All articles (26)
The Watch With the Back Off
There's an old line in this industry about the consultant who borrows your watch to tell you the time. I've heard it at every conference I've attended for forty years, usually from a guy who's proud of never paying for a…
Fat Wallet Disease
Somewhere in a trade magazine from twenty-some years ago, there's an article where I'm quoted coining a phrase, and the phrase has outlived the clipping, because I still can't find the clipping and I've never stopped see…
Volume for Vanity
I've been saying "volume for vanity, profit for sanity" for so long that people assume it's a slogan. It isn't. It's an autopsy report. There's a body buried under that sentence, and the body is a several-hundred-million…
The Asshole Tax
The biggest enemy of small business is the absence of accountability. And the reason accountability is absent is not what the consultants tell you. It's not a missing scorecard, a missing meeting rhythm, a missing org ch…
The Belief Ledger
Every owner keeps two sets of books. Relax — not that kind. The first set is the one your accountant sees. The second set is the one that actually runs your company, and it's never been audited once, because it's in your…
Save Your Feelings
PART II — THE SYSTEM
I told you in Chapter 1 about Dale, the consultant who gave me you don't know what you don't know. I only knew the man a few years. And before I hand you the second thing I picked up in that stretch,…
The Lay of the Land
Block One is five questions, and every owner in America thinks he can answer them before I finish asking. Watch what happens.
What product lines do you run?
What's your typical ticket on each line?
What's your rough gros…
What You Believe
Block Two is where the exam stops being an inventory and starts being a mirror.
Six questions, all of them aimed at the owner, and every one of them asks for a belief — not a number, a conviction. The things he'd say at…
The Lead Engine
Before I ask you a single question about your leads, I want to tell you what a lead is to me, so you understand why this block gets handled with more care than any other.
I started in this business in 1986, in Charlotte,…
The Build Reality
Your production manager knows more about your profitability than your accountant does.
I mean that literally, and I'll defend it. Your accountant sees the dollars after they've been averaged into a fog — a year of jobs m…
NSLI — Net Sales Per Lead Issued
I've sat over ten thousand kitchen tables. I ran sales floors for other men and then for myself for the better part of four decades, and I'm telling you that up front because this is the block where I have to walk into t…
The Lane
The last block is four questions, and it's the one that owners remember afterward, because it's the only block that's really about them.
Everything to this point has examined the company — the lines, the leads, the crews…
PRINTS, THIN, and LOSES — The GPPCD Bands
Everything in this book so far has been questions. This chapter is the answer key.
The forty-eight are in the file. The beliefs are on the record, dated, in your own words. The stated numbers are flagged to verify. Your…
The Gap Report
Two columns on one page.
The left column is what you told me across the six blocks of the exam — thirty-one beliefs, in your own words, dated, captured before the books could argue with them. The right column is what Cha…
Accountability Without the Asshole Tax
Back in Chapter 4, I left you in a trap and promised there was a door.
Here's the trap again, one sentence, so we're standing in the same spot: small companies die from the absence of accountability; accountability requi…
One Meeting
This chapter is short, because I've watched too many business books spend their last forty pages selling me a seminar, and I promised you in the Author's Note that this wasn't that book. Everything you need is already in…
The Economic Accountability System (EAS)
48 questions and your own books. Diagnose before prescribe.
What Is Gross Profit Per Crew-Day?
The one job number that doesn't lie — gross profit divided by crew-days.
Close Rate to Issued Lead — The Only Honest Metric
Rodney Webb's 92% was to sits, not leads. Here's the metric that doesn't flatter.
Your Best Salesperson Is Not Your Top Salesperson
Best is seasoned, handles customers, turns paperwork in — not always #1 on the board.
The Sunroom King Who Made More on Windows
Four sunroom crews vs one window crew — identity tax at company scale.
Reading QuickBooks Without Becoming an Accountant
What to pull from the books first — P&L, invoices, crew-day truth.
Four Gap Patterns I See in Every Turnaround
Lane gap, rep gap, lead-source gap, identity gap — composites from 40 years.
Speed Is the Lever — Not Price
When crew-days are the constraint, days on site matter more than ticket.
Maximize What You Already Own Before You Buy More Leads
Reactivation, AR, lane focus — free money hiding in plain sight.
AI as Enforcement, Not Replacement
Tools first. Tawny is the benefit — accountability without the asshole tax.