People, Process, Results: The Diagnostic We Run Before Any Engagement
We do not start engagements without a diagnostic, even when the founder already knows what is wrong. Especially then. Founders are usually right about the symptom and often wrong about the cause, and a fractional COO who starts fixing things on day one without understanding the system will fix the wrong thing well. Here is […]
Working With Your CPA, Not Around Them: How Tax Strategy and Tax Preparation Fit Together
The first question most owners ask when we describe tax strategy is some version of “so I would need to leave my CPA?” No. If your CPA is good, keeping them is the right call. Strategy is a different job, and the two work best together. Here is how the division of labor actually runs. […]
The Weekly Operating Cadence: How to Run a Leadership Meeting That Actually Drives Traction
The single highest-leverage change we make in a founder-led company is the weekly leadership meeting. Not because meetings are magic, but because the right meeting, run the same way every week, becomes the operating system. Everything else hangs off it. Here is the format. It borrows heavily from the L10 structure popularized by EOS, adapted […]
Your Q3 Estimated Payment Just Cleared. Here Is How to Make the Next One Smaller.
The third-quarter estimated tax payment went out on September 15. For a lot of owners, it was the largest check of the quarter, and it was calculated from a number set back in the spring based on last year’s results. The January payment does not have to work the same way. Here is how to […]
The 30/60/90: How a Fractional COO’s First Quarter Actually Runs
If a fractional COO cannot tell you what the first ninety days look like, the engagement will drift. Here is the plan we run. It is not complicated, and that is the point. Before day one: the diagnostic Every engagement starts with a People, Process, Results diagnostic. We interview the founder and each member of […]
The Entity Structure Review: The Highest-Leverage Tax Question for Owners Earning $300K and Up
Most owners chose their entity once, early, on the advice of whoever set up the company. Then the business grew, the income grew, the owner’s life changed, and the entity stayed exactly where it was. That is the single most common source of quiet overpayment we see. Why entity matters more as income grows At […]
Seven Signs Your Founder-Led Company Has Outgrown the Founder as Its Operating System
Founders are the reason companies exist, and, past a certain size, the reason they stop growing. That is not a character flaw. It is math. One person’s attention does not scale, and a company that runs on the founder’s attention hits a ceiling somewhere between $8 million and $20 million in revenue. Here are the […]
Year-End Tax Planning Starts in September, Not December
Every December, owners call their CPA and ask what they can do to reduce the year’s tax bill. The honest answer at that point is: not much. The retirement plan should have been set up months ago. The equipment order needs to be placed in service by the 31st. The entity change has to be […]
Fractional COO vs. Full-Time COO: Cost, Fit, and When Each One Is the Right Call
Founders usually ask this question the wrong way around. They ask “can I afford a full-time COO,” when the better question is “what does the business need in the next twelve months, and what is the right structure to get it.” Here is how to think through it. The full-time COO A full-time chief operating […]
Tax Strategy vs. Tax Preparation: Most Business Owners Only Have One of Them
An owner with $600,000 in income sent me his return in April and asked whether the number at the bottom was reasonable. It was accurate. Every line was correct. It was also about as large as it could legally be, because nobody had done anything before December 31 to make it smaller. That is the […]