Build a Business, Not a Job! - Hardcover

David Finkel; Stephanie Harkness

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1450709842 ISBN 13: 9781450709842

Publisher: Bradstreet and Sons, 2011

Synopsis

Build a Business, Not a Job! 2nd Edition paperback. How to Build Your Business to Sell, Scale, or Own Passively Too many business owners get trapped inside the very businesses they work so hard to build. If they don t show up each day, or something happens to them, their businesses die. In this step-by-step business guide, you ll get the concrete road map you need to build a business you can sell, scale, or own passively. You ll Learn: How to escape the Self-Employment TrapTM. The 4 building blocks of all scalable businesses. 15 cash management secrets to guard your business s cash flow. 12 power techniques to rapidly increase your sales. 35 business controls you ll need to successfully scale your company. A 30-question audit to determine exactly where to focus. 6 time mastery strategies to free up a full day each week to build your business. A powerful 5-step action plan to take your business to the next level. David Finkel is the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestselling author of 45 business books and courses. His how-to business articles have been featured in over 6,500 periodicals and his weekly eletter is read by over 100,000 avid business owners around the world. A former Olympiclevel athlete, he is a business multi-millionaire and founder of Maui Mastermind® Stephanie Harkness is the cofounder and CEO of Pacific Plastics and Engineering. Over the past 30 years Stephanie has launched and sat on the boards of numerous start-ups, guiding them to successful exits. She is the former chairperson of the National Association of Manufacturers.

About this title

From the Author

What a strange world it is that I'm here today contributing to this book designed to help business owners like you take your businesses to the next level. You see, I came to the world of business in the most unexpected way--through public education!
 
I was a home economics teacher in San Jose, California. I spent 13 years in public education, leaving it to start my first business, Expressions in Fine Jewelry. A gemologist friend and I created a high-end jewelry company serving personal clients. For six years, I flew around the world meeting our clients, sometimes carrying as much as $3 million worth of jewels in my briefcase. Exciting as that may seem, it got old after a while. The business needed me to be there at every step, every day, day after day. So when my husband Jack took early retirement from General Electric where he worked as a quality engineering manager, we made a decision that totally changed our lives.We chose to build a business together.
 
We looked around at various opportunities--from doing our own start-up, to buying a franchise, to purchasing an existing business. In the end, we opted to buy a small injection molding plastics manufacturing company near our home called Pacific Plastics and Engineering (today called Juno Pacific).
 
I look back and think what in the world were we doing?! We didn't know anything about injection molded plastic manufacturing; we had never co-owned a manufacturing business before. In my heart, I still felt like a school teacher, for heaven's sake! But both Jack and I had a deep belief in each other, and we knew we didn't want to live our lives wondering what if . . . You've met those people, right? They spend the long days of their later years wondering and sighing if only . . . and I wish we had . . .
 
Well, we didn't want that to be us,so we stepped out into the unknown and invested $60,000--my entire retirement savings through my teacher's pension--to buy this company and go after our dreams.
 
I wish I could tell you it was all roses and champagne from there on, but it wasn't. Our first few months in business, we learned that all those customers the seller had told us about were less than happy with customer service. And the financial books he had shown us were more fiction than fact. Faced with these challenges, we did what most self-employed people do--we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. Jack took over the operations and began the painstaking process of mastering manufacturing injection molding plastics products. And I stepped into the role of running everything else--sales, marketing, financial management--as well as providing big-picture leadership of the business.
 
It took us three years of hard work,but we turned the business around. At that point, we needed to make a decision.Did we want it to continue as a mom-and-pop business that revolved around Jack and me, or did we want to step up and build a business that was bigger and more substantive than just the two of us? We decided to grow and scale the business.
 
Back then we didn't have the road map you have in this book. We didn't know how to build our core business infrastructure and systems. No one showed us the distinction of building not for control, but to establish intelligent business controls to empower the business, not just Jack and me as owners.
 
Still, over the following three years we managed to figure those things out and turn Juno Pacific into a highly successful,high-end manufacturer that runs 24/7 in the United States and has operations in India. Over time we re-positioned the company to be the go-to source to launch new projects in the laparoscopic medical device and biotech world. For the past few years Jack and I enjoyed the cash flow, satisfaction, and freedom of owning an "owner independent" company. We traveled the world, keeping in touch with the business to make sure it stayed on track, trusting the team, systems, and culture to guide and operate it day in, day out.
 
Then in 2011 we received an offer to purchase the company for more money than we could have imagined, and we accepted the offer, closing in the spring of 2011.
 
Why am I sharing all this with you?Because if I can do it, so can you. Just imagine: I was an ex-schoolteacher with no formal training in business who 25 years earlier had stepped out in faith with my husband and bought a small manufacturing business. With some painful trial and error we had grown the company into a dominant niche player. Now here we were, harvesting a high-eight-figure windfall from the sale of the company.
 
Looking back, I recognize that anyone can build an owner-independent business if they set their minds to it and follow the known steps to do so. What amazes me is how consistent the challenges are that face a business, regardless of industry, and that there are known solutions to the challenges you'll face. Creating a structure,accountability, and processes makes all the difference. Too many business owners make things harder for themselves by holding on to the belief that their business is different.
 
Jack and I built systems and feedback to run a multi million-dollar business that was truly independent of the two of us. Sure, we loved seeing results grow, but we took the known steps to develop our company. We groomed a solid, core leadership team that could run the business day in, day out. We made the company systems reliant, with strong processes and procedures that allowed it to produce exceptional value consistently for our customers and other stakeholders. And we developed a clear mission and culture that guided our company's operations, even when we were out of the country on extended vacations.
 
I first met David as a client of Maui Mastermind®, when in 2004 Jack and I attended the Maui Mastermind Wealth Summit. At $30,000 per couple, the Wealth Summit may be the most exclusive business owner retreat around. Over the next few years, I enjoyed participating in the event, gaining great insights and connecting with a wonderful peer group of ambitious yet caring business owners. When I was invited to become a Maui Advisor in 2007, I was honored. I had gained so much from the community that I loved sharing my experiences with other business owners who were working to grow their businesses and designing the lives they wanted.
 
Which brings me to this book. You're going to love it, by the way. It's like finding the secret treasure map that every business owner dreams of but rarely finds. In it you'll discover a clear,concrete map that will take you through the entire life cycle of your business from launch to exit.
 
This is the book I wish someone had handed to me 26 years ago when I started out in our own business. Not only would it have saved me from painful, costly mistakes,but it would have relieved so much of the doubt and uncertainty I felt because of all the conflicting advice I received over the years.
 
After being involved with a number of successful start-ups in Silicon Valley, including the growth of our manufacturing business, I can tell you from my perspective as a serial entrepreneur that this map and these distinctions are incredibly powerful. They work.
 
But it's up to you to put these ideas into practice--to invest the time and focused attention to follow this map and apply the concrete strategies to your business.
 
What's the payoff for all that effort? A multi million-dollar owner-independent business that you love owning again.
 
It is possible for you--you justneed to take the first step and apply what you learn in this book. - Stephanie Harkness, PebbleBeach, California

About the Author

David Finkel is co-author of, SCALE: 7 Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back (written with Priceline.com co-founder Jeff Hoffman), and one of the nation s most respected business thinkers. A Wall Street Journal and Business Week bestselling author of 11 business books, David s weekly business owner e-letter is read by 100,000 business owners around the world and his business articles have been featured in over 6,000 newspapers and publications. David is the founder and CEO of Maui Mastermind®, one of the world s premier business coaching companies who helps businesses in the $1-20 million range build their companies to sell, scale, or own passively. Over the past 20 years, David and the other Maui coaches have personally started, scaled, and sold over $2 billion of businesses. Maui Mastermind helps business owners build companies they love owning again--for the value they create, the lives they touch, the profits they earn, the team they employ, and the freedom they enjoy. Their clients have enjoyed an average annual growth rate of 32.4 percent while at the same time radically reducing their companies reliance on them as the owners. An ex-Olympic-level athlete turned business multi-millionaire, David is an American success story. He and his wife Heather, and their three young sons live a very simple life in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bradstreet and Sons
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1450709842
• ISBN 13: 9781450709842
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 151