Notebook of a COO

Jaksot

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  The Install: The Missed Call Money Map in a Small Law Firm 16.09.2026 9min

  Monday's teardown priced TrueFlow Plumbing's missed calls at one hundred twenty six thousand dollars a year. This Install walks the Missed Call Money Map into a two partner law firm, where the ticket is not six hundred twelve dollars, it is a three to ten thousand dollar retained matter, and the caller in trouble never leaves a voicemail. I quiz you on the chant, then run all five steps with law firm numbers: the Friday log pull, the after hours split, the never came back cross reference, the math, and the salary test one lost client a month can fail on its own. Plus the conflict safe script an answering layer can follow, and why the callback rule tightens from same day to within the hour. The one pager and the live fillable tool are inside the free Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  The Install: The Missed Call Money Map in a Dental Practice 15.09.2026 9min

  Monday I showed you one hundred twenty six thousand dollars going to voicemail at a plumbing company. Today the Missed Call Money Map walks into a dental practice, where the front desk is checking in one patient, on hold with an insurance company, and listening to the phone ring. I walk the five steps with dental numbers: why misses pile up at lunch and Monday at eight, what a new patient is actually worth, how to cross reference the call log against your chart system, and the math on a composite practice leaking one hundred thirty six thousand a year. Then the salary test: one demo of one coverage option before Sunday at eight, or the zero dollar callback rule tonight, worked next to your hygiene recall list. The printable map and the live fillable tool are inside the free Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  $126,000 Went to Voicemail 14.09.2026 32min

  A plumber with six trucks and $2.1M a year had never once opened his phone system's call log. When he finally did, he found 44 calls a week ringing out to voicemail, and six or seven callers who never came back. At a $612 average ticket, that pencils out to $126,000 a year walking to the next plumber on Google. In this teardown, JT walks the fix in three parts: measure the leak, price the coverage options with real 2026 numbers, and install the zero dollar callback rule that beats 69 percent of the market. Then he hands you the tool: the Missed Call Money Map, five steps and fifteen minutes on a Friday morning to put an annual dollar figure on your own missed calls. The one pager and the live fillable tool are free inside the Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  The Install: The Owner Tax Ledger in Home Services 10.09.2026 8min

  The Owner Tax Ledger rides shotgun into a home services company, where the owner is the estimator, the dispatcher, and collections, all from the truck seat. The handoff is the Standard Ten, one page that prices your ten most common jobs so quotes go out in minutes and stop waiting on your evening.This Install builds on Monday's anchor episode, Everyone Got Labor Day Off Except You. Start there if you are new this week. The printable Owner Tax Ledger one pager is inside the free Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com. Free, not a trial. Print it and clip it to the visor.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  The Install: The Owner Tax Ledger in a Salon 08.09.2026 8min

  The Owner Tax Ledger walks into a salon, where the owner is also the highest paid stylist in the building and the tax hides in the gaps between foils. I show you what goes on the card, why booth renters do not break the tool, and the one page Front Desk Decision Card that hands the circled item off for good.This Install builds on Monday's anchor episode, Everyone Got Labor Day Off Except You. Jump back to that one first if you missed it. The printable Owner Tax Ledger one pager is waiting inside the free Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com. It is free, it is not a trial, print it and tape it to your mirror.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  Everyone Got Labor Day Off Except You 07.09.2026 26min

  Everyone got Labor Day off except you. In the Season Four premiere I tear down Rosa's Table, a fourteen table restaurant doing one point four million a year, where three tasks route only through the owner and a broker priced that habit at roughly three hundred and ten thousand dollars. The food was never the problem. The holiday everyone else got off was the evidence.New season, new shape. Every Monday I take one business and tear it down with real numbers, and every teardown ends with a named tool you can run the same week with nothing fancier than a notecard. Shorter Install episodes across the week walk the same tool into different industries. This week's tool is the Owner Tax Ledger, and the printable one pager is waiting inside the free Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com.CHAPTERSCold open at Rosa's TableThe stakes and the season promiseWhy this happensThe teardownThe tool: The Owner Tax LedgerThis week's installRecap and CTA------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  You Trained Your Team To Wait 01.09.2026 9min

  Your team already knows the right answer, and they are asking you anyway. Today I break down why the line outside your head is a decision-rights problem, not a people problem, and give you three moves to fix it: count the asks, put a price on a decision, and coach the decision instead of the outcome. One list and one number this week, and the phone starts going quiet.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  You Don't Have Four Months Left, You Have 55 Days 31.08.2026 9min

  Q4 is not a four month runway. October first to December thirty-first looks like ninety-two days, but once you pull out the weekends, the holidays, the dead week between Christmas and New Year, and the time off your team already asked for, you are left with about fifty-five days where work actually gets produced. Most owners write a fourth quarter goal without ever checking whether fifty-five days of capacity can physically deliver it. In this episode, JT Taylor walks through the arithmetic: count your real production days, calculate the ceiling your team can produce before you set the goal, and pre-decide what you will say no to so December is executing a plan instead of reacting to the phone. Includes a thirty minute exercise you can finish this week, while the three levers that move the number still work.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylormba/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  Hire Your Headache First 29.08.2026 7min

  Most owners hire a mini version of themselves, then wonder why they are still stuck. The smartest next hire is not the work you are best at. It is the work you hate. In this episode, JT Taylor breaks down how to hire your headache first: find the draining, recurring work that does not need your genius, turn it into a playbook before you delegate, and hire someone to own the outcome instead of perform the tasks. Includes a simple five-day exercise to find your first (or next) hire, whether that is a person, a part-timer, or a piece of software.The 3-part framework:1. Find the headache. The work to hire out first lives where two questions meet: what drains me, and does this actually need me? Offload your drains, do not clone your strengths.2. Turn the headache into a playbook. You cannot delegate what you never documented. Spend one week narrating the task, the steps and the decisions, so the how-to leaves your head and becomes something you can hand off.3. Hire the outcome, not the hours. Do not hire help, hire the owner of a result. Define what good looks like in a number, so they make the small decisions and you stop being the answer to every question.Your homework: for the next five days, list every task that drains you and did not actually require you. Circle the top three, pick one, and spend thirty minutes narrating it into a document. The day you hire, you hand over a system instead of a headache.RESOURCESJT Taylor MS, MBAWebsite: https://mrjttaylor.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylorTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mrjttaylorNotebook of a COOWebsite: https://notebookofacoo.comFREE Small Business MBA: https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacooNational Board of Operations Professionals (NBOP)Website: https://nationalboardofoperations.orgInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop#SmallBusiness #Delegation #Hiring #Systems #OwnerDependency #Operations #FractionalCOO #NotebookOfACOO
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  You Own a Job, Not a Business 28.08.2026 7min

  If your business stops the moment you stop, you do not own a business, you own a job. In this episode, JT Taylor breaks down the one test that tells you how dependent your business really is on you, and the three moves that turn a job that owns you into an asset that works whether you show up or not: the 30-day test, documenting the decision instead of the task, and the one number plus one backup that let the place run without you. Practical, no fluff, and something you can start this week.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylor/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  Busy Is Not a Business Model 27.08.2026 8min

  We are slammed. We are so busy. Owners say it like a badge, but busy is not a business model, and being slammed is more often a symptom than a sign of health. In this episode, JT breaks down why most of the work filling your days is motion, not progress, and the three moves to get your time back without the business falling apart: learn to tell motion from progress, kill the work that feels productive but is not, and fiercely protect the handful of hours that actually move the needle. Ends with a one-week time audit that will show you exactly where your hours are leaking. The goal was never to be busy. It was to build something that works.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylor/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  Your Customers Decided to Leave Long Before They Told You 25.08.2026 8min

  The worst surprise in business is the customer who leaves out of nowhere, except it was never out of nowhere. They decided to leave weeks or months before they told you, and the cancellation was just the paperwork. In this episode, JT breaks down why retention is not measured at the renewal but decided in a hundred small moments along the way, and the three moves to see churn coming while you can still stop it: read the relationship at every touch point instead of waiting for the finish line, act at half the time to churn so you are preventing a decision instead of reversing one, and build one escalation that fires on a number and lands with a named owner. Ends with a one-customer homework assignment that will change how you see every account you still have.------------GET THE FREE SMALL BUSINESS MBA→ https://notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.htmlOPERATORS LOOKING TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUTURE OF OPERATIONS→ National Board of Operations Professionals - https://nationalboardofoperations.org/SOCIAL MEDIA→ The Show - https://www.instagram.com/notebookofacoo/→ NBOP - https://www.instagram.com/official.nbop/→ The Host - https://www.instagram.com/mrjttaylor/PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE (6 book series)→ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HFNZPGPP
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  You're Not Too Expensive, You're Selling to the Wrong People 24.08.2026 10min

  My prices are too high. I keep losing deals on price. Almost every owner believes it, and it is almost never true. In this episode, JT reframes the most common complaint in small business: you are not too expensive, you are selling to the wrong people. Built on the Market Pyramid, he breaks down the three moves to fix it: see the three tiers of every market and choose yours on purpose, make the four things that signal your tier finally agree, and decide your way up instead of drifting. The three expensive mismatches that disguise a positioning problem as a price problem, plus a four-question homework assignment that finds the biggest leak in your business. You are not too expensive. You have just been aiming at the wrong people.
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  You Don't Have a Marketing Problem, You Have a Follow-Up Problem 23.08.2026 8min

  Before you spend another dollar on ads, hear this: most small businesses do not have a marketing problem, they have a follow-up problem. Half of all leads never get followed up with even once, and most sales take five or more touches to close. In this episode, JT breaks down the three moves that plug the hole in your bucket: trace what actually happens to a lead after it comes in, build one simple automatic follow-up sequence, and treat speed-to-lead as the multiplier it is. Ends with a one-week homework assignment using a single real lead. You already paid for these leads. Go win them back.
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  Cash Flow Is King, Profit Is Just an Opinion 23.08.2026 9min

  Most businesses that fail were profitable when they died. Profit is a story you tell at year end. Cash is what is actually in the account on the day payroll is due, and the two are not the same thing. In this episode, JT breaks down the money truth that quietly kills more good businesses than any competitor: why growth eats cash, the levers that shorten the time between doing the work and getting paid, and how to build the buffer that lets you sleep at night. Ends with a one-week homework assignment: find the single most important number in your business.
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  Your Best Employee Is a Single Point of Failure 21.08.2026 10min

  Every business has that one person who just handles it, and that warm feeling you get about them is hiding your single biggest risk. In this episode, JT breaks down why your best, most loyal employee is often a single point of failure, and the three moves that defuse it: how to find the key-person dependencies hiding in plain sight, how to turn tribal knowledge into documented systems your business actually owns, and the vacation test that proves whether you built a business or just a group of people holding hands. Ends with a one-week homework assignment you can start today.
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  AI Won't Fix a Broken Business 21.08.2026 8min

  Everyone is racing to add AI, but AI will not fix a broken business. It will expose one.JT breaks down the three moves that separate the operators who make AI pay off from the ones who just add another tool to the pile: why automating a broken process just scales the chaos, the document, simplify, then automate sequence almost everyone skips, and the move nobody talks about, using AI as permission to delete work instead of automate it. Ends with a one week homework you can start today.Get the process templates inside the free Small Business MBA at notebookofacoo.com/small-business-mba.html. And if you run operations for a living, come help build the standard at nationalboardofoperations.org.
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  600 Businesses Are Closing Every Day. Here's What's Actually Killing Them. 01.05.2026 9min

  Six hundred American small businesses are closing every day. Owners blame tariffs, inflation, AI, and the economy. The Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics tell a different story.This episode walks through the actual data behind the closure wave, and the three operational patterns that separate businesses that survive from the ones that close. The Cash Flow Blind Spot. The Demand Drift. The Owner-as-System Problem.Three findings, three fixes. About six hours of total work to start running operationally instead of reactively.Mentioned in this episode: (Stop Running A 2019 Business In A 2026 Market). Listen next.Take the Operator Assessment: notebookofacoo.com/assessment.html
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  The 3-Part Pricing Audit Costing You $100k A Year 27.04.2026 7min

  Most operators think pricing is a marketing decision. It is not. It is one of the highest-leverage operational decisions in the business, and most owners have never run a real audit on what they actually charge.In this episode, we walk through the 3-part pricing audit: the cost audit, the anchor audit, and the margin audit. Three questions, asked in order, about your own business. Most operators have never sat down with all three in the same conversation. When they do, the answers are almost always uncomfortable. They are also almost always profitable.We unpack:Why the cost number most operators carry in their head is roughly half of the real number.Why anchoring your prices to your competitors locks you into a self-referential loop where everybody is making the same mistake at the same time.Why almost every small business has one or two offers quietly subsidizing the rest of the portfolio, and how to find which is which.The episode closes with three operational moves you take this week. Run the cost. Reset the anchor. Set the floor.If this one lands, the next episode to listen to is The 5 Numbers That Tell You If Your Business Can Run Without You. Margin per offer is one of those five.Notebook of a COO is operational thinking for entrepreneurs and small business owners. No hype. Just operations. New episodes every week.
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  The 7-Day Disappearance Test That Exposes Every Broken System (Animated) 25.04.2026 10min

  The 7-Day Disappearance TestIf you vanished for seven days, phone off, completely unreachable, how much of what you built would still be standing when you got back?Most operators think they own a business. What they actually own is a very expensive job wearing business clothes. And there is exactly one test that tells the difference.In this episode, JT breaks down the three waves of what breaks when the owner disappears, and in what order: the decisions that break first, the processes that break next, and the relationships that break last. Plus the three moves that fix all three.Inside this episode:Why your team's confidence is the first thing to break, not their skillThe 78 percent figure that explains why every decision runs through youHow processes that live in your head cost roughly $11,000 to $14,000 in margin every time you step awayWhy the relationships you personally maintain are the hardest break to recover fromThe three-move fix: documented decisions, defined authority, distributed relationshipsAfter you listen, queue up The 5 Numbers That Tell You If Your Business Can Run Without You. That episode is the exact diagnostic follow-up to this one.Notebook of a COO is operational thinking for builders who want systems, not slogans. Hosted by JT, fractional COO and CMO to entrepreneurs for the last 15 years, from first-time founders to billion-dollar operators.New episodes every week.By JT Taylor MBAhttps:www.mrjttaylor.com