My Current Favorite Book:

The Ultimate Sales Machine [is] a book that puts it all together to help you dramatically increase your sales if you are wise enough to follow its advice. -- Michael Gerber, bestselling author of The E-Myth and E-Myth Revisited

The Ultimate Sales Machine is an amazing book that will powerfully change the way you do business. Chet Holmes is a one-of-a-kind talent and this incredibly practical book is the embodiment of his highly successful approach. -- Stephen M. R. Covey, author of The Speed of Trust

Chet Holmes is one of the greatest teachers of marketing, sales, and business success in the world today. This incredible book will supercharge results in every part of your business. -- Brian Tracy, author of The Way to Wealth
     

My Other Favorites:

What do Barbie dolls, Nokia phones, and American Express credit cards have in common? They all represent a powerful business model called pyramid profit. How about Intel, Microsoft, and Stephen King? They all exploit another model called value chain position profit.

The Art of Profitability reveals the invisible but important governing principles that can mean the difference between business failure and success.  Each of the book's twenty-three chapters presents a lesson from a profit paradigm that will open your mind to the many ways to make profit happen.

You'll understand -- from a different perspective -- how your company and your competitors generate profit...which business models can be best applied to your profit-making strategy...what specific actions your organization can take in the next ninety days to improve its bottom line...and more.

With scores of examples from today's global marketplace, and an eclectic business reading list ranging from Obvious Adams to Einstein's Dreams, The Art of Profitability invites anyone in business to engage in the lively exchange between mentor and protege.

Click here to download an excerpt.
 

Most business owners give lip-service to increasing profits, but very few make a real commitment to an ongoing process.  It take a leader who is tremendously  focused, consistent, tough and fair ... and willing to stretch themselves and others to be different and better than the status quo--very few business owners are that committed. You may not have the "blood and guts" attitude of Bob Fifer, but I think most of the clients I have worked with over the past 20 years could stand to move a lot closer to his philosophy and style. 

This is a real book, an important one, about real cost-cutting, in a real world. It has been used by many corporate leaders as a "bible" for increasing profits by cutting costs...all company costs that do not actually create a direct profit. That means cutting most of middle management, some senior management, and most employees who do not have direct responsibility for adding daily value to the bottom line. It preaches renegotiating or eliminating vendor contracts on a regular basis. It teaches questioning the value of any consultant or outside service. It is a roadmap for rapid, perhaps severe, cost-cutting to achieve immediate profitability.

Bruce Bunch, a spokesman for GE, said Jack Welch ordered about 125 copies for the company's top officers shortly after it was published ... because it described in "simple and easy terms" ways to keep costs down and profit up.
  

About 80% of all businesses fail in their first 5 years.  Of the 20% who survive the first five years, approximately 80% of those businesses fail in the next 5 years.  Over the years, I have worked with the "survivors" and many of them wonder why they ever went into business in the first place.  The owners are NOT having fun--the business is literally sucking the life out of them. The more they grow, the worse it gets.

Why?  Because, when they were growing from a start-up business to a growth business, they did not focus on the systems that  are fundamental for creating a solid foundation for growth.  They try to keep growing on a foundation that is continuing to sink under the pressure.

This book shows you how to detect and transform the profit-eaters into profit-enhancers.  How to stop the destructive cycle of "putting out fires" that waste time, money and drive you, and your staff, crazy!  You can streamline your business operations, do more with less, develop a "turnkey" business that virtually runs itself and you can HAVE FUN running your business!  The system IS the solution.  SYSTEMS RUN THE BUSINESS and PEOPLE RUN THE SYSTEMS.  You can download the the first 3 chapters for free [Click Here].

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider.

This is a “must read” for all entrepreneurs. Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting and managing your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business–from entrepreneurial infancy, through adolescent growing pains, to the mature entrepreneurial perspective, the guiding light of all businesses that succeed–and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.