The Knack: How Street-smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up by Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham is the summation of Brodsky’s experience as and entrepreneur. He shares with us the mistakes he’s made and the lessons he’s learned in his time in business. Over the eighteen chapters a number of common mistakes entrepreneurs make are examined and advice from either Brodsky’s own experiences or those of the readers of his Inc. column are shared with the reader.

There are some great stories in the book, including how dinner with a king gave him a competitive advantage and how some cute kittens defined his business. Throughout the book he makes some excellent points, to pick out a few:

• There is no one single formula for success.
• Resilience is important.
• If you’re new you simply can not compete on price.
• Don’t try new idea, improve on an existing idea instead.
• Too many low-margin sales can drive you out of business – a common mistake and something I blogged about recently in Don’t Make A Sale Just For The Sake Of Making A Sale.
• Salespeople should work as a team – I’ve rarely seen this in action, but I couldn’t agree more.

Norm Brodsky is the co-author (with Bo Burlingham) of Inc. magazine’s Street Smarts column through which they advise small to medium businesses on how to grow. Brodsky started out as a lawyer but soon decided to change vocation. He has been an entrepreneur for 30 years, launching eight businesses including one which was a three-time Inc. 500 company. In December 2007 he sold his business for a reported $110 million.

Bo Burlingham is an editor-at-large of Inc. magazine and the author of Small Giants: Companies That Choose To Be Great Instead of Big. He joined Inc. in 1983 and was the executive editor until he stepped down in 1990 to focus on his writing. He was a founding member, with Tom Peters of PAC/World, an international organisation of business leaders and observers. Between 1992 and 1997 he served on the board of Body Shop Inc. the US subsidiary of The Body Shop.

The Knack is an easy, enjoyable read, in fact it’s probably the most enjoyable business book I’ve read this year, simply because I found myself agreeing with so much of it. In the introduction Brodsky says:

…you know what they say: A smart person learns from his mistakes. A wise persons learns from other people’s mistakes.

I couldn’t agree more – it’s also far cheaper to learn from other people’s mistakes and that’s why, unless you’re an experienced, successful entrepreneur, I believe you should buy this book – Now!

You can buy it from Amazon UK or Amazon USA.

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