Business Made Simple - Book Review (High Value 7-Minute Read)

Donald Miller’s new book, Business Made Simple, is a great overview of key business concepts for people who are interested in business. And that’s the key here. It’s for people who are already interested in business. More on that later.

Donald Miller has been a best-selling author in two different genres. In the mid 2000s, his book Blue Like Jazz was a bestseller in the Christian memoir genre, then, in 2018, his book Building A Storybrand was a bestseller in the marketing genre. Miller is on a mission to help build the middle class by providing affordable business education through his books, classes, and coaches. Just like his memoirs were meta, his business about building businesses is also very meta. That’s sort of the magic here–great lessons from someone who is great at extracting lessons.

Let’s dive into what I enjoyed about this book, and why you should pick it up. 

Overall theme

Donald Miller’s main goal of Business Made Simple is to make his readers “value-driven professionals,” thus increasing their value in the job market with a general knowledge of how business works. This book is a top-level business education. It doesn’t go very deep into any specific topic, but instead offers great advice in a dozen different topics. Most self-help and business books focus on one main topic, supporting it with research, anecdotes, and logic. This book doesn’t really employ any of those strategies because it’s too busy keeping things really brief. This doesn’t mean the advice is bad–just brief. Miller offers helpful, practical strategies and frameworks that anyone can follow and implement into their business. 

Main sections 

Character
Leadership
Productivity
Business
Messaging
Marketing
Communication
Sales
Negotiation
Management
Execution

Best sections 

Character

Character should not be underestimated in the equation of success. As a freelancer, I’ve seen hard working, ethical, and positive people score jobs time and time again. Miller breaks down what business owners and managers are looking for in a team member’s character. We can’t control much about the cards we are dealt economically, but we can control our character. Miller explains how good character actually can change our economic value for the better. 

“By staying relentlessly optimistic, you dramatically increase the chances that at some point you will succeed. The more optimistic you are, there you will be willing to try–and the more you try the more you will actually experience success.” (Business Made Simple - Day Nine, page 25).

Business

It’s amazing how much easier it becomes to negotiate a salary when you understand how a business really works. Most people don’t understand the economics of how a business is sustainably run. Then, when money is tight and they get let go, they blame the business for not being loyal, when their company-party-planner position never was a profit center in the first place. Miller’s overview of business gives people the isights into how things actually work to put themselves in a position of leverage. 

Productivity 

In Business Made Simple, Donald Miller offers practical productivity advice alongside a good psychological understanding. Productivity is a lot like finance. It seems simple, but the execution is rife with psychological pitfalls. Miller cuts through the noise here, and offers solid systems to accomplish more in less time. 

“When working on enormous projects that we cannot finish in a short period of time, we are especially susceptible to short-term wins. I’d much rather return ten emails than write ten paragraphs in a book because each email makes me feel like I accomplished something while those ten paragraphs feel like a drop in a bucket.” (Business Made Simple - Day Seventeen, page 60).

Strengths and Weaknesses 

Miller’s daily videos are a key strength in this book. He creates a book for the digital age, similar to Michael Hyatt’s Free to Focus. The short chapters, and the concise videos create an experience that generates a lot of buy-in. It’s safe to say that if someone buys and finishes your book, they’re pretty well bought in to your ideology. Donald Miller knows this is the case, so he positions his courses and guide programs as a key avenue for continued growth after the book.

If you’re interested in business, this book is for you. If you’re not that interested in business, this book is unlikely to inspire an interest in business. That’s not because it’s discouraging, but rather because it’s just too practical and brief. I feel like many of these concepts made sense to me because I had done other reading in the business space.

A final strength is that this book could be a reference to look back on as you develop in your career. I had never had to create a mission statement before, but when I did recently, I just pulled out Business Made Simple, followed the framework, and wrote a great one. You might not find yourself in every specific business situation soon, but when you do, you’ll have this book to reference. And it’ll be very practical right when you need it. 

Pick up Business Made Simple on Amazon here, and give Donald Miller a follow on Instagram here. 

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