Financial Foreplay: Whip Your Business
Into Shape – Take Home More Cash
by Rhondalynn Korolak
Book Review Rating – 5 Stars
Can you make finance and accounting sexy?
Author Rhondalynn Korolak does an excellent job in her book.
This is not your average, very dry and boring finance for non-financial managers book.
As the title suggests, there is a frisson to the way she educates you on the need for more effective financial control in your business.
The Approach Used In The Book
The training is delivered in a charming and easy to read way.
Rhondalynn uses stories to get the message across:
- A business has a financial problem.
- The author comes to the rescue, explains what is happening and how it can be fixed
- The business owner implements the solution.
It works very well and it is a simplified, shortened version of the hero’s journey with the author in the Obi Wan Kenobi role.
In some ways, the book reminds me of:
>>> The Chic Entrepreneur by Elizabeth Gordon and Leanna Adams
Penny And Earnest
Two recurring characters are Spending Penny and Earning Ernest.
Ernie fancies Penny and does his best to chase after her but Penny is a flirt who shows interest but then plays hard to get.
This is a metaphor for the way spending often escapes from earnings in a business although the owner wants earnings to catch up and then overtake spending.
It does get a bit forced in places but it is memorable and it reminds you to think about Penny and Ernie together rather than one or the other.
What Finance Topics Does Financial Foreplay Cover?
The chapter titles and brief summaries are a tease.
For example, chapter 1 is “The Secret To Never Ending Satisfaction” with a teaser summary of “Finding the sweet spot in your business…”
This makes it a bit hard to go back if you want to remind yourself about what to do with a particular financial problem although there is an index.
- Confusing profit with cash flow.
. - Too much inventory (stock) and the problems it causes.
. - Debtors who don’t or won’t pay.
. - Chasing sales revenue rather than profit
. - Confusing your money with the money of the business and blurring the lines of business and personal expenses.
. - Growing your business the wrong way because you don’t understand the difference between variable costs and fixed costs.
. - Not understanding where time is taken up in the business.
. - Not knowing your break even point and how it helps you to monitor what is happening.
. - The danger of buying a business without doing enough due diligence.
. - The problems of borrowing money.
. - Ignoring the need to measure what’s happening.
. - How owners can sabotage their own success
A Couple Of Irritations
This is an extremely good book about a vital topic that is too often given too little attention by business owners.
Two things I didn’t like:
- I read it on a Kindle version on a small screen. Everything was fine until I get to the key points and the “whip your business into shape” chapter summaries. They are formatted much too small for me to read. This has two problems 1) you might have the same problem and 2) because I can’t read them, I can’t be sure that I agree with them.
. - Every chapter ends with an invite for more information and a 14 day trial of the Imagineering Profit software at www.imagineeringprofit.com. I have two issues, 1) the promotion gets weary and 2) the website doesn’t exist. Imagineeering Profit (after some research) appears to have become Businest. I can only think of one reason for this change and it doesn’t give me confidence even though I like the basic idea of helping owners understand much more about finance.
Review Rating For Financial Foreplay
The book makes financial problems and solutions come alive in a way that more traditional guides on finance can never do.
As Michael Gerber has identified, most business owners are very good at the operational “doing things” part of the business. Problems arise in marketing and finance.
You must get to grips with the main finance issues and in particular:
If you don’t, your business will suffer, you won’t make as much money as you should and your business could fail.
I can’t think of a nicer, low cost way of understanding more about the financial problems that can blight business owners and their solutions than reading Financial Foreplay.
If you’re an accountant or coach who advises business owners on finance, I also recommend you read the book. You won’t learn much from the technical side but it will help you to see the issues that you probably take for granted from the perspective of the business owner.
You can buy a copy at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.co.uk.
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Listen To Rhondalynn Korolak
Here is a short interview about the book.
Get To Know Me
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[6Steps]
Imagineering Profit was re-branded for 2 simple reasons – it was prone to mis-spelling and the business coaching/advice given is much broader than just profit or financials. Unlike all other dashboarding programs, it is holistic and encompasses sales, marketing, systems, leadership, finance and accounting.
Ockham’s razor – the fewer assumptions that are made, the better. No big conspiracy. I still use the imagineering brand for private coaching but it is not the easiest word to communicate or spell. It is prone to mis-understanding.
The new version of the site will be released in late June. It connects with MYOB online, Xero and Quickbooks.
Thanks Rhondalynn for your response.
Your book gets people to click over to a page that doesn’t exist. A better idea would have been to send people to a page that explained what was happening.