Growing a Business

PAUL HAWKEN

Reviewed by Jack

Over twenty years ago, Paul Hawken, the cofounder of Smith & Hawken, a mail-order supplier of high-end quality gardening tools, wrote this then-unusual book. Most books about creating a business were books about raising capital, hiring the best employees, or writing a business plan. Growing a Business is a book about creating a good business that is sustainable and that brings you, the entrepreneur, satisfaction. It will help you become a better businessperson by showing you how to focus on the why of business instead of on the how. Hawken states his goal for his book early on: “I want to demystify, not with a set of dictums and executive summaries, but with a book that illustrates how the successful business is an extension of a person.”

In 1965, there were 200,000 start-ups in the United States. In 1986, a year before this book was published, that number had swelled to over one million. This proliferation informs Hawken’s belief that the future of commerce will be determined on the street by the small-business owner, not in the boardroom by corporate moguls.

Hawken also believes that business is about practice, not just about theory—no different from riding a surfboard or playing a piano. To stay grounded in practice, he suggests, “Be the customer. Go outside and look back through the window of your small business. Be a child trying to figure out how the world works. Go to a crowded park on a sunny day. Don’t go into the back room to read another book about business (even this one).” No newcomer is expected to be good from the get-go, so Hawken advises, “Relax. Take your time. Work and practice and learn.”

Hawken spends time discussing “tradeskill,” a term coined by Michael Phillips and Salli Rasberry in their 1986 book called Honest Business, which he believes can make the difference between success and failure. Tradeskill is the knack for understanding what people want, how much they will pay, and how they make their decisions. The smaller the business, the more important it is to learn tradeskill. Phillips and Rasberry “break tradeskill down into four specific attributes: persistence, the ability to face facts, the ability to minimize risk, and the ability to be a hands-on learner.” Hawken adds to these attributes the ability to grasp numbers.

Hawken strongly suggests that you finance a new business with your own money. You can avoid interest payments and there will be no temptation to spend money foolishly, because you know how hard it was to earn. Perhaps even more important, avoiding the temptation to borrow money from friends or family will keep you from complicating those relationships. Hawken also answers the question of how much money you will need: enough to go to market. This self-sufficiency ensures a sense of urgency and quality of product that will make you learn the business fast.

“To see the reward of commerce as money and the risk of commerce as failure is to see nothing at all.”

I have discovered through writing my reviews for our book that one type of successful business book is the kind that you can pick up, open to any page, and immediately find a valuable nugget of information offering a supporting fact, an inspirational story, or a profound quotation, to get you instantly looking at your world differently. This book contains page after page of read-out-loud treasures you will want to share. For example, when Hawken discusses how one should view risk, he writes: “If you persist in seeing a situation in the terms of risk, look again. If you still see risk instead of opportunity, walk away, because you just might be right.” His passion for business infuses every page, and as you read, you may just find your own passion stoked by his words. JC

Growing a Business, Simon & Schuster, Paperback 1987, ISBN 9780671671648

WHERE TO NEXT? Here for the importance of growing a business Here for growing a business with a soul Here for growing as a leader | EVEN MORE: Small Giants by Bo Burlingham; Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard; Raising the Bar by Gary Erickson and Lois Lorentzen; Setting the Table by Danny Meyer