For Niverville resident Derek Loepp, success isn’t something to be kept to oneself. In his recently published book, From Broke to Success, Loepp and his five co-authors seek to share the life and business experiences that have helped them pave the path to getting ahead.
“I’m a serial entrepreneur, so I work all the time,” says Loepp. “[Writing this book] was just another project for me, so it was easy to find the time. I set goals, build plans, and then execute. It’s a simple formula that I just rinse and repeat for all my business or personal projects.”
The book, he says, is for anyone who’s ever dreamed of owning their own business. It’s also for the seasoned entrepreneur, anyone committed to self-improvement, or those interested in allowing the experience of others to help them avoid life’s common pitfalls.
Loepp’s contributing chapters focus on building, growing, and sustaining a business, regardless of its size. His knowledge is drawn from more than a decade of experience as an entrepreneur and 20-plus years experience in financial services at the senior executive level.
He’s personally invested in more than 45 rental units and actively teaches the principles of real estate investing. As well, he provides business consulting services to small- and medium-sized businesses.
“[In the book] I specifically talk about how to build a business to grow into it, not grow out of it,” Loepp says. “How to articulate your value proposition, how to attract customers to your business, how to qualify your customers so you are spending your time and money in the right place, and finally how to ensure all your business processes and client experiences are mapped so that when a process or experience breaks down, you know why and exactly how to fix it. My chapters are incredibly practical. The information I provide can be immediately actioned.”
Loepp says that he came to know the other co-authors through business networking events over the years and their relationship has organically grown into deep and meaningful friendships.
Contributions from the other authors include topics such as change and relationship management, leadership fundamentals, and building an online business. Much of the book’s insights, Loepp says, can just as easily be translated into everyday life, providing models for personal growth.
The labour of love took the team almost two years to complete. In the end, they agreed that self-publishing and self-promoting was the best way to get the book into the hands of the public.
“Business owners have a bit of a reputation for being control freaks,” Loepp says. “To that end, we wanted to make sure we controlled our own narrative as opposed to giving that control to a publisher. Turns out we did a pretty good job because we achieved bestseller status in [the topic of] entrepreneurship on Amazon through all our pre-sale efforts.”
