Book Review: She Means Business

She Means Business

By Carrie Green

It's time for more reviews of books in my new favorite niche genre: business self-help! The more invested I get in running and expanding The Furever Home Friends, the more I realize there is to learn about business. I'm learning as I go, and using books by the experts to help me along the way!

I actually read She Means Business as an audiobook. So I didn't "read" it as much as listen to it. Sometimes, my only time to get serious reading done is on public transit between one job and the next...problem is, I often get headaches and motion sickness when I read on the train. My solution? Audiobooks! Why I didn't think of this sooner, I have no idea.

Anyway, I've been listening to this book on the train. I'd say it's pretty good and has given me a lot of great advice so far, but I also have mixed feelings on the book as a whole. So I'll get into all of that now.

Pros:

• This is specific to the audiobook, but Carrie Green has a lovely voice to listen to. She's got this heavy British accent, and it's just so calming to hear. Very pleasant speaker.

• Carrie Green is great at building email lists. She gave me lots of great advice about how I can use lead magnets to generate more subscribers. Basically, what that means is, within the next week or so, be on the lookout for a free ebook coming your way! I'm finishing up a writing workbook that all my blog subscribers will get for free!

• She's big on being true to herself. She's all about pink and glitter and pretty things, but she doesn't try to hide that and put on some kind of hardened, "professional" facade. She inspires other women to utilize their personalities and their interests to their advantage when starting a business, rather than trying to be something they're not.

• The blog she runs, which she refers to in the book (link here), gives a ton of great marketing advice. She's given me lots of ideas about how I can create more blog and video content to appeal to a wider customer base.

Cons:

• There is way too much motivation in this book. I don't need motivation; I need information. I'm already motivated. I've been running The Furever Home Friends for a year, freelance editing for two years, and working my butt off on my writing since childhood. I need to learn more about marketing and get ideas for how to build my audience and spread my message farther. Hearing Green repeat, "You can do it!" does less than nothing for me. I already know I can do it. I need to learn more about HOW to do it.

• There was one point she made that rubbed me the wrong way. She was talking about how people start businesses for different reasons, and one of the reasons she brought up was, "Maybe you decided to start your own business so you could spend more time with your family." Um, what? Entrepreneurs and small business owners work 60 hours a week on average, 1.5 times a normal full-time worker's load of 40. While I'm in school, I often work about 95 hour weeks. That's not to say that business owners can't balance work and family; they absolutely can. But it's a CHALLENGE. Starting a business never makes spending time with your family EASIER. I have no idea why she would say that. I think it's dishonest.

• She often tells you techniques without explaining why they work. For example, she talks a lot about visualization. That means she likes to visualize, down to the details, the exact scene of her achieving her goals. She imagines the sound of someone calling her name to win an award, or she pictures the image of working in her home office. That kind of thing. But she never explains WHY this works. I imagine it works because it allows you to go into situations with more confidence, and to prepare yourself better by running through the details first. But she acts like it's just magic. It's the same thing when she talks about "asking the universe" for things. She has a whole section where she talks about how you should ask the universe for success if you want it. She says it works, but never explains how or why. I assume it works as a self-fulfilling prophecy; by asking the "universe" for something, you're inwardly acknowledging that you deserve it, and you're more likely to take the steps to get it, or to put yourself into situations where you're likely to meet the right people. It's not magic. She acts like it's magic. Business is not magic, friends. It's hard. fucking. work.

Overall Feelings:

This book is a good listen if you need something in your ear while you're in transit. If you were just going to spend that time bopping around on your phone anyway, this is time better spent. It gave me lots of great marketing ideas. However, I didn't feel like I got ENOUGH information out of it. The motivational speeches were driving me crazy. If you need some inspiration to get started, this may be a great book for you. But if you have a thriving business that you're already passionate about, a lot of what she says will feel redundant.

Have you read this book? What do you think? What are some of your favorite business self-help books?

Happy reading!

Love,
Savy