Business

I was sitting in a restaurant when the waitress noticed that I was wearing a pair of TOMS and we instantly struck up a conversation on the merits of the shoes, how many pairs we had, etc... Do you own a pair of TOMS? For the uninformed, these are canvas shoes but shoes with a purpose. For every pair you purchase, TOMS donates a new pair of shoes to a child in a developing country.

I was attracted to read Super Business: How I started SuperJam from my Gran’s Kitchen by Fraser Doherty for a number of reasons. First the author is a young, and I mean young, successful entrepreneur, who started his business at just 14. Second he’s from Edinburgh, my home town and third, he, like many women within Company of Women, started a food business from his home kitchen. I was curious how he’d achieved such rapid success.

They say the economy’s getting better. They say things are looking up, that business is starting to recover. But they couldn’t prove it by you. For months now, you’ve been spinning your wheels in the sand, your dreams on hold along with your life. You’re wondering if the economy is to blame or if there’s something else…

It’s budget time, and you’ve been going over your plans for 2011, just like you do every year when the calendar turns over. And as your eyes sweep over the pages, several words come to mind… Thin. Slim. Small. Cut, slash, eviscerate, butcher, chop, and several other euphemisms for painful carving. Also: uh-oh, awww-no, oh-heck, and a few other things you can’t say in front of your mother. How can your business ever hope to thrive and grow on such increasingly meager budgets? Find out what non-profits do by reading “Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business” by Nancy Lublin.

Your budget is connected to your income. The income’s connected to a sales goal. The sales goal’s connected to the economy. The economy’s connected to consumer spending. And consumer spending’s connected to the ankle bone. Flow-charts, studies, old songs, and graphs can help you comprehend cause-and-effect in business, but when it comes to the world as a whole, things are messier. Or are they? Read the newly-illustrated “SuperFreakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner, and you’ll see connections and corollaries everywhere.