How to Start a Business

Rake in the Green

Successful landscapers and lawn care professionals reveal their secrets to success in this $20 billion industry. With all the homes, business parks, apartment complexes, shopping malls and hospitals that need landscaping, you can tailor your services and create your dream job. Your business can range from the simple-mowing and edging lawns, raking leaves and clipping hedges-to applying chemicals and fertilizer, trimming and shaping trees, designing landscapes and more. Learn everything you need to know, including:

• How to find customers
• What equipment you’ll need
• How to hire and manage employees
• Record keeping and accounting
• Where to find working capital
• How to calculate job estimates
• And more

If you love working outdoors, you owe it to yourself to buy this step-by-step guide and start building your own successful lawn care or landscaping business.

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Get Paid for Your Experience

Want to strike out on your own and take control of your job security? Become a consultant-it could be a lucrative move. Whether you’re a computer whiz, a business expert or a fundraising dynamo, your special skills are in demand. Learn everything you need to know to turn your expertise into a profitable business.

Learn how to:

• Assess your skills
• Define your market
• Find and keep clients
• Obtain licenses
• Set rates
• Monitor cash flow
• Hire staff
• Use the internet to boost business
• Prepare contracts, agreements and reports
• And more!

With answers to frequently asked questions, an appendix of additional resources, and a valuable list of the top 20 consulting businesses thriving today, this guide puts you on the road to success. Interviews with successful consultants offer valuable insight into how they have taken their careers into their own hands-and how you can, too!

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Book Description

“Hess and Goetz present a roadmap for how to avoid the things that can cause you to stumble and how to build a business the right way.” –JEFF ZEIGLER, CEO, TechTurn.com, Austin, TX “When I started my graphic design business, I knew I had enough talent to impress and keep my clients, but I struggled with the day to day running of the business. So, You Want To Start A Business? is the blueprint I needed to get organized and put all the right things in place.” –KORY BAILEY, Owner, Creative Counterpart Build the Successful Company You’ve Always Wanted to Own!

*Avoid the 8 disastrous operational mistakes that kill new businesses

*Walk step-by-step through the entire process of building a winning business

*Master 55 amazingly simple rules of business success

*For every entrepreneur and potential entrepreneur…no previous business experience necessary!

*Launch the winning business you’ve always wanted!or make more money in the business you’ve already started!

More than 5,000,000 new businesses are started each year!but 70% of them will fail.Now, two renowned experts on entrepreneurship identify the 8 “killer mistakes” that cause most business failures–and give you the knowledge, tools, and hands-on advice to avoid them, so you can build a business that thrives. Unlike other books on entrepreneurship, this book focuses on the crucial operational issues associated with consistent profitability.

You’ll learn how to:

• identify the right opportunities and customers;
• design winning products and services;
• set the right prices;
• overcome customer inertia;
• avoid common day-to-day management mistakes;
• find and keep good employees; and finally,
• smoothly manage growth.

Throughout, the authors draw on real life entrepreneurial experiences, case studies, and leading-edge research. There’s nothing theoretical here: This is fast-paced, 100% practical advice you can use to make your business dreams and goals come true–starting right now. What really makes a successful entrepreneur? What they do, how they act…and how to find your best path to business success Get the 3 “Ws” right from the start What will you sell, who will buy it–and why will they buy it?55 simple, indispensable rules for success What you must know about customers, competitors, and your employees The art and science of managing people, operations, and growth Create processes, set priorities, maximize quality, measure people–and improve every day

“Covers a wide range of topics, from selecting a marketable name to small business laws, taxes and contracts.” — Miami Herald

“Step-by-step legal guide that covers a wide range of topics…” — Kansas City Star

“Very strongly recommended… simply outstanding business instructional guide…” — The Bookwatch

Answers important questions, including whether to incorporate and how to price merchandise.” — Real Simple magazine

Small Business Start-Up Kit Description

The best step-by-step guide to starting a business available!

Many people dream of running a business of their own — but often don’t know how to start. Sound familiar? This book can help.

User-friendly and loaded with tips, The Small Business Start-Up Kit shows you how to launch a business quickly, easily and with confidence. It explains in plain English how to:

That sounds mighty boastful, but the author’s credentials are strong, the book loaded with business resources and the information is down-to-earth (Everything you need to start a successful business… except the money, But we’ll show you how to get that, too!”)

Author Rieva Lesonsky and the staff of Entrepreneur Magazine put together the book which starts with “Are you ready to be an entrepreneur?” and goes on to starting versus buying, choosing the name attracting investors, hiring employees, location, loans, image, leasing versus buying equipment, choosing a phone system, learning from failure – all the nitty-gritty stuff, plus some long-term thinking.

Lesonsky, Entrepreneur’s Vice President / Editorial Director, frequently speaks at small-business conferences and appears on TV and radio business programs. — Geneevieve Buck, Chicago Tribune
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

YOUR ROAD MAP to BUSINESS SUCCESS

From the editors of Entrepreneur magazine, this bestselling business startup book has helped hundreds of thousands of readers start their own businesses. Revised, expanded and updated, the 4th edition will help you save time and money, minimize mistakes and maximize profits.

Our practical, easy-to-follow advice takes you step by step through the startup journey and guides you through the first three years of business ownership. You’ll find the comprehensive, in-depth information you need to bring your business to life, plus dozens of work sheets and checklists you can use to measure your progress along the way.

HERE’S MORE OF WHAT YOU’LL FIND INSIDE:

HOW TO get business ideas and pinpoint your target market

SECRETS OF successful marketing, from building a brand and promoting your business online to free and low-cost promotion ideas and effective selling techniques

HOW TO harness the power of the internet to simplify startup and increase your chances of business success

CREATIVE WAYS to finance startup and growth

HOW TO take advantage of the latest technology to set up an efficient business on a budget

PLUS: Contact information and websites for hundreds of resources, including startup assistance sources, government offices and small-business-friendly banks