david hieatt

If you are going to start a business, read this book. If you are running a business, read this book. If you are hiring people, read this book. If you are expanding, read this book. If you are contracting, read this book. Basically, if you have any thought of running a business, you just gotta read this book.

Les McKeown has launched and managed over 40 businesses. And it shows. This is not a book written by a theorist. This knowledge comes from being at the coal face. It’s simple, practical and bloody essential.

Les spoke at The Do Lectures last September. I was looking around at the audience as he spoke and all the entrepreneurs were sitting there and they all looked a little uncomfortable. Les was holding a mirror up the them and me. And we all recognised ourselves in what he was saying.

When you are running a business you tend to think your problems are unique. It’s a lie. The things you are going through follow a set pattern. And once you know that, once you know where you are in that set pattern, then it becomes easier to understand what to do to get your business to be at the stage that you want. And not the one you are in.

The book has really helped me think about the businesses I run. I think it gives you an overview of each defined stage of your business. In a way it gives you confidence to know what you are going through is not unique to you. Once you know that, you can take the emotion out things. And make decisions that will get you to where you want to get to.

It tells you how to hire differently in the different stages, it tells you about the tensions between founders and managers, and it does all this by giving you real life examples which works for me. I relate to the examples given.

At the same time of reading this, I was reading Steve Jobs biography. I can recommend reading these books in tandem. They give you different things. But you need both to succeed in business.

Yes, If you are running a business you should read this book. And then read it again. Essential.

Predictable Success – Les McKeown.

Wall Street Journal  Bestseller.