4 November 2008 120 views No Comment

Title: The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Starting Your Own Business
Author: Edward Paulson and Marcia Layton
Publisher: Alpha Books
ISBN 10: 1592575846

If you’re thinking about starting a business, there’s no shortage of books available on the subject. You can find how-to business guides that range from bare business basics all the way to MBA level in-depth business guides.

Edward Paulson and Marcia Layton collaborated on the Alpha Books release, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business“. Paulson is an MBA and engineer with entrepreneurial experience, and Layton is an MBA who runs her own business and marketing consulting group. The authors have years of background in starting and running small and large businesses, and they give real world advice in this basic business guide.

Like most books in the “Complete Idiot’s Guide” series, the Guide to Starting Your Own Business breaks down the basics of starting a business into easy to understand sections. Graphics are used to highlight special points and advice throughout the text.

All of the basic business topics are covered: what type of business is right for you, whether or not to incorporate, how to write a business plan, and sales and marketing techniques. The book addresses each topic clearly and most of the information is general enough to be applicable to many types of businesses.

The one drawback of this book, and this may be addressed in later editions, is the relative lack of information on home based and internet businesses. Granted, there are entire books written on those two topics themselves, but if you’re looking for information specific to those two industries, you may want to consider a different book.

As a basic business reference guide, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting Your Own Business” skims the surface of A to Z. It provides worksheets for discovering your talents and what type of business you’d like to run, and it walks you through all the most basic business procedures like incorporation. There’s even a section on hiring employees, and a very brief section on independent contractors and how they differ from employees.

Overall, if you’ve just begun to think about starting your own business and you’re looking for a basic reference guide to get you started, this book will suffice. If you already know the type of business you’d like to start, or if you’ve already started the process of working for yourself, you might be better served by a more in-depth book more closely related to the field you’re interested in.

Reviewer: AJ Kerr