Rock Solid

Author’s Introduction

Rock Solid is a fable about strengthening companies. It’s designed to be a how to book. Currently over six hundred thousand people in the United States alone go into business every year. To be successful, most of them need to learn how to build a strong company. On top of that there are literally millions of people already in business who wish their companies were rock solid and they’re unsure about how to approach the challenge ahead of them. This book was written for them. 

Strong companies consistently deliver great value to their customers, they attract good customers, they are profitable, they know their numbers better than most, they’re very well organized, their employees are accountable and they easily take on new challenges. 

You might think this sounds like utopia and I am inclined to agree with you. When you own a strong company life does get to be pretty good. 

There’s a question to ask yourself before you buy this book. Can Rock Solid—How to Strengthen Your Company deliver on its promise? 

I know it can. I’ve seen it. As a business advisor and coach I have worked directly with hundreds of companies. I’m always amazed at how powerful the Five Key Elements of the Company Strength Program are. Time and time again they make significant, positive, lasting impacts on companies. 

The book will introduce you to a fair amount of original content and several thought provoking new paradigms. The first is that, surprisingly, you do not own a business. What you actually own is 

a company that does business in a market. 

It’s crucial for you to design a company that your target market wants to do business with. Why? It’s because the people in the market own the business. Here’s the proof: They can choose to give you their business and if your company doesn’t meet or exceed their expectations they can take their business elsewhere. They can give it and they can take it away. That certainly sounds like the privilege of ownership to me. 

Here’s another interesting paradigm. When you own a company you should actually want problems. At first it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. The symptoms are really what you should be afraid of because they cause the most grief. The idea is to use the five key elements approach to systematically address the standard set of problems, typically encountered by owners as they build strong companies—before the symptoms start grinding away at you. The catch is that this approach requires some effort and it’s often challenging to get around to the work when business is calling, but it’s risky to put the work aside for too long. Ultimately it takes much less effort to build a strong company than it does to run one that’s constantly suffering through symptoms. 

This leads to an interesting observation. The business that individual companies are pursuing and processing is unique, much like individual people. This is in direct contrast to the set of problems that owners need to address as they strengthen their companies, which happen to be surprisingly similar. 

Think about it this way. Entrepreneurs bring business ideas to life. Company owners build profitable organizations. As the business grows entrepreneurs need to make room for the company owner’s mindset and get the work done. If they don’t address the problems that are part and parcel of building a strong company then they’re in danger of being caught up in an avalanche of symptoms. The avalanche can easily carry them down into the Valley of the Lost Entrepreneurs. This is not a great place to be. It’s full of people working long hours for non-existent profits. 

In the Valley people’s lives are dominated by business. Their companies simply aren’t strong enough to handle the business they’re trying to process and the symptoms often spill over into their personal lives. This even applies when companies are starving for revenues. Specific strengths need to be developed in order to efficiently earn the business the company needs.

Rock Solid goes well beyond just identifying the problems. It drills into five key elements that effectively strengthen companies. The elements deliver proven solutions to the common problems. In fact, this book promises to have you working on the strength of your company even before you even finish reading it. 

To make an analogy, a softball team needs to focus on the elements of throwing, catching, fielding, batting, and base running. If those elements are strong the team will be competitive during their games. If they’re weak then there will be a variety of symptoms on display at every game they play. 

The Five Key Elements of the Company Strength Program are listed below along with the page numbers indicating where they are introduced. There are also previews of them in the Prologue—which is a few pages ahead—then the fable clearly demonstrates how to implement them in your company. Reading the full story brings the elements to life and lets readers see them in action. 

1 - The AR²T of Momentum—page 19

2 - Company Promise—page 40

3 - Financial Information Systems—page 92

4 - Company Accountability Matrix (CA³M)—page 133

5 - BRIDGE Marketing Plan—page 181 

It’s also interesting to note that the softball elements need to be strengthened as the players reach new age levels. To be competitive a team of fifteen and sixteen year olds has to be stronger in the elements than a team of eleven and twelve year olds needs to be. 

It’s the same for companies. You might think that you won’t be able to implement the full Company Strength Program, but the most successful way to approach is to choose one element and start there. Develop that element as much as you need to, and then select another one to work on. Keep going and before you know it you will have a strong company and good business will naturally follow. Continue working on the elements and business will be excellent. 

This book isn’t just for people stuck in the Valley of the Lost Entrepreneurs. It will benefit owners who already have their companies running reasonably well, particularly if there are expansion plans in the future. Introducing the Five Key Elements also helps with succession planning, which could involve passing the company on to your children or perhaps selling it to your employees. A strong company with the elements in place is clearly worth more when you’re selling it on the open market. If you’re retaining ownership of your company while retiring or stepping back from day to day operations, then this book will be extraordinarily useful. 

About twenty years ago I too was stuck in the Valley of the Lost Entrepreneurs. Sometimes I escaped on weekends and on the occasional holiday. I thank my wife Karen for that—she made me put the phone down and step away from the company. When I did escape, I searched many bookstores, several times, looking for a book that would show me how to build a strong company. I never found it. That’s why I wrote Rock Solid.