Turnarounds - Blog

Turnaround Survival: Street Fights, Advisors & Landing the Plane

In the <a href="/blog/how-to-communicate-protect-your-pillars">previous blog</a> in this series, we focused on the cultural glue: speaking the hard truth, avoiding sugarcoating, and protecting the pillars of your organization. Those moves stabilize the team. Now let’s talk about the street-fight reality of crisis, the need for a trusted consigliere, and why only great people and great optics give you a chance to land the plane safely.

Don’t Sugarcoat: How to Communicate and Protect Your Pillars

<a href="/blog/why-every-successful-turnaround-starts-with-shrinking">Last time</a>, we covered why shrinking is essential and why half-measures prolong the pain. Cuts must be real, deep, and courageous. Now we’ll tackle the cultural side of turnarounds: communicating hard truths without sugarcoating, and protecting the few critical people who hold up the entire structure.

Why Every Successful Turnaround Starts with Shrinking

In the <a href="/blog/problem-that-is-deadly-mistake-of-solving-what-isnt">previous blog</a> in this series, we confronted the trap of solving “the problem that isn’t” and why clinging to old plans is deadly. The hard truth: if you want to save the business, you’ve got to shed the excess and make deep, decisive cuts. Now we’ll talk about the necessity of shrinking, the dangers of tentative actions, and the courage required to cut fat, muscle, and sometimes even bone.

The Problem That “Is” (and the Deadly Mistake of Solving What Isn’t)

In the <a href="/blog/problem-with-turnarounds-they-are-hard">first post</a> in this series, we uncovered two brutal truths: most leaders aren’t equipped for turnarounds, and time is your enemy when cash is oxygen. If you miss the early signs, you end up in Stage 4 before you even know it. Now let’s get brutally clear about what matters most in a crisis: focusing only on the problem that is—and letting go of plans that no longer matter.

The Problem with Turnarounds … They Are Hard!

Positioned to Win?

I recently came across a brilliant passage in Shane Parrish’s book, <i>Clear Thinking</i>: “Each moment puts you in a better or worse position to handle the future. It’s that positioning that eventually makes life easier or harder… A good position allows you to think, rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances. You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them. Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad one. The greatest aid to judgment is starting from a good position. The company with cash on the balance sheet and low debt has good options when bad times come (they always do), and their options go from good to great. On the other hand, a company with no cash and high debt has nothing but bad options to choose from. Things quickly go from bad to worse.”

Opportunity Without Structure is Chaos

Let me be blunt: Your big idea is worthless without the structure to execute it. Passion, hustle, innovation—none of it matters if the business runs like a hair-on-fire circus.

Why You're the Bottleneck in Your Own Business

Every decision goes through you. Nothing happens without your approval. You're working 70 hours a week but spending most of it on $30/hour tasks. Here's the brutal truth about why your business is stuck. You’re operating the business instead of running the business. The reality is the business is running you.

How to Be a Successful Entrepreneur: The Importance of Thinking Time

Most entrepreneurs are so busy working IN their business that they never work ON it. The difference between millionaires and billionaires isn't working harder; it's thinking smarter. Schedule 2 hours of uninterrupted Thinking Time weekly, ask better questions, and watch your stupid mistakes drop by 80%. This isn't theory. It's how I became successful.

Your Guide to Buying a Business: Top Things to Know

Buying a business is not about chasing shiny objects or gut feelings. It's about disciplined financial analysis, strategic clarity, and ruthless due diligence. After reading this, you'll know exactly how to avoid some of the most costly mistakes, identify profitable opportunities, and execute a deal that actually makes you money.

5 Key Business Problems to Avoid

Most business problems aren't caused by a lack of ideas; they're caused by a lack of discipline, clarity, and execution. If you want to avoid losing millions, stop chasing shiny objects and start focusing on fundamentals. After reading this, you'll know exactly which business problems to avoid and how to sidestep them before they cost you time, money, and sanity.

How to Come Up With Ideas for Business: Stop Guessing, Start Winning

Most entrepreneurs waste time chasing shiny ideas instead of solving real problems. Great business ideas come from identifying painful problems, validating demand, and executing with financial discipline. After reading this, you'll know exactly how to generate profitable ideas for business and avoid costly mistakes.

Got Financial Problems? Start with Whacking Costs

When confronted with the challenge of making more money, amateur business owners lurch for the growth lever, especially when the business is in trouble. Yet if you look at the pros, you find just the opposite… When they have problems, the first thing they do is shrink. The pros shutter divisions, reduce the number of SKUs, shrink head count, get medieval about expenses and cost reductions, and find all the excess weight they have been lugging around to accommodate growth that hasn’t happened. Why? Because trimming expenses and optimizing for maximum efficiency is not only smart, it is the fastest and most efficient path to stopping the bleeding and solving the financial problem. Don’t believe me, try to find a major company that has deviated from this formula… Can’t be done. (GM, Peloton, Bed Bath and Beyond, Blue Bell Ice Cream… It’s a very long list!)

Business Ethics: What Are They & Why Are They Important?

Everyone has a personal moral code that shapes their behavior, and everyone must make ethical decisions every day of their lives. Businesses also consider ethics when making decisions. A company’s ethical or unethical behavior can significantly impact its reputation, operations, and revenue. Keep reading to find out more about business ethics and why they are important.

What Is Crisis Leadership?

A business can encounter a variety of crises, ranging from natural disasters to employee misconduct to political unrest. It’s important to properly navigate crises because they can have a significant impact on your company’s profits and reputation. Crisis leadership is key to properly managing incidents and maintaining public trust. Keep reading to learn more about crisis leadership and why it’s vital to your business strategy.

5 Skills Every Entrepreneur Should Have

Are you thinking about building your own business? As an entrepreneur, you can see a great profit if things go well. However, you’re also taking on a lot of risk. This risk can be in the form of career risk, financial risk, emotional risk, and overall business risk. Because there is so much at stake when it comes to starting a business, entrepreneurs need to have a specific set of skills in order to be successful. Here are 5 skills every entrepreneur should have to successfully start and grow a business:

8 Business Myths You Should Stop Believing

There are a lot of myths surrounding business, especially when it comes to starting a small business. These myths can negatively impact your mindset and interfere with your ability to succeed as an entrepreneur. Unrealistic expectations are a primary saboteur of small business success. Here are some of the most common business myths and why you should recalibrate your beliefs to conform with reality:

10 Financial Metrics Every Business Should Track

Financial metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you improve your decision-making processes and your chances of success by providing valuable insight into your business’s health. Some financial metrics may be more critical for your business than others. However, there are certain metrics that every business leader should know. Here’s a list of 10 financial metrics that every business should track:

Why Is It Important to Keep Up with Cash Flow?

You may have heard the phrase, “Cash is king.” Cash is the lifeblood of your business, and cash flow indicates the money coming in and going out to keep your business running. Keeping up with cash flow is about more than just bookkeeping–it’s a way to ensure the financial stability and success of your business. Even if your business is profitable on paper, it can still fail due to cash flow issues. Keep reading to learn more about why it’s important to keep up with cash flow.

Why CFO Scoreboard is the Best Business Software

Most business owners are just one wrong decision away from financial disaster. Don’t let that be you! It’s time to get serious about getting the best business and financial optics available so that you can be serious about improving your business. It’s time to get CFO Scoreboard. What is CFO Scoreboard? We’re sharing everything you need to know, including why it’s the best business software out there.

4 Benefits of Keith’s Virtual Business Courses

When you start a business, there are so many unknowns and questions you don’t have answers to. Those unknowns can lead to problems later down the line. Don’t you wish you could have someone to ask those questions to and learn from? Now you can! With Keith J. Cunningham’s virtual business courses, you’ll be able to learn from experts who’ve been where you are before. To help you learn more, we’ve put together a list of the top 4 benefits of Keith’s virtual business courses:

3 Keith Cunningham Books That Are Must-Reads for Entrepreneurs

Starting your own business can be challenging, but what’s even more challenging is keeping your business alive once it’s up and running. Luckily for you, you have an expert who is willing to show you the ropes and share important lessons that will help you avoid making dumb mistakes as a business owner. Keith Cunningham is an acclaimed author who is an expert at turning small businesses into extremely profitable companies. To learn the tools and strategies used by the pros to make and keep money, these <a href="/books/">Keith Cunningham books</a> are must-reads for entrepreneurs:

4 Tips for Creating a Crisis Management Plan for Your Business

When you run a business, the one thing that’s inevitable is a crisis. At some point in time, your business, and you, are going to face a crisis. However, it’s not what the crisis is that matters most, it’s how you handle it. The best time to learn how to manage a crisis is before the crisis actually happens, and we’re here to help you plan! Here are the top tips for creating a crisis management plan for your business:

Who is Keith J. Cunningham?

Seasoned entrepreneur, acclaimed author, internationally known speaker, business coach — all of these can be used to identify Keith J. Cunningham. A master of his craft, if you haven’t learned from Keith yet, you’ll want to after hearing more about him. We’re sharing more about this self-made millionaire, how he got to where he is today, and how you can benefit from Keys to the Vault.

5 of the Biggest Mistakes to Avoid as a Business Owner

It takes a lot to make a good business owner great. One of the things that sets great business owners apart from the rest is being able to avoid doing stupid things and to recognize dumb mistakes prior to making them. You don’t need to do more smart things in order to be successful — you just have to make fewer dumb mistakes. To help you be successful, we’re sharing some of the top mistakes to avoid as a business owner.

3 Reasons to Take Business Advice from Keith J. Cunningham

You shouldn’t take business advice from just anyone. When you’re seeking advice on how to run a successful business, you want to learn from someone who’s done it before or is currently doing it. Keith J. Cunningham is an expert in business and has raised and structured hundreds of millions of dollars for his business ventures. He teaches detailed strategies you can implement, even in today’s economy. He has the best resources to turn to when you’re serious about growing your business and becoming a successful owner. If you need more convincing, take a look at these reasons to take business advice from Keith J. Cunningham:

3 Keith Cunningham Books to Add to Your Reading List

Keith is an acclaimed author who is regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on business mastery. He is an expert at helping business owners turn businesses into highly profitable companies with explosive growth. If you want to learn how to have a successful business, Keith Cunningham can help. He has an impressive collection of business tools and resources that will not only guide you in the right direction when it comes to running your business, but they will set you up for success years down the road as well. Some of his most popular resources include his books. To learn more, take a look at these 3 <a href="/books/">Keith Cunningham books</a> to add to your reading list:

Crisis Leadership: Do Your Job!

Over the last two weeks, I have held dozens of Board of Directors meetings and one-on-one deep dives with scores of business owners around the world. Every one of these business owners is dealing with uncertainty and a crisis of some sort. Some are more serious than others, but none are immune.

Cash is Still the King… Crisis Survival Guide

Five birds are sitting side by side on a telephone wire. You shoot one of them, it falls off the wire and hits the ground. Now how many birds are left on the wire? The obvious answer is “4”. The correct answer is “none”. When you shot the first bird, the other 4 birds flew off.

Business Oxygen

Oxygen is something we rarely think about until it is cut off and then it becomes our highest priority. The reason is obvious: Without oxygen, life rapidly becomes increasingly uncomfortable and then you die….quickly.

The Discipline of Thinking Time

The idea of writing a book about Thinking Time (which I am hoping was not my third-best idea) has been in the making for decades. It started over twenty-five years ago (shortly after I paid a gigantic dumb tax), when I began tracking and recording the critical skills, ©2018 Keys to the Vault tools, and insights I learned the hard way and which I have found are necessary to be sustainably successful. In the process, I have developed several core beliefs that have molded my thinking, actions, and results. Here are the critical few that are relevant for this book:

Keith’s Log of Lessons Learned

In the late 1980’s, as the real estate market in the Southwestern part of the United States collapsed, I was wiped out, as were many of my friends and business associates. We were experiencing the inevitable catastrophic aftermath of one of the greatest real estate booms in the history of mankind.

Mann Gulch

On August 5, 1949, thirteen men died battling a relatively small blaze that turned deadly at Mann Gulch. Upon investigating the circumstances of why most of the smoke jumpers (firefighters who parachute into the back country to fight fires) died while three lived, the U.S. Forest Service came to some startling conclusions.

A Solution Based Life

Everyone I know has problems. We all have things that don’t go as planned or have challenges which catch us off guard. When you stop to think about it, a problem is nothing more than a situation in need of improvement. My experience is that people can have three responses to their “situations”:

Myth #1 — Financial Freedom

Every time I speak these days, someone in the audience wants to talk about their frustration with obtaining “Financial Freedom, Passive Income and More Time.” This newsletter is the first of a three part series on these issues.

Myth #2 – Passive Income

This is the second installment in a three part series on wealth and money. Part one of the series was on Financial Freedom. Part two is on Passive Income.

Myth #3 – More Time

This is the third installment in a three part series on wealth and money. Part one was on the myth of Financial Freedom. Part two was on the myth of Passive Income. Part three is on More Time.

Falling for the Cause

If you are like most people I know, every year around February you begin to notice that all those New Year´s resolutions you made about 4 weeks ago are starting to fade and wither. Most of these resolutions were the same ones you made last year and the year before. Every year, after a few weeks, you start finding reasons and excuses to make exceptions and to fall off the wagon.

Achieving POWER in all your Negotiations

Anytime you are in a negotiation, you are there for one reason and one reason only: To do better than your alternatives. You are negotiating to see if you can improve upon your existing situation. If you can, then you are better off than you would have been otherwise; and if you can´t, then you have your fall back position, which are your alternatives.

Creating a Successful Business Plan

As I discussed in the article The Power of Using OPM…Other People’s Money, most entrepreneurs get lost in the maze of figuring out what makes an investor bite and thus fund one business plan versus another. The people with the money have a set of rules and invest in things that the poor and middle class are not even aware of. To successfully raise money, you must understand the rules that the rich use to make their investment decisions.

Negotiations are in Paradox

Have you ever been in a negotiation and gotten everything you wanted?

Money Follows Management

Robert Kiyosaki, in his book Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing, points out on the opening page, his rich dad’s advice on investing, “Don’t be average.” The same advice can be given to every entrepreneur who dreams of striking it rich by starting a company. They think that because they have dreamed up a snappy new product, it will be easy to raise some money and then even easier to parlay the great idea and financial backing into the “next big thing.” It takes more than an average person to successfully turn an idea into millions of sales and thus millions of profits.

Expand the Pie Before You Divide It

In almost all negotiations, there comes a time when the parties get stuck. I have said repeatedly what I want, you have said repeatedly what you want and we are still apart. We are both dug into our positions and the more often we repeat our position, the more solidified it becomes in our own minds. This is the time that is the most challenging and the most fun because it requires you to be creative. Usually when it gets to this point, it sounds like an either/or kind of conversation and usually the conversation is about to get heated or emotional.

The Power of Using OPM

Most people are in the “rat race” financially, going round and round, living paycheck to pay check. One of the keys to getting out of the rat race and creating financial independence is knowing the secret of leveraging other people´s time and money. The ability to raise and use OPM and OPT is crucial to obtaining the financial freedom you deserve and desire.