The profit math said it was a treadmill.

This is the two-number analysis that caught it, and how to run it on your own catalog.

One of the brands in our portfolio (we hold a minority stake) sells fitness supplements. About a million a year in revenue, a catalog that had sprawled to ten product lines and nearly thirty live flavors, and a founding team that spent a scary amount of time panicking about inventory.

Every few weeks something went out of stock. And when you’re running thirty flavors on a small brand’s cash, something is ALWAYS about to go out of stock. You order in small quantities because cash is finite. Small quantities run out fast. So the reorder cycle becomes a fire drill: rush the PO, juggle the cash, apologize to customers, repeat.

It looks responsible. It feels like protecting revenue. Every stockout is a sale you didn’t make, right?

Stay with me, because the data told a different story. And the most surprising part wasn’t which products were winning.

Why does every product look worth saving?

Stockout panic treats every product as equally worth saving, and nothing in the standard toolkit tells you otherwise. The P&L can’t. It’s one number for the whole business. Sales-by-product can’t help, because every product sells. On a revenue dashboard, all thirty flavors look alive. All thirty look like they deserve the rush order.

And LTV will actively lie to you. In this catalog, the protein line sat at the very top of the lifetime-value chart. Customers who entered through protein were worth $146–160 over ninety days, more than almost anything else we sold, with the third-highest repeat rate in the catalog. Every dashboard said: lean in.

How do you find out which products actually compound?

I asked a different question. Not which products customers love. Which products actually compound?

Two numbers answer it, and almost nobody looks at them together.

The first is repeat behavior. Of the customers whose first purchase was this product, how many are back within thirty days? Not the store’s repeat rate. Repeat rate keyed to the product that brought each customer in the door.

The second is real margin: net price after every discount, minus what the unit actually costs. Multiply the two through and you get the number that matters, gross profit per customer by entry product. This is where marketing thinking and finance thinking finally meet. Marketing knows the repeat rates. Finance knows the margins. In most brands this size, those two numbers have never been in the same table.

I pulled every order into our data warehouse and built the models. (There’s a by-hand version of this too. I’ll give it to you in a minute.)

What are flywheel, bridge, and treadmill products?

The catalog sorted itself into three roles.

The flywheel. Two products, creatine and our pre-workout, had both numbers at once: 74–75% margin and the strongest repeat behavior in the catalog. The pre-workout brings nearly one in four customers back within thirty days. Daily-use products run on a biological clock: customers reorder because they run out. And because acquisition was already paid for on order one, every reorder at that margin is nearly pure profit: $27–28 of gross profit on a typical reorder, compounding indefinitely. A customer who enters here is worth about $113 in gross profit inside ninety days. This is what a compounding brand is built on.

The bridge. The BCAA line: same high margins, moderate repeat, big customer bases. Around $94–107 of gross profit per customer. Not as fast-cycling as creatine. But every reorder is highly profitable, and it’s an accessible first purchase that leads customers into the daily-use products. Strong acquisition products.

The loyalty trap. The protein line, the LTV chart-topper. A 20% thirty-day repeat rate; customers genuinely love it and come back for it. And it’s still a bad product to scale. The unit costs $34.50 against a ~$51 price: 32% margin. Each loyal reorder generates about $16 of gross profit, versus $27 for a BCAA reorder. Over ninety days, a protein customer produces $47–51 of gross profit.

Less than half a BCAA customer. And on every revenue report, it looks like a star.

The loyalty is real. The economics don’t compound. Scaling this product means paying to acquire customers who will faithfully run a treadmill, not a flywheel.

And buried at the bottom of that table was the detail that still bothers me: one flavor, heavily discounted, was selling at a unit margin of $0.62. Two percent. Every rush reorder of that flavor was an emergency response to protect sixty-two cents a unit.

Where was the ad budget actually going?

When we lined the ad spend up against the table, the mix was heaviest on the treadmill end (the well-loved, low-margin products) while the two flywheel products sat under-advertised relative to their long-term value. The growth budget was pointed at exactly the wrong end of the catalog. We weren’t just tolerating the treadmill. We were paying to put more customers on it.

Everything about allocation follows from the table. Acquire with the bridge products, cross-sell into the flywheel, and let the daily-use habit do the compounding. A stockout on the flywheel is a five-alarm fire: that’s a compounding customer relationship turned away at the door. A stockout on a treadmill product is a rounding error wearing an emergency’s clothes. And the sixty-two-cent flavor doesn’t need a rush PO; it needs a repricing.

Why build this as infrastructure instead of a one-time analysis?

I didn’t do this analysis in a spreadsheet. Every order flows into a data warehouse (BigQuery, with AI writing most of the SQL under my direction), and the margin math, the cohort windows, and the minimum sample sizes live in models, not in a file. So this table isn’t a project I did once. It’s a standing report I can pull any morning with current data, as cohorts mature, discounts change, and new products launch.

Some of the best findings come from exactly that. A recent run surfaced a brand-new hydration flavor, too young to appear in the ninety-day view at all, already showing one of the highest margins in the catalog with strong early reorders. A flywheel candidate, caught five weeks in, while the signal was still cheap to act on. An analysis from last quarter would never have seen it. The question stands ready and the data comes to it.

How do you build the by-hand version?

If you don’t have that infrastructure, there’s still a by-hand version, and it’s worth doing once. Export a year of orders. Tag each customer with the first product they bought. Count how many were back within thirty days, per product. Work out net price after discounts, subtract real unit cost, and multiply through to gross profit per customer. Never rank products by revenue LTV. Rank them by gross profit per customer, then sort them into the three roles: flywheel, bridge, treadmill.

Simple is not the same as easy. There are three places this analysis breaks, and they’re where most attempts die. First, your COGS are probably wrong. Most brands this size don’t have time-accurate unit costs, and if the cost numbers are fiction, every number downstream is fiction wearing a spreadsheet. I spent months getting the bookkeeping right before I trusted a single row of this table. Second, discounts hide in net price. At list price, the sixty-two-cent flavor looked fine; it took actual line-level discount math to expose it. Third, small cohorts lie. A product with twenty customers will show you noise and call it a trend. My models enforce minimum matured cohort sizes and fixed time windows before a row earns a place in the table.

And go in knowing what the by-hand version is: a photograph. It starts aging the day you finish it. Cohorts keep maturing, costs drift, new products launch outside the frame. It will still show you which of those three problems your business has, and it may well change your next reorder and your ad mix. That’s worth a weekend. But it’s also why I built this as infrastructure instead of an analysis: this question is too important to answer once.

The uncomfortable part is that none of this was hidden. It was sitting in the order history the whole time. What was missing was the question. When marketing owns one number and finance owns the other, nobody ever puts them in the same table.

Which of your best-loved products are treadmills?

If you can’t answer that from numbers you trust, that’s the most profitable question in your business right now.

PS: Want these models installed in your business? I do one per month, tuned to how your brand operates.

Stay with me…

Every operator has built one: a wiki, a Notion system, a folder of SOPs. And every single one I’ve built has died. Useful for a month, stale by the quarter, abandoned by the year. I’d made peace with it and learned to manage around it.

This week I built one I actually believe will survive. It fixes every reason the old ones died.

And the whole difference comes down to one idea…

I’m not the librarian anymore.

Knowledge bases were never low-value. They’re one of the highest-leverage things you can have: how the business actually runs, what the levers are, the stuff that lives in one person’s head. The value was never the problem. The upkeep was.

Every time you learn something, you have to decide where it goes, whether it duplicates something you wrote six months ago, whether you now have to update it in three places. That tax never stops. So eventually you stop paying it.

It gets worse…

The moment your team finds something in there that’s stale and no longer accurate, they learn to not trust the knowledge base.

And they’re right back to tribal knowledge and DM-ing you for info.

The new plan: I don’t organize anything anymore. I give it information. Drop in a file, paste a link, or just tell it what I learned in a sentence. An AI librarian takes it from there: it decides where the fact belongs, checks it against everything already in there, and keeps it current. When I need something back, I don’t go searching. I ask, and it retrieves.

Under the hood it’s split in two.

First, the hard numbers and structured data live in a Postgres database: costs, vendor terms, bill-of-materials for products, etc.

Everything else…

The SOPs, tribal knowledge, background info on vendors and processes, story of how the business runs, etc. This piece lives in plain text the librarian writes, rewrites, and maintains over time. That’s plumbing.

The point is that I feed it and I ask it, and it does the organizing I used to abandon. And when it’s filing new info, it checks it against anything related to ensure things are cascaded to where they belong.

The result: a knowledge base FREED from the tyranny of tedious, meticulous maintenance.

And the best part…

When I need to know some detail about the business (like who’s this person in my inbox? Or where was that how-to process?), I just ask Claude CoWork to retrieve it.

I’m running the first one on one of my brands now. And I’ll be straight with you, because that’s the deal here: capturing what’s true this week is easy. The real test is whether it’s still true and still used a year from now. That’s the exact place every knowledge base I’ve built has failed. Ask me again in six months.

How many dead knowledge bases have you started? Reply and tell me. I’m collecting them.

— Deacon

Is my marketing working? What’s driving my growth? Should I cut ad spend?

And the LLM answers. Every time. Confidently.

And that’s actually a problem.

An LLM connected to your Shopify store has no idea what your business looks like over time. It doesn’t know your seasonal cycles. It can’t separate growth you caused from growth that was already coming. It’s reading transactional data and pattern matching against general knowledge — NOT doing actual analysis of your specific business history.

That’s not a small distinction. Trusting those answers to make real spending decisions is risky.

Let me show you what the alternative looks like…

One of our portfolio brands runs a membership model. Like any subscription business, the big question is always growth. Are we adding members faster than we’re losing them? Is what we’re spending on marketing actually working?

I started modeling it properly using a tool called ARIMA_PLUS, built into Google’s BigQuery ML platform. ARIMA is a statistical method that’s been the standard for time series forecasting for decades. What it does is decompose your historical data into its component parts: the underlying trend in your business, the seasonal patterns that repeat year over year, and the noise in between.

It separates those three things from each other so you can see what’s actually happening underneath the surface numbers.

You train it on your own data. It learns YOUR business.

What makes ARIMA_PLUS especially powerful is that you can bring in external variables alongside your historical data. For this model I brought in ad spend.

Now the model can show me not just what the business is doing, but how much of that movement actually correlates with what we’re spending.

Two things became clear pretty quickly.

First, our ads are not driving membership growth. At least not yet.

Sure, sometimes we’d increase ad spend and see some growth. But the the model showed me that was noise, not signal.

So we cut ad spend dramatically. The business was essentially unaffected. Profitability went up. Growth continued.

Second, we’re heading into the toughest season of the year for this business. The model showed it clearly in the historical data. Even great marketing won’t change that reality. So we’ll keep testing and improving, but with the right context. Modest improvement this season is a win worth building on.

Neither of those insights came from asking an LLM a question. They came from a real statistical model trained on our own historical data.

ARIMA models is one example of what becomes possible when you own your data. It can be applied to almost anything you want to understand over time: sales velocity, inventory demand, customer growth, seasonal patterns across any part of your business.

I’ve been rolling these models out across our portfolio. If you’re curious what they might reveal about your business, reply and tell me what questions you’re trying to answer.

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

Keep up with the latest E-Com Ops insights.

And I get it. Ask a plain English question and get a real answer about your business. The promise is compelling.

I’ve been spending time with these tools at the operator level though, and there’s something worth understanding before you put too much trust in what they tell you.

LLMs always have an answer for you.

Ask about your best customers, your most profitable products, your growth strategy. You’ll get a confident, well-structured response every time. It won’t say “I don’t have enough information to answer that.” It won’t say “I’m only seeing part of the picture here.” It just answers. That’s how it’s designed to work.

And that’s worth paying attention to.

Because the AI connected to your Shopify store is reading from Shopify’s data, and Shopify gives you a lot. You can see what sold today, what’s in stock, inventory counts, your total revenue, your top products by units, and more. For running day-to-day operations it’s genuinely useful.

Where it falls short is the analytical layer. Seasonal trends, customer and product cohorts, inventory sell-through rates — these are all missing from Shopify’s native reports.

Which products are generating your most profitable customers over time? Which customers are worth acquiring and which ones buy once and disappear? What is your real gross profit per customer once you account for discounts and returns?

That’s where owning your data comes in.

A data warehouse pulls all your data out of Shopify and stores it in your own database. From there you can build models to better operate and understand your business. My AI chat tool plugs into that data too, which means when I ask it a question it’s working from the complete picture, not just what Shopify exposes.

Every week I get a P&L report detailing my contribution margin by product. That’s the number that tells me what I’m actually making after everything is accounted for — and it keeps cash flow front and center.

I’ve been building this out inside one of our portfolio brands over the last several months. We pulled everything together — real revenue after discounts and returns, cost of goods, ad spend, full customer purchase history — and built models on top of it to calculate the metrics that actually matter.

The most valuable output has been contribution margin and lifetime value broken down by product.

What the data showed us was not what the surface-level sales numbers suggested. Three products rose to the top — not because they sold the most units, but because the customers who bought them first were the most profitable over time and kept coming back. Those are the products we’re building the business around.

Several other products were selling well and needed to stay in stock. But they weren’t moving the needle. Without the data, we would have focused on the wrong products.

The models we built aren’t specific to that one brand. They work for any business running on Shopify and Amazon, and I’m already rolling them out across our other portfolio companies.

When you own your data and it’s organized around the right questions, AI becomes genuinely useful. It’s reading from a complete picture instead of a partial one. The answers it gives you are actually worth acting on.

Next time you’re relying on an AI tool to make a real business decision, ask yourself one question first: what data is this actually reading from?

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

PS: I’ve built out models for Shopify, TikTok Shop, and Amazon. Want these installed in yours? Hit me up.

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I just spent 5 hours completely rebuilding my business website from scratch.

My old WordPress site was working fine. It looked professional enough. Clients could find my services and contact information. By every practical measure, there was no reason to touch it.

Get insider info on running my businesses.

So why did I tear it down and start over?

Because I wasn't really building a website. I was solving a business problem.

My WordPress Problem

Here's the truth about my old WordPress site: I dreaded logging into it.

Every time I needed to make a simple update, something would break. A plugin would conflict. The theme would do something weird. What should take 5 minutes would turn into an hour of troubleshooting.

Even when I delegated it to an expert it wound up consuming way more time and energy than it was worth.

So I just... stopped updating it. The site sat there, getting more outdated by the month, because touching it felt like playing Russian roulette.

But the maintenance headaches weren't the real problem.

What I Actually Needed

A business I own has two content sites that get decent traffic but don't make money. They're sitting on valuable domains, ranking for good keywords, but they're just... existing.

I want to turn them into revenue generators with beautiful product landing pages. But every time I looked at WordPress page builders, I'd get overwhelmed. Drag-and-drop editors that never look quite right. Hours spent hunting through settings trying to make something look professional. Clunky checkout processes that take people to completely different-looking sites.

I needed the ability to create stunning sales pages quickly, without fighting my tools.

And I needed them to integrate seamlessly with Shopify - not feel like some bolted-on afterthought.

The Real Solution

I rebuilt the site on a framework called Astro and hosted it on Netlify for free. The new site gave me exactly what I was looking for:

• A fast, modern website that I actually enjoy updating

• No more plugin conflicts or mysterious breakages

• The ability to build beautiful landing pages without page builders

• Native Shopify integration that feels completely seamless

• Zero hosting costs (compared to ~$200/year for WordPress)

• And forms look great and work out of the box - also free (the way it should be)

But here's the game-changer: when I want to create a sales page for liver supplements or GERD solutions, I can build something that looks and feels completely custom. No "this was obviously made with a page builder" vibe. No jarring transition when someone clicks "buy now." No sifting through the Fiverr sludge.

Just beautiful pages that convert, built exactly how I want them.

The 3-Layer Strategy

This is how I think about every business decision:

Layer 1: Immediate benefit - Fast, reliable site that I don't dread updating

Layer 2: Capability building - Prove Astro is a great framework for custom static sites and landing page building

Layer 3: Future applications - Build Astro + Shopify landing pages that work seamlessly with my Shopify store to sell more products.

Most business owners stop at Layer 1. They see a working website and think "good enough." But that misses the bigger opportunity.

The real value comes from solving today's problem in a way that unlocks tomorrow's opportunities.

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Why I’m Excited

In two weeks, when I want to create a custom sales page for liver supplements that integrates perfectly with Shopify's checkout, I have a solid foundation that supports it. I'll have working components, proven deployment processes, and confidence in the tech stack.

If I had skipped this "unnecessary" website rebuild, I'd be starting from zero when the revenue opportunity presented itself. I’d be back in Fiverr land staring down a 4 or 5 figure fee.

And I’d probably turn around and quit the project.

That's the difference between tactical thinking and strategic thinking.

Tactical thinking asks "Is this website rebuild necessary right now?" Strategic thinking asks "What capabilities do I need to build to unlock the opportunities I can see coming?"

The Broader Pattern

This same pattern shows up everywhere in business operations:

• You build a customer service process not just for today's complaints, but to handle growth

• You implement inventory tracking not just to count what you have, but to predict what you'll need

• You create financial reporting systems not just to see last month's numbers, but to spot trends early

Every operational investment should serve multiple purposes. If it only solves today's problem, you're probably thinking too small.

My website looks similar to how it did last week. But now I have the foundation to turn content into commerce, proven technical capabilities I can offer clients, and a $0 hosting bill.

Five hours well spent.

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

P.S. - You can see the finished site at deaconbradley.com. It probably doesn't look revolutionary, but that's the point.

The best infrastructure is usually invisible.

But the real problem wasn't their terrible form design. The real problem was us.

The Information Hunt

We had no single place to find comprehensive product information. I could locate some details in old emails, had to ask team members for others, and found myself constantly texting our CEO with questions like "What's the case pack quantity for the 60-day Free Range?"

This violated a fundamental operational principle:

There should be one and only one place to look for information.

Why This Gets Complex

Consider our product "Free Range"—it actually has 6 variants:

• 30 Servings

• 60 Servings

• Bulk (buckets): three of these

Multiply that across 10+ products, and the data relationships become intricate quickly.

Some information stays consistent across all variants: formulation, usage instructions, nutritional specifications.

But each variant has unique dimensions, weights, serving counts, case pack details, and multiple SKUs (Shopify, Amazon, Chewy).

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The Spreadsheet Trap

When you're small, spreadsheets seem like the obvious starting point. Most companies begin there. But you eventually face an impossible choice: repeat identical product information for every variant, or fragment related data across multiple tabs where nobody can locate anything efficiently.

Some businesses migrate to specialized software, but that gets expensive fast. Plus, you always need to customize it to match exactly how your operation functions.

A Better Structure

What you actually need is a relational database. Think of it this way:

• a product can have one or more variants

• a variant only belongs to one product

Shared information lives at the product level. Variant-specific details connect to individual variants. When you need product information, you access the product directly. When you need variant specifics, you drill down accordingly.

I built ours in Notion because it requires no developer, adapts as we grow, and integrates seamlessly with our existing team documentation. More importantly, now that this database structure exists, anyone on our team can edit and input data as needed.

The Operational Payoff

With the framework in place now we’re back-filling the data as we can. The next vendor application will require an afternoon, not weeks of detective work.

If you're managing multiple products with various configurations and constantly asking "where did we store that specification?"—you need this organizational foundation.

The best systems often appear deceptively straightforward once implemented.

If you're wrestling with similar operational challenges, I'm always interested in discussing strategy specifics.

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

P.S. Want to see our actual Notion structure? Just reply and I'll share some examples.

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I've made a big shift in how I work with businesses. Instead of purely consulting, I'm now serving as a Fractional Operator for three brands. That means I'm in the trenches, overseeing day-to-day operations and driving growth.

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Why the switch?

As a consultant, I kept seeing the same pattern: business owners knew what needed to be done, but they lacked the operational expertise to execute effectively. There weren't enough hands on deck to implement the changes that would drive real growth.

So I decided to become that missing piece.

Here's what's fascinating: across completely different brands, they all need the same core systems:

- Systems to measure performance and maintain healthy cash flow

- Systems to consistently deliver great customer service

- Systems to create and test effective marketing

Speaking of marketing - that's been one of our biggest wins. We've built systems for everything from product messaging to page design to ad creation. Instead of reinventing the wheel each time, we now have frameworks that consistently produce results.

But here's what's really surprised me...

The power of good policies and decision-making rules. I know, I know - "policies" sounds stuffy and corporate. But here's the thing: when you make a decision once and create a clear policy around it, you never have to waste time deciding that same thing again.

It's like creating a "decision machine" that keeps working even when you're not there.

For example, we now have clear policies for:

- When to issue refunds

- How to handle customer service edge cases

- What marketing tests to run (and how to run them)

- When to reorder inventory

Each policy removes a decision from someone's plate and creates consistency in your business.

The result? Things move faster. The team is more confident. And you stop being the bottleneck for every decision.

It's amazing how much easier operations become when you have these foundational pieces in place.

I'll share more specific examples in future emails. But for now, take a look at your business - where are you making the same decisions over and over? That might be your first opportunity to create a policy and free up some mental space.

To your growth,

Deacon

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Everyone was working hard. Getting stuff done. Moving things forward.

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But it felt... disconnected.

You've probably felt this too. Your customer support team is overwhelmed while other teams have capacity. Some people seem to know everything while others are stuck in information deserts. And don't even get me started on all the places information is "documented."

Here's where most operations people get it wrong...

They immediately jump to creating more SOPs. More documentation. More processes.

But that's not the real problem.

The real problem is alignment and leadership.

Let me show you what I mean...

In my first month as COO, I discovered our customer support team was drowning while our affiliate team had capacity. Both teams needed to be product experts, but they were operating in completely different worlds.

The typical operations response would be to document more processes. Create more SOPs. Build more systems.

Instead, we focused on alignment:

1. We created ONE knowledge base that serves as the single source of truth. Not just another documentation folder - but the one and only place to look for answers.

2. We started cross-training team members in customer support. This wasn't just about spreading the workload - it was about building shared understanding and uncovering gaps in our knowledge base.

The result? We're building an incredibly valuable asset for the business. But more importantly, we're creating a team that works together, understands each other's challenges, and can step in to help when needed.

This is what real operational leadership looks like. It's not about creating more processes - it's about aligning your team to work as one cohesive unit.

And that's the difference between having someone who can document processes and having an experienced operator who can transform your business.

Too many businesses are stuck with siloed teams, overwhelming documentation, and frustrated employees because they're focusing on the wrong solution.

If this resonates with you - if you're feeling the pain of disconnected teams and wondering why more documentation isn't fixing the problem - let's talk. Reply to this email and tell me about your business challenges.

To your growth,

Deacon

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Here’s the thing: I used EOS for years. And it worked… sort of.

When we first implemented EOS at my agency, it was like a breath of fresh air. We had no real system before, so having something was better than nothing. It helped us align our efforts as a leadership team, and we saw tremendous growth. We diligently held our quarterly planning sessions and our weekly Level-10 meetings every Friday.

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Sounds great, right? So why am I writing this email?

Well, after I left the agency, I started consulting with other brands to help them optimize their operations. Many of them were devoted EOS followers, even more “by the book” than I had been. Yet they were struggling to translate that devotion into growth and profits.

That’s when it hit me: devotion to a system doesn’t automatically result in business growth.

Don’t get me wrong - EOS has its strengths. The focus on alignment is powerful. But here’s the kicker: you can achieve that alignment with other tools too. And some of those tools offer a lot more flexibility and room for innovation.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Systems don’t create breakthroughs. People do.

2. Strict adherence to a process can actually stifle innovation.

3. You need a framework that allows you to change as you learn.

So, what do I recommend instead?

If you’re looking for a book to guide you, start with “Get Scalable” by Ryan Deiss. It offers a more flexible approach to growth. Follow that up with “The 4 Disciplines of Execution,” which provides a framework that’s much better at balancing structure and innovation.

For those who really want to dig deep, I’d also suggest “Clarity First” and “2nd In Command.” These books will give you a well-rounded perspective on effective business operations.

Remember, the key to growing your business is not in a magic recipe of meetings and spreadsheets. It’s in your people.

Your job as the leader is to create alignment and focus, and equip your team with whatever they need to reach the business goals.

Sometimes that means radical accountability to a number target.

But sometimes it means the opposite, and giving your team the freedom and flexibility to solve new problems.

The bottom line? Don’t get too caught up in following a system to the letter. Instead, focus on creating a culture of alignment, discipline, and adaptability. That’s where real growth happens.

What’s your experience been with EOS or other business systems? Hit reply and let me know - I’d love to hear your thoughts!

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

P.S. If you’re struggling to find the right balance between structure and innovation in your business, let’s talk. I’ve helped dozens of business owners break free from rigid systems and find approaches that truly drive growth. Just reply to this email, and we’ll set up a time to chat.

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I've become a huge fan of Formula 1 over the last few years.

I'm endlessly fascinated by everything from the extreme forces, to the precision of the drivers (while under extreme forces)...

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And as an Operator myself, I'm even more impressed with the orchestration behind the scenes to pull it all off.

Imagine this...

To build a modern Formula 1 car takes a team of hundreds of engineers working constantly. These engineers have to decipher volumes of technical requirements to design a 'legal' car, and in the end it comes down to millimeter precision.

These cars have to be designed to withstand the extreme forces of a crash at over 200mph as well as the impeccable scrutiny of the race officials (yes, they laser scan every inch to ensure it's legal).

At each race the teams will generate 1 Terabyte of telemetry data on everything from the temperature of tires to the battery discharge rates.

Hundreds more engineers will sift through the data and make millimeter adjustment recommendations to the team ahead of the next session in hopes to gain thousandths of a second.

All while remaining under a strict budget cap of $250 Million in annual spend.

The person in charge of pulling all of this together - the Team Principal, has the enormous job of orchestrating and managing the available resources to ultimately win.

By the time you get to the actual race day it's largely already been won or lost - and that's what I find fascinating.

Now here's the part that applies to you and me...

I've been studying what it takes to run an organization of this complexity, speed, and precision. I was expecting to find a set of incredibly detailed processes lifted out of NASA or something.

But instead, I found something familiar and comforting.

The best organizations are built on communication and leadership. That's it.

Ross Braun, one of the most successful leaders at this level, recounts how he led Ferrari to unprecedented success through a series of small, conscious, consistent actions.

For example...

He believed in groups working closely together. He literally rearranged the campus of Ferrari to ensure the engine teams and the chassis teams were next to each other. He'd send his own team members off to work at the tire manufacturer and pay to bring their team members into the Ferrari factory.

It was about sharing knowledge and breaking down silos. Braun knew that the only way to create one high performance machine was to treat the teams like one cohesive unit.

And on his way to the office every day in his executive suite, he carved out an extra 45 minutes to walk through the factory and chat with the team on the floor. He knew he needed to see and be seen to both win the respect and keep his finger on the pulse of the organization.

If you were to look back at Ferrari's dominance and put your finger on the reason for their success you'd probably talk a lot about their car - how the engine was superior, or how the chassis was top notch, or even how they worked so well together.

What Braun is demonstrating here is this...

Those high performance car parts are the result. But as a leader, he was focused on creating an environment that created the car parts.

That's what leading is all about.

It's not about doing the thing. Or driving the thing. Or being the one who creates the result.

It's about creating the environment where results are inevitable.

What would your organization look like if it were designed to create high performance results?

To your growth,

Deacon

PS: I work with small business leaders to help them design high performance teams. If that’s something you might need, shoot me a message.

Thanks for reading Deacon’s Notes on Ops! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

The resulting savings from lower fuel costs and cheaper pilot training would be a huge win for the industry.

Thanks for reading Deacon’s Notes on Ops! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

But not for industry leader Boeing.

Boeing was still milking their cash cow (the 737). But this new threat to their position as industry leader couldn't be ignored.

The Boeing engineering team knew the ancient 737 platform couldn't support the new technology (as in it physically didn't work). They needed a new, modern platform to compete with AirBus.

And that means MAJOR costs.

But there's a problem...

The costs and time to develop a new platform would mean losing out big time to AirBus. And the Boeing leadership simply couldn't stand for it.

So instead, they ordered their engineers to retro-fit the 737 anyway, creating the "Max" models. To make it work, they had to make some serious compromises.

And sadly, hundreds of passengers paid the ultimate price when their 737 Max model airplanes crashed in two separate incidents.

Here's what's interesting...

You can trace the poor leadership practices that resulted in this terrible fate (plus ongoing incidents still occurring) back to 1997.

At the time, AirBus was starting to win new business on Boeing's home turf. So Boeing, in an effort to muscle them out, purchased McDonnel Douglas (maker of the DC-9).

Boeing has a long history of being an engineer's company. They solved problems. They took pride in what they built. They loved aviation.

McDonnel Douglas has a long history of generating cash. They made profits. They took pride in quarterly reports. They loved money.

When they merged they kept the Boeing name, but it the Douglas leadership. And a new culture took hold of Boeing...

Now they were focused on profits above all else. Corners were cut. Innovations were "too expensive." They sacrificed everything to make their bottom line look good to enrich the shareholders and management.

This is what "milking your cash cow" looks like by the way...

So when AirBus released a modern aircraft, Boeing was decades behind and had no hope of catching up. The compromises ordered from leadership cost human lives and put all our safety at risk (anyone see that wheel fall off after takeoff recently???).

What can you learn from this mega-corp?

This all comes down to culture.

Focus your culture on serving customers, you'll wind up with a Zappos.

Focus your culture on ruthless profits, you'll wind up with Wall Street.

Focus your culture on learning and innovation, you'll wind up with Apple.

Yes, culture is a super fluffy concept. And I agree you can waste a lot of time trying to define it properly.

But you shouldn't ignore it.

Whether you know it or not, there is a culture in your organization right now. Paying attention to it is one of the keys to results through others.

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

Thanks for reading Deacon’s Notes on Ops! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

At the time, I managed a team of 20 media buyers who were running Facebook ads for our clients.

We were growing quickly, so I was adding new media buyers to the team as quickly as possible.

It was going really well!

We had a system where a new media buyer was paired with a senior media buyer to help manage their accounts. The new team member was learning the ropes and being tutored by the senior media buyer.

The senior media buyer was cloning themselves - amazing!

When they were fully trained, the new team member would start taking on their own accounts.

From an operations perspective, this was perfect. It meant I had capacity for new accounts that continued to grow over time, so the sales team could keep putting hot leads in seats and revenue would keep going up.

Then we hit a snag.

One of my new team members, let’s call him Chris, was handed a new account. The account was in the golf space, and Chris LOVED golf. This was all shaping up to be a killer story I’d tell from stage one day!

A few weeks into Chris’s management of the new account we started getting some minor complaints from the client.

Lots of ad spend. Not a lot of results.

What was going on?

Never fear, Chris was well trained by one of my top media buyers. Facebook results always fluctuate, we just needed some time to right the ship.

But things kept getting worse.

A few weeks later, we were fired.

Chris had basically lit tens of thousands of dollars of our client’s money on fire.

The results were SO bad all we could do was apologize and hope they didn’t come after us for the waste.

So what went wrong? Wasn’t Chris a clone of one of my top media buyers? How could he have messed this up so badly?

The root of the problem was this…

We had taken a very complex job of media buying and based the entire qualification on a simple blessing from a senior team member.

There was no nuance there. It wasn’t “Chris is great at this, but needs some work on this other stuff.” It was just a binary 1 or 0 - thumbs up or thumbs down - ready or not.

And while Chris appeared ready on one account…

He was most certainly NOT ready for this other account.

The lesson: don’t base your training readiness on a subjective single metric. And ESPECIALLY if that role has a fiduciary aspect.

Instead, enumerate the skills necessary to perform the job at a high level. Grade each skill individually. Then and only then will you know what your team is capable of.

To your growth,

Deacon Bradley

PS: When you’re ready, here’s a few ways I help business leaders create profitable, scalable growth…

1) Self-Managing Business: Want to build a business that runs itself? Find out how in this free training (and 3 common mistakes to avoid). Free Training.

2) 5m Business Assessment: Want to get to the bottom of what's gumming up the works in your business? Find out in 5 minutes.

3) Fractional Ops: "Done for you" transformation into a profitable, scalable machine. Reply to this email and tell me about your business.

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----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deaconb.substack.com

----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

When I work with business leaders who are building their teams - this is always a topic we spend time on.

My mission is to accelerate the growth of business leaders visions through profitable, scalable operations. When I can do that, then the world enjoys more great things.

If you’re a business leader who wants to get out of the day-to-day weeds and build a high functioning team, then let’s talk. Head over to deaconbradley.com, click the “Let’s Talk” button, and tell me about your business.

Resources:

• My website: deaconbradley.com

• Video on Skills vs Talents

----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deaconb.substack.com

When I work with business leaders who are building their teams - this is always a topic we spend time on.

My mission is to accelerate the growth of business leaders visions through profitable, scalable operations. When I can do that, then the world enjoys more great things.

If you’re a business leader who wants to get out of the day-to-day weeds and build a high functioning team, then let’s talk. Head over to deaconbradley.com, click the “Let’s Talk” button, and tell me about your business.

Resources:

• My website: deaconbradley.com

• Video on Skills vs Talents

----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

You can find a link to the tool I discuss in this episode in the resources section below.

My mission is to accelerate the growth of business leaders visions through profitable, scalable operations. When I can do that, then the world enjoys more great things.

If you’re a business leader who wants to get out of the day-to-day weeds and build a high functioning team, then let’s talk. Head over to deaconbradley.com, click the “Let’s Talk” button, and tell me about your business.

Resources:

• deaconbradley.com/skills

----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deaconb.substack.com

You can find a link to the tool I discuss in this episode in the resources section below.

My mission is to accelerate the growth of business leaders visions through profitable, scalable operations. When I can do that, then the world enjoys more great things.

If you’re a business leader who wants to get out of the day-to-day weeds and build a high functioning team, then let’s talk. Head over to deaconbradley.com, click the “Let’s Talk” button, and tell me about your business.

Resources:

• deaconbradley.com/skills

----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

My mission is to accelerate the growth of business leaders visions through profitable, scalable operations. When I can do that, then the world enjoys more great things.

If you’re a business leader who wants to get out of the day-to-day weeds and build a high functioning team, then let’s talk. Head over to deaconbradley.com, click the “Let’s Talk” button, and tell me about your business.

Resources:

• The Seasons of God (book)

• My website: deaconbradley.com

----------
Hiring Secrets: How to find the right people who will take your business to the next level.
I'm hosting a LIVE workshop and giving you my playbook for building world class teams.

Learn my Hiring Secrets here ($49)

More Resources:

1) Agency Owners: here are some tools you need in your toolbox.

2) Skills Matrix: Grab my favorite team management tool.

3) Connect with me on LinkedIn (where I share more great content).

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deaconb.substack.com