Book Review: ‘Propel Your Small Business to Success’ by Richard L. Weinberger

Let’s say you’re a young person who’s just graduated from business school and have a head full of dreams about starting your own business. You’ve got the book smarts, but no experience. On the other hand, let’s say you’re a small business owner who’s been successful enough that you’re still around after year five — but now want to take your company to the next level. The entrepreneur and the small business owner both need help with operational efficiency and increasing profits, but where should they go to get it?

Small business expert Richard Weinberger, PhD, CPA, understands the problems and challenges of starting, maintaining, and growing a company. As a consultant who’s been giving financial and management advice to small businesses for more than 30 years, he came to realize that owners need to have a working knowledge of many diverse areas of their company. Yet they often have no time or inclination to read stacks of books or take courses. So they simply hire consultants — often to disappointing results.

Based on the real-life questions and needs of hundreds of small business owners he’s worked with, Dr. Weinberger has written a comprehensive book — a hybrid between a small business manual and a workbook for owners — called Propel Your Small Business to Success: Accelerated Actions to Maximize Profits. This ingenious resource offers a compact, organized, and simplified process for reviewing, analyzing, and understanding 14 different business functions that are key to profitability.

Dr. Weinberger doesn’t believe owners have to become experts in things like finance, strategic planning, marketing, or security to make smart decisions in these areas. That’s why he gives readers exactly what they need to know on each topic — and no more. Each chapter is an accessible, easy-to-follow unit on one key area of business, and features succinct information, question guides, tips, and a detailed checklist to complete.

His “checklist approach” gives owners templates for conducting a thorough review of different aspects of their business. Using the checklists, owners can quickly identify areas where waste, redundancy, or inefficiency are draining resources; uncover hidden or unrealized opportunities for new revenue streams; and discover surprising ways to increase profitability.

Dr. Weinberger is a part-time professor who teaches entrepreneurs and business owners, and a trainer of small business consultants through the Association of Accredited Small Business Consultants (AASBC), where he is CEO. His teaching skills are evident in this book. It’s written clearly and succinctly, and covers the material in a clever, intuitive way that enables readers to gain mastery and confidence in every essential area of their business. Even if you have no clue what a ratio analysis does, how to conduct an asset and liability review, or why you need a strategic plan, Dr. Weinberger walks you through these and many other functions gracefully.

Propel Your Small Business to Success should be recommended reading in business schools, and deserves a place in every small business owner’s bookshelf. Anyone who reads this book and works through the checklists is guaranteed to come away with many concrete ways to make their business leaner, smarter, and more profitable.