Family business owners' ability to interpret financial statements is imperative to maintaining the financial health of their enterprise. From balance sheets to cash flow statements, understanding "the numbers: guides all owners on the path to business success. Family Business by the Numbers by Norbert E. Schwarz, a principal of The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc. offers the reader a step-by-step explanation of the concepts involved in financial management by showing that standardized accounting reports are an efficient means of evaluating a company's performance.
In Family Business by the Numbers, you'll learn how to read financial statements, how to recognize potential problems in management performance, how to use balance sheets, income statements, cash flow and financial analysis, how to use financial statements to recognize trends in your business, and how to understand the language of accounting by defining 64 accounting terms.
Family Business by the Numbers provides a readable resource that helps family business owners and managers learn some of the toughest lessons required for responsible ownership. No previous accounting or financial education is required.
A principal of The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc., Norb Schwarz was raised in a family business started by his father and has been working with family businesses for over thirty years. His consulting has focused on estate and financial planning, management, strategic planning, outside boards of directors, and succession planning in multi-generational environments. In addition to his consulting background, Norb has held positions of chairman, chief executive officer, and chief financial officer in a variety of industries inclusing manufacturing, food processing, transportation, agriculture, commercial banking and insurance. His management experience has been in both public and privately held companies ranging from start-up to over $1 billion in sales.
In addition to speaking before executive and professional groups on a variety of business and economic issues, Norb has written articles for Nation's Business, The Journal of COmmercial Bank Lending and The Midwest Banker and has been quoted in The Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times.
An MBA graduate in finance of the University of Wisconsin, Norb also completed the Kellogg Graduate School of Managements;s Executive Program in Strategic Financial Management and the American Bankers Association's graduates schools of banking and international banking. He has been an elected delegate to two White House Conferences on Small Business, has served on the Economic Advisory Committee of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, and currently serves on the boards of several family-owned businesses. He and his wife Carol live in Chicago and have three children and five grandchildren.
