David Roberts

One of the businesses I doubled in profitability did it by doing less, not more.
The lever was the third P: Proposition. What you’re genuinely best at, and what you choose not to do.
Most owners resist this. Focus feels like turning money away. But chasing everyone carries a cost that never appears on the P&L.
The symptoms of a weak Proposition:
• You compete on price, because nothing else obviously separates you
• Every job is bespoke, so nothing gets more efficient or more profitable over time
• Your best-fit customers get diluted by customers who were never really yours
• Margins slide year on year and you can’t quite say why
What it costs: when you’ll do anything for anyone, you become interchangeable, and interchangeable businesses compete on price until the maths stops working.
I’ve watched a sharp proposition lift pricing, productivity and referral rate at the same time, and put net profit up double digits inside a year. Not by adding anything. By taking away.
Trying to be everything to everyone is how you become nothing to anyone.
DM me the word STORY for the model.
D.

In every business I’ve helped turn around, the same trap shows up.

High dependency on one or two individuals..

All decision making, standards etc sit with them.. normally the owner or CEO.. Not enough challenge or checks and balances. They are the business.

So when they get it wrong or get stretched too thin there’s no safety net and the business gets exposed.

And when you’re under stress you need the whole team on it..

So this is how you prevent all that trouble..

This is the second P: Promise. The problem you solve better than anyone.. The standard you live by every time and the promise you make to the market as a result..

Written down and lived by everyone on the team..

When it’s undocumented, here’s what often happens.

The symptoms of an unwritten Promise:
• You’re the final decision maker on everything, because you’re the only one who knows where the line is
• Performance is inconsistent the moment you’re not looking.. then you conclude nobody can be trusted
• New people take months to “get it”, because “it” was never written down
• You confuse having high standards with being the only person who seems to really care..

What it costs: when the business Promise lives in one person it makes that person a bottleneck and a liability. You cannot be removed from a business where you define it.
(Unless you end up being removed by the bank..)

And that’s a problem.. for you and for the business.

The fix isn’t to carry on the way you’ve always done it and it isn’t lowering the bar. It’s making the bar visible so your team can reach it whether you’re around or not.

And making ownership a whole team game..

There’s a bit more to it than this of course.. so if you’re looking around your business and seeing that it’s all on you.. get started on this before your business needs it.

DM me the word STORY for the model.

The thing that stalls most owner-led companies isn’t the thing that usually gets the blame..

The market etc is what nearly everyone says but I’ve noticed something that’s setting the leaders apart..

It’s that everybody knows where the business is actually going.

And in most owner led companies it’s the opposite.

There’s a revenue target for the year. But a target is not a destination, and your team can feel the difference.
This is Purpose. And when it’s missing, here’s what it looks like.

The symptoms of no Purpose:
• Every meaningful decision routes back to you, because only you have the full picture
• Your team executes tasks but won’t make judgement calls, because they can’t see what they’re aiming at
• “Busy” replaces “progress”.. lots of activity, no shared sense of whether it’s the right activity
• Two good people make contradictory decisions, both reasonable, because there’s no north star to align them

What it costs: a business where every decision waits for one person is a business that can only grow as fast as that person can make it up.

Purpose isn’t just a motivational exercise. It’s the thing that lets other people decide.

Purpose is not a poster on the wall. It’s a destination clear enough that your people can act without you in the room.

I’ve taken two businesses to eight figures and beyond as a CEO. DM me the word STORY and I’ll send you the model.

Only around 1 in 7 companies outperformed over the last five years.
Here’s what I’ve actually seen work inside £10m - £100m businesses.
They consistently fund growth.
Not just talking about priorities - allocating capital, talent and leadership attention to them at the expense of anything else.

If you're leading an established business, I'd take three key questions into your next strategy meeting:
Here’s the first one - Does our resource allocation actually reflect our growth priorities?

Growth at this level isn't about doing more.
It's about knowing exactly where your resources are currently going .. and then making better choices about where you invest to bring your mission to life.

Follow for more.. part 2 tomorrow..

Purpose has an image problem. People think it's the soft stuff. The fluffy, feel-good, wordy exercise you get to once the real work is done.

I want to push back on that.

After years of doing this, I have demonstrable proof that your purpose is one of the hardest financial assets you own. I've validated my own experience with some research.. Gallup, HBR etc. I think this table under eggs what can be achieved in a short amount of time.. Let me show you how it actually pays.

Start with your people. A business with a clear, real why keeps its people longer. And retention is money.. every single person who walks out the door costs you tens of thousands to replace.. hiring, lost productivity, the ramp-up. A clear purpose is one of the lowest cost highest value retention tools there is.

Then your customers. A business that knows what it stands for attracts customers who buy on more than just price. And customers who buy on more than price are customers whose margins hold when the market gets tight. That's real money, banked.

Then ex*****on. A team that understands the why can make decisions without running everything past you. That's faster, and it's your time freed up.. which is money too.

And finally, when you come to sell, a business with a clear purpose and a team that runs on that is worth more than one that's really just an extension of the owner. Because the value isn't all locked up in your head, a buyer can see it will keep running after you've gone.

Clearer people. Returning customers. Better margins. A faster team. A higher sale price. None of that is soft. That's equity value.

Say hi if this resonates ..

The most expensive thing in your week probably isn't on your P&L.
It's the decisions you can't or don’t make. And AI isn’t the solution..

Think about how much time you lose to this.

Decisions about customers, products, people, opportunities .. turning it over, sitting on the email, paralysed by a plethora of options..

And a week later you're still not sure. It’s almost never a lack of information. You usually have all the data you’re going to get.

What you're missing is a filter. Because when you don't actually know what you're for.. what the business is really in service of.. then every option looks very similar.

They're all a bit appealing and a bit risky.. so every decision presents a fresh opportunity to agonise or argue..

Knowing your why fixes that at a stroke.

When you're clear on what you're actually building towards, most decisions stop being decisions.

The option either moves you towards your purpose, or it doesn't.

Yes or no. Next.

That's not a soft benefit. That's hours a week handed back to you.

It's the difference between a business that dithers and one that moves.