through advertising and packaging; and how to properly price offerings by looking at competitive advantage in terms of features, benefits and image.
Risks and Rewards
The final chapters of Calvin's book delve into the options that entrepreneurs have when they have decided to start a new business. Calvin explains the reasons for, the ways to go about, and the options to consider when buying an existing business. Since the average sale price of an existing business is less than $200,000, he writes that most entrepreneurs can afford this inroad to a new business venture. Calvin offers proven advice about how to look at the price of a new business; the rewards and risks of buying an existing business; and ways to find and evaluate a business to buy. The last chapter of his book describes the risks and rewards of developing and introducing new products and services.
Why Soundview Likes This Book
Entrepreneurial Management is a valuable source book for new business owners, and delivers an MBA-level course on developing, launching and growing a new business venture. By focusing on the step-by-step process that entrepreneurs must undergo on the road to success, Calvin plots out the entire journey by detailing the business knowledge and tactics that can turn a great vision into a success story. Calvin's useful examples of successful and failed startups, along with his insightful commentary and analysis, reveal the secrets of entrepreneurial management in a well-organized, easy-to-reference manual that can help anyone improve his or her chances of success amid the tough challenges of entrepreneurship. Copyright (c) 2002 Soundview Executive Book Summaries
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All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America
Author: Suzanna Danuta Walters
From the public outing of Ellen DeGeneres and the success of Will and Grace to the vicious murder of Matthew Shepard, recent years have seen gay lives and images move onto the center stage of American public life. In this incisive and authoritative guide to the new gay visibility, Suzanna Danuta Walters argues that we now live in a time when gays are seen, but not necessarily known. Taking on the common wisdom that equates visibility with full integration, All the Rage maps the terrain on which gays are accepted as witty film accessories and sassy sitcom stars yet denied full citizenship.
Publishers Weekly
The love that once dared not speak its name now dances at Disneyland's annual gay day and sells Bud Lite. Heck, even Bart Simpson questions his sexuality, while nobody questions South Park's Big Gay Al's, and there is no ambiguity about Saturday Night Live's Ambiguously Gay Duo. This comprehensive survey of gay and lesbian visibility in popular culture offers a whirlwind of facts, figures and documentation of gay representations. Acknowledging television's past e.g., Mike Wallace's 1967 CBS report reconfirming many homophobic stereotypes Walters concentrates on post-AIDS entertainment in which gay characters and themes appear everywhere from HBO's Oz to The Drew Carey Show to that bastion of backlash, Ally McBeal. A double edge runs through Walters's countless examples: does this visibility indicate acceptance, or does "gay chic" just characterize a profitable niche market? Moreover, are these trends destructive? An associate professor of sociology and director of women's studies at Georgetown, Walters (Material) quotes activist and writer Sarah Schulman as criticizing "the creation of a false public homosexuality that is palatable and containable and... not authentic." Walters's analyses are often astute the Roseanne gay marriage show was more about Dan and Roseanne confronting their own homophobia than about homosexuality but occasionally reductive, like her assertion that the film Boys in the Band is "filled with... self hatred" mightn't it be commenting on self-hatred? Citing academics Kath Weston, Josh Gamson and responding to mainstream critics, Walters's initial distrust of this visibility gives way to grudging appreciation in a clear, up-to-date map of the basic debate overhomosexuality in the media. (Oct.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Should gays and lesbians exult in the recent spate of media depictions of their lives or shudder at the homogenized sterilization of their diversity? Against the backdrop of the 1980s and '90s, Walters (Sociology & Women's Studies/Georgetown Univ.; Lives Together/Worlds Apart, 1992) analyzes the promise and the threat of queer portrayals in contemporary media: although the number of these programs and personalities has skyrocketed, the resulting depictions of gay and lesbian life often emerge as disturbingly skewed. In a nutshell, her thesis contends that increased gay representations in the media may entail that America sees the gay and lesbian community more frequently than ever; however, due to the stereotypical visions of queer life-such as psycho dykes, ditzy fashion homos, and lesbian chic-this visibility does not correspond with an increased knowledge about homosexuality. With a sweeping range, Walters probes the cultural repercussions of such characters as Dynasty's tortured bisexual Steven Carrington and the all-too-chaste Matt of Melrose Place, as well as examining specific episodes of programs including Roseanne (when Mariel Hemingway kissed the eponymous heroine) and the coming-out episode of Ellen. Films also come under scrutiny, as Walters considers the differences between queer portrayals in mainstream Hollywood and those in independent films. And there are chapters on gay marriages, coming-out stories, and queer parenting-and an analysis of advertising images of gay and lesbian life, in which Walters dissects the commercialization of the queer community (pointing to a predictable display of gleaming teeth and toned bodies). A frenetic packing of materials that leavesin-depth analysis mostly sacrificed for a panoramic view-but the resulting picture nevertheless emerges as detailed and refined.
Table of Contents:
| Acknowledgments | ||
| Prologue | ||
| Pt. 1 | It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times | |
| 1 | The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name: The Explosion of Gay Visibility | 3 |
| 2 | Pride and Prejudice: The Changing Context of Gay Visibility | 30 |
| Pt. 2 | A Kiss Is Just a Kiss | |
| 3 | Ready for Prime Time? TV Comes Out of the Closet | 59 |
| 4 | Dossier on Ellen | 81 |
| 5 | All Gay, All the Time? | 95 |
| Pt. 3 | Coming Soon to a Theater Near You | |
| 6 | Hiding, Dying, and Dressing-Up | 131 |
| 7 | Out Is In: Liberal Narratives for the Nineties | 149 |
| Pt. 4 | In the Family Way | |
| 8 | Wedding Bell Blues: Imagining Marriage | 179 |
| 9 | Mom, I've Got Something to Tell You: The Coming-Out Story in the Age of Visibility | 197 |
| 10 | It Takes a Lesbian Village to Raise a Child: Parenting Possibilities | 210 |
| Pt. 4 | Money Makes the World Go Round | |
| 11 | Consuming Queers: Advertising and the Gay Market | 235 |
| 12 | If It's Pink We'll Sell It: Gay Entrepreneurship | 273 |
| Conclusion: Beyond Visibility (Welcome to Our Rainbow World) | 290 | |
| Notes | 301 | |
| Bibliography | 315 | |
| Index | 323 |
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