Straight Talk on Investing. What You Need to Know

What You Need to Know About Leadership Business Needs Leaders. Every day, good and bad leaders make and break organizations. If you want to get anywhere in your career, showing leadership is crucial. So what do you really need to know about leadership? Find out: What it’s all about Why vision matters How you can build a great team Why leaders need to motivate and inspire the people around them How to lead when the going gets tough What You Need to Know about Leadership is the book you need to get to the corner office. Read More in the What You Need to Know Series and Get up to Speed on the Essentials…Fast.

George Buckley & Sumeet Desai: What You Need To Know About Economics Economics Matters. But with confusing things like GDP and interest rates, it’s often hard to get you head around. So What do you really need to know about economics? Find out: What economic growth is and why it matters How inflation happens How jobs are created and lost How the property market works What central banks do and how it affects the rest of us The impact of government spending on the economy What You Need to Know About Economics cuts through the theory to help you to do your job and understand the world around you better. Read More in the What You Need to Know Series and Ger Up to Speed on The Essentials… Fast.

In any career in business, chances are that the time will come when someone will ask you to do a strategy for something. Too often, this will be a cue for stress at work and sleepless nights. What You Need to Know about Strategy shows that it doesn’t have to be like this. Taking you step-by-step through the basics of what you need to know to come up with a great strategy, it shows: That getting the right answers depends on asking the right questions Why priorities matter How to map out your internal and external situation How to deal with uncertainty How to make tough choices What your brain does while you’re doing strategy By cutting out the theory, and focusing on the things you need to know and do to come up with a killer strategy, this book means that you never need to panic again.

A practical and pithy guide to investing to help everyday investors achieve their long-term goals The 21st century has been beset with three financial market shocks in its first 20 years, the bursting of the Tech Bubble in 2000-2002; the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09; and 2020 COVID-19 crash. Given this backdrop, it is no wonder that investing can appear to be so daunting to individual investors. As Chairman and CEO of Vanguard, one of the largest and most respected investment management companies in the world, Jack Brennan has spent his career helping people invest their money. In the newly updated More Straight Talk on Investing , he shares with you the lessons he has learned over his over four decades at Vanguard from a variety of market participants—from Main Street investors and 401(k) plan holders to veteran portfolio managers at the helm of Vanguard funds and sophisticated investment professionals overseeing top endowments and foundations. This a comprehensive, but approachable book will help you develop the knowledge, confidence, and discipline to navigate the financial markets and attain investment success over the long term. While the financial planning and investing principles covered are timeless, a considerable amount has changed in the nearly 20 years since the first edition, including new products and services, lower costs, and ever-evolving regulation and legislation. An entire generation of investors has come of age over the past two decades and could benefit from understanding that sound and sensible investing is an effective way to achieve financial security. This book will assist your manage your “serious” money—the dollars that you set aside for long-term goals, such as retirement or the education of your children. The book also emphasizes the concept of thinking of yourself as a “financial entrepreneur”—managing your financial life like owner manages a business. In a straightforward, plain talk manner, the book demonstrates how to: Build a balanced, diversified portfolio that meets your needs and goals Evaluate mutual funds and ETFs with a discerning eye Adhere to a long-term, disciplined approach to investing Control your emotions and tune out the incessant “noise” in the media Understand the risks and rewards of financial markets Develop a prudent plan and investment policy statement to guide your path forward Avoid the pitfalls and mistakes that can derail your investment program With wit and wisdom, Brennan relays anecdotes and observations that demonstrate the enduring investment precepts that will serve as a guide to novice investors and as a practical refresher for seasoned investors. He has also added three new chapters focusing on evaluating advice options, garnering lessons from endowments, and dealing with the challenges of a low interest rate environment.

Business is big. Actually, it's often small and medium-sized too. But the point is that it matters – a lot. This book is designed to answer all those confusing questions that flit through your mind when you get to the business pages of the paper, and stop you being embarrassed in job interviews. It explains the things you really need to know about business, and will tell you: What the point of business is How what happens in the economy affects real businesses What the law means for business Finance, accounting, shares, bonds etc and other big numbers How companies grow and why the merge (even though most mergers fail) What HR departments actually do all day Time management, motivation, leadership, communication skills and all the other skills you'll need if you want to know what the view's like from the CEO's office After reading it, you'll smile knowingly whenever the advantages of outsourcing, balanced scorecards or Porter's 5 Ps come up in polite conversation.

Marketing is shrouded in arcane mystery and buzzwords. It frightens many and bewilders others. Yet every business, from the hand-car-wash by the side of the road, to the world's most famous brands, engage in marketing every single day. This is an essential, reliable, speedy and up to date guide to the most robust and important concepts in marketing. This book shows you how to understand and do marketing without having to study a degree or a diploma in it. Along the way it shows you what has been learned about marketing over the centuries, what experts can teach us that we can use ourselves, how marketing has changed in our new ‘digital' world, and how to avoid classic mistakes. In short, this is all you need to know about marketing. Introduction – Marketing: the world's second oldest business activity Chapter 1 – The Product. Chapter 2 – The Marketing Strategy and the Marketing Plan Chapter 3 – Your Customers. Chapter 4 – Pricing and Promotion Chapter 5 – Placement or Distribution. Chapter 6 – Customer Engagement Chapter 7 – Branding Chapter 8 – Social Media and Digital Marketing

What You Need to Know About Project Management Project Management is all about getting things done without spending too much or taking too long. But when you start hearing things like man-days, PSOs and stakeholders, it just makes it difficult to understand. So what do you really need to know about project management? Find out: Why setting clear goals matters How to estimate absolutely everything. How to get things back on track after they’ve gone wrong How to track big projects Why work/life balance matters when you’re running a big project This clear and simple approach will mean you’ll never panic when faced with a big project again. Read More in the Want You Need to Know Series and Get to Speed on the Essentials… Fast.

Ever wanted to be an entrepreneur? Ever wanted to control what you do, when you do it and stop just making money for someone else? Now is your chance. Starting up a business has never been more exciting. This book explains what you really need to know to make your business a success: • How you'll know if you've got a good idea • The practicalities of setting up a company • How to manage the money • How to sell what you do • How to make sure you stay soon through it all. This is the book you need to swagger into the Dragon's Den full of confidence. Introduction Chapter 1 – The Idea Chapter 2 – The Business Plan Chapter 3 – Systems, Tools and Legalities Chapter 4 – Money Chapter 5 – Sales & Marketing Chapter 6 – People Chapter 7 – Growth and Staying Power Chapter 8 – Lifestyle

Let's face it, economics can be boring…but we all need a decent understanding of the basics if we want to survive in these difficult and uncertain times. Let's make it more interesting. Easy Economics isn't packed with reams of text or stacks of numbers, this book is visual and engaging. The book aims to bring you up to speed, in a way that entertains while it informs, through a collection of many of the most frequently asked questions–plus some you probably haven't thought of–on the subject of economics. The topics range from: The difference between Debt and Deficit Causes and cures of recessions The Financial Crisis of 2007-2009 explained Is globalization good or bad? How fiscal and monetary policies differ Bubbles and Busts Unlike so many other books on the subject, it explains through a Q & A format with entertaining and informative illustration, providing material that many people ordinarily find uninviting and even intimidating in an easy-to-digest, appealing way.