This was a topic I thought was kind of neat as I was hearing the different stories that people had in terms of what ultimately convinced them that creating a business was the way to go. While there are often the generic answers such as “Wanting more money” here were some of the reasons I heard as well as the thinking behind it that I thought were a little different:

1) Wanting Rewards Based On Results – For this person they were in an industry that seemed to be pretty discriminatory in the sense that unless you have a specific degree or connection, regardless if you have the experience and skill set you will end up making less than those who may be less qualified. For example, even if you worked at a company for five years and have practical experience a person that has a university degree in your exact same field can end up getting more money and faster promotions simply based on that factor alone. Therefore, the person was saying she wanted the rewards to be based on her efforts into a company and so she thought starting her own business was the way to go.

2) No One Is Willing To Give You A Chance – Imagine being a person where there are factors such as being physically incapable of doing a job at the same pace as a regular worker due to incidents such as having an accident. Or think of a situation where you wanted to specifically work in a certain field/industry expect it is so tight knitted that no one wants to waste time on you. This is what drove one person to start his own business as his mentality was he was going to create his own opportunities as opposed to waiting for someone to hand it to him.

3) Wanting To Have Full Accountability – This might sound weird to some. But in this example a person was saying they wanted to be 100% accountable for their future and not ever blame others for their position in life. For example, complaining that a company doesn’t pay them enough, there are no opportunities in an organization, etc. Therefore, they wanted an environment where you can’t blame anyone but yourself if you aren’t say generating the income that you want. Not surprisingly after, they decided that a business was the way to go.

While there are many other reasons I’m sure, what this made me think too is how one thing all these people had in common is the mentality that they all believed that they can mold their own future. Like they say too it all starts with having the right attitude.

When I first read this book my expectation was that there would be a lot of tough love advice where the author tries to tell you the unpopular things you need to do in a business to be financially successful. Example, items like how you have to sacrifice a lot of personal activities and not trusting people.

While the book did have a lot of points like these, there are a lot of moments where Cloutier’s advice seems so vastly different and controversial that it definitely caught my attention. For example, saying how you shouldn’t pay your vendors on time is still a bit of a shocker to me. In some funny ways though I was actually expecting more of that as all of the edification and hype literature about this book kept emphasizing how it was supposed to be very hard-hitting.

The book does focus mainly on ways to help turn a business around and so you can expect to read a lot of doom and gloom stories with ways to get you out of that cycle. It’s definitely not the happy go lucky approach that a lot of other books use.

I personally don’t think that most the advice is too significant for people who run a small business where the operation revolves around say just yourself. I say this because there is a lot of preaching about employees and how you should deal with them in terms of pay and discipline. Nowadays a solo operation business is probably more common such as people having their own online auction business or say people who make tens of thousands through affiliate marketing.

But if you are a business that does millions in sales with a traditional company type of setup a lot of the advice seems perfectly sensible. For example, putting people on a pay for performance plan makes sense as opposed to just paying people to show up and not worry about results. Especially if your business is unprofitable for whatever reason this type of advice seems like the smart thing to do.

Is this book useful for people who are not like a large corporation? It is, but at the same time I would have to say there are probably better books out there if you are a solo or dual team operation. Like most business type of books the key emphasis is your mentality when it comes to money and how you do things.

The impression I walked away with after reading this book is that it serves people best who are in that “bankruptcy” type of scenario. This will help to give you that kick in the butt and slap to the face to make you do what is necessary to turn things around. Basically, focus on your profits and do what is necessary to improve that.

So this is the last chapter titled “It’s Not the Economy, Stupid, It’s You.” I guess almost every business and finance book that has been written over the past year or so references something about the economy issues. Cloutier uses this chapter to mostly call out people that want to use the economy as an excuse for their failing businesses as it seems like a cop out.

With that, he references past chapters as well as all of the advice he has given thus far to show that your results are because of your efforts and not some outside factor. For example, even if the economy died you should have had some kind of plan to anticipate these kinds of circumstances to adapt to it.

It’s one of those sheepish mentalities that he is trying to get you to avoid such as how if one person sees another slacking off they think it is okay. Reminds me of all those ridiculous bailout packages that I keep hearing on the news where one company asks for one then all of a sudden every other company in the world needs it too.

In the end he just urges you to take action and not to give up as many people have followed his strategies to see success. Was a pretty short chapter overall. That’s it for the book too. Time to wrap my head around everything that I read and to give my final thoughts.

Looks like book is coming to an end as this is the second last chapter titled “Teamwork Is Vastly Overrated.” It’s kind of similar to the other points I read in the other chapters where Cloutier emphasizes that employees and your business structure should be follow a military type of setup. Basically, you are like the leader and they are just soldiers.

He essentially focuses specifically in this chapter on those issues. He is going for the polar opposite advice as opposed to what most people would give you about establishing a happy and productive work environment through a teamwork mentality. I’m sure everyone has heard the phrases such as there is no “I” in teamwork and that everyone should be treated as if they are the same.

Throughout this chapter he gives so many examples on how relying on a “team” to get things done can be disastrous where it’s like there is no leader and everyone is doing their own thing. He also notes that he feels employees actually want to be delegated as they want to know what is expected from them while following a strong structure. So you as the small business owner should always have a full hands on approach in controlling everyone. People shouldn’t be answering to you and not amongst themselves.

Another fallback of a team, especially in a small business, is he mentions how a team is only as strong as its weakest link. With that in mind, Cloutier goes back to how you have to have a system that rewards and punishes people individually based on results. He even goes as far as implying if an employee wants personal growth he/she should just go to a seminar on their own time.

Cloutier’s advice really is on the far side compared to others I must say. One more chapter to go.

The chapter title was “Give Up Golf, Retreats, Off-Sites, and Trade Shows.” Cloutier sure bashes golf a lot in this chapter where he feels for the most part it just costs business owners a lot of time and money. Example, factoring in how much you have to spend on memberships as well as looking at how much business you really brought in as a direct result of being on the golf course. From what he mentions, most people bring in nothing unless you are rubbing shoulders with a very well known billionaire.

Although the chapter does seem to dive into other forms of activities that people claim they do to increase business such as conventions, trade shows and seminars where he gives his reasons why he thinks they can be bad. He used Tony Robbins’ seminars as an example where he felt that it was a little perplexing how people spend tens of thousands of dollars and time worshipping a person as if it was a cult when they could be focusing on their business.

I guess it comes down to realistic goal and planning. If you play golf specifically in hopes that you will meet your next billionaire customer or that attending a seminar is the answer to your wealth and productivity issues then that is just like the lottery mentality I’d say. I would treat things like that more for fun and growth personally.

I was a little confused about the trade show part though as to me it depends on what type of industry you are in. Example, I can’t see why it wouldn’t be a good way for like manufacturers to meet other potential companies and customers to either buy or sell its products.