1. Select which of these four steps best describes where you are.

2. Hyperlink the step where you want to be.
Then go back and work through the issues set out in the step before it.

3. Read the stories of people who have been where you currently are
and have gone where you want to go.

We hope you are among the 25 million small business owners who filed a tax return last year.
There are around 16 million of you who are sole proprietors.

We also hope that you all step back to review Steps 1 to 4. It is all about business basics.
Get the fundamentals right and you can build a stronger business faster.

Of the 9 million businesses with employees, most are very small — under $2 million in sales with no more than five employees.

By government standards:
small business 1 - 500 employees.
medium-size business 500-to-5000 employees
big business over 5000 employees.

The companies listed in the Fortune 500, S&P 500, and most of the Dow Jones Indexes have over 5000 employees. The Nasdaq represents several big businesses and many of the medium-sized businesses that have gone public. The pink sheets and OTC represent many of the small businesses who have gone public and have not thrived as a publicly-traded company.

The small business machine, however, over 99% of all businesses and representing at least 50% of the economy is enigmatic. There is no active index that measures the performance of privately-held businesses between 1-and-500 employees. It would be fascinating to have a breakout of indexes from 6-to-25 employees, and then from 26-to-50, 51-to-100, 101-to-250, and 251-to-500.

If you are a sole proprietor or you have fewer than five employees and you want to break out and grow, the first step is to decide to do just that.

Online there are four steps for growth. In every episode of every show we look at the people, product, and processes (systems). To grow you need to have a special desire to integrate all three. We will share with you the best insights we can find from highly successful business owners. They are doing something right!

Small Business School is the only television show that lifts up good people who are doing good things. These people are outstanding citizens in their community, have been recommended to us by their local station, their Chamber of Commerce, and many others.

You can participate with us in several ways:

1. You can watch the show on TV.
2. You can SIGNUP and begin to review every episode within this web site as streaming video.
3. You can work through those four steps for growth.
4. You can get listed on the Small Business Index of Learning Companies and some of you can actually build a secondary web site right here.
5. You can be considered as a case study for a local show and/or for a national show.
6. You can be considered to be part of a Small Business Index of Growing Companies.
7. You can consider using the ESOP or Small Corporate Offering Registration as one of several different means to get liquid, share equity, and begin to transition your business to new leadership, be it through a sale of the business to employees, middle management, someone like you, investors, or a publicly-traded company.
8. You can graduate as a small business owner and become one of our many small business mentors.

You can do it all.

Throughout the four steps for growth, there will be several references to Hattie's book,
Beating the Odds.

Here are some Chapter headings:

1. Money. Storytelling about one man's search for money to fund his product development. When the banker says "No," there are at least twelve alternatives.

2. People. Stories about how people work effectively with other people.

3. Processes (Systems). Learning about systems is tantamount to learning about your business's central nervous system. You have to know if and when to draw blood, when to prescribe medicine, when to take additional temperature readings and so on.