A business book like no other on the market has just been published.

The Book of Business Inspiration doesn’t just feature the usual step-by-step business guides, it also has interviews with people who have started or bought their own business or franchise. These everyday entrepreneurs talk about how they did it, the problems overcome and the lessons learnt, and offer advice on how you, too, can have your own business.

The book also features how-to guides, ranging from how to buy a business to how to make money via the web; profiles of various businesses, from newsagents to nightclubs; profiles of legendary entrepreneurs; information on relocating your life to another country; and much more.

The Book of Business Inspiration is available to buy on Lulu.com for £14.95, or £5 for a downloadable copy.

The Book of Business Inspiration is published by Dynamis, the online media brand behind BusinessesForSale.com, FranchiseSales.com, BusinessOpportunities.com and BusinessWings.co.uk

Dynamis - the people behind BOB and other great websites including BusinessesForSale.com, FranchiseSales.com and Ubops.com - has made a film.

We did this because we realised that trying to explain what we did using text in the 'About Us' section of the website was, frankly, too dull.

We live in world dominated by the visual medium - not text. We think think this the way forward for lots of companies - a short film that explains what they do.

So see what Dynamis does, click the 'Play' button under 'Dynamis The Movie' on the homepage:

Click here to view movie

Despite England's poor performance in the World Cup, more than half of UK bosses said allowing staff to watch World Cup matches made for a happier, more motivated workforce.

At Dynamis, with so many football fans (including myself) there was NO WAY we were going to miss the greatest sporting event on earth. My problem was convincing the Dynamis team to leave their desks to come and watch the games! Up the Villa!

The Business Omnibus Survey was conducted by Continental Research. Only a quarter of bosses said employees were distracted during games, and they also thought their staff worked harder between games.

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Starting a business is tough. Doing it alone is tougher. That's why people collaborate. But how can you make a partnership work?

Sometimes, you have no choice. You have to go into business with other people. However, if you can make it work, two heads are better than one.

Some of the most successful businesses are run by a pair - Charles and Maurice Saatchi (the brothers who founded Saatchi and Saatchi), Sergey Brin and Larry Page (friends behind Google), Ben and Jerrry (ice cream buddies), David Filo and Jerry Yang (the pals that started Yahoo) and so on.

Other partnership collaborations include Bill Gates and Steve Balmer at Microsoft, the billionaire twin Barclay Brothers (owners of the Ritz hotel among other things) and India's Mittal brothers. My favourite sandwich shop in London is run by two Turkish brothers (both of whom are called Oz) and I run Dynamis with my brother Andrew.

Collaboration works but only if everyone is clear about the rules, boundaries, aims and expectations. There is a maxim that you should never go into business with friends or family but the people mentioned here would strongly disagree. You can go into business with anyone you like as long you have a very clear understanding of who owns what and who does what.

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To succeed at anything, we must give ourselves permission to fail.

The last couple of blogs have got me thinking about failure and success. There are no guarantees that anything we do in life will be successful. However, if we give ourselves the freedom to fail, then we stand a much greater chance of achieving something.

The freedom to fail actually doesn't free you from failure itself but releases you from the fear of failure. In fact, most people can deal with failure quite well because life is full of it. We're not so good at dealing with the fear of it happening - the worry and apprehension that comes in anticipation beforehand.

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The average person is bombarded with over 3,000 brands each day. So if you're in business, you will need a memorable name and slogan that stands out.

When you consider that 60% of an average person's email is spam and that the average American or Western European spends more time using media devices such as television, radio, Ipods and cell phones than any other activity while awake (see here), a memorable slogan can become a powerful tool in marketing your brand.

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Keeping people passionate about what they do is the single biggest challenge in business. However, happy people are more likely to be passionate.

Passionate people breathe life into a business. They take the business to new levels. But how do you make people passionate about business? Surely, as one Venture Capitalist pointed out to me a few years ago, it's about making the most amount of money in the shortest space of time. That's all that counts. But is it?

Inspiring staff is a challenge for business. It's a difficult thing to do. Contrary to the many 100s of blogs on the subject matter, business does not naturally lend itself to inspiration.

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A couple of posts ago I briefly blogged about the differences between Management and Leadership. I was then sent this quote by one of BOB's readers:

"If they don’t fail outright, most businesses fail to fully achieve their potential. That’s because the person who owns the business doesn’t truly know how to build a company that works without him or her.. which is the key..."

The quote is from respected author and entrepreneur Michael Gerber. Gerber, author of The E Myth, states that whilst entrepreneurs typically brim with good but distracting ideas they make poor business people.

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Every month or so I'm going to try and suggest a new business idea or concept that has yet to be developed. If it's already out there, let me know. If not, try and add to the idea. By the way, feel free to start the business yourself!

Why hasn't someone developed the ultimate child-friendly restaurant? As parents of an 18-month old with plenty of time and disposable income, both my wife and I are willing to be exploited more!

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1. People deny that the innovation is required.

2. People deny that the innovation is effective.

3. People deny that the innovation is important.

4. People deny that the innovation will justify the effort required to adopt it.

5. People accept and adopt the innovation, enjoy its benefits, attribute it to people other than the innovator, and deny the existence of stages 1 to 4!

©AC 2005. Inspired by Alexander von Humboldt's 'Three Stages Of Scientific Discovery', as referenced by Bill Bryson in his book, 'A Short History Of Nearly Everything'.

Faye Bulman, BusinessesForSale.com Manager, points out that she was the only female in the business when she joined us in 2005. Dynamis now employs 5 women and (as Faye also points out) turnover is up 30% each year!

Whilst I don't automatically connect the two, I am still a huge fan of all the women that work at Dynamis. We are extremely lucky to have such dedicated, intelligent and professional women. I do believe they have helped change the culture.

As an all-male business, we tended to be quite an aggressive sales-led organisation. In retrospect, I am not sure that was the right approach. Our sales culture is now more consultative and I believe this is because we have more women in the office.

Here are some great links provided by Microsoft: Women in Business Link

People ask what drives me as an entrepreneur. I say that everything I ever started was because someone rejected me.

Rejection is the cousin of invention. Whilst at Birmingham University in the early 90s, I was turned down in my attempts to become a staff writer on the University magazine. For whatever reason, I just did not fit. Instead of getting down about it, I decided to launch a rival magazine - without any idea of what I was doing. As it turned out, I had the time of my life.

This has been a repeated pattern ever since. I have a desire. I get rejected. I start my own. I learn a great deal and I have more fun than I ever imagined.

Rejection is not only the fuel that makes you determined to prove people wrong. Rejection is also protection from going down the wrong route. Rejection in life is the best thing that can happen to you. You may not see it at the time but you have to trust that there is something better for you.

You didn't get the promotion you wanted, the job you wanted, the salary you wanted, the freedom or the respect. Perhaps it's time to start something new. See rejection as your guardian angel telling you to move on.

The journey I took once I decided to launch my own student publication back in 1991, was possibly one of the most exciting times of my life. The experience of doing my own thing for the very first time was intensely rich and my learning curve was the steepest it has ever been.

And yet the magazine was a failure. It was a commercial disaster. I fell out with many of the people I launched it with and it left me with huge student debts. But I learned so much and it set the pattern for my life. I love it when I get rejected and I'm addicted to starting my own thing. The two go hand in hand.

Every time I find the door shut in my face or an ambition is thwarted, I get a perverse sense of satisfaction because something tells me that it's the beginning of a new adventure.

If every door I had pushed on had opened for me, then I would not have had the exciting life I've lived so far.

Every business needs to sell and the key to selling is correctly understanding what customers need. When this happens, you're not really selling - you're making people happy.

The idea that great sales people can sell anything to anyone assumes that people will buy products and services they simply don't need. Some people, and indeed some organisations, thrive on this unpleasant mode of operation.

However, it's not for me or my company and it shouldn't be for you either. This way of doing business - the hit and run approach - is best suited to con artists pedaling products or services that are of little value to the customer.

Truly great sales people believe in the product or service they represent. They are evangelists. As a business owner, you will be the best placed person in your organisation to become the best sales person - because no one else will have more belief in the product or service your business is offering.

Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell... They're all great sales people. They are great believers.

You may be thinking that sales isn't for you. It's just something you're not good at. You may see yourself as a planner or a creative or an administrator - but not a sales person. The idea of asking someone to part with their cash may not sit comfortably with you. Incredibly, many  people who start or buy a business do not see themselves as 'natural sales people'.

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At Dynamis, we are in the process of looking for new offices and I am keen on installing a power nap room for our employees.

This has raised the odd smile at work - they think I'm joking.

In the early days, when we'd just launched BusinessesForSale.com, I was often seen on the floor, flat on my back, in what is known as the 'semi supine recovery position'.

The back of your head rests on a book, the hands sit gently on the lungs and the knees are raised to support the spine. You get in touch with your breathing, you clear your mind and your body shape corrects itself.

I don't do it at the office anymore - not since we became profitable. But when we were losing £60k per month I was often found staring at the ceiling.

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The key to success in business (and in life) is to surround yourself with positive people and root out the negatives.

People are like buttons on an elevator. Some will take you up and others will take you down. Look around you. Do your friends champion you?  Or do they take comfort when you fail? Do they really want you to succeed? Or is that their worst nightmare?

When you're building your business - big or small - you'd be amazed at the negativity you will encounter. And I am not referring to your competitors - they'll probably have respect for you. No, the biggest resentment will come from within.

Unless all members of the business are aligned to the cause and unless all staff members feel that the success of the business is also tied to their own personal success, you run the risk of carrying negative attitudes that could end up damaging the aims of the company.

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Steve Schroder, the latest BusinessesForSale.com recruit, loves sending BOB quotes. This is his latest:

"The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it."
Theodore Roosevelt

If you're thinking of starting a business or you're already growing one, then one of the big challenges you will face is how to appoint the right managers and then have the discipline and the belief to let them get on with their job - especially as your company expands.

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Dynamis had the pleasure of meeting the Canas y Tapas team at the recent British Franchise Exhibition in London.

They're part of a huge Spanish restaurant chain and are currently rolling out their concept across the world, using our sites BusinessesForSale.com and FranchiseSales.com to find the right franchisees. 

Carlos, head of International Development, could not stress how important it was to find a franchisee that fitted the culture of the company. For him, it wasn't just about finding someone who had the money. They needed to live, breathe and sleep Canas y Tapas. They had to be passionate about Spanish food and experience in the catering trade was preferred.

Their dedication to the quality of the product and service was clear to see. It's refreshing to meet franchisors who are this passionate about their business and we wish them well in their plans for expansion.

Click here for more information about this franchise opportunity.

Business is like war. Once you start, all your best-laid plans can easily become irrelevant. I've never known anyone build their business according to the business plan that preceded it.

However, plans are essential for success. They should be seen as fluid documents and strategic goals that can change and adapt as you learn more about your own business and the sector you're in.

Take BusinessesForSale.com, for example. We planned on revenues from referrals. So if a business owner came to us looking to sell his business we figured that we could refer that owner to a business broker for a cut of the his commission (once the business was sold). In theory, this sounded like an exceptionally good idea and something that all business brokers wanted to work with us on. However, in practice we found it very difficult to police.

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I had the good fortune of riding the first dot.com wave of breathtaking valuation and without it, Dynamis sites such as BusinessesForSale.com and FranchiseSales.com would still be a twinkle in the eye of a would-be entrepreneur. Even our beloved BOB would not be here.

We (my brother and I, the founders of Dynamis) managed to raise £1.7m. At a time when people were raising tens of millions to retail ice and provide do-it-yourself online funeral services, £1.7m was a modest (dare I say it) pathetic sum. It hardly registered with the digerati elite. At fashionable networking scenes (First Tuesday, Chemistry and the like) I would lurk at the sides, like a plain and shy maid at a dance hall. I would watch the bigger plumbed internet startups - the Boo.com's and ClickMangos - with a small degree of envy as they strutted their luxurious dot.cominess. I was frumpy, dull BusinessesForSale.com. They were the internet equivalent of Samba. Mwah... Mwah... Darling!

Most fellow dot.com companies were spending £1.7m a month on face cream and reiki therapy massage for the staff.

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It's impossible to conduct business without having Malcom Gladwell's Tipping Point buzzing in your head.

His ideas are as infectious as the subjects he explores. Trends, products, crime even suicide will spread through society like a flu epidemic - given the right combination of circumstances. It's a marketeer's guide to alchemy.

The book was lent to me by a little-known marketing guru called Matt Price (a former strategic planner turned copy-writer). He puts the book into as many hands as will take it. Gladwell would describe Price as a Connector (a pollinator of ideas) and a Maven (an evangelist collector of valuable information). If you want your ideas or products to spread like a virus you only need a hundred or so Matt Price's working for you - for free and for the shear love of it.

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