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Not sure what to do next in your business? Fix This Next will help you focus on what you need to do to keep your business successful.
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If there’s one word that describes the daily life of a small business owner it’s “overwhelm”.
Where the overwhelm comes from is no mystery according to Mike Michalowicz. The answer to overwhelm lies in our tendency to try to fix everything all at once.
In his new book, overwhelm, he unpacks the issue of entrepreneurial overwhelm in his usual everyday-lay-language way.
What Makes Michalowicz The Pied Piper of Entrepreneurs?
Simon Sinek has said that Mike Michalowicz is a prime contender for being the patron saint of entrepreneurs. I’m not sure I’d agree. I prefer to call Mike the Pied Piper of entrepreneurs.
Mike Michalowicz has earned the right to lead entrepreneurs toward success. He’s unabashedly self-revealing in each of his books.
He’s not afraid of embracing and sharing his failures. But it’s not just that. He talks about his mistakes from a profoundly human point of view. He reveals the “ugly” and “shameful” elements we can all understand and relate to. Most importantly, he has a way of transforming those lessons into processes and models that can help others.
His books are written as a real-time entrepreneurial journey.
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Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (2008) how to bootstrap your first business.
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The Pumpkin Plan (2012) how to grow your business.
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Surge (2016), how to identify trends in your marketplace.
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Profit First (2017), how to guarantee a profitable business
Fix This Next Provides Focus Where It Matters Most
Fix This Next an interesting book because it focuses on fixing the biggest problem small business owners have — not knowing what their biggest problem is!
Michalowicz uses Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a template to introduce what he calls the “Business Hierarchy of Needs”.
“The business hierarchy of needs doesn’t represent stages in business growth. They are levels of needs. Your business will not climb the hierarchy in a linear fashion but move up and down levels as it progresses. “
This is a great metaphor to use because it’s something we all understand intuitively and deeply.
Michalowicz successfully creates a context and framework from which to view your business and from which you can easily focus on what matters most.
The “Fix This Next” (FTN) process is simple.
“The golden rule is to always satisfy the most essential need (the one closest to the base), before addressing a need above it.
Fix This Next is Light on Reading and Heavy on Doing
Even though there are eight chapters in this book, you will most likely start your reading journey only reading four of them.
Fix This Next unfolds in two sections. The first section is really the introduction and chapters one and two. That’s about thirty pages give or take. The second section; chapters three through eight are the specific levels of the business hierarchy of needs.
When you get to page fifty, the author basically tells you to stop, see what level of the hierarchy you want to dig into, and go straight to that chapter.
This is Where the Real Work Begins
Even though Michalowicz has written several books before this one, he likes to tell his audience to read this book FIRST. Even though it’s his newest book, it’s like the epiphany that comes from really BEING a small business owner, working with small business owners and reflecting on the realities of small business ownership. It’s the “If I knew then what I know know” of the Michalowicz collection.
Fix This Next will get you thinking about the right things and focusing on the right things. You’ll find stories from other business owners just like you, which I prefer to the many books that use case studies from big brands that I can’t relate to.
But as far as what to do once you get there, this is on you. Don’t look to the book to give you the answers.
Do the Fix This Next Online Assessment
If you’d like a more engaging and technical version, you can visit the Fix This Next website and take a free assessment that will get you focused.
I recommend you do both. While the online assessment is certainly engaging, you don’t want to miss out on Michalowicz’s entertaining prose and the stories he tells along the way.
I actually did both: I read the book and I took the online assessment. Here’s an example of what I received:
As someone who has some experience with putting together assessments, I have to say that this one is really good. It feels thorough because the assessment has you go through a “forced choice” series of yes-no questions. I found some of them rather tough, but that’s the point.
After the assessment, you’ll receive a follow-up email with your report along with an option to contact a Fix This Next expert.
I followed the link and was directed to an Advisor’s Directory. The directory contains experts who can help you implement the Fix it First strategies along with Pumpkin Plan, Profit First, or Clockwork strategies.
You can search by expertise and by region. This is incredibly helpful if you’re a small business owner who is committed to making a real change and implementing the principles from any of the books Michalowicz has written.
Get Fix This Next and Get Out of Overwhelm
If you’re one of those small business owners swirling in a sea of overwhelm, Fix This Next is going to be a must-read.
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