Building Personal and Family Wealth
Wealth Creation for Small Business Owners
There's a clear path to entrepreneurial riches. Those who know the secrets do great. Those who don't often leave money on the table. This book offers a roadmap to personal wealth for anybody who owns a business.
If you own a business, buy this book and read every word on every page.
James E. Cheeks, Esq. has written an excellent book for small business owners. Entitled Wealth Creation for Small Business Owners, it teaches you how to create extensive personal wealth as a result of your being a business owner.
Honestly, I wish I had read this book years ago.
I've got an MBA, and I've raised over $23 million in venture capital. Having done two venture-backed businesses, I decided to get into "real" business. So, I started a few small companies and grew them organically.
The MBA and prior startup experiences were helpful, but the best education for running a business is running a business.
Even harder to learn is what the tactics are to maximize your wealth as a result of owning a business. Sadly, it's not something that is taught explicitly in business school, and you don't learn it just from running a business.
If you can find good advisors, they may be able to help you maximize your wealth via business ownership. But, I've never been lucky enough to find a good advisor like that.
So, when I sat down and read Wealth Creation for Small Business Owners, I felt like I was getting access to secrets that I knew other business owners knew and understood but that I had never been privy to.
Even some of the simple tips were very helpful. For example, it had never occurred to me to make charitable donations through the business and not through my personal checking accounts. The author educated me to the idea that money in my personal checking account taken out of the business has likely incurred employer payroll taxes. If I make the donation from the business, I never have to pay those payroll taxes. Duh. Makes totals sense, but I hadn't realized it.
There are 75 distinct strategies in this book that are designed to help you do better personally as a result of your business. These cover things like family members in the business, retirement savings, healthcare, and a host of other topics.
The nice thing about the book is that it's well organized and it's very easy to understand. The wealth creation strategies are categorized into relevant categories. For example, a category entitled Business Premises includes 11 excellent tips. Those tips are subcategorized as being relevant to either a home office or an office outside the home.
In other words, it's very easy to find the tips and strategies that are relevant to you. While I recommend you read this book cover to cover, even taking time to learn about strategies that may not apply to you at this time, you can also access the tips on an as-needed basis.
Beyond ease of use, easy to understand is key. I can't tell you the number of times my accountant has rattled off something that I didn't understand. What's nice about this book is that the author explains things in simple terms and uses a lot of examples. You won't find yourself scratching your head and saying "I kind of get that, but I don't really get it."
Long story short, buy the book. I gave it a fast read and now am going through it slowly, making a list of things I need to do to improve my own personal finances with respect to my businesses.
It's far too easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day details of running a business and not look at your wealth holistically. Even a very profitable business may not be taking advantage of some of these wealth creation strategies.
Don't assume you know it all. A small investment in this book will have a huge return on investment for you.
The book is published by Adams Media. Cost is $14.95. The ISBN for the book is 978-1-59869-961-6.
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