Starting and running a small business presents a never-ending series of big challenges. But you can make overcoming those challenges a whole lot easier once you know what other small business owners have done to address them. That’s where this book comes in.

Most small businesses fail within their first couple of years. The business owners who run these businesses often look back on their experiences and feel as though their enterprise failed because they themselves failed. They tell themselves that, on their own, they should have been able to answer every question, anticipate every problem, plan for every new situation, stay ahead of the competition, turn a profit, and (of course) keep customers happy, all at the same time. What these entrepreneurs may not realize, however, is that they were asking too much of themselves, and that this expectation, in and of itself, is a major contributing factor to the high failure rates of small businesses.

You don’t have to know everything, do everything, and predict everything all by yourself. You and your business can benefit from the insights, experiences, and laborsaving innovations of others who have walked this path before you. We call these tested insights, experiences, and innovations “best practices,” and we have collected, in this one volume, as many that seemed relevant to us, as small business owners, as we could find.

This book leverages our experience, and the experience of dozens of other entrepreneurs we learned from and interviewed over the years, to identify the best practices most essential to small business owners. It provides you with an accessible, in-depth understanding of the critical best practice you need to consider before starting your business during those first few crucial years and also later on as you consider growth. It offers proven best practices for small businesses in every area—best practices that relate to technology, human resources, sales, marketing, and even social media.

Between these covers you will find resources meant to help you move your small business forward, regardless of what stage of growth it currently occupies. Whether you’re in the initial planning stages, considering expansion of a successful business model, or anywhere in between, you will find help here.

We have designed this book first and foremost as a tool to help you to plan more effectively. Both of us actually run small businesses, and we are well aware of the need for effective tools that support planning, both upfront planning and the kind of planning that must take place when you encounter major change—whether that change takes the form of competitive pressures, developing a new product or service, expanding your business by hiring additional staff, or any other change that affects your daily operations. The book addresses five specific planning areas.

In Part 1, The Basics About Best Practices, we discuss what you need to know about best practices and how to implement them as you make plans to support your growing business. This part provides you with what you need to know to implement best practices effectively in your own business.

Part 2, Best Practices for the Perfect Start-Up, helps you get your business started. It isn’t easy, when you are first kicking off a new business, to be prepared for every eventuality. Inevitably, there will be things you won’t think of. That is why it is so essential to get others involved—they may see something you have missed. These chapters will guide you in thinking ahead about your business’s needs and offer insights about when and where to seek professional advice in setting up your initial business plan.

In Part 3, Best Practices for the First Two Years, we move to those very crucial first two years of your business. These first couple of years can make or break your business. After you have launched your business, you will quickly learn that the planning part never goes away. Short- and long-term planning are essential to your business’s success. And you can’t just stick those plans in a file cabinet and never look at them again. You will want to use them on an ongoing basis as tools for running your business and meeting your strategic objectives. In this part, you’ll also learn about the most important personnel, marketing, and sales priorities during those critical early years.

Part 4, Best Practices for Running Your Business, will guide you in the task of continuing to grow a successful business. It will help you plan and set up the infrastructure of your business—your systems for accounting, managing employees, meeting insurance needs, protecting yourself and your business against lawsuits, protecting your intellectual property, and planning for your technology needs now and in the future. Throughout this part we provide suggestions for whom to call on when you need some expertise to ensure you are making the right decisions.

In Part 5, Best Practices for Bringing in Revenue, we focus on a perennial concern of small businesses: making money. Here, we help you set up and execute plans for getting the right sales staff in place, giving them the right incentives, and selling your products and services. We also share best practices for creating a marketing and service plan that is built around the voice of your customer. This part provides suggestions and recommendations for developing true partnerships with your customers—partnerships that will help your business gain a strong foothold in your industry and effectively compete with—and win against—the competition.

We wrap up the book with Part 6, Best Practices for Growing Your Business, which focuses on growing and expanding your business over time and keeping it moving in the right direction. Here you’ll find best practices for expanding intelligently and for building a sustainable culture of innovation within your company.

Look to the appendixes for a complete glossary and resources for additional information that will guide you in both your business planning efforts and in growing your business over time.

Throughout the book, we offer tips for implementing the various best practices by means of a series of helpful sidebars.

I would like to thank the two most important people in my life who have supported me through the writing of this book and in my endeavors as an independent consultant: my husband, Yusuf Abudi, and my mother, Fay Schmidt. Their undying support and encouragement has pushed me through many challenges. Throughout my entire life I have relied on the council of my mother and continue to do so today—she is one smart woman. My husband is always by my side supporting my efforts and regularly acting as a sounding board as I bounce ideas and sometimes wild dreams off of him—he helps keep me grounded. I’d also like to thank the following people who contributed to this book by spending time with me working through ideas: Henry Gregor of Strategic Visions who provided me information on the many challenges start-ups face that he has experienced in working with his own clients, and Kathleen Allen of Melanson Health who helped me formulate my thoughts and the content on corporate structures and tax issues for small businesses. A big thank-you goes out to all my friends, colleagues, and social media network connections who frequently asked me how the book was coming along and told me how excited they were for me. And finally, I want to express my thanks to my agent, Gene Brissie; to Paul Dinas, our acquiring editor; and to all the editors on this book.

My thanks go out first to my wife Haneen, whose patience and support on this and all my projects has been, as usual, indispensable. I also want to thank my agent Gene Brissie, without whose help this book would never have come into existence; Jennifer Moore, our development editor; Kayla Dugger, our production editor; and Paul Dinas, our acquiring editor, whose belief in this project, and in us, made everything possible.

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