Strategy Meets Finance

Епизоде

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  The Simplest Business Advice Nobody Actually Follows | Ep 259 15.09.2026 11мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Schedule a free call with us. Steve was in a wrestling class recently when the coach said something that stuck with him. Just do stuff that works. In this episode, he takes that idea into business and makes the case that most owners already know what works. They just keep getting pulled toward everything else. The new brand, the shiny tool, the flavor of the day. Meanwhile the real constraint sits there unso...
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  Everything You Know About Strategy Is Wrong | Ep 258 08.09.2026 13мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most business owners think they have a strategy, but most of them do not... In this episode Steve gives you three quick ways to find out if your strategy is actually working, breaks down what strategy really means beyond the vision days and planning sessions, and walks through the framework he has spent decades developing and just put into a book. If your team cannot agree on what...
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  This Financial Disability Is Killing Your Business | Ep 257 02.09.2026 21мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most business owners think financial visibility means getting an income statement every month. It does not. In this episode Steve breaks down what real financial visibility actually looks like, why the gap between what most owners see and what they need to see is costing them money every single day, and why running a business without it is not just risky but a genuine disability. ...
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  These 3 Numbers Tell You Whether Your Business Will Make It | Ep 256 24.08.2026 9мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most business owners track revenue. Some track profit. But there are three numbers that actually tell you whether your business is healthy, building value, and set up to last. In this episode Steve walks through exactly what those three numbers are, how to calculate each one, and what they are telling you about the state of your business right now. If you have never calculated any...
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  The Gap Between Your Strategy and Your Results | Ep 255 17.08.2026 15мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most businesses have a strategy. They have done the offsite, built the plan, and know where they want to go. Then you look at the financials and the strategy is nowhere in the numbers. In this episode Steve breaks down exactly what is happening in that gap, why strategy without a financial connection is just a list of good intentions, and what it actually takes to build a strategy...
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  The Moment a Good Business Starts Becoming a Great One | Ep 254 12.08.2026 20мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. There is a specific moment Steve has seen over and over again inside businesses. Revenue becomes more predictable, cash flow steadies out, and the owner goes from reactive to proactive. In this episode he breaks down exactly what that moment looks like in financial terms and the five conditions that have to be in place before it happens. If you are still in survival mode, this one...
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  Is Your Business Really Generating Value? | Ep 253 04.08.2026 8мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most business owners look at profit on their income statement and assume the business is doing well. But profit and value are not the same thing. In this episode Steve breaks down why the majority of businesses are not generating returns above their cost of capital, what that actually means for the health of your company, and the one question every business owner should be able to answe...
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  The Problem With Your Annual Budget (And What Actually Works) | Ep 252 29.07.2026 17мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Every year business owners build a budget. They set targets, present the numbers, tie bonuses to it, and by March it is already wrong. In this episode Steve makes the case that a static annual budget is one of the most limiting financial tools a business can use and walks through exactly what to do instead. Not a tweak to the process. A fundamentally different way of thinking abou...
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  Your Best Customers Might Be Your Worst Financial Decision | Ep 251 23.07.2026 16мин

  Know your numbers, fix your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most business owners know their best customers by name. Longest relationships, biggest contracts, most consistent work. But in this episode Steve shows why looking at revenue per customer and profitability per customer are two completely different things and why the gap between them might be the most important number you are not tracking. He walks through exactly how to run a customer p...
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  What Buyers Actually Pay For When They Buy a Business | Ep 250 20.07.2026 18мин

  Know your numbers, grow your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Two businesses, same revenue, same profit. One sells for three times EBITDA. The other sells for eight times. On a $2 million EBITDA business that gap is $10 million. In this episode Steve breaks down exactly what creates that difference and why sophisticated buyers are not just looking at the size of your earnings but the quality and the risk underneath them. Whether you ever pl...
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  Why Your Pricing Has Nothing to Do With What You Charge | Ep 249 14.07.2026 21мин

  Know your numbers, grow your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Most business owners set their prices based on what competitors charge, what feels right, or what they think customers will pay. None of those approaches have anything to do with the value your business actually delivers or what your business needs to be financially healthy. In this episode Steve breaks down how pricing actually works, the three most common pricing mistakes he se...
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  Business Lessons I Had to Learn the Hard Way | Ep 248 09.07.2026 14мин

  Know your numbers, grow your cash flow, and build a business that works for you. Start free with myColtivar. Steve started his first business at 16 out of his sister's garage with no money, no financial background, and no idea what he was doing. He made every mistake you can make. In this episode he shares the five lessons that would have saved him millions of dollars and thousands of hours if someone had told him earlier. Not motivational fluff. The real stuff that actually changes how...
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  What Your WIP Schedule Is Trying to Tell You | Ep 247 06.07.2026 13мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Most specialty contractors either do not have a WIP schedule or do not treat it with the attention it deserves. And if your WIP is wrong, Steve will tell you straight: your financials are wrong too. In this episode he breaks down exactly what the WIP schedule is tracking, why billings are not the same thing as revenue, and how to use it to catch problems on...
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  Profitable But No Cash? This Is Why | Ep 246 02.07.2026 15мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Revenue is up. The team is celebrating. And the business owner is quietly pulling on the line of credit because cash is constantly tight. In this episode Steve breaks down exactly why profitable businesses run out of cash, what is actually happening between the income statement and the bank account, and the three things you can measure to find where the mon...
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  Listen to This if You're Using AI to Optimize Your Business | Ep 245 29.06.2026 14мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Everyone is talking about AI right now. Which tools to use, how to automate, how to stay ahead. Steve thinks AI is important too. But in this episode he wants to have the conversation almost nobody is having. Not which tools to use, but whether those tools are actually helping or quietly making things worse in your business. If you are using AI to manage yo...
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  Why Most Contractors Price to Win Instead of Price to Profit | Ep 244 25.06.2026 20мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Winning work and profiting from work are two completely different things. Most contractors are only doing one of them. In this episode Steve breaks down why pricing to be competitive and pricing to actually make money require fundamentally different thinking, where the gap almost always starts, and what to do about it before the next bid goes out the door. ...
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  The #1 Thing I Fix First When a Business Is Struggling | Ep 243 22.06.2026 17мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit When Steve walks into a struggling business, people expect him to start with leadership, culture, or strategy. He never does. In this episode he walks through the one thing he fixes first in every struggling business, why everything else is pointless without it, and what it actually looks like when a business finally has real financial visibility versus jus...
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  If I Were Running a Construction Business, Here's Exactly What I'd Do | Ep 242 18.06.2026 14мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Steve gets asked this question all the time. If you were running my business, where would you start? In this episode he answers it directly. He walks through exactly what he would do in the first 90 days running a $10 million specialty contracting business, the specific sequence of moves, and why the order matters as much as the moves themselves. If you hav...
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  Why Contractors Run Out of Cash (And the Four Levers That Fix It) | Ep 241 15.06.2026 17мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Most specialty contractors know cash flow is important. What they do not know is what actually controls it. In this episode Steve walks through the four levers that determine whether a contracting business has cash or not. They are not complicated, but if you do not know what they are, you cannot pull them. And if you are busy and still broke, at least one ...
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  The 3 Biggest Strategy Mistakes Business Owners Make | Ep 240 11.06.2026 13мин

  How much cash is hiding in your business? See if you qualify for a Free Financial Health Check Financial Intelligence Toolkit Most business owners have sat through a strategy session that felt productive in the room and changed nothing back at the office. In this episode Steve breaks down the three biggest mistakes he sees business leaders make when doing strategy. Not because they are not smart or ambitious, but because nobody ever showed them what strategy actually requires befo...