An often overlooked secret to creating wealth as a business owner has little to do with actually running the business. Marketing, customer service, quality products, and more are required to make a business successful...but when it comes to creating real and lasting wealth, there's a secret formula that all business owners have access to but not all realize. As both a small business lender and a small business owner himself, Chris Hurn has a bird's eye view of how businesses create wealth, as well as an in-the-trenches perspective on the habits and thought processes of successful entrepreneurs.
In The Entrepreneur's Secret to Creating Wealth, Chris unlocks the secret of how small business owners can create wealth and explains the myriad decisions that must be made along the way. Plenty of books describe how entrepreneurs can generate new ideas or keep employees happy. But no other business book outlines in such detail -- or with such authority -- how to actually develop the wealth behind the business.
Chris Hurn is the CEO and Cofounder of Mercantile Capital Corporation, a small business lender specializing in commercial real estate financing that helps business owners build wealth. Mercantile is a three-time Inc. 500|5000 honoree and a three-time SBA Financial Services Champion. Chris' first book, The Entrepreneur's Secret to Creating Wealth, is about how business owners can create wealth for themselves outside the day-to-day operations of the business and thrive regardless of economic conditions.
Chris has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Franchise Times, the Sacramento Bee and many other national and regional publications; he's appeared on FOX Business news six times as well as PBS' Nightly Business Report to discuss what can be done to help small business owners grow and create jobs; and he's testified in person and submitted written testimonies this year to both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives in hopes of improving the credit situation for small businesses. Additionally, he blogs at 504blog.com and writes a column for The Huffington Post.
After graduating from Loyola University Chicago with two magna cum laude bachelor degrees, Chris earned a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Center (formerly at the Wharton School of Business) and briefly pursued a law degree at Georgetown University Law Center (he left after his first year, deciding the world already had enough lawyers). He later worked as a business consultant and financier with GE Capital, and then as CFO for the NAI Realvest group of companies, before cofounding Mercantile Capital Corporation in late 2002.
Chris also serves as the Chairman, CEO, and cofounder of Kennedy's All-American Barber Club, an upscale barbershop franchise with a proprietary membership model and locations up and down the eastern seaboard.
