Buy the Numbers

Profitable but Broke? Why Your Shop Needs a 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast | Ep. 58

What good is a record quarter if you can't make payroll? It's an uncomfortable question, especially when your shop is busy, your margins are healthy, and your financial s

Is Defense Work Worth It? The Hidden Costs + Untapped Opportunities for Machine Shops | Ep. 57

Defense manufacturing is supposed to be a massive opportunity for American machine shops. The government needs more domestic suppliers, existing weapons systems need repl

Are You Leading Your Shop—or Getting in Its Way? | Ep. 56

Nobody outworks me. If that's part of how you see yourself, this episode is going to sting a little. Greg Harrod's spent 30 plus years in and around manufacturing, and he

What Tribal Knowledge Is Actually Costing Your Shop | Ep. 55

Replacing an employee can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000. But the real risk isn't just recruiting and training their replacement. It's everything that walks out th

Get Pre-Approved So You Can Buy That Machine at IMTS | Ep. 54

IMTS is about a week and a half out. Most people heading to Chicago are showing up with a shopping list, and the ones who aren't will still find something on the floor th

The $3,500 Apprentice Incentive: How to Claim Your Share of a $35.8 Million Fund | Ep. 53

There's $35.8 million sitting in a federal fund built to pay manufacturers for hiring and training apprentices, and most shop owners have never heard of it. It pays $3,50

Why You're Never too Small for an ERP, Ep. 52

Almost every shop owner I talk to has told themselves the same story at some point: we are too small for a real ERP, so we will keep running the business on the old syste

The 9 Numbers That Tell You If Your Marketing Is Working | Ep. 51

You spend money on a website, LinkedIn posts, maybe some email and a trade show booth, and then you ask the question every owner asks: is any of this actually working? Fo

The Owner Bottleneck: How Getting Out of the Way Can Double Your Shop's Value, Ep #50

Most shop owners believe the number on their business is locked in by their earnings. It isn't. Two shops with identical profit can sell for wildly different prices, and

Think Like a Buyer: How to Maximize Your Shop's Value Before You Sell

Most shop owners never sell a business before the day they actually sell theirs. You build something for thirty years, then one phone call later you're trying to figure o

Women, Purpose, and Pay: The Honest Conversation Manufacturing Needs to Have, Ep #48

Part two of a good conversation is where things usually get real. In this episode, I pick back up with Nush Ahmed and Brooke Laing from Sisterhood of Trades, and we get i

No Cap: Manufacturing's Generational Communication Breakdown, Ep #47

In this episode of Buy the Numbers, I sat down with Nush Ahmed and Brooke Laing for one of the more entertaining and eye-opening conversations I've had in a while. What s

The Real ROI of Automation: CapEx, Capacity & the Cost of Doing Nothing, Ep #46

Recorded live from the DN Solutions open house near Chicago, this special crossover episode blends the worlds of Buy the Numbers and Lights Out into one conversation abou

The PEO Playbook: How Small Shops Compete Like Big Employers, Ep #45

If you're like most shop owners, HR, payroll, and benefits are necessary evils—important, but far from the reason you got into manufacturing in the first place. Yet those

Breaking the Ceiling: Systems, Data, and the Truth About Scaling a Machine Shop, Ep #44

Breaking the Ceiling: Systems, Data, and the Truth About Scaling a Machine Shop, Ep #44 Manufacturing will humble you—no matter how good you get. I was talking with som

Trust First, Numbers Second: The Leadership Playbook Manufacturing Shops Are Missing, Ep #43

What actually makes leadership work in a manufacturing environment? Is it KPIs, lean systems, and dashboards? Or is it something far more human? In this episode of Buy

CMMC Is Coming — What It Means for Your Shop, Your Costs, and Your Customers, Ep #42

CMMC is no longer something manufacturers can afford to ignore. If you're doing work in the defense supply chain—or even thinking about it—this is quickly becoming a re

The Overlooked Expense: How Utility Assessments Can Unlock Hidden Savings, Ep #41

Most of the time on Buy the Numbers, we focus on revenue growth, margin improvement, cash flow strategy, or capital investments. But in this episode, we turn our attentio

Don't Just File the Return — How Smart Tax Planning Pays Off Over Time, Ep #40

Too many manufacturers treat taxes as a once-a-year compliance exercise. You gather the documents, sign the return, write the check, and move on. But the reality is that

The Cost of Quality — Why Getting It Right Is the Fastest Way to Get Paid, Ep #39

Quality is often treated like a cost center in manufacturing. Something we have to do to satisfy customers, auditors, or certifications. But in my experience, quality is