You already know which area it is. It has a name, it has an owner and it has your signature

You already know which area it is. It has a name, it has an owner and it has your signature.

Air conditioning in the shops, in 2007. Outsourced car wash, around 2010. Good fronts, well executed, high margin and tiny revenue.

All of them were labor intensive and outside my core. All of them required someone senior watching. And all of them pulled my team away from what created value to take care of less than 5% of revenue.

The criteria for shutting down are no secret.

First: revenue that does not pay for the structure that sustains it.
Second: an operation that consumes senior time out of proportion to what it delivers.
Third: a line that only runs with the owner inside.

No owner gets these three wrong. What blocks it is that every line has a surname, a partner or an old promise stuck to it.

None of them died from lack of effort. All of them died from too much of it.

I did not shut down when the number said so. I shut down when I had to defend that line in front of partners and the Board.

Cash does not feel the small line. It feels the senior person it occupies. And it feels the executive agenda spent deciding what the number has already decided.

Open the income statement by line and add up the senior hours each one consumes. The number already exists. What is missing is the meeting where you read it out loud.