The Street Smart MBA: 10 Proven Strategies for Driving Business Success

Business schools have long enticed students into their MBA programs with the promise that, after a short stint spent studying the ins and outs of the business world, they will be able to step right into the upper echelons of management or launch a business that soon has them flitting about the world in a private jet. "Sounds great," you say. "Sign me up!"

Not so fast. Sure, business school might prove a necessary prerequisite for those aiming to gain employment at a large financial institution, land a job with a consultancy, or accelerate their journey to managerial superstardom at a Fortune 500 company. But for aspiring entrepreneurs and established business owners alike, the truth of the matter is this: The ability to get a business off the ground and running successfully is not the byproduct of toiling away in a classroom, learning esoteric subjects like the economics of competition. Rather, all it takes to start and run a truly successful business are a few sensible, time-proven techniques that have been needlessly forgotten in business innovators' haste to reinvent the wheel. That's why, in The Street Smart MBA, Steve Babitsky and James J. Mangraviti, Jr., encourage you to ditch class—or, better yet, ditch b-school altogether—and go back to the business basics with a series of ten simple steps that will do more for your company than the letters M, B, and A ever will.

There are no forays into game theory in The Street Smart MBA, no parables, and no intellectualizing. Instead what you will find is a practical, easy-to-understand, step-by-step business strategy guide that encourages you to revive a handful of basic yet essential practices that many business owners have lost sight of, such as:

With its emphasis on ten simple yet time-honored principles that lead to business success, The Street Smart MBA is all the business education that entrepreneurs with great ideas and business owners with the drive to succeed will ever need.

What you'll learn

Who this book is for

The Street Smart MBA is geared toward the tens of millions of businesspeople who own or run small, medium, and large businesses or are planning to do so in the future. Additionally, the book will appeal to college students and young professionals who are contemplating whether or not to attend business school; novice and seasoned entrepreneurs alike who want to position their new venture for business success; and even current undergraduate and MBA students who are thinking about starting up a company and have begun searching for an alternative business education that will help them do so.