What does it take to become a successful entrepreneur? That’s probably the best question one can have on one’s lips when heading into a book such as this. I’ve read a lot of books about successful businesses and successful businessmen but this is the first I’ve read about a successful businesswoman and the only person I see any commonality with is Richard Branson. They both have vision, tenacity and see the world as more than just the businesses they run but in Anita Roddick’s case she sees the world as an environment. They both see opportunity and take it with both hands, making the best of any possible situation.

I’d heard little bits and pieces of Roddick’s story over the years. She and her husband co-founded The Body Shop, a shop I could not enter due to the perfumes the products have, it started as one shop designed to support Roddick while her husband was away on a riding trip and ended up with 100s of shops around the world making Roddick millions of dollars which were allocated to charities in her will.

Roddick really believed in helping people to help themselves, extending that help to  communities in her country as well as other countries. She believed in saving environments all over the world and helped them by going into the local tribes and finding out what they could produce from their local trees to then export to her shops so she could make heaps of money. This put money into the local communities, made the tribespeople feel good and helped to save parts of the forests. She did this in various different countries with a number of different peoples including helping orphanages to help themselves.

While reading this book I couldn’t help admiring her for her tenacity in speaking up and helping small communities. Reading about the list of underdeveloped countries she has helped was impressive. She seems to have stood against the traditional business community in helping these people despite the initial cost to her business, the fact that she then made a mint out of the help she gave to these people could be irrelevant. This is what can make a successful entrepreneur stand out of the pack, that they can see the end result and outlay the initial money knowing they’re not going to make money on this project for a number of years and still do it and Roddick did this time and again. After hearing about a community in Greater Easterhouse, Glasgow which was struggling she went in, took over a building and made soap there, you can read more about their story on their website. This is what we need in Australia, enterprising entrepreneurs making a difference in particular areas, we have Dick Smith but the media are making sure we don’t hear much about him.

I probably should be writing about the book itself. Roddick is an energetic, dynamic person who doesn’t seem to believe in protocol and goes out of her way to promote herself as an environmentalist who believes we shouldn’t be losing various resources throughout the world. This all comes through in the book. It is well written with an easy style, I found it easier to read than most business books but it still slowed me down compared with fiction books. There’s definitely a message throughout and that is: whatever you do, do it well and with as little impact on the environment as possible, make sure to help others and don’t forget the bottom line while helping.

I’d recommend this book for anyone in business wanting to do things differently and for anyone interested in environmental matters or interested in helping small communities who might otherwise be lost.