Common Sense Rules: What you really need to know about business

Description

Common-sense business advice from the straight-talking Dragon Deborah Meaden is known to millions for her straight-talking, no-nonsense approach on BBC2's Dragons' Den, and in Common Sense Rules she shares insights and observations gleaned from a life lived in business. Some of them come from witnessing the successes - and the failures - of others. Many more, though, are drawn from her own business ventures. She shows, for example, how an early stint in a holiday park gave her a crash course in customer relations. She frankly and honestly analyses why her first enterprise, which started so promisingly, turned sour. And she explains why turning down a multimillion-pound offer for her chain of holiday parks was the best decision she ever made. As direct and to-the-point on the page as she is in the Den, Deborah Meaden is a superbly clear-sighted and experienced observer of business success, and her book is guaranteed both to inform and inspire.

Successful UK businesswoman and entrepreneur Deborah Meaden is best known as one of the dragons from BBC2's hit show Dragons' Den. She's had an extremely successful career in business, starting out at the age of 19 with her own glass and ceramics import company, moving on to open one of the first UK franchises for Stefanel, an Italian footwear and clothing firm, and eventually joining the family company, Weststar Holidays. She staged a management buyout in 2000, and in 2007 sold the business in a deal worth e83 million, giving her the freedom and capital to invest in new opportunities. Her Dragons' Den investments range from MixAlbum, an automated music mixing system, and Magic Whiteboard, a product that combines the best of a flipchart and a whiteboard, to yoodoodoll, a doll that you can make resemble anyone you like (or dislike).

A refreshingly sensible look at an area plagued by hype and mythology * Management Today * Many insights into what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur * Independent * For fans of straight-talking sass and common-sense wisdom * Harper's Bazaar * Common Sense Rules wages a war on business cliches and counters them with the simple truths that she says have guided her decisions * City A.M. *