In this "refreshingly different" high-toned business book, three
leading business school professors take to America's back roads in
search of offbeat small businesses--enterprises that hold valuable
lessons for executives and entrepreneurs everywhere (Bloomberg
Businessweek).
While playing hooky from a conference in Boston a few years back, three
former colleagues from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management
hopped in a car and embarked on a life-changing road trip. They pulled
into a shoe store in Maine and noticed that the sales help was unusually
pushy. After a few questions, they discovered the store had a "secret
shopper" program, in which employees would be marked down if they were
not sufficiently aggressive with customers. A lightbulb went off.
Instead of teaching the tried-and-true case studies involving GE and
Microsoft, these three men decided to pull their heads out of their
ivory towers and search for insights about product differentiation,
pricing, brand management, building a team, and a host of other topics.
Why take your cues on employee compensation from Wall Street when you
can learn from a Main Street company like Couer D'Alene's best
crime-scene cleaner? Want to learn about scaling a business? Come meet
Dr. Burris, the flying orthodontist, who operates multiple, profitable
practices in rural Arkansas.
Spiced with vehicular mishaps and unexpected finds, this is one business
book you won't want to miss.
