This book contains more than 100 profitable business ideas and a wealth of detailed, how-to information on business start-ups, financing, prospecting, expanding and much much more! A valuable resource for anyone starting or planning to start his/her own computer-based business at home, with substantial growth and major future success on their minds.

great book for any gardener interested in learning more about permaculture and sustainable gardening, not just for arid and tropcal zones

Everyone who works in the wonderful world of not-for-profits realizes that the dreaded day will come when they have to make an ask for money. This terrific book not only outlines the how-to of making such an ask, but also teaches the board member that this is their board participation responsibility. The book takes you step by step through the process teaching you that the best way to avoid the fear of the situation is to be well prepared.

However, i think one of the most important aspects of this book is that it convinces board members that theirs is a noble cause and that asking for money should bring a sense of pride, not shame. That may be a hard sell, but i think Lansdowne succeeds.

Lansdowne offers a well organized book that anticipates the pitfall of fund raising, while providing a well mapped procedure to follow.

This book was given to me as a gift by a friend. I have yet to put it down. I am an experienced gardener, but have used it for new ideas and inspiration constantly. I loaned it to another friend and had to fight to get it back, so I have ordered her her own copy. An exquisite book, especially if you admire the Europeans their container gardens.

This has been a very useful book. It will be useful for the beginner or the professional. As with many of Mr. Vizard's books, it easily understood and very detailed. I have already had very rewarding results and still have much more material to experiment with. The material is very practical and for the hands on enthusiast.

As someone who works privately with students and researchers in the social sciences, I give this book my highest recommendation. The essence of any research project is the proposal. For dissertation students, the proposal is the blueprint for the entire dissertation process. For researchers in the social sciences, the research proposal is the most important vehicle for securing funding. When researchers contact me in regard to assistance with their proposal, I recommend that they buy this book and use it as a reference. The information contained in this book is invaluble.

The modular almost tutorial-like approach covering each business area enabled me to construct a stong business plan by guiding me to think about each area of the idea such as Product, Pricing, Market Size, Personnel, Financing etc.

The end result of going throught the exercise was I could focus on areas that required attention. Once those were completed, I literally had a complete business plan. I have recommended it to many friends!

This book is very good for helping you organize your thoughts since most of us have ideas but never truly do anything with them.

Excelent book for making your organization ISO 9000 compliant

Book Review-Author's Comments January 11, 2000

A September 1994 SBA's Office of Advocacy publication, "The Small Business Advocate," headlined as its lead story on page 1, "Small Business Job Generation: from Revolutionary Idea to Proven Fact," argues that "Small business is now widely regarded as the principal generator of net new employment in the United States." The article goes on to declare, "Small businesses create a vastly disproportionate share of the new jobs in the United States." This Office of Advocacy claim that is based on data for the 1989-91 period is misleading and just not true. My book explores and explodes this myth.

For the period when this claim was made, the Census Bureau data show that all businesses (all sizes) created 679,000 jobs. Small businesses lost or destroyed 192,000 jobs. Large businesses added 802,000 workers. Businesses that were large and became small, and businesses that were small and became large added 69,000. Therefore, the claim cannot legitimately be made that small businesses create all the jobs, when it's obvious that small businesses were destroying jobs.

SBA's Office of Advocacy is perpetrating a political hoax on the American people. Because of our need to work and the psychological benefits that a job provides, the small business job creation argument is emotionally powerful. However, the largest firms, not the smallest, are creating jobs. SBA's Office of Advocacy has been touting the fallacious 1989-91 data figures for years.

How does SBA's Office of Advocacy perpetrate its job-generation hoax? It cleverly applies the regression fallacy by counting its winners and ignoring its losers. Take a more careful look at the data for boundary crossovers.

Previously, I noted that businesses that were large and became small, and businesses that were small and became large added 69,000. However, SBA's Office of Advocacy takes the 192,000 job loss by small firms that remained small and adds 749,000 from the column of firms that were small and became large. For large firms that became small, SBA's Office of Advocacy attributes the 680,000 jobs as losses to large firms. Note: 749,000 less 680,000 = 69,000.

According to Milton Friedman (Journal of Economic Literature, Dec. 1992), and a host of academics, this is fallacious. Also, most college text books warn against the regression fallacy, but SBA's Office of Advocacy deliberately misleads the public by claiming the crossovers are small which they are on net, but it then misuses the gross flow statistics to complete the small business job creation hoax.

Using the Friedman methodology (he suggests that a firm's size classification should be determined by its end period size status) I can report that small businesses lost 872,000 jobs, while large businesses generated 1,551,000 jobs. This finding does not square with SBA's Office of Advocacy claims for the 1989-91 period.

More important, perhaps, is the argument that we should cut or eliminate the capital gains tax, because it will help small businesses, "they create all the jobs." Or we should not raise the minimum wage because it will hurt small businesses, "they create all the jobs." And finally, Americans should not have mandated health insurance, it will hurt small businesses, "they create all the jobs." Currently, a million and a half workers lose their health insurance benefits every year during these boom times. Virtually all those losing their benefits are working in small businesses.

Our democratic political system requires accurate data. This job-generation debate involves the integrity of the Federal statistical system, and affects the well-being of millions of Americans.