Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Value is in the eye of the buyer who is looking for something “better” than he thinks is available. Creating value is the mystique at the heart of the successful business.  This chapter asks you to recognize the source of your own creativity with stories of others doing it. 

Strength of character is a hallmark of the successful small-business owner.  Because we “live inside the bubble” of our own skins, most can’t see their own strengths.  Being reminded of your own strengths, gives you the courage to ask for and receive the reward for the value you created in Chapter 1, and not get beaten up in the “price wars”.

Successful small-business owners often cannot see the source of their own success so find it difficult to capitalize on their unique difference.  A simple exercise will help you learn from your best customers what that difference is, and then how “say it” in marketing your product.   

Sales are not just income.  Income has two sources, customers, and products.  By learning to “see” these two sources independently, you can maximize both and find the place that they intersect for maximum effect.    

Learn to focus on what you miss in the daily battle to survive.  Learn the “bi-focal vision” of what small changes in prices and volume do to profits using the “twelve-month rolling average” tool.  What your business is doing from month-to-month has a long-term effect on the value of your business.

Cash flow problems are a euphemism for not having money to pay your bills.  With the Value Stream Map tool, you learn to see all the places where cash gets hijacked invisibly.  With the map you see and measure “waste” even expenses invisible on the income statement.    

In Chapter 3 you learned what your customers consider you CVD.  Learn how to reduce the CVD cycle time to serve more customers without increasing your costs.

 We cannot be good at everything.  Ditch your organization chart and re-vision your Value Stream as a movie with scenes, actors, and roles to find the “beat of your band” -- everyone on the same page and playing the same song.

Great customer service does not just happen.  It happens when the team has defined it and agreed to measurements that give them feedback on what is meaningful to your customers.

Not all customers are alike, in fact some are a bad fit and cost more than they contribute.  Learn how to find the best ones who are looking for your CVD and willing to pay you a premium for your superior product.

Just increasing sales for the sake of growth is a dead end.  Growing your profit as a proportion of your sales is what builds wealth.  A wealth mindset knows how to use debt properly, and eventually learns to grow the business steadily out of your own growing profits. 

Few businesses outlast the founder.  If profitable, your business will eventually be sold. Discover the variety of “end-games” that allow you to do so on your own timetable and to do so with grace.    

Afterword