Simple Numbers Straight Talk Big Profits

Based on the premise that accountants often make finance unnecessarily confusing, this no-frills guide will help small business owners see beyond the numbers and translate financial statements into tangible business success. The author shows the reader how to use key financial indicators as a basis for smart business decisions, with a focus on companies in the range between start-up and $5 million in revenue. In a humorous and conversational tone, Crabtree explains how even the most harried business owners can use financial metrics to improve their bottom line. The author's down-to-earth discussion includes many insights: Most business owners are probably not paying themselves enough; Paying taxes can be a positive in accounting; A company-wide salary cap can help immensely with personnel decisions. Additionally, the numerous examples help readers see for themselves how following the author's advice will have a direct impact on their profits.

A fresh perspective on what it takes to run a moneymaking small business If you're a small business owner, you probably started out with a great idea, an entrepreneurial dream, and the willingness to work as hard as you have to. You're up-and-running, your products and services are selling, and you are working as hard as you can. But where do you go from here? How do you get there? And how can you be sure your business will make you money now and for the long term? Found Money presents a new and powerful approach to small-business success. It helps you figure out, instantly, whether your business is on-track or flying off the rails (and how to correct it if it is flying off the rails). Not only does it help you understand how your business makes you money, but how to control that process as well. It offers accessible, easy-to-use tools and tactics to help you understand the links between what happens in your small business and the financial results you achieve so you can proactively create the financial results you want. Helps you maximize the money your small business makes by showing you where additional profit and cash flow is hiding right now in your business Steve Wilkinghoff is an accountant and consultant who helps businesses reach their full, money-making potential Foreword by Michael Gerber, preeminent small business guru If you own your own small business but don't know how to take control of the financial results it gives you, Found Money hands you the strategies, tactics and tools you need to take control, and direct and maximize the money-making process.

Simple Numbers can guide you to increased business profitability Take the mystery out of small business finance with this no-frills guide to understanding the numbers that will guide your business out of any financial black hole. Author Greg Crabtree, a successful accountant, small business advisor, and popular presenter, shows you how to use your firm's key financial indicators as a basis for smart business decisions as you grow your firm from startup to $5 million (and, more ) in annual revenue. Jargon free, and presented in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, with plenty of real-world examples, Crabtree's down-to-earth discussion highlights the most common financial errors committed by small businesses, and how to avoid them. You'll be fascinated to learn: Why your numbers are lying to you (and why you are the cause ) How labor productivity is the key to profitability and simplifying human resource decisions Why the amount of tax you pay is your #1 key performance indicator Take advantage of Crabtree's years of experience teaching clients how to build successful businesses by ''seeing beyond numbers'' with this step-by-step guide to increasing your businesses profitability.

Author of cult classics The Pumpkin Plan and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur offers a simple, counterintuitive cash management solution that will help small businesses break out of the doom spiral and achieve instant profitability. Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses. Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that: · Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances. · A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line. · Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieving long-term growth. With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of.

Offers an organizational design model for service organizations, covering such topics as funding mechanisms, employee management systems, and customer management systems.

Do you dream of ditching the day job, doing your own thing and being your own boss? Are you ready to Boss It? In this invigorating and highly practical book, serial entrepreneur Carl Reader provides exactly the fire and guidance you need to get started. Designed to cut through the business jargon, this handy guide will take you through everything you need to establish and run your own business - from the mindset it takes to turn a dream into a plan, to the need-to-know practical stuff for running and growing a business. Featuring case studies, templates and exercises to help you put what you read into action, and turn that dream into a reality, this motivational book will enable you to be your own boss, to take control of your income, your time and your life... and Boss It.

If starting a company is difficult, leading a company once the business has caught fire is infinitely more so. Thousands of startups each year approach the dangerous transition that Doug Tatum calls No Man's Land—when they are too big too be considered small but still too small to be considered big. Rapid growth is every entrepreneur's dream, but it never comes easily and is usually rife with dilemmas. Such growth should spark self-discovery, acquired discipline, and positive but difficult transition. Unfortunately, it often becomes an agonizng battle between the tendencies of a lonely entrepreneur and certain immutable laws of growth. The result is confusion, frustration, stagnation, loss of employee morale, and, at worst, financial failure. The good news is that Doug Tatum knows exactly what it takes to get through No Man's Land: a map, a high place from which to orient yourself, and navigational rules to help you track your progress. Through case studies and stories of successes and failures, No Man's Land will help you learn how to: • Align your growing company with its market. • Execute the necessary changes in your management. • Confirm that your financial model is scalable. • Attract money and make smart decisions about financing your business. If you're an entrepreneur, this book will help you make your company all it can be and all you want it to be.

The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company. It wasn't dreamed up in an executive think tank or an Ivy League business school or around the conference table by big-time consultants. It was forged on the factory floors of the heartland by ordinary folks hoping to figure out how to save their jobs when their parent company, International Harvester, went down the tubes. What these workers created was a revolutionary approach to management that has proven itself in every industry around the world for the past thirty years--an approach that is perhaps the last, best hope for reviving the American Dream.

Do you worry that your business will collapse without your constant presence? Are you sacrificing your family, friendships, and freedom to keep your business alive? What if instead your business could run itself, freeing you to do what you love when you want, while it continues to grow and turn a profit? It’s possible. And it's easier than you think. If you're like most entrepreneurs, you started your business so you could be your own boss, make the money you deserve, and live life on your own terms. In reality, you're bogged down in the daily grind, constantly putting out fires, answering an endless stream of questions, and continually hunting for cash. Now, Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First and other small-business bestsellers, offers a straightforward step-by-step path out of this dilemma. In Clockwork, he draws on more than six years of research and real life examples to explain his simple approach to making your business ultra-efficient. Among other powerful strategies, you will discover how to: Make your employees act like owners: Free yourself from micromanaging by using a simple technique to empower your people to make smart decisions without you. Pinpoint your business's most important function: Unleash incredible efficiency by identifying and focusing everyone on the one function that is most crucial to your business. Know what to fix next: Most entrepreneurs try to fix every inefficiency at once and end up fixing nothing. Use the "weakest link in the chain" method to find the one fix that will add the most value now. Whether you have a staff of one, one hundred, or somewhere in between, whether you're a new entrepreneur or have been overworked and overstressed for years, Clockwork is your path to finally making your business work for you.

Who needs investors? More than two generations ago, the venture capital community – VCs, business angels, incubators and others – convinced the entrepreneurial world that writing business plans and raising venture capital constituted the twin centerpieces of entrepreneurial endeavor. They did so for good reasons: the sometimes astonishing returns they've delivered to their investors and the astonishingly large companies that their ecosystem has created. But the vast majority of fast-growing companies never take any venture capital. So where does the money come from to start and grow their companies? From a much more agreeable and hospitable source, their customers. That's exactly what Michael Dell, Bill Gates and Banana Republic's Mel and Patricia Ziegler did to get their companies up and running and turn them into iconic brands. In The Customer Funded Business, best-selling author John Mullins uncovers five novel approaches that scrappy and innovative 21st century entrepreneurs working in companies large and small have ingeniously adapted from their predecessors like Dell, Gates, and the Zieglers: Matchmaker models (Airbnb) Pay-in-advance models (Threadless) Subscription models (TutorVista) Scarcity models (Vente Privee) Service-to-product models (GoViral) Through the captivating stories of these and other inspiring companies from around the world, Mullins brings to life the five models and identifies the questions that angel or other investors will – and should! – ask of entrepreneurs or corporate innovators seeking to apply them. Drawing on in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs and investors who have actually put these models to use, Mullins goes on to address the key implementation issues that characterize each of the models: when to apply them, how best to apply them, and the pitfalls to watch out for. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur lacking the start-up capital you need, an early-stage entrepreneur trying to get your cash-starved venture into take-off mode, an intrapreneur seeking funding within an established company, or an angel investor or mentor who supports high-potential ventures, this book offers the most sure-footed path to starting, financing, or growing your venture. John Mullins is the author of The New Business Road Test and, with Randy Komisar, the widely acclaimed Getting to Plan B.

"In this essential guide, Karen Berman and Joe Knight customize the approaches and insights from their acclaimed book Financial Intelligence specifically for entrepreneurs. The authors not only demystify common financial terms and tools, they also show how you can use this knowledge to gauge your company's performance and make better decisions."--Back cover.

A five-step strategy for turning a commodity into a necessity When products and services become interchangeable, price becomes the ultimate determinant for consumers. Indispensable shows businesses how to break out of that cycle by using The Five Drivers-a strategy that takes companies to the next level of performance. Renowned business consultant Joe Calloway looks at how real companies have made their product or service "mission critical," and satisfied customers in the process. Indispensable goes straight to the heart of the issue and reveals how successful companies-of any size, in virtually any manufacturing, selling, or service endeavor-achieve market leadership through The Five Drivers of fierce customer loyalty. Indispensable shows readers how to: * Create and sustain momentum: overcome organizational inertia and keep moving forward * Develop habitual dependability: make consistency of performance a defining characteristic * Connect continuously * See the Big Picture Outcome: create compelling customer experiences * Engage, Enchant, Enthrall: make magic in the marketplace With interviews, detailed case studies, and dozens of real-world, effective customer service ideas and initiatives, Indispensable is just what today's forward-thinking businesses need.

"Bibliography found online at tonyrobbins.com/masterthegame"--Page [643].

In The Partnership Charter, psychologist and business mediation expert David Gage offers a comprehensive guide to the art of establishing and maintaining a business partnership. The centerpiece of his approach is the Partnership Charter, a document that clearly outlines the goals, expectations, responsibilities, and relationships of the principals. The charter identifies potential sources of conflict and how they will be resolved, while addressing such sensitive issues as personal styles, values, money, and power. Illustrating every principle through engaging stories drawn from Gage's front-line experience consulting to business partners, as well as interviews with the founding partners of such successful businesses as Progressive Insurance Company and Manpower, Inc., The Partnership Charter dispels common myths and presents a practical framework for launching, building, and sustaining a thriving business partnership.

"The most useful guide to getting things done since Getting Things Done." --Adam Grant, author of Give and Take Learn how small behavioral changes can lead to major personal and professional self-improvement Whether trying to lose weight, save money, get organized, or advance on the job, we’re always setting goals and making resolutions, but rarely following through on them. According to longtime Wall Street technology strategist Caroline Arnold, the “big push” strategy of the New Year’s resolution is designed to fail, because it broadly pits our limited willpower stores against an autopilot of entrenched behaviors and attitudes that is far more powerful. To change ourselves permanently, we need to focus our self-control on precise behavioral targets and overwhelm them. Small Move, Big Change is Arnold’s guide to turning broad personal goals into meaningful and discrete behavioral changes that lead to permanent improvement. Providing scores of engaging real-world examples and new scientific findings, she shows us that while the traditional resolution promises rewards on a distant “someday,” microresolutions work because they reward us today by instantly altering our routines and, ultimately, ourselves.

Companies around the world turn to MIT's Jonathan Byrnes for one reason: he can figure out where the profit is. He shows them which customers and businesses are cash cows, and which efforts are just a drain on resources. Most astonishingly, in each case he finds that roughly 40% of his client's businesses are unprofitable. We are transitioning from an era of mass markets to the Age of Precision Markets. Before, companies sought to distribute their products as widely as possible using arm's-length customer relationships. Broad metrics like aggregate revenues and costs were adequate. But today companies form different relationships with different sets of customers. Successful businesses create competitive advantages and sustained profitability by developing innovative relationships and new types of value. This is a double-edged sword: if customers are matched with the right relationships, sales and profits soar...but if they are matched poorly, profitability plunges. Islands of Profit in a Sea of Red Ink tells you how to rethink your business for maximum profit - what to do, what difficulties you'll encounter, and how to overcome them. This book gives you the roadmap and tools you'll need to be a highly effective manager in a new era of business.

In the early 1980s, Springfield Remanufacturing Corporation (SRC) in Springfield, Missouri, was a near bankrupt division of International Harvester. Today it's one of the most successful and competitive companies in the United States, with a share price 3000 times what it was thirty years ago. This miracle turnaround is all down to one man, Jack Stack, and his revolutionary system of Open-Book Management, in which every employee understands the company's key figures, can act on them and has a real stake in the business. In Stack's own words: 'When employees think, act and feel like owners ... everybody wins.' As a management strategy, 'the great game of business' is so simple and effective that it's been taken up by companies from Intel to Harley Davidson.

Small-business guru George Cloutier offers the controversial message that Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing in this book of wisdom for entrepreneurs everywhere in these tough economic times. With advice such as “forget teamwork” and “micromanage like crazy,” Profits Aren’t Everything, They’re the Only Thing is the reality check that will help small-business owners stay afloat and stay profitable.

We all understood As, Bs and Cs in school. Do you know what it takes to be an A Player in business? The A Player shows us how. Great teams don't win with average talent. The A Player shows it what it takes to be a top performer, by being an A Player.

In the first edition of this landmark book, business loyalty guru Fred Reichheld revealed the question most critical to your company’s future: “Would you recommend us to a friend?” By asking customers this question, you identify detractors, who sully your firm’s reputation and readily switch to competitors, and promoters, who generate good profits and true, sustainable growth. You also generate a vital metric: your Net Promoter Score. Since the book was first published, Net Promoter has transformed companies, across industries and sectors, constituting a game-changing system and ethos that rivals Six Sigma in its power. In this thoroughly updated and expanded edition, Reichheld, with Bain colleague Rob Markey, explains how practitioners have built Net Promoter into a full-fledged management system that drives extraordinary financial and competitive results. With his trademark clarity, Reichheld: • Defines the fundamental concept of Net Promoter, explaining its connection to your company’s growth and sustained success • Presents the closed-loop feedback process and demonstrates its power to energize employees and delight customers • Shares new and compelling stories of companies that have transformed their performance by putting Net Promoter at the center of their business Practical and insightful, The Ultimate Question 2.0 provides a blueprint for long-term growth and success.