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 Dear
fellow entrepreneur:
Many people ask me, when
they see the title of my book, "Is it really possible to succeed as a
business owner and still have a life?"
My answer, after 20+
years of business ownership: Yes!
Many business owners are
contentedly earning high incomes and building real, long-term wealth without
working a zillion hours. All the while, they're enjoying fulfilling personal
and family lives - being with the important people in their lives, coming
and going as they please, and doing the things they like to do.
You can do it too
- by reading this book and applying its simple principles in your business.
For many entrepreneurs, owning a
business has become drudgery. Long hours. Employees with bad attitudes.
Being involved in every aspect of the business because the employees don't
care or can't be trusted to do the right thing. Sacrificing their own income
so they can make payroll. Sleepless nights.
These people must be asking themselves,
"What happened? How did my dreams of success turn into a nightmare?
Will it ever get better?"
It can get better, but here's a
good saying to remember:
If you keep doing
what you've been doing,
you'll keep getting what you've been getting."
The only way to change your
results is to change your behavior, your activities and your approach to
business.
Based on my own
experiences
My name is Bill Collier. This book is the culmination of my own
personal entrepreneurial experiences. In the late 1980s, I started my first company after years in the corporate world. The first 3 years, we did fine.
We attracted customers, hired some employees, and paid our bills. I thought,
"I've got this business stuff figured out."
Boy, was I wrong!
Then, we hit a brick wall. We endured 4
straight years - I call them our "dark ages" - of stagnant sales,
low employee morale, and high employee turnover. It got harder and harder to
pay our vendors. I frequently took little or no pay so I could make payroll.
My lack of business expertise had come home to roost.
I called one of our bigger competitors and inquired about
selling my company to them. Their reply: "You're too small. Get bigger
and maybe we can talk." I was disappointed beyond words. I had two
choices - throw in the towel, or stick it out and make it work.
I chose to make it work.
Slowly but surely, I started to "get it." I was
learning from my own mistakes. (And I made lots of them!) I learned to
swallow my pride and admit that I didn't have all the answers. This enabled
me to seek out advice and to accept input from my employees. It also helped
me learn to trust my employees and to delegate to them.
By 1995, things started to turn around.
Revenue was growing. Employees quit leaving. Customers became fans. I
recruited and developed a management team.
Over the next 10 years, we enjoyed
plenty of success. We made the "St. Louis Technology Fast 50" list
3 times. Jack Stack's open-book management organization, The Great Game of Business, gave us
their "Hall of Fame" award. We made money, and I finally tasted
the success I'd hoped for when I started the company.
The last 2 years I owned the business, I played golf every
Wednesday morning, worked from home fairly often, and took off when I wanted
to. I also bought into a small manufacturing company and started spending
one day a week at that business. All the while, my company hummed along.
We sold my first business in 2005 for a nice sum. I now
split my 4 day workweek between the manufacturing company mentioned above
and my own consulting firm, Collier Business Advisors. (I still golf on
Wednesdays.)
The approach used to turn around that first company, to
reduce my workweek, to put my company on "auto-pilot", and to
increase its value and make it sellable are all outlined in my book.
You can reasonably expect to achieve similar
success if you
read it and apply the simple principles you'll find inside.
I'd be pleased and proud for
my book to be part of your entrepreneurial journey.
Wishing you success,
Bill Collier
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