"Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king." — Unknown
Many business owners are what serial entrepreneur Roland Frasier calls “accidental entrepreneurs”—they’re good at and love something, whether it’s baking, consulting, selling, providing services, etc., and they “accidentally” built a business around it.
Then reality sets in. Hiring. Marketing. Sales. Compliance. Managing people. Managing customers. Wrestling with technology.
And then, there’s Finance, aka reading all those reports your accountant sends you and pretending you understand half of it, when you’re really asking yourself, “If this report says I’m profitable, why is there no money in my bank account?!?”
The truth is that you can hire people to do most of the above roles as you grow, but if you’re a business owner and you don’t have a finger on the pulse of your finances, you’re missing out on opportunities to increase revenue, bank more profits, and create an enduring asset that you can run, hire someone else to run, sell, leave to your kids, or whatever you want to do with it.
That doesn’t mean you have to do your own bookkeeping, financial forecasting, or tax planning, but if you want to grow your business, you do need to work with your finance professionals to understand and advocate for key financial performance indicators and hold your team accountable to them.
Here are three books that have a permanent place in the stack of reference books on my desk that I recommend to every business owner who is looking to grow, scale, level up, or just maximize profit while staying small.
1. “Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! 4 Keys to Unlock Your Business Potential” by Greg Crabtree with Beverly Blair Harzog.
Not only have I known Beverly Blair Harzog for years, but I actually keep this book out on my desk as a sort of reference manual. It’s practical and down to earth, addressing the actual issues actual small business owners have, like:
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The 2023 WilmingtonBiz: Book on Business is an annual publication showcasing the Wilmington region as a center of business.