CEO of SNOW FOX, lunchbox franchise, Jim Kim. He is teaching business owners or soon-to-be boss in 'Korean Business owner school'. His lectures are partially available in the youtube channel, but all are taught in Korean. (Youtube name: 한국사장학교TV, translated as Korea business owner school TV). He realized that there have been so many common questions that the business owners are struggling with. In this book, he gave his answers to the most common questions, which became 120 lessons.
The book cover has an English title 'introduction to business management,' which is boring and not really like Korean title. Maybe better translation of the Korean title is 'Bossology 101.' Although the book covers lessons for business owner, his messages are greatly helpful for anyone who wants to achieve financial freedom. After reading the book, four topics were quite impressive to me.
1. Big business vs small business
Same energy and time are required whether your business is big or small. Why not dream big then? The company can grow as big as the thoughts of the business owner. If you want to join the start-up, you should check how big your boss's mind. That will be eventually the size of the company in the future. Competitors of the small business are the other businesses nearby, but competitors of the big business are all over the world. Even if you aim to run small business, you will compete with global company in the end. Thus, start big from the beginning. Anyway you will need to input the same effort to make your business successful.
Business owner is the most talented person in the small business. That's not true in big business. There are experts taking in charge of each task to run the company in big business. Therefore, if you want to go big, you should first focus on hiring right person and supporting the person to be an expert for the position. That's the top-notch mission for business owner planning to build big business.
2. Signs of falling
These are the signs that the business will soon get ruined. In the book, there were more than ten signs, but I can only remember five.
1) The business owner shows up more often on TV or media than in his office.
2) The business owners' office is decorated with certificates of award. (maybe donation for good reputation)
3) The business owner doesn't appear at the office for his peronal reason.
4) Rapid increase of expenditure to buy luxurious items.
5) Family memers join the company out of no-where and take important position.
3. Rebellion of the founding contributor
Normally, founding contributors are close friends or family members. They may be your husband or wife. Their sacrifice was necessary when the business was just began. If the business keeps growing, and member of the company becomes mroe than ten. The company needs to be organized, and the decisions should be made through the internal process. In other words, it is the system to run the company efficiently. However, the founding contributors refuse to grow with the company and ignore the system. They still talk to CEO directly without following the system, which undermines the autority of the CEO. They think they don't have to follow the system because they are friend or family of CEO. Eventually, the business owner should fire them to keep the system of the company if not business will die.
4. The reason you can't succeed even if you follow the steps of the rich
The rich makes fortune through his/her own strategy. Following that strategy doesn't guarantee success because that approach already makes a result in the market and is known to many people. Therefore, sometimes it is much better idea to do the opposite of what the rich advised to do. The market is changing rapidly, and the strategy that failed in the past may be successful appraoch at the present. Thus, Jim Kim likes looking into the business failed in the past. He analyzed the reasons why the business was failed. Maybe the business was failed because the market wasn't ready and idea was too early. Then, one can get a chance to go to the success with the same idea that failed in the past.
As I'm thinking about running my own business, this book was full of great instruction. Jim Kim thinks the business owners are the wordly clergy. First of all, they can achieve freedom and share it with family. Second, they can share job opportunity and provide regular income to many people. Even the introverted can be a great business owner. Jim Kim himslef was quite an introverted person. If you are looking for freedom and independently living your life, boss is the right job for you.