FieryFX

What's actually broken in your business?

Maybe you think you know. Maybe it's not what you think.

Maria came to me convinced she needed new proposal software. Proposals were taking too long. Seemed straightforward.

When we dug in, we found something completely different.

That's almost always how it goes. The symptom points one direction. The real problem is somewhere else. And the fix you're considering won't touch it.

The first question — before any tool, any hire, any new process — is deceptively simple:

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

Not the category. Not the feeling. The specific, observable thing you can point to and say: this is where it breaks.

New episode of Elevated out now — link in bio.

Not sure where your business is losing ground? The Sales Superpower Quiz at fieryfx.com/superpower identifies where your sales process works and where it doesn't — in about five minutes.

2:14 AM.

The house is silent. You got up to get some water. You stood in the kitchen for a minute, enjoying the quiet.

You went back to bed. You fell asleep.

That's it. That's the whole story.

In episode one, you were awake at 2:14 too. But that version had stakes — the gut-sinking fear that something slipped through. The client calling in the morning. The scramble for an answer.

That fear didn't go away because you got better at remembering things.

Spoiler alert: the human memory is wonky and terrible. It always was.

It went away because you stopped asking it to do a job it was never designed for.

26 episodes. One habit. That's what this season was.

Season finale out now

cabinetnotes.com

The display budget. The hiring decision. How to handle the GC who's steamrolling you on site.

Business conversations that have a way of becoming something else entirely when the person across from you also saw 2022 up close.

The fix is the third-party witness.

Next time you sit down for a strategic conversation with your spouse or family business partner, pull out your phone and say:

"I want to capture this so we have a reference."

Then have the conversation.

Weird? Maybe. But something shifts when the tape is rolling. It's the tangible switch that yanks you out of married-couple bickering and puts you back into business partners solving a problem.

You stay on topic. The tone stays professional.

It's a lot harder to drift back to 2022 when you both know you're on the record.

New episode of Elevated out now — link in bio.

Full workflow at cabinetnotes.com.

Thursday afternoon. You just got off a call with your accountant. Sales are down from last quarter.

A vendor sent a price increase letter this morning. Effective immediately. No negotiation window.

You have a rep coming in tomorrow and you're not sure what kind of news he's bringing from the field. Last time he dropped in like this, it was because a manufacturer got acquired.

You go home that night and try to explain it to your spouse. They listen. They're supportive. You can see in their eyes — they're following the words without feeling the weight.

"I'm sure it'll turn around." They mean it. You know they mean it. You also know they've never had to make payroll.

You try a version of it at dinner with a friend. He listens and says, "Man, I wish I could make my own hours like you do."

You take a sip of your drink and change the subject.

This episode is about the conversation you can't have at home. The one that requires someone on the other side who's carrying the same weight — who doesn't need it explained, because they're living it too.

The AI Note-Taking Guide at cabinetnotes.com includes the peer call workflow — how to find the right person, how to structure the call, and how to turn the conversation into an accountability document so something actually changes.

🎧 New episode out now

Since Monday you've explained at least 4 times why nothing ships in three weeks anymore. 😩

She's nodding. And it's the wrong kind of nod... the one that means she'd like you to stop talking, not the one that means she got it.

The best version of this spiel happened on a Tuesday afternoon in March. Good energy, nobody waiting on you. The analogy landed exactly right. The client sitting there absolutely understood. But that doesn't translate to understanding for the next client.

Everyone after that got whatever you had left at 4:40 on a Thursday. And the nod that wasn't understanding shows up six weeks later as a hard conversation about a decision she made without ever really getting it.

Make sure the recording is running next time the explanation goes well. Then AI can turn it into a couple sentences that go into every kickoff.

What if the work that felt too specific to delegate became the training itself?

Here's what that looks like six months in:

Recordings turn into transcripts. Transcripts turn into business assets. And the detail-oriented person processing them has heard more client conversations than most employees catch in their first year.

They know your product line. They know your client communication style. They know your vendors, your processes, the way you handle a price objection and the way you close.

Not because you sat down and trained them. Because they've been inside your work the whole time.

Some will want to stay. You'll have a reason to keep them.

The team you build this way costs a fraction of what a skilled hire costs — and produces people who already know how you work before you've given them a single formal review.

The intern who spent six months as your scribe isn't green anymore.

The AI Note-Taking Guide at cabinetnotes.com includes the intern onboarding workflow — how to structure the role, what to hand off first, and how to use recordings and transcripts to turn an entry-level hire into someone who actually knows your business.

🎧 New episode out now