In Praise of Slow
Whilst sorting through our books recently I came across it again and decided to give it another go. I have to admit I was slightly resistant to the concept at first – I’m running a business, so speed is important, right? But after a while I was completely hooked and the ideas really began to sink in.
So, what’s the book about? It’s all about the Slow movement – a movement to slow down on the basis that slower is better. It covers lots of angles – food, cities, exercise, medicine, sex, work, leisure and education. It’s an absolutely fascinating read, taking examples from all over the world to build up a picture of how many people are benefiting from a slower approach.
I am absolutely convinced that slowing down in my leisure time will benefit me. If I allow myself to take my time and not feel like I have to rush through everything in the evenings and at weekends, I should be a much more chilled out person able to take things in my stride and enjoying what I do more.
However, applying it to my work is another matter. I have a fear that if I slow down too much at work then that will have a negative affect on productivity. But, that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing I can take away from the book in terms of running a business – I don’t think I’m going to be taking catnaps at work but regular breaks to clear my mind will definitely be a good idea. It’s made me realise that I’m working flat out for most of the day, apart from a short pause for lunch. That can’t be good can it? In theory if I have regular breaks I should actually become more productive.
And, an important message from the book is that you don’t have to do absolutely everything slowly. There are occasions when speed is appropriate.
I highly recommend this book. It can help you slow down enough to think about how you do things and will definitely make you look at things differently.
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Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers and Prospects into Leads
Before I carry on I’ll just explain what ROI means (I’m sure you already know, but it doesn’t hurt to have a reminder). ROI stands for Return on Investment, which (quoting Wikipedia) is “the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested”. So this book is about making your website as effective as possible so that you make the best return on your investment in it. To use some more jargon, it’s all about improving your conversion rate – i.e. increasing the number of visitors to your site which take a desired action, whether that is buying something from your online shop, signing up for a newsletter or making an enquiry about your services.
This is a book that I’m going to come back to again and again. I’ve already picked up a lot from it and I’m sure that I’ll learn a bit more each time I read it. Can you tell that I enjoyed it? Seriously, it’s making me think very carefully about what makes a persuasive and successful website.
The book has a very informative and persuasive introduction to what ROI is all about in the context of a website, and the benefits of improving your site’s conversion rate over throwing more money at advertising. It then has a chapter for each of the important sections of a site:
- Landing Pages
- Home Pages
- Category Pages
- Detail Pages
- Forms
- Checkout Process
Finally, there is a chapter giving further resources (books and websites) for those who want to read more.
I thought this was an excellent book – I found the writing style very easy to get on with and feel inspired to put some of the concepts into practice.
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Using a Company to Save Tax
The book contains lots of calculations demonstrating what the best tax situation would be. To be honest I ended up skimming over a lot of these as I found it difficult to follow them as I read along, however if I do find that I need to research some of this myself (rather than just asking our accountant) then it’s good to know that they are there to go back to and look at in more detail.
If nothing else, the book has made me aware of just how much I don’t know and how complicated tax issues are. Thank goodness for accountants who are there to understand these things for us! This is an area that I obviously don’t take to naturally and I did have to force myself to keep reading at times (luckily it’s a pretty short book at 110 pages) but I feel like a better person for finishing it. Yes, it’s not an easy read but it’s a highly valuable book for the information that it imparts.
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Be your own best life coach
There’s no doubt that the author knows her stuff. However, maybe because I wasn’t following along with the activities, I didn’t find it to be the inspiring book that I hoped. As I say, I wasn’t following along so maybe if I was I would have been drawn into it more, but I didn’t get much of a buzz from it.
Even though each chapter included practical steps to help you look at things differently or discover something about yourself, I did feel like it was a bit disjointed. It felt like 52 completely individual steps rather than working through a process that built up throughout. But, as I said, I may not be the best person to judge as I was just reading it.
Not a complete no-no but if I was to start a program of changing my life I can think of books that I would turn to more readily.
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The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Why’s that then? Why aren’t I skipping off to my computer right now to market my business? (Oh yes, I’m already at my computer…) I’d say that the book is definitely food for thought. There’s no doubt that it helps you look at things with a fresh eye. But…
… I find myself left thinking “now what? now what do I do?”. Yes, it’s given me a lot of theory but nothing that I can really get my teeth into. I find books like that frustrating. It’s like I’ve asked a cook “how do I bake a cake?” and they’ve replied “in an oven, you can make chocolate cake, or carrot cake, or coffee cake, it’s great”, when what I really wanted to know is how much flour to use, how to compile the ingredients and how long to cook it for. Do you know what I mean?
So, I would say that if you’re interested in reading up on the theory of using the web to market your business then this could well be the book for you. But if you’re after a step-by-step guide to putting the theory into practice then you might not get so much from it.
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Brilliant Start-Up
The book takes you through the stages of setting up and running a business. It is an inspiring mix of practical information and entertaining writing style. If you’re toying with the idea of setting up a business then this is definitely the book for you. Our business has been going for a few years now but even though some of the book was covering old ground I still found it an interesting read, so I would say that it’s not necessarily just for start-ups. It’s given me a new perspective on parts of our business and I’ve set myself some homework to follow up on some ideas.
The only criticism I would have is the bias towards sales rather than marketing as a whole. There’s a whole chapter which is basically on telesales way before the whole marketing concept is covered, which I found offputting. However, the author began the book with explaining that it would be opinionated and this is an example of that. I can see the point he’s trying to make, I just don’t necessarily agree with it.
My previous book review was, I said, not one for lifting your motivation. This book is exactly that – whether you’re thinking of starting up a business, are in the process of doing so, or (like me) have been running a business for a few years, this book could provide you with the inspiration that you need.
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Preparing a Winning Business Plan
The book takes you step-by-step through the different sections of a business plan, explaining the information you need to compile and giving information about using resources. Each chapter also includes scenarios of different people setting up in business, which helps lift the dryness of the book a bit. However, I did feel that they could have been a bit more directly related to the subject matter of the chapter just covered to see how the advice could be practically applied.
The copy I have is the fourth edition, published in 2003, and it is therefore surprising that resources mentioned give postal addresses but not website details. If there is a more recent edition available I would hope that this has been rectified.
Overall a good information resource to have on your bookshelf but not a book to dip into when your motivation needs a lift.
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Inspiring Women: how real women succeed in business
However, what I’m not and have no plans to be is a mother and what this book is screaming at me is that to be a ‘real woman succeeding in business’ I have to have the added challenge of raising a family and spending enough time with the kids etc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m full of admiration for women who do manage to do both, but that’s just not who I am. I find it hard enough getting a decent work/life balance as it is! But, my idea of reading about how women have succeeded in business is more about learning about their experiences running the business, not the children bit.
Overall I did find the book very interesting but I found the focus on being a mother increasingly frustrating and at some points (which I quickly talked myself out of) began to feel inadequate for my lack of offspring. Does everyone have to be introduced as ‘blah, mother of three’ – if it was a book about men in business that wouldn’t happen. It seemed that even the types of businesses covered were fluffy women-friendly ones – maternity clothes, baby food/toiletries, fashion, secretarial. Let’s face it I obviously don’t fit into the target audience for the book – if I was a mother thinking of setting up a business I’m sure I would find the book incredibly inspiring.
How about a book about women succeeding in male-dominated industries … like web design for example? They can be women with or without children, I don’t mind, just don’t make it all about the motherhood.
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Keeping It Simple: Small Business Bookkeeping, Self-Assessment & VAT
The first part of the book is mostly aimed at sole traders, though I still found the simple explanation of bookkeeping records extremely relevant to our business (which is a limited company). Then to make me even happier there is a section on ‘Accounting for Limited Companies’ which explains some of the additional records that a company needs to keep. I’ve never seen such a clear explanation of a director’s loan account! There is then a fairly extensive section on VAT with some excellent advice to help you decide whether you should register for VAT or not (it doesn’t just boil down to how much your turnover is). Finally, the book ends with some general advice on small business issues – accounting software, taking on an employee, and choosing a bookkeeper or accountant.
I suppose I should say that the book doesn’t cover absolutely everything, however it’s not setting out to. If it had it would have become overly complicated like a lot of other accounting books. Instead it sets out just enough to get you started and gives you pointers as to what else you may need to find out about. It is nice and clearly laid out, with lots of example spreadsheets and uses case studies to help explain different scenarios.
The book’s blurb starts with “This plain-English guide is essential reading for all small business owners” and I couldn’t agree more. I wish that I’d had a copy when I was first starting out, it would definitely have helped me get my accounts on a firm footing, but even a few years down the line it’s clarified some issues for me and given me an idea of how I can improve my accounts in a managing the business context rather than just essential records for tax purposes.
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Press Here! Managing the Media for Free Publicity
Press Here!: Managing the Media for Free Publicity
I particularly liked the case studies at the end of each chapter. The author used three different scenarios – two businesses and one freelance journalist – and followed their stories throughout the book. Absolutely brilliant. They reinforced the advice given in a very accessible way, showing how it could be applied in a real situation. It was also very useful to get an insight into how a journalist thinks and the pressures they are under – somehow makes contacting journalists seem less daunting.
Definitely a book to refer to again when I’m ready to launch into some PR.
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