Do you own or plan to own a small business?

• Do you work for a small business and desire to better understand your boss?
• Do you know someone who owns a business and wants to be stronger, more focused, and more successful?

This is the book for you.

The truth is that many business books offer a lot of wonderful sounding theories, but they have little practical application in the real world of small business. Common Sense Business is full of life-and-death ideas. Follow Steve Gottry's advice and your business will live and thrive. Ignore it and your business could founder or die. Benefit from Gottry's experience as an entrepreneur who grew a hugely successful media agency, experienced a harrowing business failure, then rebounded with a new business and a fresh start on life.

Common Sense Business tells you how to succeed throughout every phase of the small business life cycle -- from starting to operating, growing, and even closing down a business. No matter the state of the economy or the maturity of your business, you will find winning solutions to the questions and situations you face every day. Steve Gottry will help you understand yourself; your employees, customers, and vendors; and how people come together to form a successful business. You will learn how to maximize your business's assets and how to ward off those threats that could eat away at your resources and peace of mind, including debt, sloppiness, addiction, and fear. Warm, honest, funny, and factual, entrepreneur Steve Gottry tells the whole truth about successfully managing a business through good times and bad.

Common Sense Business

Starting, Operating, and Growing Your Small Business--In Any Economy!By Steve Gottry

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Steve Gottry
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060778393

Chapter One

The Dreaming Stage

Everyone has dreams -- perhaps without knowing it, weare even born with them.

They begin at age five ... perhaps earlier ... sometimes later.

When I was a child, most boys my age wanted to become a "Roy Rogers" cowboy, a fireman, or a policeman. Most girls dreamed of becoming nurses, schoolteachers, secretaries, beauticians, or housewives. (C'mon, give me a break here ... this was the 1950s ... we had no clue that girls could become astronauts, bioengineers, news anchors, or senators. It was nurse, teacher, secretary, beautician, or housewife. Period.)

At age eleven, my dream was Annette Funicello -- the effervescent brunette with the killer smile on The Mickey Mouse Club who stirred the hearts of nearly every prepubescent boy in America.

At fourteen, my dreams turned to radio broadcasting. So my friend Jack and I started our very own illegal AM radio station in our small Minnesota hometown. Things were going quite well until the federal government -- specifically the FCC -- caught word of our operation and traveled the 135 miles from St. Paul to Mountain Lake to pull our plug. Literally. Physically. Completely. Forever.

Undaunted, I decided to study hard and take the test to earn a real FCC radio operator's license and get a job at a real, legitimate radio station. So I did, and I got a DJ job at the local radio station at age sixteen.

As part of my job, I had to write commercials for a variety of sponsors, which sparked a new interest and a new dream. At age eighteen, I decided to attend the University of Minnesota and take a double major in advertisingand radio-television production.

While attending college, I devised a personal goal -- a new dream. I decided I wanted to be rich.

There was just one catch. Because I had grown up in a modest home in a small farming town in southwestern Minnesota, I had never seen wealth, let alone experienced it. Still, I thought it might be worth a try.

As a caring, giving person -- thanks to my upbringing --I knew that I didn't want money just for myself and my own selfish goals. No, not I! I wanted it for the other people for whom I could create a better life. My family. Worthy charities. The starving people in Third World countriesthat my mother brought up every time I didn't wantto clean my plate. The nearest Mercedes dealer. Fortunately,I had learned something crucial from watching myfather, my grandfathers, and the employed fathers andmothers of my high school friends. Most people do notget rich as the result of working for others.

After considerable thought about the matter, I concludedthat there were only eight ways to gain great wealth:

1. Win some form of contest or lottery -- one of thosemultistate Powerball-type lotteries would be perfect!
2. Develop an idea that can be widely franchised.Another McDonald's would be the ticket!
3. Invent something that everyone needs, preferably ona regular basis. (I've heard that the person whoinvented those little plastic "whatevers" on the endsof shoelaces retired in utter opulence.)
4. Become a movie, television, recording, or professionalsports star.
5. Invest in stocks, bonds, buildings, and land -- butonly when such investments are absolutely guaranteedto increase in value.
6. Inherit big bucks.
7. Create and own intellectual property (books, music,stage plays, film, television programming) and earnroyalties and residuals in perpetuity. (Neil Simonmakes money every time actors in any theater in theworld step onstage to perform The Odd Couple or anyof his other plays.)
8. Start a business, devote a tremendous amount ofenergy to it, and make it prosper and grow.

Great ideas, one and all. But upon further thought, Iruled out the first six of the eight methods.

The statistical odds against winning some form of contestor lottery are astronomical, in spite of the widely heldbelief that "Someone has to win it; might as well be me."

As to the others?

I'm no Ray Kroc of McDonald's, and besides, theworld probably doesn't need another fast-food chain.(Although if there were a drive-through sushi bar in myneighborhood, I'd be a regular!)

I don't have a mechanical mind, so inventing somethingnew would be a pointless pursuit on my part.

I can't act, sing, or dance, and I was always chosenlast for every sport or game. (I remember the fightsbetween the team captains. "You take Gottry." "No, youtake him; I had him last time." It doesn't do much for aseventh grader's self-esteem.)

I thought stocks could be the answer, but thoseinvestments have not worked out as well as others -- realestate, for example. Some of the companies in which Ihave invested are out of business. (Ever hear of Fingermatrixor New World Computer? I didn't think so!)

Inheritance sounds like a plan, but I don't have anywealthy relatives or friends. (I know a fellow about myage who, for years, has actually befriended wealthy elderlypeople in the hope that they will put him in theirwills. That's unbelievably tacky, but I'm pleased toreport that it hasn't worked for him -- yet.)

As to intellectual property, well, I've written two stageplays, and neither one has been produced. If you buy acopy of this book, and everyone you know buys a copy,and everyone they know buys a copy (and so on ...),maybe the royalty thing could work.

It then seems that the best option for most of ushardworking, highly motivated people is to start a businessand nurture it to growth and profitability.

Continues...

Excerpted from Common Sense Businessby Steve Gottry Copyright © 2006 by Steve Gottry. Excerpted by permission.
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