Book Review: The One Minute Entrepreneur

"One Minuter Entrepreneur" is written by three authors: Ken Blanchard, Don Hutson, and Ethan Willis. The book uses the story of a married couple Jud & Terri to convey short one-minute entrepreneurship advises. Some of the advises are

• Associate with people you admire and can learn from them.


• You never need to cheat to win.


• What is right is more important than who is right.


• You will be the same year after year except for the people you meet and books you read.


• Success occurs when opportunity and preparation meet.


• It is not who you know that counts; it is who knows you and what they think of you.


• Take care of your numbers and your numbers will take care if you.


• For a mentor to be effective, you have to be enthusiastic and committed protégé.


• In sales and in every other business, you are constantly on stage – so act like it.


• Identify what you are passionate about doing. Look to do more of it.


• If nobody will pay you to do what you love, you have a hobby, not a career.


• Never let your expenses outstrip your revenue.


• Don’t be afraid to seek advice when your business goes to a new level.


• As an entrepreneur, the secret to success is generating CASH, CASH, and CASH.


• Look for moments of truth with your customers, to create the kind of experience you want them to have.


• Keep your priorities in order.


• Work to balance your business life with the rest of your life.


• It’s better to patiently implement a solid business strategy than to recklessly push for growth.


• We all leave legacies. Be intentional about making a positive difference with yours.

The book is light read. It starts with Jud’s ambition of starting a business and takes you thru his life and career journey.Every chapter in book focuses on one chapter in Jud’s life journey and ends by delivering one-minute advises for that chapter. By the time you complete the book, you would collect enough key advises for each phase in the life of an entrepreneur.

I really like the title of the book. It clearly sets the expectation of getting short advises. The book truly lives up to the expectation and does an excellent work of delivering the key nuggets. While, you can complete the book in short time, you will surely keep referring back to the book for the advises and might write some of these advises on your white board depending on the phase of your entrepreneurship journey.

I recommend "The One Minute Entrepreneur" if you are looking for some motivation and light reading on entrepreneurship. The book really excels in this goal. This book is not for people who are looking for deeper insights. The key advice of the book is to have mentors and seek advice when required. While this is certainly good advice, if you expect the book itself to get deeper into the advises, you will be disappointed. For example in chapter “Launching the Company”, the book only touches on the importance of generating the profit and adding new streams of revenues. There is much more to launching a business. This is left for the readers to explore from other sources or mentors.