125 models, theories and frameworks — each one in plain English first, then the proper version, then what to actually do with it and where it falls down. Written against the GCSE Business subject content and the MBA core. Free, no sign-up.
Stop fighting in a crowded market and go and create an uncontested one.
Degree & MBAWhy well-run companies lose to worse products — and why doing everything right is what kills them.
GCSEWhy getting bigger makes each unit cheaper — until the point where it stops.
A LevelGetting better at what you do and doing something different are not the same project.
A LevelThe six outside forces a business does not control but has to plan around.
Degree & MBAWhy some industries are profitable for almost everyone in them and others are profitable for nobody.
Degree & MBACheapest, different, or specialised — and the argument that trying to be two of them leaves you nowhere.
Degree & MBABreaking the business into the activities that add value, to find where your advantage actually lives.
GCSEFour boxes everyone can draw and almost nobody uses properly.
A LevelFour routes to growth, from safest to riskiest — and most people overlook the safest.
Degree & MBAFour sets of measures, because running a business on financials alone is driving by the rear-view mirror.
A LevelStars, cash cows, question marks and dogs — a portfolio viewed as who funds whom.
Degree & MBAPeople, strategy, execution, cash. Every growing business is failing at one of them.
Degree & MBASeven things that have to line up — and the four everyone forgets are the ones that sink the plan.
Degree & MBAFour questions that tell you whether a strength is actually an advantage, or just a thing you are quite good at.
Degree & MBAThere are a dozen of these and they answer different questions. Here is which one you actually want.
People buy on emotion and justify with logic. Sell to the first and arm them for the second.
Degree & MBAPeople do not buy products, they hire them to do a job. Work out the job and the competition changes.
GCSEPrimary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative — two different splits people constantly confuse.
GCSECutting a market into groups so you can be genuinely right for some of them.
GCSEFind out what they want. Go get it. Give it to them. All three, or none of it works.
A LevelPeople don't buy what you do — they buy why you do it. Here's how to lead with your why.
A LevelDelighted customers spin your growth. Stop treating the sale as the finish line.
GCSEProduct, price, place, promotion — and why getting one wrong undoes the other three.
GCSEIntroduction, growth, maturity, decline — and the extension strategies that buy more time.
Never leave a meeting without the next one in the diary.
A LevelOpportunity, Pause, Position, State your price and shut up.
A LevelFour kinds of question, in order — and the third one is where the sale is actually made.
GCSEOrder taker, product pusher, over seller, problem solver. Only one of them builds anything.
A LevelSeven steps from problem to delivery, and the proposal comes fifth — not first.
A LevelTake customers on a journey from a small first yes to your premium offer — and most revenue is in the climb.
A LevelPeople buy what they want, then justify it with what they need. Sell to the want.
How many you have to sell before you stop losing money — and how much room you have if sales disappoint.
GCSEProfitable businesses go under every week. This is how.
GCSETwo numbers that tell you whether the problem is your pricing or your overheads.
A LevelThree ways to decide whether a big purchase is worth it — and why the simplest one is the most used and least…
A LevelTurning accounts into a handful of numbers that can actually be compared.
GCSEWhere the money comes from, and what each source really costs you.
A LevelOwners → assets → profit → cash → owners. Speed the loop up and the return rises.
A LevelFive levers hold up the value of a business. Most owners only ever pull the first one.
Three ways to make things, trading flexibility against cost per unit.
A LevelLots of small improvements by the people doing the work, and a checklist of what to remove.
GCSEScope, time and cost. Fix two and the third moves — there is no arrangement where it does not.
GCSEInspecting at the end, building it in throughout, or making it everyone's job.
GCSEThe job you agreed and the job you are doing drift apart one small favour at a time.
A LevelFour steps, run round and round, which is how almost all continuous improvement actually works.
Degree & MBAEvery system has exactly one bottleneck. Improving anything else is wasted effort.
Acknowledge, Question, Understand, Answer. In that order, and the order is the whole thing.
GCSEFour reasons someone is not performing. Two are yours, two are theirs, and you need to know which.
A LevelNine roles a team needs filled — and why a team of brilliant similar people underperforms.
A LevelPower, role, task and person — four ways an organisation actually decides things.
A LevelThe things that stop people being unhappy are not the things that make them motivated.
A LevelWhen someone gives you three contradictory reasons, none of them is the real one.
Degree & MBAEight steps for making change stick, and the first one is where most attempts die.
A LevelUnfreeze, change, refreeze — and the insight that removing resistance beats pushing harder.
GCSEFive levels of need, and the claim that you cannot motivate with the higher ones until the lower ones are met.
A LevelThe studies that found people worked harder because someone was paying attention.
GCSETall or flat, wide or narrow span — and what each does to speed, cost and how people feel.
GCSEHire from inside or outside, and the training choices that follow.
GCSEEvery team has rules. Most of them are unwritten, which is why people keep breaking them.
A LevelThe theory that people work for money, and that there is one best way to do any job.
A LevelFive things a person needs before a change sticks, in order — and skipping one stops the lot.
A LevelEvery change starts with optimism, dips into despair, and only then gets better. The dip is not a sign you were…
GCSEAwareness, acceptance, action, accountability, acknowledgement — five steps, and most people stall at the second.
A LevelDissatisfaction × Vision × First steps must beat Resistance — and because it multiplies, any zero kills it.
GCSEThe short version of why a new team gets worse before it gets better.
A LevelForming, storming, norming, performing — and why skipping the argument makes the team worse.
The answer you give is forgotten. The one they reach themselves is acted on.
A LevelHigh care with no spine makes a friend. High spine with no care makes a dictator. You need both.
A LevelSupport goes up, then comes down. Empowerment climbs the whole way. Most managers never leave the first stage.
A LevelFive points that separate coaching someone from just telling them what you would do.
Degree & MBATwo different jobs that the same person usually does badly at the same time.
A LevelNice avoids the awkward conversation. Kind has it, early, while it is still small.
Degree & MBAMost businesses compete on being clever. The bigger advantage is being healthy, and almost nobody works on it.
GCSEEvery privilege at work carries a matching responsibility. Grant one without the other and it stops being either.
Degree & MBAWhat a board is actually for, in four jobs — and most owner-managed businesses do none of them.
A LevelA simple four-step way to coach anyone through a problem — and build a team that thinks.
Degree & MBAPartners fall out over roles and money. The cause is usually three rings further in.
GCSEIf the owner is below deck rowing, nobody is steering.
Six words that tell you whether someone is solving the problem or explaining it.
GCSEMost people wait to *have* before they *do*. It runs the other way round.
GCSEThree rings. Stay in the middle one — and when you overshoot, retreat to it, not to the couch.
GCSEYou are responsible for more than you control, and you control more than you think.
GCSEBetween setting a goal and the deadline are hundreds of small choices, each one nudging you up or down.
GCSEWhether you think there is enough to go round changes how you negotiate, hire and refer.
GCSEMotivation peaks at just-manageable difficulty — the midpoint between boredom and failure.
A LevelYou can see someone's behaviour. What drives it sits under the water.
A LevelProgress feels like nothing's happening — right up until, suddenly, it does.
A LevelGet 1% better every day and you end the year 37 times better. Small, boring, and unstoppable.
GCSEBeing busy and getting results are different things, and only one of them is measured.
GCSEStuck between two good options? Ask what is holding you and what is pulling you.
A LevelA widely-taught split of what determines happiness — and a genuine caveat about the numbers.
Work expands to fill the time available. Shrink the time, and the work still gets done.
A LevelPut the big rocks in first — or the sand fills the jar and there's no room left for what matters.
A LevelFour quadrants, and everything that matters lives in the one nobody has time for.
GCSENot the whole plan. The one thing that can be done next.
A LevelThe urgent shouts; the important whispers. Most owners spend all day answering the wrong one.
The whole of business planning in three questions, and most plans skip the first.
A LevelA goal that isn't specific and measurable is just a wish with better lighting.
GCSEShort enough that you cannot defer it, long enough to finish something.
GCSEKennedy set the date before anyone knew how. The deadline is what produced the method.
A LevelFive plans on five timeframes. Most businesses have the middle one and nothing else.
Understanding something is a fifth of the job. The rest is doing it over and over.
A LevelWe forget most of what we learn within days — unless we revisit it. Here's how to make learning stick.
A LevelWhy getting better at something feels worse before it feels better.
GCSEWhat you know, what you know you don't know, and the enormous rest.
Survival, profit, growth, market share, personal satisfaction — and why they change as a business ages.
Degree & MBAThe route most people never consider: buy the customers, the staff and the cash flow that already exist.
A LevelWhere the money really comes from at the start — and it is almost never venture capital.
GCSEThe real sequence, in order, with the bits people get wrong.
A LevelThe smallest thing you can build that teaches you whether you are wrong.
GCSEGrow it yourself or buy someone else's — two routes with very different risks.
GCSEEveryone with something at stake — and why their wants genuinely conflict.
GCSECaterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. Nobody wants to talk about the chrysalis.
A LevelA whole business model on one page, instead of a forty-page plan nobody reads.
A LevelGrowth is not a straight line. It runs into a ceiling, dips, and needs something structural to break through.
GCSEEvery business contains the same ten jobs. In a small one, the owner is doing most of them.
GCSETime, money and mind. Most owners chase the second and lose the other two.
GCSESole trader, partnership, limited company, plc — and the one difference that actually matters.
A LevelIt is rarely the product. It is cash, customers, or the people who started it together.
Why a small UK business is affected by decisions taken thousands of miles away.
A LevelHow much your sales fall when you raise the price — and why the answer decides whether a price rise makes you money.
GCSEInterest rates, inflation, incomes and unemployment — and how each one reaches your till.