Lesson 10 · Capstone
Four numbers, one verdict, and an honest statement of what this course did not do for you.
11 minutes · Scorecard · Artifact: your named situation
Then read your verdict, and then read what the verdict does not tell you.
| Number | Yours |
|---|---|
| Target earnings | from lesson 3 |
| Your multiple | from lesson 3 |
| Gap in dollars | from lesson 5 |
| Yearly earnings growth needed | from lesson 5 |
| Customers needed to reach 100% of profit | from lesson 7 |
| Pricing corridor width | from lesson 7 |
| The size of your prize, in percent and dollars | from lesson 9 |
| Your coverage | from lesson 9 |
| Baseline self-check | /3 — from lesson 1 |
Your scorecard
Your four numbers, the square you land in, and the first three moves for that square — written out as a two-page scorecard with your figures in it. This is the version people take into a board meeting.
Two axes. How demanding your number is, and how much of it is already sitting inside the customers you have. Find the square you are in.
None of these four is a grade. They are answers to a different question: given what you are being asked to deliver and where the money actually is, what goes first?
Multiple below 1.8× · Prize 15% or more
A reachable number and real money sitting in your own book. The tail may cover most or all of what you need on its own. This is the most straightforward position in the course: collect what you already own before you spend anything to grow. Largely self-directed work — you do not need much help, you need to actually do it.
Multiple below 1.8× · Prize under 15%
A reachable number and little sitting in the tail. Your money is in price, in cost to serve, or in growth — not in subtraction. Your real risk is drift, not capability. Keep the rhythm, re-check the curve yearly, and be careful about the complexity that arrives with every new opportunity you accept.
Multiple 1.8× or above · Prize 15% or more
A demanding number and a real prize inside the book. The most common position I am called into, and the one where sequence matters more than effort. Everything on the list looks important and none of it is pointed anywhere. Take the prize first because it is the cheapest money you have, then grow into the rest.
Multiple 1.8× or above · Prize under 15%
A demanding number and very little in the tail to fund it. Subtraction will not close this gap, so the honest answer is price, new revenue, or acquisition — and a frank conversation with whoever set the number about whether the path and the expectation actually match.
Second read
Pick one item you sell a lot of. Find what your best customer pays for it and what your worst customer pays for it. That spread is your pricing corridor.
If it is wider than about ten points and nobody can explain why on volume, that is not a pricing problem. It is a governance problem, and it is usually the fastest money in the business.
| Customers to reach 100% | Reading | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 10% or fewer | Extreme | You are running a small profitable company that is carrying a large unprofitable one. That is real opportunity, but it is also concentration risk any buyer or lender will price. |
| 10% – 20% | Classic | The most common shape. Your tail is consuming money you are already earning, and the fix is well understood: pricing, cost to serve, and a small number of managed exits. |
| 20% – 30% | Diluted | Lots of mid-sized accounts, no dominant tier. Exits will not move much here. Your money is in pricing discipline and what it costs you to serve. |
| Above 30% | Flat | Either genuinely unconcentrated, which is rare, or your data is grouped too coarsely to show the truth. Re-run it at invoice level before you conclude anything. |
Third read
Fill in your own figures and read this out loud. It should be uncomfortable, and it should be the clearest description of your position anyone in your business has produced this year.
“I need to become ___ times my current earnings in ___ years. ___% of my customers carry all of my profit, and there is $___ sitting in the rest of the book — ___% of what I have to find.”
Not one handed down and privately disbelieved. If you think your number came from a spreadsheet rather than a conversation, renegotiate it now. A number nobody believes is abandoned in month seven, and everything built on it is wasted.
The test is simple: can each of your directs state the number and their line of it without notes? If you presented it on a slide and asked for questions, they do not own it. Build it with them in a room over two days instead.
Most structures are inherited from the last strategy, not built for this one. Look for the work that has no owner and the owners who have no work — both are signs the chart is describing a company you used to be.
Weekly on the few things that move the number, monthly on the money, quarterly on whether the plan is still right. The test is not whether you hold the meetings when things go well. It is whether you hold them the month you miss.
People with no stake in your answer and no reason to flatter you. Your board has a stake. Your team reports to you. Your spouse loves you. You need a fourth category, and most CEOs do not have one.
Work expands to fill the time, and a plan without a date is a preference. Pick one, put it in front of people whose opinion you care about, and let the discomfort do the work.
By the people who have to deliver it, not by you on their behalf. A signature is not ceremony — it is the moment ownership transfers, and without it you are the only person in the building who is actually committed.
None of it is complicated, and none of it is secret.
It is getting your VP of Sales to own one line of it, with a date, in front of his peers. Knowing the list and installing it are different problems, and the second one is where the year is won or lost.
Based on your scorecard, one of these fits you better than the other. I will say which once and then stop.
Nobody is turned away. If you are under twenty million, the self-directed path is genuinely the right answer for you, not a consolation — the economics of the other door do not work in your favour and I would rather say so.
Either way, you now know your number. Most of your competitors do not.
Under roughly $20M revenue
You have the four numbers and you mostly need the sequence and the discipline. The self-directed path gives you the tools, the order of operations, and other operators working the same problem. No call required.
Under roughly $20M revenue
You have the four numbers and you mostly need the sequence and the discipline. The self-directed path gives you the tools, the order of operations, and other operators working the same problem. No call required.
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