Hey Square Readers,
We hope you had a great time reading Fix This Next by Mike Michalowicz with us. We had some really great discussion threads, and a wonderful live video chat discussion! Thank you all for participating and making this book club a welcoming and helpful place.
So we’re here now to bring it all together with a full book and discussion summary, with the parts that you all found to be the most important.
And if you didn’t get a chance to read the book, here’s a chance to get the shortened version!
Let’s dive in!
Book Summary
Fix This Next by Mike Michalowicz focuses on the idea that when you’re running a business, you’re being pulled in so many different directions, making it hard to tell which problems to prioritize and focus on first. The author offers their solution in the form of the Business Priority Pyramid (BPP) establishing a hierarchy of business needs.
The book is a sort of “choose your own adventure,” where the first 60 or so pages talk about the theory of finding your issue, and the rest gives examples of each specific Vital Need to help inspire you to solve them.
Discussion Summary
We used our Book Club discussion threads to take the theories from the book and see how you all put them into practice in your businesses.
We kicked things off with a baseline conversation about what you thought your biggest issues were, before reading the book, and what your current priorities are. This set the groundwork to compare to the methods of prioritizing from the book.
Next we dove into the meat of things, using the methods of the book to discover your business’ biggest Vital Need. This is the biggest priority to focus on, which you can discover by filling out the checklist in that thread, checking off what your business is doing well, and focusing on the lowest sections of the pyramid that aren’t completed.
After that, we moved on to set goals to fix your Vital Need, creating a plan to tackle and solve these issues, as well as a way of measuring your progress and success.
And we finished off our discussion thread by talking about the next steps the book lays out, which is starting all over again. The author explains that it’s important to start at the beginning to fill out the checklist again, since when you fix one need, others may be solved along the way. Then you can reprioritize and see what your next Vital Need is.
We also shared some other books written by the author, if you want to keep the knowledge flowing, including our book for January & February 2024, Profit First!
Live Discussion
We held our Live Discussion on Tuesday November 28th. It was a small group, but we took a deep dive into @Smellthis1919 ‘s business, seeing how she put the book’s methods into action. Thanks so much for joining! If you’d like to catch up, you can watch the recording here.
Overall, it was a wonderful call, and we hope to see even more folks in the next one!
Next Book
We’re starting our next book, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz, on Tuesday January 2nd, with the next Live Discussion on Tuesday February 27th. Hope to see you there!
Your Thoughts
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this book and overall the experience of our Square Readers Book Club!
- Was this book’s framework helpful? What did you fix?
- What are you looking forward to with the next book?
It’s never too late to jump into any of our discussion threads and join in on the conversation!
Paying it Forward
If you’re all done with the book and are looking for something to do with a copy you bought, I highly recommend paying it forward. Give it to another local business owner, or donate it to a local used bookstore, community center, library, Little Free Library, or anywhere else, so someone else can benefit from it.
Thank you so much for all of your participation and discussion throughout the last two months! A big shoutout to some of our most active members: @Smellthis1919, @Tamyra_Paunchy, @Stacelyn24, @CareyJo, @DinaLRosenberg, @scastrotattoo, @TCSlaguna, @Doran, @JUYBoutique20, @bonny, @LukeNieuw, @Bronze_Palms, @Lovewell, and @amyjackson.
We hope you read the next book with us, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz!
Can’t wait to read more with you,
Pesso
