Business Skills All in One For Dummies

BOOK 1: ACCOUNTING. 5

CHAPTER 1: Introducing Financial Statements. 7

Setting the Stage for Financial Statements. 8

Offering a few preliminary comments about

financial statements. 8

Looking at other aspects of reporting financial statements. 10

Income Statement. 10

Presenting the components of the income statement . 11

Income statement pointers. 12

Balance Sheet. 13

Presenting the components of the balance sheet. 13

Balance sheet pointers. 15

Statement of Cash Flows. 17

Presenting the components of the statement of cash flows . 17

Statement of cash flows pointers. 19

A Note about the Statement of Changes in Shareowners’ Equity. 20

Gleaning Important Information from Financial Statements. 20

How’s profit performance?. 20

Is there enough cash?. 21

Can you trust financial statement numbers? . 22

Why no cash distribution from profit?. 24

Keeping in Compliance with Accounting and Financial

Reporting Standards. 24

Looking at who makes the standards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Knowing about GAAP . 26

Divorcing public and private companies. 27

Following the rules and bending the rules . 28

CHAPTER 2: Reporting Profit or Loss in the

Income Statement. 31

Presenting Typical Income Statements . 32

Looking at businesses that sell products. 32

Looking at businesses that sell services. 34

Looking at investment businesses. 35

BOOK 2: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT. 123

CHAPTER 1: Designing Processes to Meet Goals. 125

Getting Started with Process Improvement . 126

Planning Operations. 126

Considering a serial process . 127

Placing operations in parallel . 127

BOOK 3: DECISION-MAKING. 175

CHAPTER 1: The Key Ingredients for Effective Decisions . 177

Distinguishing the Different Kinds of Decisions. 177

Strategic decisions. 178

Tactical decisions. 178

Operational and frontline decisions. 179

Identifying the Different Decision-Making Styles. 179

Recognizing the Workplace Environment and Culture as a Force. 180

Mapping your company on the innovation curve. 181

Accounting for company organizational structures. 183

Assessing the health of the workplace. 188

Developing the Decision-Maker: To Grow or Not?. 188

Knowing thyself. 189

Avoiding temptations that obstruct sound decisions . 189

BOOK 4: PROJECT MANAGEMENT. 243

CHAPTER 1: Achieving Results. 245

Determining What Makes a Project a Project. 245

Understanding the three main components that

define a project. 246

Recognizing the diversity of projects . 247

Describing the four stages of a project . 248

Defining Project Management. 250

Starting with the initiating processes. 251

Outlining the planning processes. 252

Examining the executing processes. 255

BOOK 5: LINKEDIN. 355

CHAPTER 1: Looking into LinkedIn. 357

Understanding Your New Contact Management and

Networking Toolkit . 358

Keeping track of your contacts . 359

Understanding the different degrees of network

connections . 360

Discovering What You Can Do with LinkedIn . 363

Building your brand and profile . 363

Looking for a job now or later. 364

Finding out all kinds of valuable information. 366

Expanding your network . 366

Understanding LinkedIn Costs and Benefits. 367

Weighing free versus paid accounts. 367

Comparing the paid accounts. 368

Upgrading to a premium account. 370

Navigating LinkedIn. 373

Touring the top navigation bar. 374

Looking at the Settings & Privacy page . 375

BOOK 6: BUSINESS WRITING. 445

CHAPTER 1: Planning Your Message. 447

Adopting the Plan-Draft-Edit Principle. 447

Fine-Tuning Your Plan: Your Goals and Audience . 448

Defining your goal: Know what you want . 448

Defining your audience: Know your reader. 450

Brainstorming the best content for your purpose. 454

Writing to groups and strangers. 455

Imagining your readers . 455

Making People Care . 457

Connecting instantly with your reader. 457

Focusing on WIIFM . 458

Highlighting benefits, not features. 459

Finding the concrete and limiting the abstract. 459

Choosing Your Written Voice: Tone . 461

Being appropriate to the occasion, relationship, and culture. . . .462

Writing as your authentic self . 463

Being relentlessly respectful. 463

Smiling when you say it . 464

Using Relationship-Building Techniques. 465

Personalizing what you write. 466

Framing messages with you, not I. 466

BOOK 7: DIGITAL MARKETING. 557

CHAPTER 1: Understanding the Customer Journey. 559

Creating a Customer Avatar. 560

Components of your customer avatar. 561

Introducing Agency Eric: A customer avatar example. 562

Getting clear on goals and values. 563

Finding sources of information and entertainment. 564

Honing in on demographics. 564

Adding challenges and pain points. 565

Preparing for objections. 566

Getting Clear on the Value You Provide. 566

Knowing the Stages of the Customer Journey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .568

Step 1: Generating awareness. 568

Step 2: Driving engagement. 569

Step 3: Building subscribers. 570

Step 4: Increasing conversions . 571

Step 5: Building excitement. 572

Step 6: Making the core offer sale and more . 573

Step 7: Developing brand advocates . 574

Step 8: Growing brand promoters . 574

Preparing Your Customer Journey Road Map. 575