No B.S. Business Success In The New Economy. Dan S. Kennedy
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
Other Notes from the Author
1. For those of you who are gender or political correctness sensitive, an explanation to head off letters: I have used “he,” “him,” etc. throughout the book rather than awkwardly saying “he or she,” “him or her.” I do not mean this as a slight to women, only as a convenience. I’m not getting paid by the word.
2. In many instances, I’ve been able to use the names of actual companies and individuals, the details of actual case histories and examples throughout the book. In a few cases, individuals’ names have been withheld on request.
3. The first edition of this book was published in 1993 by another publisher, Self-Counsel Press. A revised and updated edition was published in 1995. The next edition, published by Entrepreneur Press in 2004, preserved approximately half of the original text with only statistics or time-altered information revised, but also has about 50% brand new material. Now this FOR THE NEW ECONOMY edition has preserved all that was evergreen but again revised or added about 50% new material.
A Look at the Author’s Business Activities
Dan Kennedy is a multi-millionaire serial entrepreneur who has started, bought, built, and sold a number of businesses, and developed a large, loyal international following as an author, speaker, consultant, and coach.
His business adventures have included ownership of an advertising agency; interests in a cosmetic company with retail locations and independent distributors; an award and trophy company conducting all its business via mail-order and selling in volume to the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Boy Scouts of America, and over 200 of the Fortune 500 companies; and a seminar company training over 20,000 dentists and chiropractors. He once bought a publicly held custom manufacturing company “no money down,” took it through a nearly successful turnaround and Chapter 11 Reorganization, and ultimately sold its manufacturing operations to a competitor while retaining its publishing assets for a new business.
His publishing business based around his NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER was sold in 2003, and now operates as Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle LLC, providing information and membership benefits to over 20,000 business owners; online information to over 250,000; publishing his NO B.S. MARKETING LETTER, the most widely subscribed to newsletter about direct marketing, marketing, and entrepreneurial strategies and a portfolio of other newsletters, audio programs, online courses, and other resources; and supporting over 150 local Chapters and Kennedy Study/Mastermind Groups throughout the United States and Canada. Information about this organization can be found via the Free Gift Offer and website on pages 272–273.