Cultura Coaching, LLC

Founder and leadership coach helping service-based business owner/operators grow their business with clarity, structure, and purpose—one business at a time. 

Through my initial 90-day Growth & Profit Accelerator ($3,995), I deliver a proven, strategic framework that aligns teams, improves culture, and drives measurable results. 

Clients consistently see 25%+ revenue growth, 3%+ profit increases, and stronger retention through clear SMART goals, actionable steps, and full accountability.

Profitable Growth Coach

Cascadia Global Security

Led regional security operations across Oregon, managing 60+ client accounts, 90+ employees, and $5.2M+ in annual revenue with a consistent 18%+ profit margin. Achieved a 47% gross margin improvement within 3 months by optimizing workforce scheduling and reducing labor inefficiencies. Successfully lowered direct labor costs by 9.8% and overhead by 58% while maintaining 100% client satisfaction through strategic hiring and responsive service delivery.

Regional Operations Manager (Oregon)

Premier Services Group

Directed administrative operations for a $40M+ company servicing 110 Lowe’s stores across 6 states, overseeing 800+ daily activities for 1,500+ weekly customers. Led a 30+ person scheduling team, HR, and training functions, enabling 300% revenue growth by formalizing recruiting, onboarding, and customer support systems. Improved customer satisfaction scores by 11% and eliminated overdue scheduling commitments through strategic process design, data-driven accountability, and scalable operational structures.

Director Of Operations

Dovetail Coffee

Brought in by a potential investment group as a business operations expert to partner with the CEO in scaling a specialty coffee business. Oversaw 3 café managers, 12 staff, and 1 roaster while developing and executing a growth strategy that led to the opening of two new locations. Built and optimized internal processes for recruiting, hiring, and training, resulting in a 100% increase in trained team capacity prior to COVID-19-related closure.

Vice President of Operations

G.W. PAULSON COMPANY

Managed operational projects for a construction services provider, leading a team of 12 installers and overseeing all estimating, ordering, and scheduling functions. Handled 100+ daily requests from project superintendents while streamlining processes to increase home builds by 85% and set a 30-year department revenue record at $1.5M/month. Maintained 100% client retention through consistent, high-level service and execution.

Account/Project Manager

Renewal by Andersen of Oregon

Led and developed a high-performing sales team of 15 for a premium window installation company, generating 90+ quality leads per month and driving 30%+ revenue growth in just 6 months. Recruited and trained 25+ new team members in one year, built client satisfaction tracking systems to improve NPS, and optimized field rep placement to achieve record-breaking monthly sales. Recognized by leadership for strategic execution and sales excellence.

Marketing Manager

First Response Security

Oversaw organizational strategy, vision, and execution of operations, client services, human resources, accounting, and business development processes, people, and systems.  
Primary driver of B2B firm delivering 5K+ weekly guard and security services with team of 4 direct reports and 130+ customer-facing security officers. 
Generated revenue by performing all sales activities. Conceived of and implemented new recruiting structure. 

> Executed organizational goals through business process improvement resulting in 842% growth over 8 years and 2 highest years of revenue and profit in 25 year history.  
> Led, coached, and motivated 8+ critical client-facing operational staff and managers overseeing 130+ employees, providing 3 different services to 500+ clients at 6,000+ accounts exceeding client expectations, resulting in 95% client retention and 10%+ annual growth. 
> Analyzed operating budget of $5M+ annually focusing on P&L opportunities resulting in 10% revenue growth and 1%+ of increased net profit year over year.  
>  Increased revenue from -16% loss during recession (2007 -2011) to 27%+ growth over 5 years through strategic planning and execution
>  Improved customer satisfaction and mitigated business risks through the project management,  strategic planning, budgeting and implementation of a proprietary customer facing software and technology for 50+ accounts

Vice President of Services

Negotiated and sold B2B contracts growing revenue by 842% from $360k annually to $3.25M. Achieved 84% revenue growth in 2 years after 3 years of negative profit. Recruited, trained, and onboarded a staff 
of 4 direct reports and 95 security officers.

Oversaw all branch operations to include administration, operations, human resources, customer services, sales and scheduling. In addition, played a leadership role in the client services approach for the company.

Sr. Director, Client Services | Branch Manager

Customer Service Representative

You didn’t start your business to stay stuck—scrambling to make payroll, buried in the weeds, guessing at your margins, and wondering why your bank account doesn’t reflect your hard work.

Yet here you are.

When it comes to building a profitable business, there are two common paths:

1.  Keep pushing, hoping next month will be different—ignoring your numbers, chasing more sales, and reacting to cash flow chaos.
2.  Get strategic—plug profit leaks, build a financial system that works, and create a scalable growth plan based on data, not gut instinct.

Most business owners fall into the first camp.  Not because they’re lazy—but because no one ever taught them how to manage the financial side of the business like a CFO.

Even if you're brilliant at what you do, the numbers can feel intimidating.

Margins are shrinking. Cash is tight. Expenses creep up. And you’re not even sure where the money goes.

You know how to work hard.

You just don’t have a route—a clear, proven path to take back control.

Now, imagine this instead…

▪️ You know your numbers—and exactly where your profit is leaking
▪️ Your cash flow is steady, predictable, and growing
▪️ Your pricing, margins, and offers are optimized for sustainability
▪️ You have time to think, plan, and lead—not just put out fires
▪️ You finally feel in control of your business—and your future

That’s what I help growth-focused business owners do.

What I Offer: The 90-Day Profitable Growth Route™

Inside this high-touch 1:1 program, I guide you from 'Basecamp' to 'Peak'—through a proven route to gain clarity, confidence, and control over your business finances.

Here’s what we build together:

▪️ A clear financial map—so you know what to track, fix, and measure
▪️ A 25%+ increase in profit by plugging leaks and optimizing your pricing
▪️ A cash flow system that ensures you're never surprised by your bank balance
▪️ Operational clarity so you stop spinning and start scaling
▪️ A repeatable, scalable 90-day growth framework to stay on track year-round

Backed by Two Guarantees:

1.  Confidence: If after 2 sessions, you don’t feel confident in the value I bring—I refund you in full.
2.  Completion: If by Day 90 you don’t have a complete plan and time to execute it—I work with you up to 2 additional sessions, at no extra cost.

You Deserve a Business That Pays You Well—Not One That Drains You

If you’re ready to fix your financial foundation and start building toward real, sustainable growth—I invite you to shoot me a DM or schedule your 20-minute clarity call.  

Start your profitable growth journey today!

Damien Foglio

82% of businesses fail due to lack of cash. 
One big reason? They run their business backwards...

Revenue comes in → 
costs and expenses get paid → 
whatever is left is called “profit.”

Which usually means... there isn’t any.

No cash reserves left in the bank and no money to absorb slow months. 

The smarter way? Flip the order.

Decide the profit you want first.
Build your budget around it.

Then run the business with what’s left.

When you plan this way, profit isn’t an afterthought.
It’s built into the system.

👉 Do you treat profit as what’s left over—or as the first line in your plan?

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Talks about #business, #coaching, #leadership, #management, and #productivity

Driving Profitable Growth for Service-based Owner-operators ($500K–$5M) by Hands-on Goal setting, Growing revenue by +25%, Increasing profit by +25% — Without working more hours — in just 8 weeks.

Last night, my wife Larissa Gates and I did something we do every month. 
We got Chipotle and caught up with Matthew Magee and Melissa (Chapman) Magee, PMP. 

It is in our calendar as a recurring event and all we have to do is show up.
It takes time, intentionality, and energy. But it is worth it. 

Truth is, it can be tough to be a friend of mine. 
And to be honest, not many make the cut. 

Not just because I am picky on who I invest my time in (I am), but also what I expect from my friends. 

The people I chose to surround myself need to have some goals. They need to know their purpose. And I expect them to lean into both of these. 

And, perhaps why there are only a select few that make the cut. 

But in the end, when I am on my death bed, to me, nothing will matter more than my relationships. And surface level relationships are not valuable to me. 

Just like a 401k does not hit $1M at 65 without starting your investment at 21, 
Your friends won’t be there then if you don't invest in them now. 

That is what it is like having a friend who is a coach: 
Specific questions
Clarifying questions
Notes for future reference
Healthy accountability 

I know my friends have goals. And I want them to achieve them. 
And I know that speaking them out, specifically, discussing them with others, will help them achieve them. 

Rather than having hundreds say I was a “good guy”, 
I am choosing to have tens say “he made me a better me”. 

That's it. 

Who are some people, individuals or couples, you can invest in starting next week? 

I encourage you to reach out to them and schedule something. 
Take it a step further and schedule something recurring for 2026.

Product Line Manager | Strategic Planning & Lifecycle Ownership

Revenue Operations & Optimization that Scales 10x | GTM Architect & Ops Director | I help businesses run faster, smoother, and smarter - with fewer moving parts | Strategic Problem Solver | Process & Data Nerd

Bilingual Project & Portfolio Manager | PURE PM & PM Accelerator Instructor | Prosci Change Management Practitioner | I help career changers pivot into Project Management

The biggest marriage hack? It's simple: solve 90% of money issues before they even start.

My wife and I have been married for a year and a half. 
Not long, but enough to see the power of a good system. 
We've never argued over money, and that’s not by coincidence.

We set aside a weekend each year to align on our goals. 

We talk about what we want to accomplish, what we want more of, and what we want less of.

Then, we prioritize. 
Not everything can happen in a year, so we pick what matters most. 

From there, we build our monthly budget, one line item at a time, around those goals.

Almost two years in, we’re already hitting our three-year targets. 

Sure, we wish we traveled more. 
We’d love two cars under 70k miles. 
And yes, sometimes our card declines because we’re running a tight budget.

But those sacrifices are short-term. 
They’re investments in the future we want.

Our biggest goal? Being prepared for the unknown. 

You never know when tragedy might strike or opportunity might come knocking.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀, 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗺𝗲: 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆, 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱.

That’s how you build a future where money stops causing conflicts and starts fueling progress.

What’s your approach to financial planning for your long-term goals?

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Every Monday night between October and May for the last three years, I’ve been attending and co-leading a men's small group at my church. 

Honestly, at first, my goal was to meet more men in the church. 

But what I’ve discovered is something way more valuable: Sharpening. 

I am walking away each Monday night with ideas that I wrestle with throughout the week. 

Iron sharpening iron isn’t just a saying. It’s real.

And here’s the truth: I am challenged—every single week.

Challenged to be better Husband, father, friend, and business coach.
Challenged to listen to all of those around me.
Challenged to lead my wife and girls by example.

Because when you surround yourself with other people committed to growth, it pushes you to grow too.

It’s not always comfortable.
It’s not always easy.

But every time I walk away, I’m more aligned, more prepared, and more ready to face the week.

So a question for you: Where are you being sharpened? 

It could be a specific friend or friend group. 
A community or group. 

No matter what, if you intend to go far, do it with others. 

Don’t wait for the “perfect” moment. 
Build it. Lead it. Grow it.

Because in the end, that’s where real strength comes from.

I make it a priority to have lunch with my dad every other month. 
Last week was our time. 

We meet at the local golf course restaurant for a good meal and to catch up. 

Our past has had some ups, some downs, and we have not always seen eye-to-eye, but that is a-okay with me. 

Our relationship is not about agreement or even alignment. 
In fact, it really doesn't have a goal, per se, and that is okay too. 

We get together, catch up on life, talk business, the future, etc. 
Not too much more, but definitely not surface level either. 

The older I get, the more important these types of events play a role in my life. And I welcome them with open arms. 

I recommend this to anyone to who has keep a specific some one at arms length...Life is short. 

Take the first step, Reach out, schedule it, make it happen. 
Trust me, its worth it.

I just spent 5 hours over the last two days building a from-the-ground-up spreadsheet for owner-operators to make 2026 the best year yet. 

As my goal for 2026 is to help 100+ owner operators build better business in less time, ones they love to run versus running then, it starts here. 

As cash flow is the #1 killer to businesses, this is my focus: 
Build a business that creates consistent cash flow ith enough reserves to whether any storm. 

But the truth is, cash flow is a result of many other business decisions: 
Pricing, services, costs, payroll, expenses, owners salary, etc. 

And I address each one of these in the 1-Page PGR Gameplan. 
PGR is my "Profitable Growth Route" model I coach.

As growth without profit just magnifies the mess...
Profitable growth is the sweet spot. 

But the only way to get the 1-page PGR Gameplan is to attend my free webinar this Monday, November 24th, at 7 pm EST. (Signup link is in my featured section). 

This is not 100 pages of PDF’s to read through. 
Not countless hours of content to consume. 

Just 1 actionable plan we work together to build for you and your business. 

Afterwards leaving you with steps you can take tomorrow to get a jump start on 2026. 

No fluff. Just action. 👊

Most prospects I talk to aren’t eager to jump on a 20-minute call just to see if we’re a good fit. 

Nor do they want a 50-minute strategy session that feels like another sales pitch. 

They’ve been burned before. 
They’re tired of wasting time on calls that don’t deliver real value. 

But that’s not how I do it. 
I genuinely want to help. 

My approach is simple: I aim to provide so much value in 50 minutes that it’s ridiculous to not keep exploring what we could accomplish in just six weeks together. 

In my last strategy session, we ran out of time, and the client asked, “So, what’s it cost to start?” 

I wasn’t even thinking about selling. 
I wanted to solve his problems. 

Yes, I’ve been burned before with tire-kickers and free info seekers. 
But I believe in showing real value first. 

Because if I can’t help you see the potential in just one call, what’s the point? 

The truth is, most people just want to know someone who can actually help them — not waste their time. 

That’s what I do. 

And the best part? Once we start, I know you’ll see how much more we can get done — fast. 

No fluff. 
Just real results. 

What’s your take?

Last Monday was a complete failure. 

5-minutes prior to a webinar that I had spent over $300 promoting, I was told that the 22 people that had signed up for it, were not actually people - but bots.  

Not a single one.  

The week prior, I had stayed up every night, building the workbook gameplan, the webinar slides, and prepping my talking points.  

My goal was to over-deliver to those that showed up.  
Providing value they could use in the business the very next day.

I managed to get through the webinar to the few actual people that did show up.  
But it was a far cry from the amount of people I thought I was going to help.  

Within minutes of the webinar concluding I packed up my car with my wife and we left for the week to spend Thanksgiving with my wife’s family.

Instead of spending the week basking in a successful webinar, I was left considering what went wrong and what to do next.  

Was this a Meta issue?  An Ad issue?  Or something else?  

In the end, I am not sure and I am not sure I care.  The result was not achieved.

But just because it failed, does not mean the idea, execution, and plan was not a failure.  
It does not mean that webinars are not a great way to showcase value to potential clients.  

But too often, small business owners try something.  
And if it fails, they give up on it.  Chalk it up to being a bad idea.  

Someone might even spit out, “See, I told you it would not work”.  
Most likely to consider it again a few years later.  

But just because something fails, does not mean it is not a bad idea.  
It means that something within it failed.  

I love the old saying, “No need to throw the baby out with the bath water.”  
Just change the water.  

So that’s what I have decided to do.  
  
Run it back, but with some new boundaries and new parameters.  

Join me and some other real business owners on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025 at 7 pm for my 1-hour workshop Profitable Growth Gameplan™.  

Cost is $25.  Replays will be available.  

If you are a business owner who wants a plan to make 2026 far better than 2025, then this is for you. 

Link is in the comments...

Isn’t it crazy that there are only 6 more weeks left in 2025?! But more importantly, Q1 of 2026 is just around the corner. It’s time to be prepared to hit the ground running...

During this time of the year, for my own business and those I coach, I like to refer back to Gino Wickman “Traction” as it offers a powerful blueprint for shaping our future. 

Here is my plan to take a step toward achieving my goals in 2026…

🕒 Set aside 2 hours of focused, uninterrupted time. 
Just a notebook and pen. 

Think about the year this year: What do you want more of? What do you want less of? 
Remove the bad. 
Double down on the good. 

Think about what you can do over the next year to bring your 3 year vision to life?
(If you don’t have a 3 year vision - time to build one.)

1️⃣ As this is a one year plan, you have a date: Dec 31, 2026

2️⃣ Define the metrics to improve

Most often they include Revenue and Profit. 
But don’t forget, billable hours, your working hours, and other numbers that move the needle.

Right those numbers out and be specific. 

3️⃣ From those goals, what needs to happen in the next 90 days to make them happen? 

Remember, not everything needs to be done right away!
Decide what your priorities are in Q1. Spread out your other goals into different quarters. 
Keep them SMART (specific, measurable, and attainable)

4️⃣ Define the weekly habits that achieve the 90 day goals. 

This is where the magic happens. 
Break your 90-days goals into 12 weeks. 
Monitor weekly and execute relentlessly. 

I use these exact steps. 
These steps are not just theory. 
These steps are the tools that turn your goals into real life.

Ready to carve out your path to success? 
Share your thoughts in the comments!

Helping entrepreneurs and leaders maximize their freedom, creativity and impact | Entrepreneurial Leap, Rocket Fuel, EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System), The EOS Life, and The 10 Disciplines

Writing LinkedIn posts that truly communicate your message can be harder than it looks. 

You have a story to tell, a point to make, or a lesson to share. 

But the noise is loud, the attention span is short, and standing out feels almost impossible. 

It’s not just about writing; it’s about making people stop, listen, and understand—every single time. 

That’s the real challenge. 

What’s your take on how to cut through the noise?

A few lessons I learned while starting and scaling my coaching business to $100k in its first 10 months. 🚀

1. Nothing is as easy as it looks on the internet. 🌐

There is quite a bit we do not see from the successful" people. Their network, grit/work ethic behind the scenes, funding, etc.

2. Hiring a coach is the shortcut no one tells you about. 🎯

I had not started a coaching business before, so I hired a coach who had. 

I built an offer, a pricing strategy, a website, and started reaching out to my network.

3. I never took my foot off the gas.

Every morning, I woke up and asked myself, "how am I going to get 1 new client today." I was determined. 💪


Within my first 90-days, I had 5 monthly clients and shifted my focus to execution, while maintaining my momentum in client acquisition.

1. I put the customers' goals as my primary priority.

2. I helped them solve the "unsolvable.

3. I took my learning seriously, reading twice as much to help me have a greater reach of context when providing options and recommendations. 📚

I love coaching and honestly feel for the first time I am in my calling. 

Since going all in on coaching, I have more than replaced my W-2 income of my past while working from my home. 🏠

But more importantly, I have helped over 30+ business owners and solopreneurs build better businesses that take far less of their time while scaling. 🌟

The most underrated habit small business owners can adopt? 
Reviewing your Profit & Loss Statement every month.

It’s simple, yet powerful. 

If you have a P&L and aren’t reviewing it regularly, you’re flying blind. 

If you don’t have a P&L yet, you’re leaving profit on the table—and risking your business’s future. 

Here’s what to do today: 

1. Get your most recent P&L statement.
If you don’t have one, make it a priority to create it. 

2. Schedule 30 minutes this week to review it. 
Look at your revenue, expenses, and profit margins. 

3. Identify one area where you’re leaking profit or where margins can improve. 

4. Make a small, specific plan to fix it—whether it’s renegotiating a vendor, cutting unnecessary expenses, or optimizing pricing. 

Reviewing your P&L isn’t just bookkeeping; it’s a strategic tool to control your cash flow and grow profitably. 

Start today, and watch your business become more predictable and profitable. 

What’s your take—how often do you review your numbers?

While meeting with a client earlier this week, he asked me: 
“Should I run ads to the funnel we just built?”

His instinct was to go big—buy traffic, scale fast.

But here’s the truth: 
The materials weren’t tested. 
He hadn’t even run one call yet.

So we paused the ad idea and focused on something more important: 
→ Building a contact list 
→ Testing messages 
→ Validating the offer with real people 

Because boosting a great post after it works? Smart. 

Pouring money into an untested funnel? Waste.

You don’t want to pour gas on a fire that’s not burning yet.

Validation comes first. 
It’s what turns a good idea into a sustainable one.

Have you ever tried to scale something that wasn’t ready? 

Remember: Don’t rush to scale until you know your offer works in the real world. 

Test. 
Validate. 
Then scale confidently. 

That’s the way to grow smarter, not faster.

When I started coaching in June of 2023, I had no idea what I was doing. 

I mean, I had scaled a business +627% in revenue while 5.5x its profit. 
But I had never coached another business owner on how I did it. 

I felt I had the knowledge after going grading business school, 
But I never turned my results into a written and step-by-step gameplan. 

However, now, after coaching 30+ business owners the exact gameplan I built and used, I am ready to start sharing my program with more business owners in a more cost-effective investment. 

In 2026, my goal is to coach 100 business owners to build better businesses in less time. 

A business they run, rather than runs them. 
One with revenue on repeat of +25% annually. 
One that increases profit to at least 10%.
One that pays the owner-operator what it would cost to replace them. 
...All while not adding more hours. 

One client I spoke with yesterday, is determining their new pay rate (from $30k last year to around $100k in 2026) as they made more revenue, more profit last year and didn't work any extra hours. 

If you find yourself overworked and underpaid, I would love to help you. 
Trust me, it's not magic, just a different way of seeing your business. 

Starting December 1st I am running an 8-week pilot group coaching program for 10 owner-operators who want 2026 to be much better/different than 2025. 

If you relate to any of the above, I would love for you to be a part of this. 

My goal is to provide so much value in this first pilot program that the investment is 10x within 6 months. 

Selflessly, 10 business owners will walk into 2026 with more plan, hope, restful nights, and more money in the bank. 

Selfishly, I will build a rock solid program during our 8 weeks together that I can provide to 90+ more business owners with your feedback. 

This pilot program will be 50% of my price for the next time I run it - January 1, 2026. 

And if you don’t love it within the first 7 days, leave it. 
I will buy back the program from you. No harm, no foul. 

Shoot me a DM “Freedom” and I can send you more details. 

If you still might be on the fence, I am running a free 60-minute webinar on Monday, November 24th at 7 pm EST “Cash Flow Gameplan 2026. 

If interested, send me a DM “Webinar” and I will send you the link to sign up.

Let's make 2026 the best year yet.

Be in the 18% of small businesses that continue. 
Not the 82% that will die.

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The two life hacks for entrepreneurs that no one talks about:

1. Eating the same thing every day 
2. Wearing the same outfit every day 

At first glance, these might seem like small, trivial tips. 

But they are powerful tools to free up mental energy and reduce decision fatigue. 

When you're constantly making endless choices—what to eat, what to wear—your brain spends a lot of bandwidth on trivial decisions. 

That’s energy you could be channeling into your core business goals.

By sticking to simple routines, you:

- Save time every morning that can be used for strategic thinking or client work 
- Avoid decision fatigue, so your mental clarity remains sharp for the big stuff 
- Create habits that support focus, discipline, and consistency 

Imagine starting each day with your mental energy fully dedicated to solving problems, closing deals, or developing new strategies—rather than stressing over minor choices. 

The truth is, success often comes down to discipline and focus. 

Small routines like these aren’t about being boring; they’re about removing friction from your day so you can concentrate on what truly drives growth.

So next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, consider simplifying your routines. 

Sometimes, less choice means more clarity and energy for your business goals. 

What routines do you have that help you stay focused? 

(Yes, I have 3 black t-shirts and joggers I rotate through, which are the exact same. Funny thing is, I do the same thing for my gym/workout outfits - All black, all day.)

Linda came to me with a really good business, but bad profit. Her business partner and herself wanted something different, but weren’t sure how to get it. 

They had really good revenue. Great demand. A lot of potential. 
They knew they could be improving their business, but where? How? 

So, in our first two meetings, we built a perfect 12-week gameplan to execute to get them where they wanted to be. Or so we thought. 

After the second meeting...we pivoted. Hard. 

Not because we were wrong in our gameplan, but because as we dug deeper into each item, we would find another layer of items to address. 

These needed to be fixed prior to moving forward. 

But that’s how business is sometimes. 
You think you have a great plan and then, you actually need to re-build the foundation. 

For them specifically, we started with their pricing, in an effort to improve their profit, and ultimately their cash flow. 

Once the price was fixed, we focused on the sales process, which required a lot of time, many customer touches, and was a bit clunky. 

We started with a VSL, created a filter for clients, and only met with qualified prospects. 

Once the pricing and sales were in order, we focused on the financial aspect of the business. 

We plugged everything into my 5-minute CEO dashboard and saw exactly where our profit leaks were, rising costs, etc. No wonder cash flow was stalled. 

The wild part: They weren't the issue. Their systems were. 

Once we stabilized their foundation, their numbers took off: 

👉 Revenue increased by 12% (+$10k /mo)
👉 From a 6-month average of .9% (yes, point 9) to now averaging 16%
👉 Rather than using their savings, they doubled it with 3x Operating expenses saved

The crazy part: All of this was really without doing that much more work. 

If you want to see the exact plan we used — step-by-step — I’m teaching it inside Cash Flow Freedom to a limited number of business owners starting Dec 1. 

Prior to that, I am sharing some valuable nuggets in my free workshop: 

👉 Cash Flow Gameplan tonight (Mon, Nov 24) at 7 pm EST

No fluff. Small pitch. Tons of value. 

Link is in the comments.

Here is what people think hiring a small business coach looks like:

❌ Fast wins and instant money in the bank
❌ A magic system that is a quick fix
❌ No stress — ever again
❌ Perfect team, perfect clients, perfect life
❌ Working 10 hours a week, sipping margaritas by 12 pm every Friday

Here is what it actually looks like:

✔️ Starting with the person in the mirror
✔️ Tracking real metrics weekly instead of trusting your 'gut'
✔️ Firing underperformers fast and hiring systematically
✔️ Fixing offers, pricing strategy, and delivery — again and again
✔️ Admitting your success needs a new direction and plan

In service-based businesses, sustainable growth is rarely glamorous.
Oh, and don’t get frustrated if you realize you’re the bottleneck.

Instead, remember:

1️⃣ Facing the truth is step one
2️⃣ Broken systems can’t scale — fix them before you grow
3️⃣ Long-term profit > short-term ego boosts

What was your biggest reality check on the road to real growth?

Time and money—our two most valuable resources. 
And honestly, we rarely get to keep both at the same time. 

In the beginning, we pour our time into the business, trying to make every dollar stretch. 

We work nights, weekends, and then some, just to keep things afloat. 

Once we’ve worn ourselves out and accumulated some cash, it’s tempting to start buying back our time. 

But here’s the catch: 

If owners do this too soon, they risk becoming too top heavy—spreading themselves thin across every task. 

If they do it too late, they start losing quality because they’re still doing everything themselves. 

And at the end of the day, the business is only as strong as the owner allows it to be. 

You can’t outsource your passion, your vision, or your leadership. 

So, when is the right time? 
It’s when you’ve built a solid system, not just a paycheck. 

That’s when buying back your time becomes an investment, not a gamble. 

Because the real leverage? 
It’s in your ability to focus on what only you can do. 

What’s your take? 
When did you realize it was time to step back?

Flying V Group

Flying V Group is forging the path to help its clientele generate monthly recurring net income tied out to specific digital marketing and advertising initiatives. Located in Orange County, CA, Flying V Group has been recognized nationally by Clutch.co as a top B2B marketing company in the US. With over 40 employees, Flying V Group is revolutionizing agency deliverables.

Focused on omnichannel marketing strategy and implementation, Flying V Group boasts some of the world's best digital and advertising experts including Brennan Smith, Michelle Williams, Sean Fulford, Eddy Gutierrez, Achuth Ramesh, and many more. The team is dedicated to fast-paced growth and accelerated performance-driven marketing solutions. 

Service coverage includes website design and development, search engine optimization (SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO), paid media buying (Google, Meta, X, LinkedIn, TikTok, programmatic DSP), social media marketing, content marketing (blogs, whitepapers, case studies, video and photography), account based marketing (ABM), email marketing, cold outreach, and much more. 

Flying V Group helps businesses thrive and takes their win-win attitude into each and every one of their partnerships. You've just me Your Last Marketing Agency.

Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Torkvia

Torkvia is revolutionizing the automotive industry through advanced AI and marketing automation. The goal of the organization is to help OEM's, dealership groups, and other automotive vendors drive higher profit margins through their doors by deploying advanced targeting strategies, tools, and automations. 

Founded by Robb Fahrion and Yaroslava Vetchinkina, Torkvia is a passion project fueled by an identifiable market gap that each founder has seen first hand through industry experience investing and partnering with these companies. AI has accelerated the need for legacy group takeovers or, at minimum, legacy group disruption. 

The market is primed for new leaders to emerge and we are confident those new leaders will emerge with Torkvia by their side.

Co-Founder

Fahrion Group Investments, Inc.

Fahrion Group Investments partners with and invests in founders and companies that will disrupt their respective industries.

Partner

Migration

Migration is the think tank of Robb Fahrion and Steven Musielski.

Managing Partner

Sauz

What stood out to me about Sauz was the product. Every CPG brand is expected to have a great name, good branding, and a somewhat interesting story. Where most fail? The product itself. Sauz delivers and I think you are going to love it.

Strategic Investor

SocialSomm

SocialSomm is a first-of-its-kind creator-led wine discovery platform that blends the power of social influence with curated commerce. At the intersection of media, community, and commerce, Social Somm connects a growing collective of wine enthusiasts with emerging and boutique wineries through storytelling, influencer partnerships, and highly curated subscription experiences.

Founded by three powerhouse founders, Brooke Crowe, Jillian Puskas, and Alexandra Smith, SocialSomm is on a mission to modernize how the next generation experiences wine—shifting discovery away from outdated point-of-sale models and into the hands of creators and tastemakers with trusted digital audiences.

Why I Invested:

Social Somm represents a powerful convergence of three macro trends:

- The rise of creator-led commerce
- The premiumization of alcohol and DTC wine
- The shift toward trust-based discovery via social platforms

Where traditional wine clubs rely on static selections and impersonal marketing, SocialSomm offers:

- Creator-driven wine drops: Each selection is curated by sommeliers, influencers, and tastemakers with authentic engagement and deep audience trust.

- Shoppable content and social-first funnels: Seamlessly converting views into subscribers through native content on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts.

- Community building at scale: A modern take on the wine club model that fosters connection, education, and repeat purchase behavior.

Unique Market Position:

- High-growth niche: The U.S. DTC wine market is expected to surpass $6.5B by 2027, yet few players focus on social-native discovery.

- Untapped influencer economy in wine: Social Somm is one of the only platforms uniting wine influencers under a structured, scalable affiliate and creator ecosystem.

- Brand-as-platform opportunity: Social Somm has the potential to become the "Hypebeast of wine"—a tastemaking media brand, DTC commerce engine, and discovery vehicle all in one.

GenZ Automotive

As a strategic investor and active marketing advisor at GenZ Automotive, I’m helping shape the next era of the automotive experience—bridging innovation and performance through cutting-edge digital strategy. My involvement spans high-leverage SEO, growth marketing systems, and the implementation of scalable acquisition funnels rooted in the same frameworks we've used to grow Flying V Group and other portfolio companies.

This isn’t a passive investment—it’s a strategic alignment. GenZ is tackling real transformation in the auto sector, and my role is to operationalize marketing as a revenue-driving function from day one. I provide hands-on support across brand development, content architecture, and revenue attribution—ensuring our growth efforts connect directly to the bottom line.

Clean Loop Group

Narada

Based on new AI research from Berkeley, Narada's LLM Compiler routes text and voice commands to the right tools to complete your tasks in real time.

Narada is an AI assistant tailor-made for busy professionals. The first generative AI assistant that understands how to operate your email, calendar, and other tools you commonly use.

Strategic Advisor

Vaionic Technologies

Vaionic specializes in developing and manufacturing modular electric motors that delivers optimal performance, efficiency, and sustainability. Designed to offer power density, reduced weight, and lower emissions, resulting in significant resource and energy savings. 

Vaionic's common goal is to develop technology that will bring sustainability to electric mobility. Each member of the team contributes unique skills and commitment, from engineering to management. The team works collaboratively with mutual respect, driven by a sense of purpose to create a sustainable future.

Investor

𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮You are business owner, CEO, or marketing executive and you’re tired of ridiculous fees from marketing agencies who talk a big game, but beneath the excitement and hype, you’re left underwhelmed with results below your expectations.You’ve put your money where your mouth is, and you just want actual results.𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐌𝐞Hi, I’m Robb Fahrion, and I’m going to try to sell you something.I’ve got a happy, energetic fluffball named Sunny🐾 - but it’s definitely not her! I’m also the Founder and CEO of a top-rated, fast-rising digital marketing agency located in Newport Beach, CA, but that’s also not where this is going. Yet.I’m a simple guy, but with a powerful vision, and with this vision, we've grown to a $5M digital marketing startup from a $10k investment.I'm also an entrepreneur. I know how to build big businesses. I currently have vested interests in companies like Sauz, GenZ Automotive, Sekur, SocialSomm, Clean Loop Group, Vaionic, and more to come.Those… are not for sale either, yet...😄What I am offering to sell you, however, is this - my vision. But not without facts and figures. Here are the facts:𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞’𝐯𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐧𝐞Web Design: Our website services create elegant and automated profit generation machines. Paid Media: We’ve managed over $50M in paid media/performance based advertising spend across Google and many social media networks like Meta.SEO and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): We handle SEO/GEO campaigns and average traffic increases greater than 42% on a 12-month rolling basis. This include ChatGPT and Perplexity.Convertion Rate: We focus on driving profit. Not just clicks. Not just impressions. Actionable leads/sales that generate more revenue and profitability for your business. We connect marketing dollars to performance on the P&amp;L. 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 𝐎𝐮𝐭?Flying V Group is a top GLOBAL digital marketing agency as named by Clutch (a platform of in-depth client reviews, data-driven content, and vetted market leaders).Our purpose is to establish long-term, win-win business relationships. Our clients work with us for more than a year on average. We are competitors and athletes. Fierce and unrelenting. We want to be the best and with that means we stop at nothing short of dominance for our partners. Would you be open minded to jumping on a discovery call with our experts to undersand your business needs and how we can capitalize quickly?Call: (949) 940-8884Email: Info@FlyingVGroup.comWebsite: FlyingVGroup.comHQ: 4695 MacArthur Court, Suite 1630, Newport Beach, CA 92660

Robb Fahrion

Elite operators don't do annual reviews.

Here's what they do differently. 

They build continuous feedback loops that catch problems in days, not quarters.

Feedback 90 days late isn't feedback. 

It's archaeology.

Annual performance reviews cost companies $180K+ annually.

Measured impact on actual performance: zero.

You're paying for documentation theater, not improvement.

The Timing Problem

Memory degrades fast.

After 30 days: 60% of context gone.

After 90 days: you're guessing.

Most companies collect feedback quarterly or annually.

By the time feedback arrives, the project's over. The team's moved on. The context has evaporated.

You're not improving performance. You're recording history.

Real-Time Signal Systems

Elite operators build continuous loops.

Weekly Pattern Recognition

60 seconds every Friday:

"What created momentum this week?"

"What slowed us down?"

No analysis. No action items.

Just pattern visibility.

Over 12 weeks, you see what's working before annual reviews would catch it.

Peer Recognition Channels

Cross-functional visibility beats top-down evaluation.

One portfolio company added peer recognition.

Result: project completion time dropped 40% in 90 days.

Why? People spotted blockers immediately instead of months later.

Micro-Corrections

End every 1-on-1 with 90 seconds:

"One thing working. One thing to adjust."

Feedback lands while work is active.

People can actually apply it instead of filing it away.

Why Traditional Systems Fail

Annual reviews optimize for documentation, not development.

What companies measure:
➜ Whether reviews happened
➜ Score distribution
➜ Documentation completeness

What they don't measure:
➜ Behavior change rates
➜ Performance improvement speed
➜ Time from feedback to application

The system produces paperwork, not progress.

The Cost Inversion

Traditional performance management:
➜ Expensive platforms
➜ Manager training
➜ Calibration meetings
➜ Annual cost: $150K-$300K

Continuous micro-feedback:
➜ Weekly 60-second prompts
➜ Brief 1-on-1 adjustments
➜ Annual cost: zero

Performance improvement:
Traditional: minimal
Continuous: 3-5x faster adjustment

Premium prices. Inferior outcomes.

Where This Breaks

Formalization creep: Simple check-ins become bureaucratic processes. Administrative overhead kills the speed advantage.

Asymmetric power: If junior people can't give feedback to senior leaders without career risk, you get politeness instead of truth.

No follow-through: Same issues surface weekly for months without change? You've built a complaint system, not an improvement system.

What's the lag between notable work and meaningful feedback in your organization?

Chief Executive Officer at Flying V Group | Partner at Fahrion Group Investments | Managing Partner at Migration | Strategic Investor | Monthly Recurring Net Income Growth Expert

Send a micromanager to leadership training and nothing changes.

Because you can't skill-train someone out of a trauma response.

Controller gets fired. Team celebrates. New leader promises autonomy.

Three months later? Same shit, different person.

Here's what everyone misses:

Micromanagement isn't a leadership style. It's a symptom.

👉 The Pattern Nobody Talks About

I've watched this across 40+ executive teams.

A project tanks. Revenue miss. Public failure.

The brain doesn't file this under "learning experience." It files it under "threat to survival."

And that threat response doesn't expire when you get promoted. It compounds.

👉 What's Actually Happening

Three things running simultaneously in the micromanager's brain:

Threat detection overdrive: Amygdala scanning for risks that mirror past failures

Control compensation: Prefrontal cortex trying to prevent future pain through present-moment grip

Identity protection: Ego defending against being "found out"

Translation?

They're not managing you. They're managing their own nervous system's alarm bells.

👉 The Expensive Misdiagnosis

Most companies treat this as a training problem.

"Send them to leadership development."

"Coach them on delegation."

"Give them feedback about trust."

None of it works. Because you can't skill-train someone out of a trauma response.

👉 What Actually Breaks The Pattern

The executives who've overcome this? Three specific interventions:

Pattern recognition work

Not therapy. Pattern mapping.

Document every instance where control impulses spike. What triggered it? What past scenario does it mirror?

Most discover they're not reacting to current team performance. They're replaying a project from 2019 that almost cost them their job.

Explicit risk tolerance frameworks

Define acceptable failure ranges upfront.

"If this project misses by 15%, that's within tolerance."

"If we lose this client, here's our recovery path."

The brain needs permission to let go. Numbers provide that permission better than platitudes about empowerment.

Consequence exposure therapy

Deliberately let small things fail.

Watch the team recover without your intervention.

Let your nervous system learn: delegation doesn't equal disaster.

👉 Bottom Line

Micromanagement is expensive pattern recognition.

Your brain learned: "When I don't control everything, bad things happen."

That learning was valid once. It's costing you millions now.

The question isn't "How do I delegate better?"

It's "What failure am I still trying to prevent that already happened?"

Answer that, and the grip loosens automatically.

Highest-performing teams don't avoid friction.

They architect it. Here's the difference.  

That actually shows up in revenue.

Innovation is collision, not collaboration.

Know the difference.

I checked meeting recordings from twelve executive teams last month.

The ones missing targets? Averaged 2.3 disagreements per hour.

The ones crushing forecasts? 17.4.

That's a 7.5x difference in productive conflict.

Your "collaborative culture" might be killing your competitive edge.

👉 The Harmony Trap

Boardrooms full of nodding heads aren't building consensus.

They're manufacturing expensive mistakes in real-time.

Because here's what actually happens when nobody challenges the strategy:
➠ Flawed assumptions compound
➠ Blind spots multiply
➠ Course corrections come too late

The cost? One portfolio company lost $4.2M chasing a product direction everyone privately knew wouldn't work.

Nobody said it out loud until the market did.

How Elite Teams Leverage Disagreement

The highest-performing organizations I've studied don't avoid friction.

They architect it.

👉 Start With Credibility

Before the challenge comes context:

"Given our Q4 pipeline constraints, the conservative timeline makes tactical sense."

You're proving you understand their reasoning before dismantling it.

👉 The Measurement Problem

Most teams track engagement scores and satisfaction metrics.

Zero teams track productive conflict frequency.

Track these instead:
➠ Challenges per strategic decision
➠ Time between problem identification and surfacing
➠ Percentage of disagreements that generate new solutions
➠ How often minority viewpoints change outcomes

One leadership team started measuring "constructive challenges per meeting."

Within 60 days, decision quality improved measurably. Execution speed increased 40%.

Not because they agreed more.

Because they disagreed better.

👉 The Real Diagnostic

Pull your last three leadership meetings.

Count how many times someone said:
➠ "I see this differently"
➠ "Here's where I disagree"
➠ "That assumption concerns me"

If the count is zero, you've got a problem.

The issue isn't that people agree with everything.

It's that the cost of disagreement exceeds the perceived benefit.

That's a culture tax you're paying in:
➠ Slower decisions
➠ Weaker strategies
➠ Missed market opportunities
➠ Talent that leaves because they can't speak up

The Conflict Calculus

Teams optimized for harmony hit local maxima.

Teams optimized for productive tension find global maxima.

The difference shows up in:
➠ Market position
➠ Innovation velocity
➠ Talent retention
➠ Strategic optionality

Because the best ideas don't come from consensus.

They come from collision.

What's the last strategic decision your team made where someone strongly disagreed but the group moved forward anyway?

If you can't name one, you're not building alignment.

You're manufacturing groupthink with better lighting.

P.S. What are your thoughts on these?

Vulnerable brand narratives don't convert. 

Specific outcome proof does.

One of our clients called me last Friday afternoon.

"Robb, we just hired a 'brand storytelling expert.' Cost us $180K. Six months later, our pipeline's actually down 12%."

I ask to see the work.

It's gorgeous.

Award-worthy creative. Emotional arcs. Hero's journey frameworks. The whole nine yards.

But here's what nobody told them:

Brand storytelling isn't about YOUR story.
It's about the story your customer tells themselves after working with you.

That distinction just cost them $2.3M in lost deals.

Here's what actually moves revenue:

↗️ The Identity Shift Framework

Most agencies tell stories about:
→ Their founding moment
→ Their "why"
→ Their values and mission

Elite firms tell stories about:
→ The client's transformation
→ The specific problem solved
→ The measurable outcome achieved

Your prospect doesn't care that you "started in a garage with a dream."

They care that you helped a company like theirs go from $5M to $50M ARR.

◻️ The Narrative Gap That Kills Conversions

We analyzed 89 agency websites last quarter.

73% led with their own origin story.

The 16% that led with client transformation?

Converting at 340% higher rates.

Because here's the truth:

Nobody buys your story.
They buy the story where THEY become the hero.

And you're the guide who makes that possible.

✅ What Authentic Narrative Actually Means

It's not about being "vulnerable" or "raw."
It's about being SPECIFIC about outcomes.

Compare these:

❌ "We help companies grow through innovative marketing."
✅ "We built a systematic attribution model that helped a PE portfolio company identify $4M in wasted ad spend and redeploy it for 280% ROI increase in 6 months."

One's a story about you being innovative.

The other's a story about them getting rich.

Which one gets the meeting?

🛑 The Flying V Difference

We don't sell marketing services.

We sell the story of what your business becomes when marketing actually works.

That fertility clinic that couldn't compete with the big chains?

Now they're the dominant player in their market.

That's not OUR story.
That's THEIR story.

We just built the system that made it possible.

The Bottom Line:

Every marketing agency claims to "tell your story."

But if that story doesn't end with measurable revenue growth and competitive advantage...

It's just expensive fiction.

Your customers don't need another brand narrative.

They need the narrative where they WIN.

And they need the systematic frameworks that turn that narrative into reality.

What story are your customers telling themselves after working with you?

If you can't answer that with specific metrics and outcomes, you're not doing storytelling.

You're doing creative writing.

And creative writing doesn't pay the bills.


P.S. What are your thoughts on these?

The entire market is running toward the same crowded exit.

I'm walking toward industries that have compounded cash for forty years.

Waste management company in Ohio: $8.2M revenue, 23% EBITDA, owner answers his own phone.

SaaS company in San Francisco: $8.2M revenue, -15% burn rate, fourteen employees who've read the same growth playbook.

Guess which one every investor wants?

Guess which one actually prints money?

The entire market is running toward the same crowded exit while completely ignoring industries that have been compounding cash for forty years.

Three industries everyone ignores: waste management, auto repair, insurance brokers.

Average EBITDA margins: 18-24%.

Average operator age: 62.

Average marketing budget as % of revenue: 0.8%.

Compare that to SaaS (everyone's favorite):

12% margins if you're lucky, 34-year-old operators who've read the same growth playbooks, 40% of revenue into CAC.

The arbitrage isn't in the sexy stuff.

It's in the boring industries with structural advantages nobody wants to touch.

☑️  The Contrarian Arbitrage Loop

Here's what I'm seeing:

Fat Margins + Zero Competition for Talent

➩ Waste management companies printing 22% EBITDA
➩ Running on pen, paper, and a Rolodex from 1987
➩ Owner wants to retire but has no succession plan
➩ Zero PE firms sniffing around because "it's not tech"

Low Tech Penetration = Massive Upside

➩ These operators haven't discovered basic CRM
➩ Their "marketing" is a Yellow Pages ad from 2003
➩ SEO? Never heard of it.
➩ Attribution? They barely track phone calls.

Insert a competent marketing system and revenue doubles within 18 months. Not theory. Pattern I've watched repeat across twelve acquisitions.

Aging Operators = Motivated Sellers

➩ Boomers retiring at scale over next 5 years
➩ Built valuable businesses, terrible at marketing
➩ Want liquidity, have no digital strategy
➩ Will sell at reasonable multiples because alternatives are worse

The play isn't complicated:

◻️ Identify unloved verticals with structural moats (regulations, licenses, local relationships)
◻️ Deploy proven marketing systems that these industries have never seen (basic SEO looks like magic to them)
◻️ Acquire at 3-4x EBITDA instead of 8-12x that everyone pays for SaaS
◻️ Scale with actual leverage because you're not fighting twenty competitors using identical playbooks

This is what I call the Contrarian Arbitrage Portfolio.

Use digital marketing as the wedge.

Target industries with high margins and low sophistication.

Build a rollup strategy while everyone else chases the same crowded opportunities.


Question:

What's the most overlooked industry you've seen with massive arbitrage potential?

Teams waiting on your decisions never scale

Every decline meeting builds their independence 

As a CEO, 23 hours in meetings. 4 hours on strategy.

You're administrating, not leading.

I pulled up my meeting analytics last month.

Average executive: 23 hours in meetings per week.

Average time spent on strategic decisions that actually determine company trajectory: 4.2 hours.

That 5.5:1 ratio explains why most companies execute well but strategize poorly.

Your calendar isn't a productivity problem. It's a priority architecture failure.

👉 The Accessibility Myth

"Open door policy" sounds like good leadership.

In practice, it means your most valuable cognitive hours get auctioned off to whoever asks first.

CEOs spending 25+ hours weekly in meetings: strategic initiatives stall, decisions slow, teams wait for approvals.

CEOs protecting 15+ hours for deep work: faster execution, clearer direction, autonomous teams.

The difference isn't time management.

It's understanding that your scarcest resource isn't time -- it's uninterrupted strategic thinking.

👉 The Cognitive Load Problem

Every context switch costs you.

Research shows it takes 23 minutes to fully recover focus after an interruption.

If you're interrupted every 15 minutes (standard for "accessible" leaders), you never actually achieve deep cognitive work.

You're operating in permanent shallow mode.

That's where weak strategies come from.

👉 The Protection Protocol

Elite operators don't manage their calendars.

They architect their cognitive capacity.

Fixed Strategic Blocks

Non-negotiable windows for high-value thinking:
➣ Early mornings before reactive demands start
➣ Fixed afternoons when decisions get made
➣ Zero exceptions for "quick questions"

One founder I know: 5-8 AM daily, phone off, no meetings ever.

That's where product strategy, market positioning, and resource allocation decisions happen.

The rest of the day? Execution and communication.

👉 What Actually Changes

Tracked outcomes across executives who implemented strict calendar boundaries:
➣ Decision velocity increased 60%
➣ Team autonomy jumped 3x
➣ Strategic project completion rate tripled
➣ Reported stress levels dropped 40%

The pattern holds across industries.

Protecting cognitive capacity compounds.

Being constantly available fragments it.

👉 The Real Diagnostic

Pull your last two weeks of calendar data.

Calculate hours spent in:
➣ Meetings you could have skipped
➣ Decisions others could have made
➣ "Updates" that could have been emails
➣ Uninterrupted strategic thinking time

If strategic thinking is less than 20% of your week, you're not leading.

You're administrating.

There's a difference.

And your competitors who've figured this out are building moats while you're in your seventh "sync" of the day.


P.S. What's currently on your calendar this week that someone else should be handling?

Culture isn't built in all-hands or vision statements.

It's built in 847 small conversations where someone feels heard.

Your team needs predictable 1:1s, not perfect ones.

Consistency compounds trust.

I analyzed 47 executive teams last quarter.

The ones with the highest retention rates didn't have better compensation packages.

They had leaders who asked three specific questions every week.

That's it.

No elaborate engagement programs. No culture consultants. No offsite retreats with trust falls.

Just three questions, repeated religiously.

The 3-Question Framework That Builds Commitment

Here's what the top-performing teams do:

1️⃣ Question 1: "What's working?"

Not "how's it going?" or "any wins this week?"

What is WORKING right now?

This does two things:
➼ Forces people to identify what's actually creating value (not just staying busy)
➼ Reveals patterns worth amplifying instead of just firefighting problems

2️⃣ Question 2: "What's stuck?"

Not blocked. Not broken. Not failing.

Stuck.

That word matters.

Blocked implies someone else is the problem.

Broken implies incompetence.

Stuck implies temporary -- something we can unstick together.

I've watched this single word choice change how people answer. They stop defending themselves and start collaborating on solutions.

3️⃣ Question 3: "How can I help?"

Not "let me know if you need support."

Not "I'm here if you need me."

How can I help with THIS thing that's stuck RIGHT NOW?

Make yourself useful in the moment, not vaguely available in theory.

Why this works when elaborate systems fail:

➼ Frequency compounds trust: 15 minutes weekly beats 60 minutes monthly
➼ Simplicity enables execution: Three questions means zero prep, zero excuses
➼ Pattern recognition emerges: By week 4, you'll spot what's chronically stuck vs. temporarily stuck

👉 Real implementation data:

Tracked one leadership team that adopted this.

Week 1-3: Answers were guarded, surface-level
Week 4-6: Real issues started surfacing
Week 8: First retention save -- someone interviewing elsewhere decided to stay
Month 4: Team velocity increased 34%

Time investment: 90 minutes per week for 6 direct reports.

ROI: Kept two senior engineers who would've cost $180K+ to replace.

The part nobody wants to hear:

This only works if you actually DO it.

Every week. Same day. Same time. No exceptions.

Most leaders try this for three weeks, get busy, skip one session, then the whole thing falls apart.

Your team doesn't need perfect 1:1s.

They need predictable ones.

Because culture isn't built in the big moments -- the all-hands, the offsites, the vision statements.

It's built in the 847 small conversations where someone feels heard, helped, and valued.

Your competitors are having those conversations right now.

With your best people.

How often are you doing real 1:1s with your team -- weekly or when there's a problem?

People making 8% returns are using 1987 methodology.

People making 47% are treating portfolios like ad campaigns.

Killed three positions yesterday. Total loss: $47K.

Scaled two others by 10x. Total gain: $340K.

My financial advisor called it "reckless."

I called it "running the same playbook that built a $50M marketing engine."

Because somewhere between my tenth year optimizing ad campaigns and my third year managing capital, I realized something:

The people making 8% annual returns are using 1987 methodology.

The people making 47% are treating portfolios like performance marketing.

Here's what nobody tells you about investing:

The best investors don't think like analysts.

They think like growth marketers.

✅ THE PORTFOLIO OPERATING SYSTEM

Most people build portfolios like they're collecting baseball cards.

I build mine like I'm running a $10M ad account.

Here's the framework:

↗️ Capital = Ad Spend

Every dollar is a test.

↳ Small positions = low-budget creative tests
↳ Winners get scaled with conviction
↳ Losers get cut before they bleed

No emotional attachment to "good companies."

Only mathematical attachment to what's working.

◻️ Positions = Creative Variants

Tech stock up 15% in 30 days?

That's a winning ad creative.

Scale it.

Dividend play flat for 6 months?

That's a 0.3% CTR Facebook ad.

Kill it.

✅ Rebalancing = Retargeting

Gains get reallocated to new opportunities.

Losses get analyzed for pattern recognition.

The portfolio learns and adapts.

Just like your best campaigns.

👥 THE BREAKTHROUGH INSIGHT

I spent 10 years building marketing systems that generate $50M+ in tracked revenue.

The methodology is identical:

↳ Test multiple hypotheses simultaneously
↳ Measure everything obsessively
↳ Double down on signals
↳ Cut what doesn't convert

The only difference?

In marketing, you're optimizing for customers.

In investing, you're optimizing for capital efficiency.

Same operating system.

Different asset class.

❇️ WHY THIS MATTERS

Most investors are running their portfolios like it's 1987.

Buy and hold.

Diversify broadly.

Hope for 8% annual returns.

Meanwhile, growth marketers are:

↳ Running 50+ variants simultaneously
↳ Killing underperformers in 48 hours
↳ Scaling winners by 10x in a week

Why aren't we applying this thinking to wealth creation?

🛑 THE GOAL

Take what worked in one position.

Reverse engineer the pattern.

Deploy it 100 times faster across the entire portfolio.

That's not investing.

That's building a profit-generating machine that happens to use stocks instead of landing pages.

Question for the investors and operators here:

What happens when you stop thinking like Warren Buffett and start thinking like a performance marketer?

I'm finding out.

The results are uncomfortable for traditional finance.

But the math doesn't care about tradition.

Elite organizations assume differently. 

Here's the real reason why. 

First off, they assume that their biggest initiative just failed catastrophically.

Then work backward to fix vulnerabilities before they're vulnerabilities.

Practice crisis now. Survive crisis later.

Simple math.

Crisis-proof cultures don't happen by accident.

They're engineered.

Most leadership teams wait for disaster to reveal their weaknesses. By then, it's expensive. Sometimes fatal.

The companies that survive market shocks, leadership transitions, and unexpected crises share one thing: they stress-tested their culture before it mattered.

Here's what that actually looks like:

👉 The Pre-Mortem Protocol

Standard practice in elite organizations:
⇥ Assume your biggest initiative just failed catastrophically
⇥ Work backward to identify every possible breaking point
⇥ Fix the vulnerabilities before they're vulnerabilities

Most teams run post-mortems after things break.

Smart teams run pre-mortems before launch.

The difference? About $2M in prevented losses per major initiative.

👉 Crisis Simulation Architecture

You can't build resilience in theory.

You build it through controlled exposure:

⇥ Quarterly scenarios where key leaders are "unavailable"
⇥ Decision-making drills with incomplete information
⇥ Communication cascades under artificial time pressure

One portfolio company runs these every 90 days. When their CEO had emergency surgery last year, the company didn't miss a beat.

Revenue actually accelerated.

👉 The Stress-Test Matrix

Map your culture against actual pressure points:

Leadership Vacuum: What happens when your top performer quits tomorrow?

Market Shock: How do you respond when your biggest competitor drops prices 40%?

Resource Constraint: Can you operate effectively at 60% budget?

Communication Breakdown: What's your protocol when normal channels fail?

Most cultures are optimized for good times. They collapse under pressure because nobody designed for stress.

Building Organizational Scar Tissue

Resilience comes from controlled failure:
⇥ Small experiments where failure is cheap
⇥ Post-mortems that actually change behavior
⇥ Permission to surface problems early
⇥ Systems that improve after each stress event

Companies that avoid all failure are fragile.

Companies that learn from small failures become antifragile.

👉 The Resilience Paradox:

The organizations that seem most "stable" often shatter under pressure.

The ones that regularly stress-test themselves?

They bend. They adapt. They survive.

Because resilience isn't what happens during crisis.

It's what you build before crisis hits.


P.S. What's your organization's biggest untested vulnerability right now?

The blunt truth about quarterly planning:

You're optimizing for outcomes that won't matter in 36 months.

Three executives called me last week about "strategic planning."

Translation: panic disguised as process.

They want quarterly roadmaps. Stakeholder alignment. Board-ready decks that show "momentum."

I asked each one the same question: "What are you building that won't matter for three years?"

Silence. Every time.

Because here's the thing nobody wants to hear -- 

Most "strategy" is just sophisticated procrastination from the work that actually compounds.

Every panic about this quarter's metrics, every celebration of this month's wins, every emergency meeting about this week's numbers...

It's all noise masquerading as signal.

The only decisions that compound are the ones that change what happens three years from now.

Not three months. Not three quarters.

Three years minimum.

✅ The Temporal Leverage Framework

I've started filtering every major decision through one question:

"Will this fundamentally alter my position 36 months from today?"

If the answer is no -- doesn't matter how urgent it feels right now—it goes in the noise bucket.

Examples of noise (feels important, changes nothing):

➜ This quarter's revenue miss
➜ That viral LinkedIn post
➜ Competitor's new feature launch
➜ This month's team drama
➜ Your current marketing campaign performance

Examples of future-affected change (invisible now, compounds forever):

➜ Building proprietary attribution methodology
➜ Developing systematic client acquisition engine
➜ Creating frameworks competitors can't replicate
➜ Hiring the operator who'll scale what you can't
➜ Establishing strategic relationships with decision-makers

The difference?

Noise creates activity.

Future-affected change creates asymmetric advantage.

Here's what this looks like operationally:

I now evaluate every investment—financial, temporal, or cognitive—against a single metric:

"Does this increase my optionality or capability three years out?"

The brutal part nobody talks about:

Most "urgent" decisions are just elaborate distractions from the work that actually matters.

Your brain craves the dopamine hit of solving immediate problems.

Quarterly reviews. Weekly metrics. Daily fires.

All designed to keep you optimizing for outcomes that won't matter in 36 months.

One warning:

This framework is psychologically uncomfortable.

You'll watch competitors celebrate quarterly wins while you're building infrastructure.

You'll have stakeholders questioning investments that show zero immediate return.

You'll feel like you're "falling behind" while everyone else sprints toward metrics that don't compound.

That discomfort is the price of asymmetric advantage.

Question for you:

What percentage of your decisions this month will fundamentally alter your position in 2028?

If it's under 20% -- you're optimizing for noise.

The market rewards those who can see past the present.


P.S. What are your thoughts?

Checked my encrypted email this morning and started laughing.

Not at the email. At the entire privacy industry.

Everyone's arguing about which VPN is best. 

Which messaging app is most secure. ProtonMail vs Tutanota. Signal vs Telegram.

Cool. You're encrypting your messages.

Know what you're not encrypting? The fact that your "secure" platform runs on AWS. Or Google Cloud. Or Azure.

You just installed a titanium vault... in someone else's warehouse. 

Where they have the master key. And cameras. And a legal obligation to hand over footage when asked.

The thing nobody talks about:

Most privacy companies don't own infrastructure. They rent it.

Sekur Private Data Ltd. (OTCQB: SWISF) (CSE: SKUR) (FRA: GDT0) caught my eye because they don't.

Full stack ownership. Swiss servers, Swiss jurisdiction, proprietary everything. 

No third parties. No cloud providers. No "we lease from..."

Is this paranoia? Maybe for most people.

For companies doing M&A? Holding client data? Negotiating IP deals? 

One leaked email costs more than a decade of Sekur subscriptions.

What's actually different here:

Their HeliX protocol is proprietary. Not open-source code that hackers dissect on GitHub for fun.

SekurSend lets you send encrypted messages to people who don't use Sekur. 

They click a link, read it securely, done. No app download. You control how long it lives and who sees it.

The pricing ($90-150/user/month) sounds expensive until you realize what one compromised executive email costs. Then it sounds cheap.

Here's what bugs me about the privacy conversation:

We're debating encryption strength while ignoring infrastructure ownership. 

Like arguing about lock quality while renting the building from the guy you're trying to keep out.

The CLOUD Act gives U.S. government access to data on American cloud providers. 

Doesn't matter if it's encrypted. Doesn't matter where the servers physically sit. 

If the company is U.S.-based or uses U.S. infrastructure, they can compel access.

Sekur's entirely Swiss. Different rules. Different game.

Look, I'm not saying everyone needs this.

If you're emailing calendar invites and memes, Gmail is fine.

But if you're negotiating deals worth 8-9 figures? If client confidentiality is contractual, not optional? If one strategy leak torpedoes a year's work?

Then the question flips from "Can we afford Sekur?" to "Can we afford to keep using consumer-grade email for enterprise-level risk?"

Most companies are still performing privacy. Installing Ring cameras while leaving the back door wide open.

I'm watching to see if Sekur approach catches on or stays niche. 

Because right now, they're solving a problem most executives don't realize they have.

Until they do. Usually too late.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating 🦃🦃🦃🦃

You can't mandate psychological safety.

You can only model the behavior that makes it inevitable.

Your team just sat through another strategy meeting.

Twelve people. Ninety minutes. Zero disagreement.

Felt productive?

That silence just cost you about $2.3M in missed opportunities over the next 18 months.

The Invisible Tax

Most executives confuse compliance for commitment.

Your team isn't aligned. They're performing alignment.

Big difference.

It shows up in three places you're not measuring:

• Ideas that die in people's heads before reaching the room
• Risks nobody takes because the last person who tried got quietly sidelined
• Problems everyone sees but nobody names until they're catastrophic

Technical term? Psychological friction.

The gap between what people know and what they're willing to say.

It's killing your decision velocity.

What Actually Builds Safety

Forget trust falls. Forget vulnerability workshops.

Companies generating outsized returns do something different:

They engineer predictable responses to unpredictable inputs.

Translation: Your team needs to know exactly what happens when they bring you:

• A failed experiment
• A controversial opinion
• A mistake they made
• An idea that challenges the plan

Most leaders think their reaction is fine. Their teams know otherwise.

The 72-Hour Pattern

Track this in your next three leadership interactions:

Scenario 1: Someone challenges your strategy

Weak: "Interesting point, but here's why we're doing it this way..."

Strong: "Walk me through your concern. What am I missing?"

Scenario 2: Someone reports a failure

Weak: "Okay, let's make sure this doesn't happen again."

Strong: "What did we learn that changes how we operate?"

Scenario 3: Someone proposes something risky

Weak: "Let's table that for now."

Strong: "What's the smallest version of this we could test?"

Your team is studying these patterns right now.

They're deciding whether honesty gets rewarded or tolerated.

The One Question That Changes Everything

Start your next strategy session with this:

"What's one assumption we're making that could be completely wrong?"

Then wait.

Don't fill the silence. Don't defend. Don't explain.

Just listen.

The quality of what comes next tells you everything about your team's psychological safety.

Silence? You've got a performance problem masquerading as alignment.

Immediate pushback? You've built something rare.

The Blunt Reality

You can't mandate psychological safety. You can only model it:

• Reward the person who killed a bad project early
• Promote the leader whose team disagrees with them publicly
• Celebrate the failure that taught you something expensive

Your team is watching what you do when things go sideways.

That's the only culture document that matters.

The case for what the market truly rewards.

Here's what's happening.


Markets reward conviction that makes people do unreasonable things.

Not pitch decks that attract capital.

A partner at a $400M fund told me something yesterday that made me rethink everything.

"Show me the spreadsheet after you show me why your team would work for free."

He wasn't joking.

Passed on a company with $12M ARR and 40% margins because the founder's answer to "why this?" was "market opportunity."

Funded a pre-revenue company the same week because the founder said: 

"My co-founder's sister died from this. We're not building a business. We're making sure it doesn't happen to someone else's sister."

The IRR models were irrelevant.

One had a thesis. The other had a TAM slide.

Here's what I've learned watching VC partners evaluate 200+ deals over the last 18 months:

The thesis isn't a spreadsheet.

It's spiritual.

◻️ The Real Investment Thesis Lives Here:

Story Coherence

➠ Can the founder explain why THIS problem, why NOW, why THEM in under 60 seconds?
➠ Does the mission feel inevitable or manufactured?
➠ When they talk about the problem, do you feel the urgency or just hear the pitch?

Energetic Alignment

➠ Would talented people follow this founder into uncertainty?
➠ Is there conviction that transcends the cap table?
➠ Does the team believe in the mission or just the exit multiple?

Operational Clarity Fused With Emotional Truth

➠They know exactly what to build AND why it matters beyond revenue
➠ The roadmap serves the vision, not the other way around
➠ Metrics track progress toward impact, not just growth

I watched a partner pass on a company with perfect unit economics last quarter.

Why?

"The founder couldn't explain why his team would stay when things got hard. No shared belief system. Just comp packages and vesting schedules."

Three weeks later, backed a company with messier metrics but ironclad conviction.

The founder's answer to "why you?": "Because we've all lost someone to this problem. We're not building a company. We're settling a score."

That's a thesis.

↗️ The Framework:

Before you invest, expand, partner, or acquire -- ask three questions:

Where is the conviction that transcends spreadsheets?

What's the shared urgency that makes people do unreasonable things?

Would others follow this leader into the dark?

If you can't answer those clearly, the TAM doesn't matter.

Because markets reward belief systems that attract true believers.

Not pitch decks that attract capital.

Question:

When's the last time you invested in something -- team, strategy, partnership -- because the conviction was undeniable, not because the numbers checked out?

What happened?

Very proud brother moment. Alongside building Flying V Group, my brother was also busy building KeenVision from the ground up—and he recently exited the company to explore new ventures!

Tyler, congratulations on your work as a partner in the business and for being a foundational pillar for KeenVision then, now, and in the future, as your legacy continues to drive Keen to new heights. You created countless opportunities and immeasurable value for every individual you crossed paths with during your time at Keen.

I’m more excited than ever for what the future holds.

Congratulations on such an incredible accomplishment at such a young age.

I don't post much, but would like to take some time to highlight this.

After 10 years, I am ready to move on to the next venture. I am so proud of what we have built at KeenVision. It's been an absolute pleasure growing the Planful and Pigment practices. Thinking back to 2015, it was just Mark Davidson and I trying to make it work. Now, Keen has 25+ employees and will continue to make its mark on the EPM/FPM market.

For those of you that I have worked with previously, I would love to connect and catch up. For everyone else, let's sync up and get to know one another. 

I appreciate all of you helping me grow and get to this point. I am looking forward to continue working with you in the future.

Mark Davidson, Gary Tammaro, Rosalia Marisa Loyer, CPA, Joel Jarratt, Noureen Husnani, Nusayba Iftekhar, Greg Amato, CPA, Andrew Rabines, Danish Noorani, Al Martinez, Jodie Farrell, Paul Lombardi, Hannah Romero, Kenton J., Megan Miller, Rebecca K Starks CPA, Robert Frascone, Stacy Brown, Wesley Topham, Michael Horey, Manisha Girdhari Lal, Aline Koch, Brandon Winschel, Marisa Ciancone, Danielle Stickel

In 2025, companies with the most attention have the most options.

And options are the only real currency that matters.

CFO sends me the budget review: "Marketing spend up 34% YoY."

I send back the attribution data: "Marketing-generated revenue up 340% YoY."

He replies: "So we're spending more to make more?"

No. We're accumulating an asset that generates liquidity on demand.

He doesn't get it yet. Most finance people don't.

They're still categorizing attention as an expense when it's actually the most liquid asset on the balance sheet.

Because here's what 10+ years and $50M in tracked revenue taught me:

Views = Velocity

Clicks = Currency

Attention = Asset class

Not metaphorically. Literally.

The companies winning right now? They're not optimizing campaigns. They're building attention equity.

Think about it:

A SaaS company with 100K engaged followers has more enterprise value than one with 10K customers and zero audience. 

Why? Because attention converts to revenue on demand. It's liquid capital you can deploy instantly.

The traditional model is dying:

Spend → Hope → Maybe Revenue

The new model is already here:

Attention → Immediate Conversion → Compounding Value

I'm watching this play out across portfolio companies right now. 

The ones treating marketing as equity are outpacing competitors by 300%+. 

Not because they're better at "marketing." Because they understand the fundamental shift.

Marketing isn't supporting the business model.

Marketing IS the business model.

Your content library? That's not a blog. That's an appreciating asset generating returns every time someone discovers it.

Your email list? Not a database. A liquidity pool you can tap whenever you need cash flow.

Your LinkedIn presence? Not "brand building." It's equity accumulation that compounds daily.

Here's where it gets interesting:

Generative Engine Optimization is the leverage layer. It's how you control attention flow at scale. While everyone's still doing SEO for 2019, GEO is capturing demand in 2025's actual battleground—AI-powered discovery.

The verticals where attention is still underpriced? Those are the asymmetric opportunities. Not because the market's wrong. Because most operators still think in old frameworks.

They're spending budget.

You should be accumulating equity.

The gap between those two approaches is the difference between surviving and dominating.

Question:

What's your attention worth right now? 

Can you measure it? Can you deploy it? 

Can you compound it?

If not, you're leaving millions on the table.

Because in 2025, the companies with the most attention have the most options. 

And options are the only real currency that matters.

Are you building attention equity or just running campaigns?

Your "help" is often just control wearing a helpful mask.

And your best people can tell the difference.

Your best people quit because you helped them too much.

Not because you were mean. Not because you didn't care.

Because every time they tried to solve something, you solved it faster.

Now they're bored, underutilized, and updating their LinkedIn profiles.

Here's what nobody tells you about micromanagement:

It's not a personality flaw. It's a withdrawal symptom.

You were good at doing the work. That's why you got promoted.

But now your job isn't to be good at the work. It's to be obsolete at the work.

And your brain is fighting that transition like an addict fights sobriety.

The 30-Day Micromanagement Detox

I've watched this pattern destroy dozens of high-performing teams. Here's the only framework that actually works:

Week 1: The Awareness Audit

Track every intervention impulse for 7 days. Don't change behavior yet. Just notice.

When do you jump in?
What triggers the urge?
Which team members trigger it most?

Most leaders discover they micromanage specific people in specific situations at specific times of day.

Pattern recognition is step one.

Week 2: The 60-Second Pause

When the intervention urge hits, set a 60-second timer. Don't act. Just wait.

Ask yourself:
• Is this a true emergency or does it just feel urgent?
• What's the actual cost if they solve this themselves, even imperfectly?
• Am I intervening to help them or to calm my own anxiety?

Brutal truth: Most "emergencies" are just your discomfort with someone else's learning curve.

The email that's 80% as good as yours but teaches them more than your rewrite ever could.

The Real Test

You'll know the detox is working when:
• Your team stops asking permission for things they should already own
• Someone makes a decision you disagree with, and you let it ride
• You spend less time in the weeds and more time on strategic work
• Your best people stop browsing job boards

The Uncomfortable Truth

The hardest part isn't learning to let go.

It's admitting that your "help" was often just control wearing a helpful mask.

You weren't protecting quality. You were protecting your identity as the person who has all the answers.

The leaders who grow fastest are the ones willing to be strategically useless at the tactical level.

They don't have the best ideas in the room. They build rooms full of people with better ideas.

And they get comfortable with the discomfort of watching other people figure it out.


P.S. What are your thoughts on these?

We are still #hiring! Know anyone who might be interested?

Newport Beach, California, United States (On-site)

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