Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential describes strategies and tactics that can be used by any self-funded business to increase revenues and profitability. Each of the 7 Stages of the business life-cycle have their own set of strategies and tactics. The stages include: 1. Preparation and planning 2. Launch through breakeven 3. Achieving and maintaining profitability 4. Growth 5. Reinvention 6. Decline (and cost-cutting) 7. Selling the company. Each stage contains advice and tips on the 4M's of entrepreneurship.....Mindset, Marketing, Money, and Management. In Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential, Tim McEneny shares insights from his 30 year entrepreneurial career starting and running businesses in various industries including software, technology, consulting, training, publishing, and other types of service businesses. "Tim McEneny's new book is a valuable guide for entrepreneurs. He has travelled this route himself. He knows the way. As you enter the tangled forest of entrepreneurship, Tim has provided the road map and a flashlight. With Tim's book as a guide, you are not alone". Anthony Mason, CBS News Senior Business Correspondent, New York "Tim's book is for the self-funded entrepreneur. That's an important distinction to make. While most books detail how to develop a startup using the plan/pitch/get investment motif-which is rare-relatively few focus on self funding, alias bootstrapping, which is the way most of us do it." Good book! Tim Berry, Top 100 Small Business Guru "Tim's book shows entrepreneurs how to get their business rolling without anything but their own cash (what little they may have) and their own wits. Good advice, and good tips. I strongly suggest all entrepreneurs add this to their collection of reading material". Mike Michalowicz, author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. This is the book I wish I had during my entrepreneurial journey--part reference guide, part playbook, and part personal memoir. The book describes principles, techniques, strategies, and tactics that I used along the way ... most of them successfully deployed, others not. This book will help entrepreneurs with any type of business avoid the mistakes I made and focus on the strategies and tactics that proved successful. Some highlights of my entrepreneurial journey:    - Started penniless and ended up with more money than I ever imagined.    - Survived five recessions and four disruptive technology changes over the twenty-eight        year history of our software company          - Developed the first-ever Windows and web-based automated purchasing systems.    - Achieved profitability 22 out of 24 years after hitting the break-even point.    - As a self-funded privately owned company, competed successfully with three huge,       Global Public companies          All of this was achieved without third-party funding. A few statistics: There are approximately 28 million small to medium-sized businesses in the US, with over 500,000 new businesses being formed every month. More than 99 percent of these businesses will never get third-party funding. Half of all new businesses fail within five years. This book is intended to help the self-funded entrepreneur unlock his or her entrepreneurial potential. This will improve your probability of success, however you may define it. Since virtually all new jobs in our economy are created by new small and midsize businesses, this is more than a self-help book. It's a prescription for economic prosperity--for the individual, the United States, and entrepreneurs throughout the world. I am a veteran entrepreneur (as opposed to an old entrepreneur!). I have just taken a 30 year entrepreneurial journey and would like to share my insights with you. In addition to writing this book, I write a weekly review of the popular Shark Tank TV show where I present "Sharky Awards" to the entrepreneurs who make the best presentations. My review can be read on TimMcEneny.wordpress.com. I co-founded PurchasingNet,Inc. in 1982. Our business survived and thrived throughout five recessions and four major technology changes. We successfully competed with three huge global competitors. This was accomplished without any outside investment. I am truly a self-funded entrepreneur. I am passionate about sharing my insights and lessons-learned with other entrepreneurs who do not have ready access to outside investment. Go to TimMcEneny.com for additional information. Unlocking Your Entrepreneurial Potential Marketing, Money, and Management Strategies for the Self-Funded Entrepreneur By Tim S. McEneny iUniverse, Inc. Copyright © 2011 Tim S. McEneny All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4620-3244-0 Contents Foreword..............................................................................xviiPreface...............................................................................xixAcknowledgments.......................................................................