Articles

One of the patterns I see most often in growing businesses is not a lack of effort or intelligence. Most owners are working hard and carrying a tremendous amount of responsibility well.

Where businesses tend to lose momentum is in the accumulation of unresolved decisions.

A pricing adjustment gets delayed because leadership is concerned about customer reaction. A key hire stays open too long because nobody feels fully confident in the timing. Operational inefficiencies become accepted because …

Last week, I asked you to step back and identify where your business isn’t running as well as it should.

Most people can do that pretty quickly. There’s usually a part of the business that feels slower than it should be, more manual than it should be, or harder to manage than it needs to be. That’s a good starting point.

But here’s where most businesses go next—and where things start to break down: They assume the solution is technology.

More specifically right now, they assume the solution i…

Insights from Ask the CFO with John Gies

In our most recent Ask the CFO session, I had the opportunity to sit down with John Gies, founder of Resonant Business Solutions, to talk about something most business owners rely on—but very few truly manage well:

Referrals.

Before we get into it, here’s where you can connect with John and learn more about his work:

• Website: https://johngies.com
• Company: https://resonantbusinesssolutions.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrgies/ (he’s…

 There’s a question I keep hearing right now, and it usually comes up pretty quickly in a conversation:

“How should we be using AI in our business?”

It sounds like the right question. It feels practical. It feels like something you shouldhave an answer to right now.

But it’s actually the wrong place to start.

In last month’s Ask the CFO session on AI with Ken Scales, we kept coming back to something much simpler. Ken Scales said it directly:

“What are we trying to achieve first? It’s not, l…

When preparing for a business transition—whether passing it to a family member, selling to an external buyer, or stepping back from daily operations—certain risks can significantly impact the process. Two of the biggest challenges business owners face are customer concentration and management team readiness. These factors can affect business valuation, buyer interest, and long-term stability after the transition. Addressing these early can make the difference between a smooth transition and one …

In this session of Ask the CFO, I sat down with Ken Scales to talk about AI.

It’s everywhere right now. Every company feels like they need an AI strategy. Boards are asking about it. Leadership teams feel like they’re behind if they don’t have an answer.

But most of the conversations I’m having with business owners aren’t about strategy—they’re about pressure. It usually comes out like this: “What are we supposed to be doing with AI?”

So instead of trying to cover everything, we focused on wh…