The Dick Smith Way
by Ike Bain

After a long time I read an interesting business book organized in short snippets on various topics. For those who don't know Dick Smith, he is the founder of a very large retail electronics chain here in Australia which has now successfully expanded into America. He also has two other successful businesses Australian Geographic and Dick Smith Foods. The writer was Dick Smith's right hand man in all these businesses over a period of 25 years.

This book unlike typical business biographies does not follow the growth of business chronologically, instead Ike has organized this into a more of an advice / lessons kind of way at the same time without loosing its practical feel. The book is filled with anecdotes and experiences of Ike's experiences as the right hand man of Dick Smith (perhaps think of him as Australia's Richard Branson). If Richard Branson was knighted, Dick Smith has been given the similar Australian of the year award. Richard Branson went around the world in a hot air balloon, Dick smith too has similar achievements in adventure, In 1983 he became the first helicopter pilot to fly solo around the world and in 1995 he completed a second helicopter flight around the world, this time from east to west. In 1989, flying a Twin Otter, he completed the first vertical circumnavigation of the world, landing at both the North and South Poles. In 1993 he and a co-pilot completed the first non-stop balloon crossing of Australia.

Almost the same way there are a string of business successes to his credit, Among the various comments and snippets the one struck home base with me was a comment by Dick Smith in which he says he is confident that he can bring any business to success just by purely focusing on customer service and doing it better than the competition. Reading such books really pumps you up especially living in a free economy with unlimited opportunity. Want to start a business or work on your business back from the basics, this would be a good one to read.

Finally the Author rightly sums up his intentions behind writing this book

"I've written this book for business people, for those who might hope to be in business one day, and for people who might not have the slightest interest in a business career but would like to know why Dick Smith is so good at it. I hope you will be entertained by the sense of fun, enthusiasm and adventure that spills out of The Dick Smith Way
–Ike Bain, author.