The Owner's Manual (Paperback)

by Jim Altfeld (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Book Description
Purpose:

The small and mid-size business owner is not a Jack Welch. He is, as Michael Gerber so aptly put it, "a technician with an entrepreneurial seizure." This manual provides the busy, concerned and sometimes worried small and mid-size business to business owner with a one-source template on how to:

- establish a clear understanding of where the company is headed
- determine the path to get it there
- define the company's values and its culture
- create a horizontal infrastructure
- confront today's challenges while looking into tomorrow's opportunities
- eliminate and prevent short and long term predictable problems
- shift from crisis management to opportunity management
- distance the company from its competitors
- use new technologies to the company's advantage
- change the game, the rules and the playing field
- unite the entire company from the top down and the bottom up
- increase customer loyalty
- realize greater operating efficiencies
- reduce the cost of new customer acquisitions
- anticipate new technologies
- achieve employee buy-in
- shape the future of the company before someone else, some new technology, some new legislation or some major event does.

Uses:

The Owner's Manual is an owner's guide for carrying out your otherwise intimidating duties as your company's chief strategist, visionary officer and leader. This is not a manual about change. This is a manual about discovery - discerning your company's realities, living with change based upon those realities and taking advantage of both change that has been handed to you and change you've created.

About the Author
Jim Altfeld has spent more than 30 years in business to business management, marketing, advertising and sales. During much of that time, he has involved himself in the strategic analysis of how to get small and medium-sized businesses up to speed and keep them there. "There is nothing more exciting than to see a company start to grow and then put the elements in place to accelerate that growth," Jim says.

With an expansive industrial marketing, sales and strategic planning background that includes two stints with General Electric Plastics and Silicones, Jim has shared his marketing talent with an eclectic variety of business entities in the chemical, aerospace, plastics, electronics, rapid prototyping, service and OEM manufacturing industries.

He is adept at transferring his understanding of marketing, sales and corporate strategic planning in one industry to support growth in another. His skill is seen in his results.

As the President of Altfeld, Inc., Jim sees each account as an opportunity to help create excellence and success for his clients. His enthusiasm and his ability to inspire others to clarify their vision and achieve their goals has been a major factor in the success of both Altfeld, Inc. and those it serves. In Jim, the hard realism of Chicago (his hometown) melds with the inventiveness of California in a unique blend of business savvy and vision. He is a member of the American Management Association, the Institute of Management Consultants, the CEO Club and Sales & Marketing Executives International.

"Having grown up in a small, bootstrap, family-owned manufacturing company, I know how hard a small business owner works to make a buck. I know how important it is to him or her that the company continues to go forward and remains viable. I know there are a good many people counting on each and everyone of them. I know they have a tremendous amount of responsibility riding on their shoulders. I respect their situation and as a result, I go out of my way to help owners of small and mid-sized industrial, business to business companies think about and envision their company's future. My role is to help them protect what they have by thinking at a different level. I do this by getting them to work on their company while they continue working in their company. Kind of like changing the tires on a car while the cars still moving." -Jim Altfeld

• Paperback: 235 pages
• Publisher: Altfeld, Inc. (October 11, 2002)
• ISBN-10: 0970999100
• ISBN-13: 978-0970999108
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,026,160 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
  
  (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales)