Book Review: The Breakthrough Company

Are you a small business owner looking to prosper? If so, The Breakthrough Company is a must read.

I heard author Keith McFarland speak at last year’s Inc. 500 conference, and he has a number of valuable insights as to what helps a company survive and thrive. (Funny how that conference creates such a reading list for me!)

This book is like “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, only focused on smaller companies. As McFarland says, the median size of the companies profiled in GTG is $32 billion, which most entrepreneurs who I know — hell, all of the ones I know! — will never see as revenue for their companies. So McFarland decided to focus on smaller companies, and he took the Inc 500 list as a starting point.

He takes an in-depth look at both highly successful and average small businesses to draw valuable conclusions. And while those conclusions are similar to those of Good to Great, the scale is somewhat different.

For example, one of the myths that McFarland shatters is that of the risk-taking entrepreneur. It isn’t that we entrepreneurs are so prone to risk taking. In fact he argues the opposite, that most successful entrepreneurs are fairly risk averse. However, what the successful entrepreneurs do is take a chance by betting big on a few huge chances. The trick is to focus and bet on a few big chances and not pursue every opportunity that comes along.

Do you have a business plan set for this year? I’ve already identified one of my big bets for 2009 — now we have to see if it will pay off.