E-books

E-books are downloadable guidebooks and exercises in PDF format. They contain single topic, sharp focus, self-guided exercises and templates to help you apply key growth and management ideas to your business. 20-30 pages, downloadable PDF.

You can order any of these from our WEBSTORE. You download e-books in PDF format.

Promote Yourself to CEO

Here's the paradox of small business growth: The more your company grows, the harder it can be to grow yet further. Why? Because the management practices and habits that worked when your company was smaller are no longer adequate.

The owner is often the main bottleneck. You may not be "presidential" enough in your management style. You need to "promote yourself to C.E.O."—that is, focus on executive responsibilities and be less of a floor manager and worker.

Easier said than done! While you are trying to keep your focus on the entire forest, many things conspire to keep you stuck in the trees and underbrush.

The purpose of this workbook is to help you upgrade your management style, management practices and management structure—for yourself and for your key people—so that you can take your company where want it go.

This 31-page e-tool has exercises to help you diagnose your own situation—your strengths and weaknesses, your habitual ways of running your business—then develop a game plan to correct these. Tools and exercises include:

* How not to manage a growing business.
* The ladder of executive capabilities.
* How to upgrade your management skills.
* How to manage the expert
* How to groom your key people.

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Pay Yourself First

Calculate how much revenue your business must bring in to cover all your operating costs, pay you well, and generate a profit besides.

Exercise #1. What is your desired paycheck?
Exercise #2. How big must your business be to pay you what you want and need?

Make sure this never happens: "My company is growing, but I'm not putting any more money in my pocket. I'm still occasionally 'loaning'money to the company to cover payroll. And I'm still carrying uncashed payroll checks I've written to myself."

Topics
· Calculate how much money you need--and want--to pay yourself.
· Make the business "bottom line" your "top line." Flip your profit & loss statemFour questionnairent upside down.
· Calculate needed business revenue, starting from your paycheck.
· Formula to calculate needed business revenue--using your paycheck. overhead, profit needed, and gross margin from sales.
· The three biggest barriers to calculating needed revenue
· How to calculate your real gross margin
· Estimate your needed profit
· Estimate your expected overhead costs in the coming year

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Growth, Ease & Profitability

Four questionnaires and checklists to assess your business
1. Business viability
2. Growth readiness
3. Profitability
4. Ease of operation
These questionnaires help you assess how you are doing; where you are doing well; and where you should focus your efforts to improve.

Topics:
Viability and
· How does your company rate on these keys to viable operation?

Growth. What is your desired growth track?
· How does your company rate on these key factors that lead to growth?
· Where do you have the most problems with growth?

Profitability . What is your desired profitability profile?
· The un-profitability profile.
· How does your company rate on these keys to profitability?
· Where do you have the most problems with profitability?

Ease of operation. What is your desired "ease" profile?
· The "no-ease" profile.
· How can you increase the ease with which you run your company?
· Where do you have the most problems with ease of operation?

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How to Get the Bandwagon Rolling

How to introduce change so that those who'll be affected by it will be enthusiastic, rather than resistant

In your ideal business, once you decide upon a needed change, you would just announce it! Alas. Resistance always springs up--even for changes you think are minor, like changing the kind of light bulbs you use.

This book shows you step-by-step how to bring about needed change--large or small-- in the workings of your company, with a minimum of resistance and back-sliding.

Topics
· The 12 worst ways to introduce change
· 12 guidelines for successful change
· Worksheets to get the bandwagon rolling
· Help and resources needed
· Project tracker
· Build the bandwagon
· Allies and resistors
· Questions, concerns and objections
· As the change in underway...
· Tackle resistance
· Mid-course correction
· Successful completion
· Ongoing support and monitoring

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Inner Game of Growth
How is the way you run your business a barrier to your growth, profitability and ease of operation?

Why do some businesses grow rapidly while others struggle for growth and profitability? The difference often lies within the noggin of the owner. You are the biggest asset of your business--and more than likely the biggest bottleneck as well.
What gets in the way of the mindset for growth?

Use this book as a template to change some of the most resistant things known--your habits, attitudes, and beliefs.

Topics
· A mindset for growth, profitability, and ease. Contrast with self-defeating management habits
· How to change your management practices, habits, attitudes and beliefs (M-PHABs)
· How to tackle contradictory attitudes.
· How to change the dynamic between you and your managers
· How to change a vicious circle into a virtuous ladder
· Low profitability diagnosis sheet.
· How to make the changes stick
· Can you change the work habits and attitudes of others?
· A team can work on itself.
· Templates and exercise sheets.

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Gold From Small Business
How to Consult Profitability With Owner-Run Businesses

Not all consultants work with C-level execs. You may prefer to work with smaller companies, but have trouble making it pay off financially.

This book tells you how to build a successful, lucrative practice working with owners of smaller companies, i.e., ranging from a few to a couple of hundred employees.

We tell you what sets small business owners apart from corporate managers and execs, the opportunities for consultants and how to take advantage of them, plus the challenges and how to deal with them.

This book includes:
- The mindset and tools you need to consult profitably with smaller, owner-run companies
- How to overcome the inevitable challenges
- Proven ways to find, qualify, and sell to small businesses
- Special ways of working with smaller clients profitably

Contents . . .
The mind and heart of the small business owner
Varieties of owner-run businesses
. . . compared to corporate exec
Benefits of consulting with small business owner (SBO)
Challenges of consulting with smaller companies
- How to find SBOs
- How to market to SBOs
- How to sell to SBOs
- Working with SBOs
. . . their needs = your opportunity
Profile of small business consultant
How to price your services
Ways to boost your effective hourly rate
How to give small business owners the help they need

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Get the Secret Knowledge Out of Your Head
The everyday systems and procedures you need for growth.

When we get started, we make things up as we need them. This is "seat of the pants" management. As your business grows, this idiosyncratic approach gets to be a real hindrance to further growth and ease of operation. This book has guidelines help you move past your seat of the pants management style and build up the systems and procedures you need for growth, profitability, and ease of operation.

Topics
· The trap of "only I can do this." Moving from secret knowledge to delegating.
· Systems are the springboard to growth. How to become a systems-generating wizard.
· Examples of systems and procedures. The difference between systems and procedures.
· "Yeah-but..." Why businesses resist systems.
· From secret knowledge to duplicating yourself.
· How to develop systems and procedures (it doesn't have to be you.)
· Don't reinvent the wheel! Others have already created most of these systems.
· Overcoming resistance and inertia.
· Templates and exercise sheets.

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Recapture Your Time
Don't just save your time--invest it!

1. How to use your time strategically.
   - Level I. Triage Your Time.
   - Level II. Recapture Your Time
   - Level III. Invest Your Time
2. Maximize your ROC ("Return on creativity")
3. Carve out time for development
4. Restore some scheduling sanity.

"I don't have enough hours in the day." This is one of the most common complaints of business owners. They have good reason to express concern. Lack of time ranks far above lack of money for barriers to business growth. You can borrow money, but hours in the day are a fixed in number.
I take a strategic approach to time--your most valuable resource. This is much more than time management; it's how you recapture your time and apply it to your strategic goals and objectives.

Topics
· The business owner's Strategic Time Killers.
· What's wrong with time management? "Saving time," vs. "investing time."
· Time use habits of effective business owners.
· Take care of yourself--the most important thing.
· How "important" and "urgent" are the things you do?
· How can you use your time strategically?
· Triage your time to stop "time hemorrhaging."
· How can you recapture a little time right away?
· Change the way you do things.
· Why do you have a time crunch?
· Invest your time, don't spend it.
· Get the greatest return for each hour of your time.
· Where is your time worth the most?
· How to use your hourly value?
· What is the value of your work to your customers?
· Leverage your effort.
· The enemies of leverage
· Maximize your ROC (Return on Creativity)
· The ladder of leverage
· Guidelines to scheduling sanity
· How to carve out time
· Tricks to getting it done when you are really busy

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Leverage Your Creativity
How consultants and professionals sell the fruits of their creativity many times over

As consultants and professionals, one of our prime assets is our creative problem-solving ability. We continually come up with one-time solutions for clients. But what if we could sell the fruits of our creativity many times over? That is called leverage. To leverage your practice, you must boost your ROC (i.e. your "return on creativity")

You can earn more money, spend less time at it, generate passive income, and perhaps build a business that can be sold.

Topics

· The "ladder of leverage" has two legs:
1. Your content. The ideas and tools you create.
2. Your process. The ways you work with our clients.

I will give examples of each step and show how it grows from the one preceding.

• "Yeah, but..." Many consultants by nature resist taking these steps. I'll show you how to tackle the most common challenges consultants encounter while climbing this ladder.
• Greater ROC + ROT = Greater ROI. Each step up the ladder increases the return on an hour of your time.
• Leg 1. Leverage your content. The sequence of ways to generalize and re-sell the intellectual property you create.
• Leg 2. Leverage your profits. A sequence of steps. You start at #1 and work your way to #7 over time.
• Tackle the barriers to leveraging.

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Finding & Keeping Good Employees
How to "Hire Smart," so you don't have to "Manage Tough"

A strong team of employees is core to taking your business where you want to go. This workbook details how to make sure you hire the best team, have them work productively together, and stay with you.

Topics
1. Defining the job you need done
2. Finding the best person for the j
• Screening and interviewing
· Questions you cannot ask . . . and how to get the info you really need
· Reference checking
· Offering the job
3. Getting people started off on the right foot. Orientation and training
· Acclimation period
4. Creating and maintaining a work environment that keeps good employees
· What drives good people away?
5. Performance evaluations
6. Procedures and systems for successful employers
· Employee handbooks
7. Avoiding problems
· How to avoid problems
· How to handle problems when they arise
8. Observing all the legal requirements
9. Appendices
· First time employer checklist
·Employee or contractor?
·Labor law "survival guides"  
·I-9 and W-4 forms

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