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PREFACE

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

—R. SHERMAN, FROM MARY POPPINS

Welcome to what I sincerely hope is the most truthful, blunt, straightforward, non-sugarcoated, no pabulum, no holds barred, no-nonsense, no B.S. book you have ever read on succeeding as an entrepreneur.

I wrote the first edition of this book back in 1993, and since then I’ve personally heard from thousands of readers, from all over the world. You saw a few of their comments on the opening pages of this book. It struck a chord with entrepreneurs—the chord of authenticity. No college classroom theory, no baloney. Real world truths from somebody who succeeds day in, day out, as an entrepreneur, working without a net. Since then, a lot has happened in my life, business and personal. For example, I’ve sold two businesses I built up, walked away from a very important and lucrative nine-year business relationship, made planned, continual evolutionary changes in my other businesses, gone through a divorce after 22 years of marriage, re-married the same woman several years later, been diagnosed diabetic, and more. I’m pleased to report I’m happier than I’ve been in many years, and am living the life I set out to live. Anyway, all these changes, new experiences, what I’ve learned from my clients certainly warranted a complete updating of this book.

I wrote that last paragraph for the updated edition published in 2004. But in just a handful of years since then, a whole lot has changed in the business world too. The once mighty have fallen, the credit and banking system is in collapse and under recreation, a new eagerness for massive government interference in every aspect of business as well as everyday life has permeated America, and an entirely new economy—THE New Economy—is emerging, with new rules, new restrictions, new obstacles, and new opportunities. Many business owners have spent recent months wandering around, moaning “Oh, my God—what do I do now?” A lot of businesspeople and investors were caught unaware, for no good reason; the entire scenario was easily forecast. Many are moving into The New Economy weary and wounded or in stubborn denial, and may or may not survive. Others are striding in confidently and boldly, ready to put the recession well behind them and re-make themselves and their businesses as changed conditions and opportunities require. Whatever scars you may carry from the recession in progress or easing, whatever position you are re-starting or starting from, you can count on three things:

First, there will always be successes.

Second, the principles that make business success possible have not changed and will not change. Strategies and tactics and applications, yes. Principles, no. Switching from typewriter to PC has not altered the writing of a successful book. Switching from one kind of economy to another has not altered the fundamental ways in which successful entrepreneurs approach business. I did not change a single one of the No B.S. Eternal Business Truths first placed in the first edition of this book 16 years ago. They are evergreen. Some even more relevant in The New Economy. I have changed some of my advice about applying these Truths, but not the Truths themselves. And you should draw some confidence from how well these principles have stood the test of time and withstood the storms of the most recent period.

Third, I won’t B.S. you in this book. As the umpire says, I’ll call’em as I see ’em—based on 35+ years on business battlefields, before, during, and after recessions. Experience in my own businesses, with hundreds and hundreds of private clients—almost all from-scratch millionaire and multi-millionaire entrepreneurs, and with the tens of thousands of Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle^™ Members, who interact with me day to day. Nothing in this book comes out of a university’s ivory tower or protected, pleasant tree-lined campus; it all comes from the blood-splattered business battlefield. This book is not a book report drawn from other books by a student and spectator; it is an in-the-trenches report. If you are living the life of the entrepreneurial business owner, you will hear its ring of authenticity loud and clear.

It is a personal book, me talking straight with you, as if I was consulting with you, and as if we were sitting around at the end of the day on my deck, watching the sunset, enjoying adult beverages, and just hanging out. Because it is personal, along the way I’ll be telling you quite a bit about me and about my business life, past, present, and future. None of this is about bragging. I have no need for that or interest in doing it. What I share, I tell you so that you understand the basis for the advice and opinions I dispense.

I have occasionally been introduced as The Professor of Harsh Reality. This does NOT mean I’m negative. If anything, I’m one of the most optimistic, positive-minded people you’ll ever meet. However, I do not believe in confusing positive thinking with fantasy. And the word “optimism,” like many words in our perplexing English language, has more than one meaning. There’s a mammoth difference between earned, deserved, justified optimism and wild-eyed, blue-sky, stubborn optimism. One of the biggest optimists I’ve ever known had brief peaks of amazing entrepreneurial success but could never sustain them, more frequently had shockingly deep lows of entrepreneurial failure, acted with appalling irresponsibility as a business owner and organizational leader, abused investors, spent five years in a state penitentiary, and is ending his life broke and estranged from family and friends—enormous talent and know-how wasted. His self-destruction is tragic. Extreme, but then, I see a great deal of business tragedy caused by the same basic disease: a refusal to deal with “what is.”

I’ve discovered that I’m most successful when I have a firm grip on what is and least successful when caught wrestling with what ought to be. Creating your own reality of choice is what being an entrepreneur is all about, but it has to be built on solid ground not fairy dust.

If you are already in business for yourself, this book will help you go forward into The New Economy more astutely, efficiently, productively, and confidently. I think you’ll also catch yourself nodding as you go along, saying to yourself, “This guy has been where I live.” Sometimes there is value in just finding out you’re not alone! In fact, the very first “success education” that I was ever exposed to, in my early teens, was a set of recordings titled “Lead the Field” by Earl Nightingale, in which he gave me badly needed permission to violate the “norms” I saw around me, with his dramatic statement:

“If you had no successful example to follow in whatever endeavor you choose, you may simply look at what everyone else around you is doing and do the opposite, because– THE MAJORITY IS ALWAYS WRONG.”

That may not be a precise, verbatim quote; it is as I recall it and have it stored in my subconscious as a primary guiding principle. This, for example, led to my strategy of deliberately questioning all industry norms and deliberately violating most of them, and encouraging my clients to do the same. It also led to my coining of the term “Mediocre Majority” to succinctly describe the vast undistinguished middle of any industry or profession. Anyway, Earl said a lot of things I had been thinking but had never heard anyone validate, and that gave me a great boost of confidence and conviction. Maybe some of my words, here, will do the same for you.

Most entrepreneurs tell me that, because of this feeling they get from this book, they are instantly eager to share it with other entrepreneurs. Please do so! If you want some place to send them, refer to www.NoBSBooks.com. There you and anyone you direct there will find on-demand video interviews of me hosted by Kristi Frank, who competed on Donald Trump’s The Apprentice television show, free excerpts and previews from many of my books, additional free resources, and more.

If you have not yet started in business but intend to, this book might scare you off. If it does, consider it a favor; you’re too easily spooked to succeed anyway. The entrepreneurial arena and The New Economy is no place for the timid, nervous, or easily worried to come and play. If it doesn’t scare you off, it will help you avoid many pitfalls and problems and help you cope with those that can’t be avoided. It will not cover the basics. There are plenty of books out there on the basics and we’re not going to cover the same ground all over again. This is not a how-to-start-a-small-business book. This is a go-for-the-jugular success book.

As I said earlier, I am not a fuzzy-headed academic, pocket protector and wingtip shoes accountant, or other theorist, although there are plenty of these pretenders writing business books. I’m also not a retired authority who runs a business in my memory. I’ve been on the firing line meeting a payroll, battling the bankers and bureaucrats, struggling to satisfy customers, and solving real business problems. Over the years, I’ve arrived at a point where my own business is engineered to meet all my lifestyle preferences—for example, only one employee, in a distant office, not underfoot; no set hours; no unscheduled phone calls. But still, I deal with clients and vendors and real business life just like you do. I am invested in and advising several different businesses including start-ups, including a software company that earned a spot on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growth companies two years in a row, and a chain of upscale men’s barber shops. I also work very hands-on with clients in a wide variety of businesses, as well as being “the consultant to the consultants”’—I advise over 50 different leading marketing and business consultants, each exclusively serving a different business or professional niche, in total in direct, hands-on relationships with over one million small business owners. I am still on the front lines myself and I am behind the scenes and intimately involved with a broad diversity of businesses. I live with independent entrepreneurs every day of my life—like some daring researcher in the wild, not just observing, but living with the lions and tigers and bears. I want you to know this because I think it makes this book more valuable to you.

I’ll never forget taking over a company with 43 employees, never having managed more than 2 people in my life. I grabbed every management book I could get my paws on and sucked up all the experts’ advice. Then, after a couple of months of getting my brains beat in every day by my employees, I started to look critically at the credentials of those “expert” authors. Most of them had never—I repeat, never—managed a workforce. These geniuses spewing out creative management, non-manipulative management, Japanese management, open-door management, and everything-else management wouldn’t have survived a week in the real world. I resent those authors to this day. And it’s a shame that a lot of college kids get that management theory; that is, fantasy sold to them as reality. So, I chucked all their books, rolled up my sleeves, used my common sense, and started finding out what really works and what doesn’t.

Ever since then, I’ve looked at every new business book with suspicion. Most won’t pass muster because most can’t pass the real-experience test. I was originally motivated to write this book largely because reading most of the other books written for and sold to entrepreneurs turned my stomach. I am just as sickened by most of the most current crop.

I also want you to know that there are a lot more things I haven’t got a clue about than there are things I understand, and, in this book, I have not dealt with any of the many things I’m in the dark about. Everything in here is based on my own expensive experience. It may not be right. You may not agree with it. But at least you should know that I didn’t swipe it out of somebody else’s book, give it a jazzy new psychobabble name, and pass it off as a new miracle tonic.

I also know you can’t eat philosophy. So, while there is a lot of my own philosophy in this book, its primary job is showing you how to make more money then you ever imagined possible, faster than you can believe possible. This is a book about getting rich. If that offends you, please put this book back on the shelf or take it back to the store and get a refund. Spend your money on milk and cookies instead. You’ll be happier. In fact, I’d like to quickly clear up a big misconception about what being an entrepreneur and owning and building a business is all about. The purpose is not to employ people, not to do social good, not to pay taxes. A lot of liberals think those are the purposes of business. Nuts to them. The purpose of being an entrepreneur is to get really, really rich, and reward yourself for taking on all the risk and responsibility with exactly the kind of life and lifestyle you want. Facilitating that is the sole aim of this book.

Before getting into the “meat,” on the next few pages you’ll find a brief description of my business activities past and present, and what my current business looks like. I think you’ll benefit more from the book if you understand where I’m coming from; however you can choose to skip these pages if you like and jump right to Chapter 1. Your choice.

Finally, I’d like to explain the Mary Poppins quote at the top of this Preface. Mary Poppins was one of the first movies I got taken to see in a theater as a child. If you’ve seen it, you can probably call up the scene of Julie Andrews and the children singing the “just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” song. It’s a lovely thought. Or, as she would say, “loverly.” In real business life, however, the emotional need for spoonfuls of sugar is very dangerous. How well you can take medicine—i.e., deal with reality—has a great deal to do with how successful you are as an entrepreneur.

There’s a legendary book you’ve hopefully read by Napoleon Hill, titled Think and Grow Rich. In that book, he enumerates 17 success principles adhered to in common by the hundreds of history’s greatest entrepreneurial achievers he studied, interviewed, and worked with, like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and so on. Of the 17 principles, the one everybody seems to like the least and ignore the most is “Accurate Thinking.” I believe it to be the most important one. So this book, my book, is heavy on that principle. It is medicine without the accompaniment of sugar.

Finally, let me say that, when I graduated high school, my parents were flat broke. I started with no family money. I didn’t step into a family business. No one handed me anything on a silver platter. At age 55, I am semi-retired, a multi-millionaire, free to live precisely as I choose, indulging my interest in horseracing, all made possible through the kind of thinking, attitudes, habits, and strategies I’ve laid out in this book. I have been blunt, forthright, and held nothing back.

With that said, I still hope you not only profit from this book, but enjoy reading it. And I welcome your comments, thoughts, or questions. You can communicate with me directly by fax, 602-269-3113.

Best,

Dan S. Kennedy