“From Panic to Profit” Book Signing Day

In Get Paid's worked example, one cartridge sold to 611 buyers at pocket prices from $38.40 to $61.10. The biggest buyer paid $55.80. Moving the bottom third to the median: $143,880 a year, on one item. Get Paid, free until Dec 31: eighty20publishing.com/first…

More than 70% of PE-backed CEOs are replaced during the hold, per Heidrick & Struggles. Thursday at noon ET I'm teaching The CEO Mandate live: the number, the gap, and a 100-day plan to close it. Free, 60 minutes: eighty20publishing.com/works…

A target meant to move nine points in a year has moved two by month four. Heading the right way, and still behind: 22% of the result, 33% of the clock. On pace means the result keeps up with the time. FORGE, free until Dec 31: eighty20publishing.com/first…

A thermal threw my Cessna 200 feet on final approach. What saved me wasn't courage — it was checklist. Process is what stands between you and the moment your judgment isn't available. Build it before you need it.

Ironwood, the composite in The Strategy Management Process: a $15.8M gap, 31 ideas on the wall, and four leaders who could each carry one. The line went in after four. Funded, deferred with a year, or declined. There is no fourth. Free until Dec 31: eighty20publishing.com/first…

My first 30 days in a CEO seat, I change almost nothing. Listen. Learn. Leverage. The org already knows where the problems are — nobody asked. Acting fast and looking decisive is the wrong instinct. Listening is faster.

Aug 9, 2021: took over a $700M company running on systems built for $90M. 863 days later: $1B+ revenue, profit $70M to $175M. No magic. A sequence, executed in order. Earn the right to grow. Then grow like you mean it.

The A-player cost $140K and produced $1.4M. The bad hire cost $90K and produced negative $400K. Guess which one took eleven months to fire. Slow to hire, fast to fix. Most run it backwards.

Most CEOs can name their number. Far fewer can show where it comes from. Join The CEO Mandate—a free, live 60-minute working session. Bring your number. Leave with a plan. Reserve your seat: workshop.the8020institute.co… xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1RJZzBMlq…

I stood in front of 3,600 employees and told them the truth: grown like kudzu, no strategy, cash dismal. Then the plan. People can handle the truth. What they can't handle is leadership performing optimism at them.

Your number two is worth a full turn on the multiple. A second chair who can run the business 90 days without calling you converts key-man risk into management depth. Build the chair. Get out of its way.

Four rules, every company I run: Be on pace. Be data-driven. No surprises. Results matter — we will not be a best-effort company. Index-card sized. Never needed a fifth.

Two leaders. Same bad news. One sat on it three weeks — lost the account and his credibility. One reported it same day — account saved. Fish, relatives, and bad news all stink after three days.

We audited a CEO's calendar. Sixty percent of his week was work two levels below his pay grade. The calendar never lies. Show me your last four weeks and I'll tell you why the company is stuck.

IDEX ran 80/20 with consultants for three years — the stock tracked the S&P. They took it inside in 2012 — 400% over the next four years against the S&P's 200. You can't rent a prophet.

Another board fired another CEO and called it a leadership problem. It almost never is. It's an architecture problem. Visionary, Prophet, Operator — pull one leg off the stool and it falls, no matter who's sitting on it.

The P&L said he made $2M. The bank account disagreed. AR up $900K, inventory up $700K, capex $600K. Growth eats cash. Profit is the press release. Cash is the king.

He ran a $40M company on eleven days of cash. Then his biggest customer paid 20 days late. Set a cash floor and treat it like a covenant. One late payment shouldn't be an existential event.

His terms said net-30. Customers paid in 67 days. That's a $4M interest-free loan he never agreed to make — while paying the bank 9% to cover the gap. The cheapest capital you'll ever raise is the cash already owed to you.