Click on the image above and you will be taken to Amazon.com where your order will be processed. When you buy this book you will receive the Attitudes and Behaviors of Success course - a $149 value - free.

Celebrating Success! Fourteen Ways to Create a Successful Company! When you purchase this book you will learn how to: Grow sales Create effective marketing strategies Hire the right people Increase productivity Save time Save money How to work on the business and not in the business and more... This book will pay for itself. To ensure the value of this book I will provide a valuable gift worth $149 with the purchase of this book. Continue reading on to learn more.

This book was written for entrepreneurs and small business owners to helps them understand the 14 principles necessary to small business success and mastery. 

Thirty seven companies were interviewed to gather information for the book. During the interview process, several common themes kept appearing. Further time was spent reviewing the interview notes, presentations and other material to validate these finding. As a result the book Celebrating Success! Fourteen Ways to a Successful Company was born.

Celebrating Success! Fourteen Ways to a Successful Company discusses, in practical terms, the importance of these 14 business principles and offers practical suggestions on how to implement these principles in your business.

What's in this book to make it so valuable? Let’s start with the most important principle: the attitude of the business owner. If you own a business and are not happy with the results, you must understand that you must take ownership. Taking ownership will allow you can make the necessary changes. If you are happy with the results you have achieved - thank the people around you. No matter how smart or experienced you are your success is dependent on those working for you and with you. No one can do it alone.

Do you remember that free gift worth $149 I mentioned early? This is a program you can down load to your computer and experience first hand the first step in my eight step process of understanding success that I teachmy clients. This program automated the process I take every client through to help them understand two things: the seven attitudes and behaviors of success and how to apply them in your life and business.

In working with successful business owners they all exhibit the same behavior traits. These traits are: emphasis on results, persistence, focus, selfishness, ownership, people focus and discipline. This program will walk you though how to define and implement these attitudes and behaviors in your business.

Understanding these traits and how they can be implemented in your business is the first step towards success (and creating the life you always wanted.)

As you read the book you will understand how all fourteen principles are interrelated and when you change one you influence all of them. So what are these important principles?

1. Attitudes of the business owner
2. Creating a company culture
3. Business strategy
4. Sales
5. Marketing
6. Discipline
7. Risk Taking
8. Work-life balance
9. Information Technology
10. Training
11. Customer Service
12. Implementing predictability
13. Budget and Finance
14. Bring it all together

Let me summarize all fourteen principles into three easy steps and if you do these three steps you will have addressed all fourteen of these principles.

Why Businesses Succeed!

Other business authors discuss why businesses fail. I prefer to focus on the positive: businesses that thrive and why they become successful. There has been so much negative news over the years about job loss and business failure that I wanted to find out first hand the true story. I talked with nearly 50 small successful companies and I found out things were not quite as bad as the news portrayed.

I found three things that inspired me and helped me understand that the small business market is alive and well. Companies that are doing well exhibited three primary behaviors: the business owner exhibited a positive attitude, the business created and implemented a sound business strategy and they had the discipline to they focused on the strategy.

The attitude of the business owner is the single most important principle described in the book. The owner must accept 100% of the responsibility for the results of the business. When responsibility is accepted, action can be taken to make the necessary changes to accomplish the desired results.

When success is achieved, these owners are generous in giving credit to others within the organization. Without exception, the most successful business owners understand it is all about people: hiring and retaining the right people, eliminating ineffective people, and providing the necessary resources for employees to master their tasks.

Having and implementing a sound business strategy is next. A large complex strategy is not necessary; a one page document will do. However, the business strategy does need to be well thought out, carefully crafted and well executed. The business strategy will define and drive the activities and behaviors the organization must execute to become successful. If you do not have a business strategy, the organization becomes like a ship without a rudder – it can’t be steered – it just goes in circles. A business strategy should include such things as: a financial plan, marketing differentiators, product strategy, and employee retention strategy, etc.

The other two attributes become much more effective when discipline is in place. Discipline can be defined as “staying the course,” and executing the strategy. The most successful companies understand the value of discipline and they work hard maintain the course defined by the business strategy.

A poorly crafted business plan that is well executed is far superior to a well-crafted business plan the sits on the shelf.

Discipline is not overreacting to market changes, staying focused on your core markets, and measuring success as defined in the business plan.

Business success is contingent on these three principles: attitude, strategy, and discipline.

This book with teach you how and why this is true.

I know what you are thinking. My company is not big enough to use all fourteen principles. That may be true so take what works and implement the six, seven or eight principles that should be implemented.

Before you go on I must tell you that this book is written in a conversational style that is easy to read and understand. It is supported by 32 case studies that, if interested, you will learn how others used these principles.

I always believed that success leaves tracks and the tracks in this book are not only easy to read and follow but easy to understand and implement in your business.

What Others Say

Dr. Tony Alessandra
author of The Platinum Rule and Charisma

"Ron Finklestein's new book, Celebrating Success! Fourteen Ways to Create a Successful Company!, should be required reading for all business school students and all business owners and managers. It identifies 14 key attributes that all businesses should acquire. If more business people read this excellent book, there would be many fewer business failures, more satisfied customers and higher revenues and profits."

Neal O'Sullivan

Ron does a good job compiling-distilling and analyzing useful common themes to successful business management. This qualitative survey is a valuable asset to all entreprenural asperents.

Brian J. Davis

A map. As a sailor, I always keep my nose to the course, I keep an eye to the weather, I keep a firm hand on the tiller and sometimes, most important, I keep an ear to the crew. As a pilot, now using the wind in 3D, I pay attention to my check lists, the weather, the fuel, my pilot awareness and the condition of my aircraft. While riding my motorcycle, I pay very close attention to everything, whilst I wear my helmet. As an entrepreneur, in a high technology environment, the complexity is heightened, not only do I need Customers, Cash and Expertise but I needed a check list to constantly remind me of the progress our company is making, in the shortest amount of time. "Celebrating Success!" is my business check list, and an easy way to communicate my/our goals to investors, customers and employees. Ron's book is a "Check List for Business Success."

Ronald Mcdaniel "Buzzoodle Ron" (Kent, Ohio)

This book has inspirational stories from other business owners that have been there and succeeded, and it is written around a list of the main attributes that a business owner needs to pay attention to in order to build a successful business from the ground up. I have owned a copy for 2 years and have read it 3 times to keep the principles fresh.

Ivana S. Taylor

This is a book that is a documentation of what real life small business people do to be successful. I love this because it doesn't necessarily talk about big companies that small business owners can never experience or touch, but small to medium sized businesses with limited resources and a lot of passion. That's what makes this worth getting. There are real stories in the book, and little "summaries" and exercises that you can work on while you're reading. Try it.

Brian R. Furlong

This is a great book that reflects the experience, knowledge and success of the author and a multitude of other highly successful business leaders. Full of practical advice you can use, this is an essential handbook for anyone who wants to take their business to a new level.

This book is written by someone who has obviously been in the trenches and it is based on his own experiences and extensive research into companies who have developed a formula for success. The author has translated all of these success experiences into an interesting, informative and easy to read success template.

Tim Malone "Bear" (Akron, Ohio USA)

Celebrating Success! Fourteen Ways to a Successful Company by Ronald Finklestein, is an extremely insightful book on what are the elements in a successful company these days. The easy reading makes this book impossible to put down until you are done with it all.

Don Philabaum
CEO
Internet Association Corporation

I would recommend this book to any business owner in the Small-Medium Business Marketplace today. If you have only a few of these traits today, you will understand how to look for the rest. Success is the key here and you will be celebrating your own.

I know because I asked Ron to lead my executive team and lead us through a discussion and implementation of each of the fourteen attributes and work with my team to implement these ideas. We created new business processes that resulted in new products and services. It really works!

Except from Celebrating Success! Fourteen Ways to a Successful Company

These lessons have been distilled down into fourteen ways to achieve success. Note that I specifically chose not to say fourteen attributes of a successful company, because each of these companies did not necessarily exhibit all of these attributes. Some companies utilized many of these attributes, others just a few. These attributes are highly interrelated, and break down loosely into ‘softer’ skills: company culture , customer service , work/life balance, discipline , attitude , risk taking; and ‘harder’ skills: business strategy , financial and budget , business processes , information technology , marketing, sales, and training. If it did not fall into a specific section, it was included in a section called General Advice. 

My intention is not to reinvent what has already been discussed in other books, but to bring you snapshots of thirty-two companies who were successful and of how they achieved their success. While all these examples came from smaller companies, with revenues of less than $50M, the lessons are relevant to companies of all sizes.

These fourteen attributes could be compressed further but there were some attributes that needed to be addressed separately, such as risk. Depending on the company, the order and level of influence of each attribute varied widely. We will look at each one of these attributes and go into some detail about each one.

Culture is defined as the “integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and behavior that depends upon one's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.”

Many company representatives talked about how hiring the right person was critical and what they looked for when hiring. I don’t think any of them used the word culture specifically, but what they were looking for is people who can fit into their corporate culture or who can help shape the culture they wanted to create.

To simplify, these companies wanted to hire employees that expressed a certain attitude or behavior that would make their business successful, both now and in the future. This was reflected in a company’s attitude on work/life balance, risk taking, customer service, and training. Because of their importance, we spent time on all of them.

Each company profiled realized the importance of customer service , but customer service means different things to different people, so let’s define it. A customer is defined as “one that purchases a commodity or service.” Service is defined as “the occupation or function of one who serves.” Together it means providing service to one who buys your product or service. The concept is simple but the implications and implementations can be more complex.

Many of the companies integrated customer service into a company’s culture through training and the design and redesign of relevant business processes . In most cases, the business plan dictated how they provided customer service. Once that service level and approach was defined, modifying the business to support the strategy was a relatively easy matter.

Work/life balance was an important issue to most individuals with whom we spoke. Many did not see a difference between their company and their personal lives. They seamlessly integrated work into their personal lives and their personal lives into their work lives. To achieve a balance, they prioritize what they wanted and worked their priorities.

Discipline was a decisive element for all companies. Some did not call it discipline , but ‘focus’, ‘staying the course’, or ‘sticking to their core products and markets’. No matter what you call it, it’s still discipline. Discipline can be defined “as control gained by enforcing obedience or order, or to impose order upon.” It was hard to have discipline if you did not define a plan or strategy that a company can follow.

The attitude of key managers (the president, owner or business leader) was one of the most important attributes defined. Attitude is defined as “the mental position with regard to a fact or state, or a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state.” Stated plainly, it is the way they looked at themselves, their company, their employees, their products and customers. Many of the organizations we discussed here strongly reflected the attitude of the company president. The president knew if change were necessary, it had to start at the top.

Because attitude was truly contagious, it was broken out separately. The attitude of the leader clearly contributed to the corporate culture; all else flowed from that culture . He or she sets the tone.

Each of these individuals (and their companies) took risks . Most were calculated risks with a clear outcome in mind. Many bet their livelihood on their company and most realize d they must change as the economic climate changed. Each knew it was a risk not to embrace change. The companies who were doing well all embraced change in one capacity or another. Many tried to create a culture of change. Of the companies that actually made significant changes in their organizations, without exception, wished they had made the change sooner.

The single most critical element identified was a sound business strategy or plan. Though they are not the same, for our purposes, I use the word strategy and plan interchangeably . The strategy included product development philosophies and strategies, financial goals with an associated roadmap, and market-orientation with customer-facing strategies. Our focus was not to review the business plan , though many companies interviewed showed us the metrics they used and talked about how these metrics were solid indicators of where the business was and where it was going. Instead, our focus was to understand the specific opportunity upon which they capitalized and how they did it.

Without exception, it would be very difficult to identify the opportunity and make the most of it without a plan that identified the basic elements of the business and defined the direction.

A common theme was the use of a financial roadmap and budget – and of course the discipline to follow it! This roadmap told them where and how to spend their money and provided ways to measure the progress. Finance was the cornerstone of most business plans.

Another frequently mentioned principle of success was the streamlining of business processes . The intention here was to increase productivity and reduce cost. Business processes are the way a business does things. Every company has processes; some were clearly defined, others were implicit. Each of the companies talked about the need to continuously improve their processes, to become more efficient and productive, to respond to market changes faster and provide better customer service.

The next attribute is interesting because it is found in almost every aspect of these companies’ operations: the use of Information Technology . While technology was important, it became apparent that technology does not have to be complex to be effective.

Marketing is something that each company did that allowed them to develop name recognition for their company, product, or service. Some relied on referral selling and built their marketing plan around it. Others spent significant time and energy in building a distribution channel. Still others focused on their markets and attacked it with consistency, commitment and diligence.

These companies approached sales very differently. Some depend on referral selling and that was the extent of their sales process. Others aggressively attacked the market with mail campaigns, cold calls, and other forms of direct customer contact. This was usually defined by the marketing plan. Most appreciated the concept that selling was a process that could be measured and improved, like all business processes . They talked about the importance of having a consistent, measurable and repeatable sales process, and they engaged professional sales trainers to help make that happen within their organizations.

Training can be defined as “to form by instruction, discipline , or drill, and to teach, to make fit, qualified, or proficient.” Because we live in world of continuous change, it is more important than ever to implement a culture of continuous learning. Training was a major issue identified. Later we will discuss how training was used and implemented, and how it supported the business strategy .

So much of what was shared could fit almost anywhere in this book, but for simplicity, it is grouped into a category called general advice . This could be a book in itself. It is my hope that someone will read this section and take away something that will make a profound difference in how they manage their business.

Call Ron Finklestein if you are interested in a speaker for your next event or neet help with a business problem. He can be reached at 330-990-0788 or info@yourbusinesscoach.net