Writing
The eight pieces.
Each one is the real method on a single problem, with the arithmetic shown. You could do every one of them yourself, which is rather the point.
The two-week test
What actually breaks when an owner leaves, in the order it breaks — and the five rules that make the test mean something.
Your effective labor rate is not your hourly rate
Three numbers and an afternoon. A shop that posts $135 and collects $92 is leaking Δ $288,000 a year on work it already did.
The ten leaks
The ten questions I ask while one real job moves through the shop, the ten leaks it finds, and how to put a dollar figure on each one using your own numbers.
Hiring the person who takes your job
What a real second-in-command costs, what he does, how he is paid, and the order you hand things over in. Quoting goes first, because it is the scariest.
Why 92% of small businesses close instead of selling
McKinsey counted about 510,000 US small-business exits in 2022. 92% were closures. Four reasons are fixable and four are not, and here is which is which.
Customer concentration is a screen, not a discount
Above 15% to 25% of revenue in one customer, whole categories of buyer stop looking. How to measure it, the three traps, and the two ways out.
What a lender actually reads
Three years of returns, the deposits, and one division problem. What a buyer's bank looks at, in the order it looks at it.
The cost of selling a Texas business
The full stack on a $2M sale, line by line. Broker $180,000. All in $322,750. Texas takes $0 in income tax. You net about 62 cents on the dollar.
Questions about these pieces
What do these eight pieces cover?
One number or one question each, with the arithmetic shown: the two-week test, the effective labor rate, the ten leaks, hiring your replacement, why businesses close instead of selling, customer concentration as a screen rather than a discount, what a lender actually reads, and the real cost of selling a Texas business.
Can I use these without hiring anybody?
Yes. That's what they're for. Each one names what to measure and how to cost it. An owner who works through the ten leaks with his own numbers and never calls me has still got the better end of it.
Do they replace a Read?
No. They tell you what to measure. A Read is the part where the numbers actually get built for your shop and priced against spec for your size and trade, and that's the piece an owner almost never does alone — not because it's hard, but because it's nobody's job.
Or skip the reading and take the reading. Pick your trade, answer a few ranges, about two minutes, nothing saved and no email asked for.
Take the Baseline