Abstracts:

What Makes a Great Leader?  There are several characteristics that set you apart as the Chief Executive Officer that allow you to lead people to great accomplishments. An assessment of your style relative to these traits should reveal something about yourself: Your personal assessment might surprise you!

Are You Ready for Your Next Level? Whether you are a first time entrepreneur or seasoned CEO, taking your company to its next level can be a daunting experience. Serious self-assessment is needed before embarking on the journey. By asking yourself difficult questions, you will be better prepared to make the tough decisions required to propel yourself and your company forward.

What are the Core Values of Leading CEOs?  What do company leaders rank as their highest priorities in leading their company? What are Chief Executive Officers’ core values? This chapter reveals what CEOs desire from their companies and provides insights into their thinking. Compare and contrast your own values against leaders in high-technology companies – to gain a better understanding of how to significantly improve your company’s performance.

Simple Secret to Success  As the company's leader / entrepreneur, you know there are ways to both run and ruin your company. Sometimes, the line between these two outcomes is very thin indeed. However, through the use of one simple equation, you can dramatically increase your company's odds of succeeding.

Change Leadership: Taking Your Company to New Heights Many change programs end in failure – not due to the improvements being brought in, but because of how changes are implemented within organizations. This chapter addresses the human side of change management – to bring lasting performance improvements to companies looking to accomplish aggressive goals.

Your Leadership Style: Inspiring Followership  At the end of the day, the entrepreneur has either led a team to accomplish very difficult objectives or not. Everyone knows when the company has exceeded everyone’s expectations. And they know when this has not happened. The major questions are: How do you inspire people to follow you? How can they be so compelled to focus most of their personal and all of their professional efforts towards achieving a company’s never-changing desire for growth and improvement, in an ever-changing world?

How to Bankrupt Your Company, Without Really Trying: Over and over again, companies make the same mistakes. Wouldn’t be nice to have a list of those mistakes, which are the most costly to companies? This section summaries the errors and omissions leaders make. Fix them, and you stand to dramatically improve your company’s performance!

Raising Money in a Tight Market / (The importance of bootstrapping!): Finding capital is even tougher now that the NASDAQ and DOW have seriously eaten into angel investors' funds. What can entrepreneurs do to find capital in a tight market? This chapter addresses key points to act on to improve your chances of funding.

How to Build Your Plan So you think you’ve got a great new idea that will sell bazillions of new widgets, have 95% gross margin and blow away the competition! All you’ll need is a couple hundred thousand dollars. Surprise… only a few percent of plans actually get funded. Why don’t the rest? Several business aspects considered in this chapter must be considered when starting or building your company.

How to Build Your Team  Would you like to double revenue? Triple profits? Increase cash ten times? Your company can easily break through current performance and achieve the ‘next level’.

Building Your Story  Are you a start-up entrepreneur who needs money? Are you asking "Do you know where I can get to investors who will fund this idea?". There are several things you - as the leader - must do in order to convince investors to part with their money. Find out how to dramatically increase your chances of getting funded.

Creating Your Stock Structure  When looking for equity financing, CEOs often ask me: "How much of the company should I give up, and when?", "What happens when I lose control?", "How much will our stock be worth... and when?" A well-thought out business plan, with accompanying financials will answer most of these questions. However, an often-overlooked piece of the puzzle is corporate stock structure, to create a clear road-map for stockholders and to help guide your funding decisions.

Improving Credibility   You’ve got a great idea, but not one customer. As the CEO for a start-up company, you’ve got plenty to worry about: Building your team, creating your business plan, and raising financing are the first hurdles to overcome. If you aren’t Jim Clark, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates and have an unproven concept, how do you get anyone to quickly buy in? How do you increase your chances of funding? How do you minimize the amount of company you need to sell? If you are interested in learning how to dramatically increase the probability of getting funded, this chapter is a must read.

The Realities of Raising Money You have a great product idea, you've done market research - there's a huge demand for what you've developed, your business plan is done and you're ready to raise that $1.5 million so you can implement your plan. All you need now is to convince people how great your plan is! Here are the 'usual suspects' to consider when trying to raise money:

How to Maximize Revenue Would you like to determine how much your customers will pay for your new products before drafting your first design or spending your first development dollar? This chapter explains how you can understand your customers’ specific needs and get the most money for your products and services.

The Real Value of Market Research  "We don't have time for market research! It costs too much, takes too long, and just confirms what we already know." Sound familiar?  A fundamental understanding of your customers' needs is critical to what you offer, your corporate positioning and your marketing strategy. If fear of extinction doesn't motivate you to listen to your existing and potential customers, please don't read this chapter.

How to Maximize Marketing ROI  How would like to have a direct marketing response rate of 25%. A return on investment of 20 to one, or more? With the tips and tricks in this chapter, you can work your way through a process to tie marketing with sales and can dramatically increase your revenue!

Strategic Selling Skills for Technology Entrepreneurs  In today's high-speed, high-technology business environment, great new companies are built on ideas from technical people. However, many outstanding ideas never get to market, nor receive funding. Why? No real understanding or appreciation of the selling process. There are some fundamental things technically minded entrepreneurs can do to propel their company to its next level.

Organizing for the Customer  Ever wonder how you can get your products and services to market faster than your competition - with features and performance so advanced your customers don’t mind paying more for your solution? So do a lot of entrepreneurs.

Achieving Peak Company Performance  Have you ever asked yourself "How can I turbo-charge my organization?" Or "How can I increase revenue without spending more money?" There are several ways for your organization to achieve superior performance, which are discussed in this chapter.

Strategic Planning in Two Days  How can you spend time on strategic planning when you have to respond to every customers’ wishes, your bankers’ request for last quarters’ financials, and just making payroll? Now, in just two short days, you can develop sufficient planning to plot the future of your company in ways you never thought possible. Find out how!

How to Hire the Best  Have you ever had to let someone go because they didn't live up to your expectations? Or they turned out completely different from what their resume indicated? Or you got exactly what you wanted but not what you needed? If this sounds familiar, then you're not alone! There are several things you can do to improve your hiring results. Learn how in this chapter!

How to Predict the Future With customers, markets, and competition changing all the time, it seems nearly impossible to stay ahead of the competition. If you’d like to make the best decisions and know the resulting outcome ahead of time, then read this chapter.

How to Manage Projects Better Many clients have hired me to help them increase profits by improving their product development. Here are my secrets on how not to manage projects. By ignoring these seven critical product development areas, your company will better respond to the market and beat your competitors on price and schedule.

Product Development Solutions for the Next Millenium  If you are interested in learning fundamental shifts in the "new-new" economy, and how to position your company's product development for the next millennium, then this chapter is a must-read!

Why Some Organizations Perform Poorly  How well is your company running? Do you have concerns your company is not performing to its fullest potential? Not quite sure what to do about it, or what the root causes are? Check to see if any of these 19 points fits your company!

Five addenda! Affinity Diagramming defined, Venture Teams described,  Program Management Glossary, The "Physics" of Marketing, and Must-ask questions, before you start!

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The Entrepreneur's Survival Guide is (c) 2001, 2003 & 2007 Mark Paul

Cedar Mill Publishing
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Cedar Mill, OR 97297-0507