Small, Focused, Experienced, Successful
Small
NPL Publishing Consultants is a small firm. All work that requires outside expertise is referred to other professionals, under the supervision of NPL, for their expert input and resolution. Mr. Foner makes it clear why a large, growing company is not his personal goal: “I have owned companies with 25 employees and all we ever did was concern ourselves with cracking the nut every week. You cannot run an effective professional firm and serve two masters at the same time. The clients’ interests must come first.”
Focused
Focused. NPL focuses on Publishing. On the consulting side, our specialty is Strategic Planning. Strategic Planning is the underpinning of all business success, so that is where we need to be to serve our clients most efficiently. On the brokerage side, NPL is driven by a “growth through acquisition” philosophy. We match opportunities to Strategic Plans. When we have a match, a sale is made. We don’t have time to work on projects, on either side, simply for the sake of working. There must be a real and focused result available and a way to achieve it, or there’s no reason to do the work.
Experienced
Mr. Foner [biography] has spent the last twenty five years in ownership positions in Publishing. He has authored six books, owned three publishing companies, has acquired and divested companies, lines, and titles, and built the last publisher & catalog distributor from zero to millions before selling out in 1999. Mr. Foner has been doing Publishing Consulting since the early 1980’s; his background includes business and tax consulting work since 1972, as an EA, LPA, and PA in Pennsylvania.
Successful
On both sides, NPL does not accept consulting work, or companies for sale, where the prospects for success are not overwhelmingly positive. In consults, if the company has problems with implementation, or is unfocused without strong leadership to follow through, then odds are the consulting work will also be ignored and unused. “That’s a waste of client money and our time,” Mr. Foner says, “we don’t need to take anyone’s money just to start a consult and see it go nowhere. And on the brokerage side, we don’t need pages and pages of ‘listings’ of companies for sale. Our job is to work with a Seller and sell the company. It is just that simple.”