CEO Bros - After Hours

*Wild Card Friday: How Companies Break Customer Trust S2 Ep 72* What happens when growth pressure beats common sense What happens when a company runs out of easy growth? Do they fix the product? Do they rebuild the experience? Or do they squeeze the customer until the customer finally leaves? This is Wild Card Friday. Matt throws business curveballs at Brian and Brad, and the guys turn them into C...

*The CEO Picked Up Trash (Then Everyone Else Got the Message) S2 Ep 71* Tiny customer service habits that separate good companies from great ones Would a dirty sidewalk cost you a customer? Would a rude employee cost you a great hire? Would one ignored hello tell people your company does not care? Brian, Brad, and Matt start with three words everybody learned in kindergarten: please, hello, thank...

*They Offered $1 Million (Then Tried to Take It Back) | S2 Ep 70* The offer looked perfect. Then the buyer started changing the deal. What happens when a $1 million offer becomes $925,000? What if part of your payout gets locked in escrow for 18 months? What if the buyer wants to pay you with stock instead of cash? Most owners think getting the Letter of Intent means they're almost done. Brian and...

*Your Buyer Found the Mess (Your Price Just Dropped) | S2 Ep 69* Due diligence is where deals get slower, harder, and more expensive. Can you explain exactly how your business makes money? Could you produce three years of financial records tomorrow? What happens when a buyer finds the thing you've been putting off for five years? This is episode 69. The Bros finish the business sale process by wal...

*Six Months From Closing (Then the Deal Died Anyway) S2 Ep 68 * The letter of intent starts the clock. The buyer can still walk away. What happens after a buyer says yes? What are you actually signing when the letter of intent lands? And how does a deal die after six months of work? Brad walks through the alphabet soup of selling a business: NDA, teaser, SIM, IOI, letter of intent, and purchase ag...

*The LOI Gets Signed (Then Deal Fatigue Eats You Alive) S2 Ep 67 * Selling your business feels exciting until the process punches back. What is a buyer actually buying? Are you improving the business, or just spending money on stuff they don't value? And what happens when you sign the LOI and realize the hard part just started? This is episode 67. The Bros move from maximizing value into the actua...

*Selling Your Business? This Is What Raises the Price S2 Ep 66: Part 2 of 4.* Your hard work is not the asset. Part one in our four part Selling Your Business series asked the big question: lifestyle business or equity business? Part two gets meaner. Brian and Brad move from "do you want to sell?" to "why would anybody buy this?" A lot of owners get stuck there. They know why they want out. They k...

*Selling Your Business? (It Starts on Day One) S2 Ep 65: Part 1 of 4.* Know which one you're building. Brian's had the conversation a hundred times. Someone says they want to sell. He asks what a buyer would actually be getting. Silence. "We have a good reputation. People like us." That's not a valuation. Turns out they've been taking quarterly distributions for years, paying themselves with the f...

*He Charged Ford $25,000 for a Box of Chalk (The Invoice Breakdown Changed Everything) S2 Ep 64* *The $1 chalk. The $24,999 lesson.* Ford was losing $250,000 a day on the assembly line. They called in Deming, the god of process mapping. He fixed it in a day. The invoice: $25,000. Ford asked for a breakdown. Deming's letter: box of chalk, $1. Knowing what to do with it, $24,999. Brad scaled By Your...

The McDonald's CEO went on camera to promote the Arch Burger. He took one tiny, tepid nibble, called it "a product," and smiled like everything was fine. The internet destroyed him. Competitors dunked. It became a meme. This is episode 63. Wild Card Friday, where Matt ambushes Brian and Brad with real business news they haven't discussed prior and makes them react on the spot. No notes. No prep. J...

*Customer Feedback Is Screaming at You (You're Just Not Listening) S2 Ep 12* Brian Balduf spent years building a feedback machine at VHT Studios. Same seven questions every year, sliced by geography, rep, product, and brand. Forty ways to Sunday. Then he stayed at a hotel, got a generic email survey, and ignored it. He had five complaints. They'll never get them. His window is shut. This is episod...

*The PGA Didn't Pay Their Best Players (Then Watched Them All Leave)* The Business of $ports and your business. Throw out the complacency playbook. The PGA had the best players in the world. Instead of paying them what they were worth, they held the line. Saudi money came in, LIV Golf launched, and the biggest names on tour walked out the door. Now the PGA is losing viewership, losing sponsors, an...

*Take the AI Red Pill (Your Competitor Already Did)* Brad was a skeptic. Now he's all in. Brad was the skeptic in the room. Brian said AI was for everybody. Brad looked at him and said it plainly: "That ain't going to happen. The world is full of foolish and ignorant people." He said it with full conviction. Now he runs multiple AI platforms and laughs that he's leading the foolish and ignorant pe...

*They Told Him He Was Stubborn (He Immediately Proved Them Right) Season 2 Episode 9* You think your team knows how you're performing? You think annual reviews actually help people improve? You think working hard guarantees a raise? Brad says annual reviews are lazy. Managers avoid tough conversations all year, then dump everything in one meeting. Brian says it gets worse when nobody sets clear ob...

*Hey! You Got Your Cost-Cutting in My Peanut Butter (The Grandson Noticed. So Did Everyone Else)* Wild Card Friday: five business autopsies, one lesson they all skipped. Matt showed up with six news story cards the brothers had never seen. Hershey quietly changed the Reese's recipe, denied it when caught, then admitted it. The founder's grandson went public, it went viral, and Brad's take was the...

The financial reports every founder needs from day one. Brian once worked with an accountant who never left the corporate office. Never visited a city, never went on a sales call, never attended a single event. But he could look at quarterly statements and tell you exactly what was happening in Cleveland, Detroit, and Minneapolis as if he'd been in the room all week. That's what knowing your numbe...

The financial reports your business can't survive without. Brad was teaching business basics to a room full of clinicians when one of his therapists pumped her fist. They were "in the red," she announced. Brad had to break the news: red means you're losing money. The room went quiet. Brian's own version of this story involves mailing vendor checks with the wrong zip code on purpose to buy time bef...

How good teams quietly fall behind Brad walked into his leadership meeting and dropped one question: "What happens when we replace you with robots?" Everyone froze. He wasn't actually doing it. He wanted to break the grip of "this is how we've always done it." Brian calls that grip sawing with a dull blade. You work twice as hard, fall further behind, and your metrics never show it until the compe...

The recurring revenue gospel. Brad's daughter tried to cancel her gym membership. They made her drive to the original location, not the one near her house. Brian called it immediately: that's not an accident. If 20% want out and you make it inconvenient enough, you save 3-4%. Lazy people don't cancel. That's built into the model. This is episode four. The business models that survive, and the ones...

Matt throws out one word at a time. Brian and Brad react in real time. "Banks." Brian grimaces. "Private equity." Brad winces. By the time they hit friends and family, Brian's wife had stopped asking how the business was going. Her family had money in it. This is episode three of Season 2. Every funding source comes with a person attached, and that person is you. *YOU'LL DISCOVER* • Why banks only...

Brian owned the world's largest collection of bathroom photos. A tech giant stole them for a second business and said "go sue someone else." Brian had $2 million in revenue. The legal bill? Five million. So a stranger in New York agreed to pay everything for 30% of the winnings. Eight years later, Brian won the case now taught in law schools. This is episode two. When winning in court costs more t...

*Season 2 Premiere: You made it through year one. That was the easy part.*  Matt tried to replace the brothers with the Manning brothers for Season 2. Peyton and Eli never responded. Neither did the Baldwins, the Bushes, or the Harbaughs. So Brian and Brad are back, new studio and all, ready to talk about what happens when your business hits year two. Here's the thing nobody tells you: year one is...

Brad runs full throttle intentionally. He knows if he operates at 100%, his leadership captures 70%. Their teams? 50%. Front line? 30%. That's why he inspects what he expects. If you don't verify, your message dies three levels down. Brian sees it differently. Rock hits a pond, ripples weaken. His brand message starts at 100%, hits 50% by sales. This is episode 50. The degradation principle.  *YOU...

Brian was bringing on new customers when he ran out of money. Brad knows entrepreneurs who bought boats while their businesses were still bleeding cash. One of Brian's investors would ask him the same two questions every time they met: "How's your wife and what are you driving?" One question's about divorce. The other's about expensive cars that kill businesses before they get off the ground. Your...

Brad asks for exactly 15 minutes. At 14 minutes and 59 seconds, he stands up and leaves. Doesn't matter if they're interested or want him to stay. He asked for 15 minutes, that's what he takes. Most salespeople overstay. Brad walks out while they're still engaged. Next meeting, they already know he respects time. No bracing for a pitch that won't end. This is episode 50. How to actually close deal...