Decisions that hold under constraint.
Writing on the revenue, capital, and incentive decisions that determine whether a firm compounds or quietly comes apart. Each piece takes a number most operators trust and shows what it was actually measuring.
Begin an inquiryHer firm closed a record year and drew on the line of credit to make payroll in the same quarter. At 95 days of lockup, the firm is in the lending business: $676,685 out to clients at 0%, on terms nobody set.
August 27, 2026Two practices collect the same $3.0M and grow at the same rate. One starts every January owing itself $870K of demand it has to create before it grows a dollar. The gap appears on no statement either practice produces, and it is the first thing the buyer's code file shows.
August 13, 2026Two practices show the same EBITDA and draw the same $3.9 million bid. Normalized at the owner's replacement cost, one is a fair add-on at 5.6x and one overpays by $1.8 million.
August 6, 2026Two practices with identical EBITDA can trade $1.3 million apart. The number that sets the gap appears in neither one's reporting: the owner's share of production.
July 22, 2026A DSO letter of intent prices the practice on page one. Pages two through twelve describe how much of that number reaches the owner as cash, stock, and conditions. The multiple is the one number the seller cannot spend.
July 16, 2026The close rate on discounted work measures two populations with opposite economics. One was profitable at the original price. The other was selected by the lower one. The blended win rate hides the cost.
July 8, 2026A law firm bills $3.2 million across four matter types and steers by the total. Allocate the cost to serve each one and the smallest line is often the largest business. The total hides the shape, and the shape is the firm.
June 30, 2026Last year your firm wrote down somewhere between eight and fifteen percent of standard value, one WIP adjustment at a time. Added up, it is the largest pricing decision the firm made all year, and nobody decided to make it.
June 24, 2026A packed calendar measures how completely capacity was consumed. It says nothing about what was left after the cost of consuming it, and the busiest month is often the least profitable.
June 17, 2026Revenue ranks your clients by size. Contribution after cost to serve ranks them by who actually pays, and the largest account is often the worst one.
June 9, 2026Clean is not a state a growing company is ever in. Diligence does not test whether your books are clean. It tests whether you found what was there before the buyer did.
June 3, 2026A membership can add accounts every month and shrink in value the whole time. Member count measures size. It says nothing about whether each new member is worth more than it cost.
May 31, 2026Pricing is set in one document and compensation in another. When the two disagree, the comp plan wins, because it is the one with the money attached.
May 31, 2026A raise rarely dies on the valuation. It dies in diligence, on a structural fact the founder never measured. The move almost nobody makes is to run that diligence first.
May 31, 2026A margin problem is usually a contribution problem in disguise. The rate card is the first lever a firm reaches for, and the last one that helps.
May 31, 2026Begin the engagement
When a decision in these pages is the one in front of you, that is where the work begins.
Or email info@blsheets.co