I donate a minmum of 10% of the gross profits from every book sold, to the Fisher House Foundation.
My Mission:
to make a positive
difference
in the
lives I touch ...
my
clients, my
employees, my
vendors, my friends
and the communities
I live and work in.
My purpose:
is to
create and have fun.
My goal:
is to make
a profit every year
so that I can
continue
my mission
and purpose.
What Others are Saying About This Book
“What a refreshingly different perspective on creating a successful small business. Jim Plouffe presents his insightful and practical 10 rules through an engaging and fun story filled with interesting characters. You’ll turn the last page, set the book down, and smile, knowing how to start improving your business the next day. This is a must read for every small business owner and others who want to improve their management skills. Jim’s 10 rules are unique and powerful guideposts to managing effectively and growing your business. If you’ve been searching for an easy and proven way to improve your business while having fun along the way, search no longer. You’ve foundit….”
Erick Mueller,
Business Owner,
Adjunct Professor,
University of Colorado
Leeds School of
Business
“A must read
for every aspiring
entrepreneur and
even for those
existing
entrepreneurs
who have not got
it quite right yet.
However, if
you think you
already have got
it right, then I
am afraid not
even this book can
help you."
Michael Parry,
Business
Consultant
"Jim Plouffe's book
made more sense to me
than the hundreds
of other business
management
books I've read.
The way the information
is
broken down into
simple steps
and sensible concepts
strips the mystery away
from running a
successful business.
I was surprised at how
much I
learned
and you will be too."
Lynne Klippel,
Independent Publisher
“Jim Plouffe takes the storytelling tradition ofsuch business classics as The Richest Man
in Babylon and updates it with a reality-based story of how he discovered his
own ten personal rules for managerial success.
This book is a delightful and easy read, packed with believable characters and applicable suggestions.
I felt invited to pull up a stool at Pete’s Place and enjoy a hearty serving of wit, wisdom and practicality. As Jim grew from an aspiring business owner to one who has learned the ropes and now teaches his guidelines to others, I learned, too about the things that are important to making both my business and my business life successful.
I loved reading this book. Not only was it an easy read and entertaining, but I found the information totally practical and applicable to my own business.”
Carolyne Ruck,EdD.
Professor Emeritus,
Southern Oregon University
and Small Business Owner
Where we define success as
discovering what works for you
once you know what works for you
then all you have to do is ...
Keep Doing It
and Improving It.
Hi, I'm Jim Plouffe
“The Simplifier”
and the author of
If I Was Going There …
IWouldn’t Want to Start from Here.
The book that helps small business owners cut through the confusion and complex issues of their business. So that their business becomes fun and extremely profitable for them.
They call me “The Simplifier” because I seem to have a natural, magical talent for taking complicated and complex business issues and making them easy to understand, explain, work with and solve.
I am able to do this with just 3 simple questions, 10 remarkable rules, and the easiest to use management system ever that I discovered while growing and building my small businesses over the last 35 years.
This is the same information you’ll learn in my book. So that your business will be easy, fun, and profitable for you, and everyone who works with you.
Most people when they meet someone for the first time, internally ask who is this person and why would I want to listen to Him?
That’s a great question to ask because ... there sure seems to be a lot of people claiming to know "the secrets" that you need to know to become successful.
Most of them claim to know "the secrets" of how you can become wealthily in your business. What I don't understand is why aren't they millionaires themselves. They must not practice what they preach.
I have found that there are far too many people claiming to be experts, giving advice, asserting that they are the guru of sales, motivation, advertising, success, business management, innovation etc. and many of them aren’t even close to being millionaires. They’ve never done anything except claim they’re an expert with some secrets. They have no real world experience in operating a small business and "the secrets" they claim, are not "secrets" at all.
I have found that to little value is available from these so-called “experts” and their secrets.
Most small business owners like you are smart. Most of us are constantly thinking about improvement. If you’re like me, you spend every free minute thinking ”How can I enhance, refine and improve my business?” Most of us know that we don’t have all of the answers and that there is plenty to learn.
We know and understand that the more we learn the easier it gets.
I've never met a successful small business owner who wasn’t on the lookout for better ideas that work. We’re all searching for knowledge that’s easy to apply, use and understand.
The problem is we’re quick to believe, because we need and want to believe that our problems can’t be that hard or complicated to solve. We are easily fooled into thinking that someone has already found the easy, quick, answers that we need to solve our massive, diverse, and complicated issues and problems.
Developing a new skill is never easy, is it?
Too often the easy, quick, simple answers we were seeking and paying out our hard earned money for turns out to be 100% wrong.
Just useless information you can’t apply, implement or use. I’ve spent more of my money on those "so called experts" and their secrets than I want to admit. I hate being taken advantage of how about you?
“There is nothing more expensive than bad advice.”
Bad advice steals our time, money and energy and leaves us in worst shape than we were to begin with. I’ve found that it takes 2 and ½ times as long to fix something as it did to screw it up in the first place. That’s what “bad advice” from the so called expert does ... it screws you and your business up, it puts you that much further behind. It has you doing things that won’t help you find a solution that will give you an advantage.
Did you know that anyone can buy a consulting and coaching business / franchise today? Which is nothing more than a template. As if all businesses and their owners can be helped by someone who has little or no experience.
One of the reasons I spent 18 months of my life writing “If was going there ... I wouldn’t want to start from here” was so you would have the same advantage over your competitors, that I did.
After reading “If I was going there…I wouldn’t want to start from here” You’ll have a solid set of 10 remarkable rules to build or rebuild the foundation and framework of your business on .
Real, solid and usable Information from someone who has real experience starting and running several small businesses, someone who has made a few million from his small businesses. Someone who did retire at 46 years old.
I hate to admit this but the only reason I started writing the rules down in the first place was because I would have forgotten them if I hadn’t.
And if I had forgotten them
I would have lost my advantage over my competitors.
As I captured these remarkable rules, I started using them daily to find the answers and solutions to all of my business questions and problems. And I started to make lots of money. Once you know them you’ll be able to do same.
How long would it take you to
discover these rules on your own?
Well I am not sure, but I was talking with my friend Grant the other day about the year that I discovered each of these 10 remarkable rules, the 3 questions and the management system that is so easy to use and understand (that I disclosed to you in my book).
It was amazing to both of us how much time passed in between the awkward discovery of each rule and the assimilation of each into the everyday operation of my business. It took me over 20 years.
By the way, Grant has started using the rules, the questions and the management system daily in his business since learning them from me.
Had there been a book like “If I was going there ... I wouldn’t want to start from here” for me to read in the first 16 years I was in business.
It would have saved me unbelievable amounts of time, energy, hassle and thousnads in money, 16 years worth. That’s what my book will do for you – it will save you lots of time, energy, hassles and money. It will cut years off of your learning curve.
And it's only $29.95
Would you pay $29.95 to reduce a year off of learning curve? How much time would you have to save to be ahead on your $29.95 investment, an hour?
I learned rule # 1 early on, way back in 1974 but, it wasn’t until 1987 a full 13 years later that I was fully able to apply rule #2. Oh I had found and used parts of some of the rules as early as 1975. But I wasn’t competent at applying all of them together for 20 years.
If you could save yourself just one year of trail and error would that be worth $5000.00 dollars to you?
It would have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to me over those first 16 years.
Awareness is not the same as Application
I wish I could tell you that I discovered these remarkable rules in order of their significance and importance but there too I was incompetent. I learned and applied rule # 3 for a considerable time before learning rule # 2. I was aware and using parts of rules # 6, # 7, and # 9 long before rule # 5. I was using parts of rule # 8 as early as 1977 but I didn’t get it fully assimilated into the business until 1993 a full 16 years later.
Although I have said many times “the rules are simple and easy to use,” They, the rules, are not easily discovered. Unless you have a copy of "If I was Going There ... I Wouldn't Want to Start from Here" in you library. Then discovering and using them will be easy as reading a book.
As simple as they are to use, I still can not recite them in order. But, the good news is, you don’t have to be able to recite them in order to make them work for you. You just have to be able to reference them. Like I do and have for years. I think it was Einstein who said ”never keep in your head something that you can look up.” (I might have paraphrased that a little.)
And with all that said, here is My # 1 rule of business, found on page 32 of “If I was going there ... I wouldn’t want to start from here.”
My # 1 rule is:
“Never take advice or listen to anyone who hasn’t already done what you want to do or who doesn’t have the same dreams that you do.”
So let me tell you a little bit about me:
I started my first real job in sales at age 19
I started my first company at age 21
When I was 23 years old I made $83,000 and that was back in 1975, that would be equal to $226,748 in today's dollars using only a 3% inflation rate. I was making six figures long before the term was coined
In 1982 I lost $83,000 thinking that big was better and that I knew it all.
I have taken 2 of my start up companies from 0 sales to over 4.5 million annually before I sold them .
I’ve had to make payroll even when I couldn’t pay myself
I’ve hired and fired everyone. I’ve been sued, had partners, been turned down for loans I needed, and had to put up everything I owned as collateral so I could get a loan.
I have purchased 4 companies and sold 7. (This made my accountants crazy).
And because of what I learned in those 25 years I was able to retire at 46 years old.
Now if that’s not enough to convince you to buy “If I was going there … I wouldn’t want to start from here”
.... and that I am the guy you should be listening to and taking advice from ...
then I guess knowing the other 9 rules, the 3 questions and easiest management system in the world won’t convince you either. But if you have convinced yourself that my years of experience as a small business owner may be just the advice, information and knowledge you were looking for then: