Thursday , March 28 2024
This smart new guide for business owners offers fresh, practical, and creative profit-building strategies.

Book Review: Six Steps to Creating Profit by Patricia Sigmon

It’s been said that the reason Google is such a successful company is that everyone working there is an engineer — and engineers are, by their very nature, problem solvers and efficiency freaks. They’re always looking for a way to do it better, faster, and cheaper. Profit-management guru and efficiency expert Patricia Sigmon would fit right in.

A 30-year tech business owner and computer specialist, Sigmon has worked with hundreds of new business owners to help them reimagine their profit potential, set up new processes and systems, and implement necessary changes. Her observations and real-world experience over the years, coupled with her natural problem-solving aptitude, evolved into the six profit-creating steps that she now coaches, teaches, lectures on, and writes about in a new book.

In Six Steps to Creating Profit: A Guide for Small and Mid-Sized Service-Based Businesses, Sigmon delves into the nitty-gritty, everyday issues that keep a business from earning what it should. She offers detailed, practical advice designed to help business owners: (1) identify the unprofitable problems and practices that exist in their business, (2) develop a range of targeted, creative solutions, and (3) schedule, institute, and track the necessary changes needed to develop a profit-focused business model. Packed with memorable, real-company examples and user-friendly checklists, assessment tools, and tips, this invaluable guide provides readers with a detailed roadmap to increase sales, cut costs, and stand out in today’s competitive marketplace.

Six Steps to Creating Profit may have a dry-sounding title, but it’s a standout among its peers. What’s truly refreshing about Sigmon’s guide is its generosity. Unlike the run-of-the-mill book full of general business advice from experts who don’t want to give up too much, this one is jam-packed with dozens of very specific ideas and detailed solutions one can put into practice next week.

From the yoga studio or lawn-care company, to the accountant or corner deli, owners of any type of service-based business can pick up new ways to expand their customer base, leverage social media to build sales, increase cash flow, enhance customer relationships, turn all their employees into motivated salespeople, and use technology to run their business more efficiently with fewer employees. And that’s just a small sample of the advice, strategies, and ideas Sigmon offers in this solution-driven guide.

A small to mid-sized business owner may be a master at her craft, have a stellar reputation, and even boast a long list of clients. But more likely than not, she’s missing out on the most important piece of the puzzle, and one of the main reasons she went into business in the first place — a good, healthy profit that grows. After reading this book, new businesses, long-term business owners with cash flow issues, or successful business owners looking for new profit-making ideas will all discover fresh ways to look at their business model and interesting tools to help them develop a smarter, more profitable one.

About Patricia Gale

Patricia Gale has written and ghostwritten hundreds of blogs and articles that have appeared on sites such as Psychology Today, Forbes, and Huffington Post, and in countless national newspapers and magazines. Her "beat" is health, business, career, self-help, parenting, and relationships.

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