Mark C. Zweig - Confessions of an Entrepreneur: Simple Wisdom for Starting, Building, and Running a Business

Mark Zweig is a successful entrepreneur and small business owner who has been paying his life lessons forward for several decades. Thankfully, the University of Arkansas (UA) and our surrounding community have consistently been recipients of these lessons. Compiling his insights into this book will no doubt benefit the thousands who read it but also their customers and other stakeholders.

Mark, the full-time entrepreneur-in-residence in the UAs Sam M. Walton College of Business and chairman of Vistage Northwest Arkansas, writes and teaches from his lifelong experience and continual study of business, cares about his students and alumni, and radiates a positive mental attitude. His classes are some of the most in-demand at the Walton College.

As the dean of the UAs Sam M. Walton College of Business, I regularly interact with students, alumni, and business owners who have learned from Marks wisdom. He helps them network, introduces them to service providers they will need, and pushes them to do things he knows will make a positive difference in their business.

Ive not only seen the impact of his advice with others, but Ive also experienced it personally.

Not long after we met, Mark challenged mein his very direct but non-offensive styleto consider several ways the Walton College was too narrowly focused in our approach to teaching entrepreneurship.

For instance, he felt we put too much emphasis in our entrepreneurship-oriented courses on starting a new business and not enough emphasis on buying existing businesses. As he pointed out, entrepreneurship isnt just about starting companies that have a product or service that doesnt currently exist. There is nothing wrong with teaching and encouraging that kind of entrepreneurship, he told me, but it needs to be just one part of the curriculum portfolio.

You can make a lot of money with small businesses that are in mature markets, he told me. You just need to provide better service and better marketing.

I knew he was right because I know many alumni of the Walton College who are doing quite well in businesses in mature markets.

He also challenged our focus on technology-oriented entrepreneurship. Again, he was not against it, but he felt like it should just be a part of the bigger picture. And he said we tend to make it sound like owning your own business is riskier than working for a company.

When you own your own business, he said, you have many customers, but when you work for a company, you have one customer.

Mark is constructive in his criticisms, and his deep experience on the topics of starting and running a business make him a credible voice. Those are two of the many reasons I listen carefully to him and often ask him for advice.

As you will discover in the pages of this book, he has many creative ways of putting things into new perspectives. And he shares his insights with a very clear writing style that makes his ideas easy to remember and implement.

One tip he doesnt offer, except by example, that I think is worth mentioning is the value of writing about your business. Mark writes well, in part because he started writing at an early age and continued writing throughout all the various businesses he has owned and operated. For him, it is a joy and a discipline.

Ive known other successful business owners, like First Orion CEO Charles D. Morgan, who make writing a key part of their approach to leadership. Like Mark and Charles, who also founded Acxiom and wrote Matters of Life and Data, I believe writing about what you are doing or trying to do in business helps you become more effective. It is one of the reasons I wrote The Deans List: Leading a Modern Business School.

If I was starting or acquiring a business, I would write about it before it was started or acquired, and I would continue writing about it as I ran the business. So, Im probably biased, but I think Marks emphasis on writing is a good influence on our students and on everyone who reads this book.

Of course, this book offers plenty of other practical advice about the ins and outs of starting and running a successful business. But it isnt just about making money. Its also about enjoying the journey and making a difference in the world around you.

Mark is not selfish. He knows how to make money, and he has helped countless other people make money by sharing his time, energy, andknowledge with them. More importantly, his success in business results from adding value that people want and making peoples lives better. Ultimately, thats what you will learn from this book. And thats what you will pay forward if you follow Marks advice.