https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/ Notes from building, buying, and running businesses. en https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/where-decentralisation-stops/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/where-decentralisation-stops/ 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding The evidence says a corporate centre subtracts value. So the burden of proof sits on centralising, and the short list of exceptions is the whole doctrine. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/one-central-bench/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/one-central-bench/ 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding What genuinely gets done once at the centre, what only looks shareable, and the test that separates the two before you build a head office. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/replacing-a-job-not-a-person/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/replacing-a-job-not-a-person/ 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations In a trade with a hiring shortage, removing work does not create redundancy. It creates capacity, and what you do with it is the decision. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/done-by-hand/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/done-by-hand/ 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations Quoting, dispatch, invoicing, chasing and pricing. What each one costs in hours, and which of them is worth attacking first. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/ai-in-a-business-that-answers-the-phone/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/ai-in-a-business-that-answers-the-phone/ 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations An honest map for a fifteen-person service company: what to deploy, what to leave alone, and the line where a human has to take over. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/automation-numbers-are-not-real/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/automation-numbers-are-not-real/ 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations Two controlled trials, opposite results, one shared conclusion. And a measured gap between what workers believed AI did for them and what it actually did. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/asset-deal-or-share-deal/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/asset-deal-or-share-deal/ 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance What each structure carries with it, which liabilities follow the company regardless, and why buyer and seller want opposite answers. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/paying-a-seller-for-life/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/paying-a-seller-for-life/ 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance The lifetime annuity as a purchase price: how it is structured, why an owner with no successor often prefers it, and the tax election that decides everything. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/pricing-what-you-never-sell/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/pricing-what-you-never-sell/ 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance Without an exit multiple to underwrite to, the price has to be carried by cash the business actually produces. That sets a hard floor nothing overrides. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-a-business-sells-for/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-a-business-sells-for/ 21 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance Three datasets, three completely different answers, and a size effect large enough that the same business is worth a different multiple at twice the scale. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-to-watch-every-week/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-to-watch-every-week/ 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth Six numbers, weekly. Everything else is monthly or never, and most of what gets reported weekly belongs in neither list. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-list-nobody-uses/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-list-nobody-uses/ 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth Years of past customers sitting in an invoicing system nobody has ever mailed, and the famous retention statistic that is older than you think. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/reviews-are-a-channel/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/reviews-are-a-channel/ 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth Seventy-four percent of consumers want reviews from the last three months. That makes reviews a flow you have to run, not a total you accumulate. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-offer-is-the-funnel/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-offer-is-the-funnel/ 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth Funnel mechanics do not matter until the thing being sold is clear enough to sell without the owner in the room. Most of the work is upstream. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/pricing-is-the-fastest-lever/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/pricing-is-the-fastest-lever/ 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth A one percent price rise moves operating profit several times more than a one percent volume gain. The condition attached to that is doing all the work. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/how-a-business-actually-runs/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/how-a-business-actually-runs/ 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations Sit in the office for a week and count. What to count, what it tells you, and why it beats the data room on the questions that decide the outcome. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/more-leads-is-the-wrong-answer/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/more-leads-is-the-wrong-answer/ 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth The most common misdiagnosis in a service business: enquiries are already arriving and dying, and the owner responds by buying more of them. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-first-direct-deal/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-first-direct-deal/ 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding Going direct means giving up the fund's screening, diversification and operating bench all at once. What replaces each of them, and in what order. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/family-office-governance/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/family-office-governance/ 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding Only 35 percent of family offices have a succession plan for themselves. The entities built to handle succession have not handled their own. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-a-family-office-costs/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-a-family-office-costs/ 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding Four structures, the running cost in basis points, and the asset level below which the arithmetic simply does not work. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/revenue-per-person/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/revenue-per-person/ 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations The best headcount metric there is, the famous company that doubled it by removing people, and why most businesses cannot copy that and should not try. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/no-money-down/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/no-money-down/ 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance The rules are published. In the US you need ten percent, half of which can be a seller note frozen for a decade. Here is where the money really comes from. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/where-the-cash-goes/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/where-the-cash-goes/ 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding Capital allocation is the one owner decision that compounds, and most small companies make it by accident. What a hurdle rate is really for. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/first-ninety-days/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/first-ninety-days/ 26 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations A third of acquired staff leave within a year. What you touch first, what you deliberately leave alone, and why the order decides the outcome. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/private-equity-family-business/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/private-equity-family-business/ 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding Family offices have made private equity their largest allocation and are going direct. The reason is a fund model whose exit machinery has jammed. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-happens-when-people-buy/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-happens-when-people-buy/ 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions Forty years of measured outcomes across 862 acquisitions, including the quarter that lost money and the outliers doing the heavy lifting. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/normalised-earnings-are-a-range/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/normalised-earnings-are-a-range/ 12 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance What comes out of a declared profit before it means anything, why the honest output is a band, and where the German trades standard cuts it again. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/missed-calls/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/missed-calls/ 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations The industry statistics on this are mostly invented. The real research is worse, and it points at the cheapest fix a service business has. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-read-before-the-numbers/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-read-before-the-numbers/ 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions A twenty minute read from outside the business, and the one finding most buyers record as a data gap when it is actually the whole point. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/good-company-bad-ops/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/good-company-bad-ops/ 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions Business quality and fixable operations are two separate axes, not one score. The money is in the corner where a good company is run badly. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/seven-things-that-end-a-deal/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/seven-things-that-end-a-deal/ 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions Seven binary checks that kill an acquisition outright. Run them before valuation, because none of them can be priced around. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-operations-can-be-disrupted/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-operations-can-be-disrupted/ 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations Somebody still has to show up and fix the door. That is why the business is safe to own, and why the work around the visit is where the money is. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/ai-native-operations/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/ai-native-operations/ 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth Bolt-on versus native, the four layers, and where the labour actually comes out of a business. AI-native operations without the hype. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/operate-first-then-buy/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/operate-first-then-buy/ 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions Buying a business is an operating skill before it is a finance one. Why running one first is the cheapest way to learn to buy well. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-makes-a-business-worth-buying/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/what-makes-a-business-worth-buying/ 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions The buy-box in plain terms: profitability, durability, owner dependence, and why the boring businesses make the best acquisitions. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/how-to-sell-your-business-without-a-broker/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/how-to-sell-your-business-without-a-broker/ 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions What a broker does, what it costs, and how to run a clean, private sale yourself when a direct buyer is already at the table. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/seller-financing-explained-by-a-buyer/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/seller-financing-explained-by-a-buyer/ 31 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance Seller notes, earnouts, and installment structures in plain language, and why a seller who finances part of the deal often gets a better one. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/owner-dependence/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/owner-dependence/ 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Operations Owner dependence is the tax on your own time and the discount on your sale price. How to find it, measure it, and systemise it out. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/roll-ups-why-they-fail/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/roll-ups-why-they-fail/ 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Holding Multiple arbitrage looks like free money on a spreadsheet. Why most roll-ups break on integration, and what separates the ones that do not. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/permanent-capital-vs-the-fund-clock/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/permanent-capital-vs-the-fund-clock/ 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance A fund has to sell; a holding company does not. Why the absence of a clock changes which businesses you buy and how you run them. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-four-layer-growth-engine/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/the-four-layer-growth-engine/ 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Growth The operating system I run every business on: demand, pipeline conversion, retention, and expansion, in the order that compounds. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/buy-vs-build/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/buy-vs-build/ 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions Starting from zero versus buying something that already works. The honest trade-offs, and when each one is the right move. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/how-pe-firms-use-ai/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/how-pe-firms-use-ai/ 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Finance Beyond the deck: where AI creates real value across a portfolio, from diligence to the back office, and where it does not. https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/due-diligence-for-operators/ https://philmeyfarth.com/blog/due-diligence-for-operators/ 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Acquisitions A working checklist for buying a small business: quality of earnings, working capital, customer concentration, and the things that only an operator sees.