Like having a personal business advisor, a top business expert of the United Kingdom shares straightforward, no-nonsense work advice aimed toward enabling better day-job performance in this guide. By examining the common traps people in business fall into, and how to stay out of them, the book helps to avoid making costly, embarrassing, time-consuming, and even career-ending mistakes. This essential aid is relevant to all levels of business.
I got to know of Duncan Bannatyne through a business partner, and then subsequently watched a few episodes of the Dragons Den. Later I spotted this book in some airport with his "I-really-cannot-be-bothered-to-even-pretend-to-be-happy" face on the cover of this book. I bought, and know I've read it.
It is - to say the least - a very quick read. But must admit he does offer a lot of commonsense advise, and all together I enjoyed the book. I learned from Duncan's significant and practical experience. In summary, the book delivered on its promise, and for that reason I can recommend it.
A Must read and have for every entrepreneur. Read it several times and don't be afraid to check your company to see if you make one of those 43 mistakes.
This is the worst business/personal finance book I have read. I brought it because I was interested in how this dragon had started up and was hoping it would shine more light on this topic. This may be because of Duncan Bannatyne's story which I had briefly known at the time interested me; he was in the navy, started up himself with an ice cream van and gradually built and became an owner and investor in a number of businesses. So I was keen to see what Duncan had to say about business mistakes and see if any of his tips were transferable to personal finance or other systems given I am not a business owner.
This book's premise it to outline 43 business mistakes. It achieves this goal and so I credited it accordingly. Of how much value these generic pithy statements are to the reader is largely dependent on how educated the reader is of the way in which any business works and also on how much experience the reader has had in regards to working for a business of any scale. I say this because if you are completely oblivious of how a business operates you will probably get value from his generic mistakes to avoid and so disagree with my rating of this book. If you work or own a business you may think I am being overly generous and you may pity me for having picked up this book. In short, the book chronicles Duncan Bannatyne's ventures and what businesses he has been involved in and how sometimes he or the entrepreuner's who pitch to him in the den have made such mistakes and encourage you to avoid them. Most are basic but he says are often overlooked. An example being not having accurate details of the size of your overheads and how these are likely to change depending on the speed at which you scale your business and dependent on the industry you are in.
Some of the business he has personally been involved in are Ice-cream vending, Managing a fleet of ice cream vans, the care home industry and health spa's. He re-iterates business basics such as watching cashflow, monitoring everything and hiring professionals.
To conclude, I would encourage the reader to know what they are looking for before picking up such a generic book. In hindsight, I would of been more satisified with his autobiography or a business mistakes book rather than a hybrid which gives only scratches the surface of both and offers vague see-saw levels of subjectivity generic advice such as 'Not taking good advice' or 'Failure to take resposnibility'.
There is nothing not to like about this book. It is what the title says. A succint description of 43 mistakes, how to avoid them and a few real life examples for some of those. The author clearly knows what he's writing about. This is a must-read for every starting enterpreneur and some should read it every year just in case as well.