Book excerpt: This is the revised story of my past real life business, Audio Sound Centre and the strategies I employed which helped my business win the 1997 Telstra Award for the Best Small Business in NSW, category under 10 employees, referred to by many as the Olympic Games Gold Medal of Australian Small Business. Armed with an understanding of my small business secrets, I hope you will go to work on your own small business and improve its current position. Perhaps with enough hard work, you too could win a similar coveted business award in your area. I encourage you to seek out your local awards and enter them. I have written this book from my position as a small business owner. It is written from my real life experiences and is very much an account of “the way I do things.” I have covered both the highs and lows that I experienced in taking my business from its conception through to its sale so hopefully, you will learn something of my struggle and consequently you will profit from my journey. Inside this book, I have detailed my business secrets for you. I would like you to start using them in your own small business—today. Not next week, but today. This is a practical, hands on business guide and checklist developed, tried and tested by me and written from my personal experience, just for you. I have already made the mistakes for you. So please read this book with a highlighter pen in your hand so you can mark your favourite secrets and implement the ideas behind them, right now. Take my ideas and make them your own! You can do it. It’s not easy, but it is possible. When I started my own small business, I read as many books about business as I could get my hands on however most were far from the reality of day to day business life. I did not find a single business book that gave the real perspective I experienced being in a small business of my own.