Overheads, research and the cost of standing still
How overheads and research spending reveal whether a business must keep running just to stay in place, and what product businesses can learn from that.
10 min read
Insights category
Business
Operations, building businesses, systems and decisions.
Articles in Business
Pre-call planning: be prepared, then be present
Most sales conversations are won or lost before they start. A practical guide to planning a customer meeting, and to conducting it with attention, purpose and respect.
10 min read
Price and patience: when great businesses become good investments
A great business is not always a great purchase. The conditions under which Buffett has bought and sold durable businesses, and the patience the approach demands.
10 min read
Prospecting: know who you are looking for, then fish where they are
Effective prospecting starts with a clear picture of your ideal customer and a deliberate choice of where to find them. How to define both, and how to avoid busy work that produces nothing.
10 min read
Prospecting methods compared: referrals, networking, content and outreach
A practical comparison of the main ways to find new customers: what each method is good for, what it costs, and how to choose a small mix that suits your business.
10 min read
Qualifying opportunities: how to tell a real deal from a pleasant conversation
Qualifying is the discipline of finding out early whether an opportunity is real. The questions that matter, common frameworks such as BANT and MEDDIC, and how to walk away gracefully.
10 min read
Reading an income statement like an owner
A plain-English walk down the income statement, line by line, asking at each step what an owner would want to know about the strength of the business.
10 min read
What the balance sheet says about cash, stock and customers who owe you
How to read cash, inventory, receivables and the current ratio, and why some of the strongest businesses look weak on traditional liquidity measures.
10 min read
Retained earnings: the quiet engine of compounding
What retained earnings are, why their growth rate is one of the clearest signs of a strong business, and why keeping profits only helps if they are reinvested well.
10 min read
Return on equity, and how leverage can flatter it
Return on shareholders' equity measures how well a business uses its owners' money. Here is how to read it, and how debt and buybacks can make it look better than it is.
10 min read
Rising prices or a bubble? Why valuation is the best clue
Strong price rises do not prove a bubble. Comparing prices with earnings, rents and incomes, against history and against reason, gives the best evidence of how stretched a market is.
10 min read
Running a business through a boom and bust
Booms tempt businesses to over-expand, borrow and extrapolate demand; busts punish them for it. A practical guide to building a business that benefits from good times and survives bad ones.
10 min read
