Series
The Pain Point Series
One problem at a time, from the 329 in LINX Radar. Most of them cost more than the owner thinks.
The parts
- 1
Your worst weeks are on a scheduleThe same fires keep landing because your business planning horizon is shorter than your slowest input. Here's a four-week experiment that changes that. - 2
Nobody wrote down who decidesA plumbing shop in Toledo taught me what unclear decision authority in business really costs - and why raising pay or hiring a GM never fixes it. - 3
You cannot hold him to a job you never gave himWhen ownership in your company keeps landing back on your desk, the problem isn't the people — it's that the job was never actually given to anyone. - 5
The second call nobody makesMost companies that tell me they need more leads are already holding more work than they follow up on. The names are in the building. - 6
Your closing rate is a rumorYou know what you sold last year. You could not say how many bids it took, or which kind of work was worth the hours you spent pricing it. - 8
Nobody can tell you apartYour customers buy on price because nothing you have told them gives them another way to choose. The problem usually arrives disguised as one impossible account. - 9
Your quote walks into rooms you will never seeA sign shop owner blamed three salespeople for never going out and finding work. Every one of them had been building his sales materials at night, then took them along. - 10
Strangers paid for your best yearSeventy-four percent of his labour dollars came from people who had never been to the shop before. He read it twice and said it sounded like a good number. - 11
One check pays your rentYour biggest customer looks like your best one right up until the renewal letter lands. Everybody who works for you has already done that arithmetic.
The list behind the series
Every problem worth naming, on one page
These posts each take one problem from the Problem List. Reading tells you what to look for. The list tells you which ones are yours.
Start the conversation
Reading about it is the easy part.
Thirty minutes with somebody who has made the same call before. Bring the decision the last post made you think about.
