Lessons From The Trenches: Practical Principles For Small Business Success (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798995958307)

You didn't go to business school. You didn't have a mentor
handing you a roadmap. You figured it out the hard way - early
mornings, sleepless nights, and more than a few Fridays holding
your breath waiting for payroll to clear.

This book is for you.

Drawing on three decades of hard-won experience - from leading
customer retention teams at a Fortune 500 telecommunications company
to founding and scaling service businesses to seven figures - Scott
Waterman shares the ten principles that actually moved the needle.
Not theory. Not research. What worked when the business was on his
shoulders and the mental load felt heavy.

Ten principles. Straight talk. No fluff.

You'll learn how to build systems that run without you, hire the
right people the first time, keep books clean enough to command top
dollar at exit, and raise prices without losing the customers worth
keeping. You'll find the metrics that actually matter, a real
conversation about business continuity, and the honest discussion
nobody else is having - about mental load, worry, and what it
actually costs to build something real.

These principles work whether you're a plumber, landscaper,
cleaner, trades operator, or any small business owner who depends
on people, systems, and customers to generate revenue. They came
from the field. Not a classroom.

I don't have all the answers. Some of these lessons I'm
still living. But if even one principle saves you from a cost I
paid unnecessarily - your road will be shorter than mine.

- Scott Waterman, U.S. Army National Guard Veteran