Just stated reading Bottleneck Breakthrough How To Find And Fix Your #1 Business Challenge To Unlock Sustainable Growth, Fast by Joshua Long and I’m loving it! Anyone looking to grow their own business should pick up this book.

Bottleneck Breakthrough hasn’t been released yet, but I was lucky enough to get my hands on a brand shinny new pre release copy. You can apply the bottleneck breakthrough method to achieve predictable growth plateaus in every business, and every stage of revenue, whether you’re at $100K or $100M. Best of all his technique builds on what you already do in your business so you don’t have to completely overhaul your operation.

Purchase the book: http://bottleneckbreakthrough.com/book

What’s a Bottleneck?

A bottleneck according to the author is “any point of friction in your business that prevents you from generating more revenue or generating the same revenue more easily.” If your company is just starting out the most common bottleneck is the owner can no longer keep everything running smoothly.

If your business does have a bottleneck this book will show you how to breakthrough step-by-step, complete with action items. Each chapter ends with a complete set of action items for you to follow. I found it interesting that Joshua Long places such importance on good management, especially in small business. I feel management has kind of become a dirty word, Josh feels it’s undervalued in small business and possibly overvalued in fortune 500 companies. Interesting perspective. “Small business owners equate the topic of management with bureaucracy, creating unnecessary oversight and slowing down the implementation process.” Joshua also recommends another “dirty word” in the book, a meeting. Yes, the dreaded meeting word, but not just any meeting a weekly implementation meeting. He guarantees that you at least will get back 3 hours for every one hour you invest in these meetings.

Why Should I Even Listen To Author Joshua Long?

Joshua Long is “a consultant who focuses on helping B2B companies in the $10 million to $100 million range break through their current revenue plateaus and unlock rapid growth. Through his experience as an entrepreneur, marketing director for BBI (The company owned by Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins), and consultant, he has developed Bottleneck Breakthrough Method. It has proven most reliable for unlocking rapid growth for his clients, while reducing the risk of waster capital in the process.”

The book breaks down it’s 6 sections by levels of growth. “The 6 levels of growth include: Mindset, vision, systems, management, strategy, and marketing.” First the forward details the bottleneck, then book goes into the big idea, optimization. Next, in marketing it go into your funnel, traffic pillars, and closing. In management book delves into basics, weekly implementation meeting, and confrontation. Systems is up next with creating one, delegation, documentation, and automation. Then book goes into vision asking readers to explain their goals, and creating a bottleneck breakthrough plan. Finally the book ends with mindset and getting free.

It’s not just a book about generalities it’s a book with specific tactics and tips such as using Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Hotjar tracking tool, Xero the less clunky Quickbooks, and just good old fashioned spreadsheets. I’m just using these examples as proof this isn’t just a book with a birds eye view of the business world, it’s both macro and micro. The best of both worlds.

My Favorite Sections

I especially like the section about reducing fires. I can totally relate to the phenomenon of business owners becoming full time “firemen.” Not firemen in the traditional sense of putting out actual fires, but putting out fires throughout their business. In other words you are completely reactive ALL DAY and end up getting nothing productive done. The solution according to this book is to document and delegate. I also enjoyed the section where Long explains the Dunning-Kruger Effect where when you first start out with 0 experience you have the most confidence, but as you move forward and gain more skin your confidence dips and only rises until you reach the expert phase of your career. One of the hardest things for me to do in my business is to delegate and for reasons Long talks about in the book. “It takes more effort to tell someone else how to do this, so I’ll just do it myself.” I see daily tasks as branches on a tree, I decide to one thing and that thing has unintended consequences that branch off into other obligations. So the thought of delegation also leads me to that fear of for every action there’s a reaction and delegating this task will end up being more work than me doing it myself. Joshua suggests shifting the stating to something more positive, “How easily can I give this to someone who would love doing it and do a great job at it?”

Conclusion

I actually loathe most business books, specially because many authors tend to write about clique generalities or base writing solely off case studies. I do, however, like business books written by authors with first hand, in the trenches, experience. As far as I’m concerned there is no substitute for experience especially in business. That’s why I recommend this book, Bottleneck Breakthrough because it’s an step-by-step, actionable guide to business born out of real world experience. Thanks Joshua Long for writing such a comprehensive business book!