Rachel Elnaugh - Business Nightmares
I can’t get enough of business type books at the moment. After finishing “ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six Figure Income” a week or so ago I went straight onto “Business Nightmares” by Rachel Elnaugh.
I chose this book as I’m always deeply impressed by business owners who have battled through adversity such as when Rachel’s company, Red Letter Days famously and very publicly crashed in 2005. At the time she was one of the Dragon’s on the BBC TV show Dragon’s Den so her profile in the media was huge.
The book goes into detail of how Rachel started the business, from very humble beginnings to the multi million pound leader of the gift experience sector. There is loads of interesting stuff here, and lessons learned about losing control of your company and expanding too fast into new markets. Rachel doesn’t go into too much detail about the collapse of her business, I’m guessing it must still be pretty painful. However there is still enough detail to understand what happened and why.
The rest of the book is a series of interviews and anecdotes from other business leaders/entrepreneurs who have struggled through tough times - yet come out the other side. People like James Dyson, Simon Woodruff, Jeffrey Archer, Donald Trump and Gerald Ratner. There are some great stories, and the overall message is “don’t give up”. Rachel now has a new company and as well as being an author she does a lot of public speaking and work with young entrepreneurs.
A good book overall, I love reading and learning as much as I can from people who have been in business, both successful and not. I always come away really motivated and wanting to pour some more energy into my own projects.
Also, as a result of reading Rachel’s book I’ve just started reading “Gerald Ratner - The Rise and Fall…and Rise Again“. So far it’s absolutely fascinating, and I haven’t reached the point yet where he made that speech. I’ll put a quick review up when I’m finished.
BTW Rachel has a blog here, great to see her still inspiring entrepreneurs.
What I’m listening to right now: Usher - “Here I Stand”
Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 12:19 am and is filed under Making Money, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
June 1st, 2008 at 1:47 am
Have you read Duncan Bannatyne’s book? A really good read, with a lot of food for thought in it. Have to say, though - Rachel Elnaugh comes out of it pretty badly.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:20 am
Yeah I’ve read Bannatyne’s book as well, it was a really good read.
June 1st, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Yeah I’ve read Duncan’s book. It was OK but not brilliant. I’m not denying he is a huge success but I just didn’t see as much entrepreneurship and inspiration from him as I have in others.
June 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
I guess I liked it because it was biographical in nature, rather than a standard ‘how to’ business/entrepreneur book. I find books like Kiyosaki’s ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ or Anthony Robbins’ work too boring to read.
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 am
Thanks for sharing, I will go and read the book, itseems interesting. It is from people who have walked the walk, that you learn most of…
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:09 am
One from the past which is good from both an historic and industry point of view is Boo Hoo, the story of Boo.com. I’ve recentlt re-read it and it’s hard not too see the same mistakes still being made - maybe just on a slightly smaller scale though.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
Great Review Kieron, It’s nice to see us Derbyshire women are inspiring! lol!
I may have to go and get this book!
Hannah
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 am
And this is another way she is making some of her money back.
June 2nd, 2008 at 11:49 am
Maybe she would not have written this book if her business had not failed?
June 2nd, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I have found most of the Dragons Den books to be little more than Ghostwritten material which has been churned out for maximum sales opportunity. When I was working on a project with James Caan we were talking about his new book and he was saying how important it was for him to write a great book himself if hes going to have a bestseller on its own merit.
I think its well know in business circles that Rachel got a very bad deal and no mater what anyone says shes a true inspiration to budding business woman across the UK.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
I have just ordered this book online now- i hope it comes before i go on holiday. Shows like Dragons Den and The Apprentice are entertaining/insightful, although i think some of the clowns on The Apprentice are the producers choice for an entertaining show, rather than an insight into the future entrepreneurs that the UK has to offer
Real business case studies like how Donald Trump came back from being $1 billion in debt by floating one of his casinos is where real respect lies!
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:31 pm
This is one I will have to try. I read Bannatynes book and was not very impressed, found it rather stale. I am attending a conference at the end of June called Dream Start. It is in Leeds and Rachel is one of the speakers, along with Michael Gerber, the author of a really good book called the E-Myth. I have just read the “How to get rich” book by Felix Dennis and that sure is worth a read, fantastic book!
June 16th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I read the boom cover to cover yesterday having had a similar situation-albeit on a much smaller scale. I thought it was very well written, insightful and a lot of it rang very true indeed to me.