What Self-Made Millionaires Really Think, Know And Do ~ A Book Review

Book Title: What Self-Made Millionaires Really Think, Know And Do – The Straight-Talking Guide To Business Success And Personal Riches

Authors: Richard Dobbins and Barrie O. Pettman

Publisher: Capstone Publishing Limited (a Wiley company)

Number of pages: 329

ISBN: ISBN13 978-1-84112-680-7 (eBook) ISBN10 1-84112-680-2

The book covers a lot of ground on how to succeed in business, although the first chapters do a good job of trying to get into the readers mind and build or rebuild your success mindset, with some challenging questions and answers.

In the first 200 words of the introduction these two intrepid self-made millionaires have no qualms asking you questions like, “Are you tired of doing a crummy job for peanuts?” And…”Are you tired of being a macho dickhead moron?”

The first part of the book is all about addressing these issues of success mindset, in the chapters “Everything Starts With Ideas ~ How To Think Creatively” and “You Can Have It If You Want It ~ How To Set And Achieve Your Goals”. This sets this book apart from the majority of business success books.

After these two chapters it’s all business, although this success “mentoring” theme runs throughout the book.

According to the authors there are one million self-made millionaires in the world, at least as at the time of writing. The great majority of these self-made millionaires get to be millionaires through Route 1, which is a harrowing twenty year journey on average.

Route 1 is the slow but sure route. It requires you to set goals and to resolve to pay the price in advance of achieving those goals; it requires you to establish a specialization, an area of excellence, a mission; it requires you to be creative, to implement a winning business strategy, to get the marketing right, to be excellent at selling, to negotiate sensible deals, to give leadership to others, to understand the financial implications, and to manage your time well; to manage your life well.

The bigger part of the book is directed at giving you the necessary knowledge and attitude to take Route 1. But the authors have spent considerable time too on showing the reader how to get to be a self-made millionaire through Route 2, the “Get Rich Quick” route.

According to the authors, about 20% of self-made millionaires get there in less than twenty years – usually around six years.

Route 2 requires you to buy somebody else’s “dog”, or beat the other guy by 10%, or market somebody’s wonderful product in a new market. So if you are into shortcuts and “done-for-you” the two authors have got you covered in this section of the book.

And oh, the authors also mention Route 3, in passing… Route 3 “requires no goal-setting, no resolution to pay the price, no specialization, no competitive advantage…it allows people to be lazy, ill-informed… and allows people to watch television for twenty-six hours per week, to prop up a bar for two or three hours every night.”

The book is divided into 9 chapters:

Everything Starts With Ideas (How to think creatively)

You Can Have It If You Want It (How to set and achieve your goals)

Strategy Will Get You There (How to implement a winning business strategy)

Marketing Is The Key (How to implement a winning marketing strategy)

Sales Skills Will Make Your Fortune (How to be excellent at selling)

Everything Is Negotiable (How to negotiate better deals)

We All Need Leadership (How to lead a winning team)

Everything You Do Affects Sales, Costs and Profits (How to understand the financial implications)

Never Use Time As An Excuse (How to focus on the 20% that brings in the 80%) There is a section on further reading and an index.

The book is a good resource for anybody in business who wants an insider's view on what it takes to start, manage and steadily grow a business - as well as the mistakes to avoid, and the mindset you need to nurture and develop to boost your chances of success. 

Richard Dobbins made his first million pounds in management development. He is a management consultant, a practicing chartered Certified Accountant and editor of the journals Managerial Finance and Management Research News.

Barrie Pettman made his first million pounds in publishing. He is a management consultant, registrar and professor of human resource management at the International Management Centers and director of the International Institute of Social Economics.