Donna Fenn

Fenn explains why yesterday's competitive tactics don't work anymore and why every business must reinvent itself as an "Alpha Dog," particularly in tough economic times. She tells stories from the entrepreneurial trenches (based on her first book, Alpha Dogs: How Your Small Business Can Become a Leader of the Pack (Collins, 2005)), imparting lessons learned by a variety of ordinary small businesses that beat the competition, became marketplace leaders, and survived and thrived in good economies and through recessions. Fenn lays out eight success strategies: innovation, customer service, branding, employee engagement, alliances, use of technology, community connections, and reinvention, to illustrate how any small company can become a leader of the pack. Entrepreneurs will come away with solid ideas to transform their own companies; larger companies seeking to market their goods and services to entrepreneurs, or that want to create entrepreneurial cultures of their own, will gain valuable insight into the unique challenges of running and growing a small business.