by MHolland | Jul 10, 2026 | Cash Flow, Systems
Over the years, I have watched a curious pattern repeat itself in businesses of every size and every industry.
A company has a great year. Profits climb. Cash flows in abundantly. New clients arrive, sometimes faster than the team can onboard them. Everything is on the uptick.
And then something shifts.
The owner gets, well, shall I say it? Cocky. Yes, cocky.
They begin to believe the sun will always shine and the rain will never come. And from that belief — usually unspoken, usually unexamined — flows a whole series of decisions that can quietly undo years of careful work.
When the Money Arrives, the Discipline Leaves
Here is what typically happens when cash gets comfortable.
Instead of saving, instead of keeping things tight, the optimism takes over and the spending begins. A larger office. Two new hires that were “needed” but never defined. Software subscriptions that pile up like snow on a roof. A vehicle. Maybe two.
Now, let me be clear about something. Spending is not the problem. I am not preaching austerity for its own sake.
Spending without an intended outcome, and without controls — that is the problem.
Because here is a truth every business owner learns eventually, and some learn painfully: a business expense, once spent, never comes back. That dollar is gone. It does not return when the market softens or when two big clients leave in the same quarter.
So before it leaves your hands, that dollar deserves a moment of your attention.
Every Expense Must Answer One Question
Before you approve any new spending in a good year, ask this simple question:
What is this expense doing for my business?
There are only three legitimate answers. Every dollar you spend should fall into one of these three buckets:
- It increases current revenues.
- It sustains current revenues.
- It builds revenues for the future.
That is the entire filter. Three buckets, nothing more.
An expense that increases current revenue might be an additional salesperson in a proven territory, or a marketing channel you have already tested and measured. An expense that sustains revenue might be the maintenance contract on the equipment your production depends upon, or the training that keeps your team sharp and your service consistent.
And if an expense cannot honestly claim a home in any of the three buckets? Then it is not an investment at all. It is simply money leaking out of your business because the account balance made you feel expansive.
The Third Bucket Is Where Smart Owners Get Sloppy
Now, here is the tricky part.
That third bucket — building for the future — is where I see the most money wasted, precisely because it sounds so noble.
“We are investing in the future” is a sentence that ends conversations. Nobody questions it. It carries the ring of vision and leadership.
Yet if you are spending money to build something new — a product line, a service offering, a new market — those dollars are not ordinary expenses. They are investments. And investments demand a level of rigor that ordinary spending does not.
You must be able to answer these questions, in writing, before the first dollar moves:
- What new revenue stream, exactly, are you building?
- How long will it take to build?
- What are the short-term and medium-term milestones along the way?
- How will you define success when it is done?
- And the question most owners avoid — at what point will you admit it is not working, and stop?
If you cannot answer these, you are not investing. You are hoping. And hope, as warm as it feels, is not a strategy that survives contact with a bank statement.
Treat It Like a Project, Because It Is One
Here is the discipline I recommend to our clients.
Any spending aimed at future growth gets treated as a formal project. It receives a defined outcome. It receives milestones. It receives Key Performance Indicators that get reviewed monthly — not glanced at, reviewed — so you can see whether reality is matching the plan.
This does two beautiful things.
First, it forces clarity before the spending starts, when clarity is cheap. Second, it gives you permission to course-correct early, when corrections are still small and affordable.
Without this structure, you will simply spend, month after month, hoping for an outcome you never even defined. And a year later you will look at your financial statements and wonder where the profit went.
Lean Is Not Fear. Lean Is Wisdom.
Alternatively — and this is a perfectly honourable path — you can choose not to expand at all.
Keep your fixed costs very lean. Examine carefully whether you truly need to spend more right now. Do not let the presence of money create the need to spend it.
The rain will come again. It always does. Not because I am a pessimist, but because I have read enough history and lived enough decades to know that turbulence is the normal condition of business, not the exception.
The owners who thrive across decades are the ones who stay lean in the sunshine, so the storms find them prepared rather than exposed.
Remember Why You Went Into Business
Let me close with something deeper than tactics.
Why did you go into business in the first place?
Strip away everything else, and I believe it comes down to three things, and only three things:
- Freedom of time.
- Cash-flow.
- A balanced lifestyle.
That surplus cash sitting in your account after a strong year is not merely fuel for expansion. It can also be invested in the very things you started the business to attain — your family, your health, your time, your life beyond the office walls.
There is no rule that says every good year must be converted into a bigger, more complicated business. Some of it can simply be converted into a better life. That, too, is a return on investment.
The Bottom Line
When money is flowing, keep your expenses tight, and invest the difference.
If you choose to use the surplus to grow, be very cautious about where it goes. Define the outcome. Set the milestones. Attach the KPIs. Treat it as the project it truly is.
Do that, and the good years will fund the great ones.
Skip it, and you will discover — as many have before you — that nothing evaporates faster than a profitable year spent without a plan.
Thanks for reading…
by MHolland | Jun 19, 2026 | Business Tips, Systems
Culture is the pinnacle of creation.
I mean that. If you build a genuine culture in your business, you transform everything around you. Your team. Your customers. The quality of work. The kinds of clients you attract. All of it.
And yet. Most business owners spend almost no time on it.
I want to talk about why that is a mistake. A big one. And I want to tell you a story about the moment I almost made it myself.
What Culture Actually Is
One definition: “The set of predominating attitudes and behaviors that characterize a group or organization.”
Fine. But that still does not quite capture it.
Culture is invisible. You cannot see it. It is not in your operations manual. It does not live in any one person. It is not your systems, your policies, or your org chart.
And yet you feel it the moment you walk into a business that has it.
Think of a business you love. One that has outlasted its founders. One where every interaction feels consistent, warm, excellent. Where the service is the same whether the owner is in the building or on a beach in Mexico.
That is culture. It is the soul of the place.
Still. Small. Unseen. Felt everywhere.
Where It Comes From
It starts with you.
As Founder. As CEO. As Manager.
Culture begins with your beliefs. What you believe gets transmitted through your actions. Through what you say. And — crucially — through how you say it. Your tone. Your consistency. The way you treat a junior team member when you are under pressure. The way you talk about a difficult client when they are not in the room. The way you show up when things go sideways.
Your team is watching. All of it. Always.
And they will mirror it back. To each other. And to your customers.
Culture is not built in a team-building afternoon. It is built — quietly, relentlessly — in ten thousand small moments of a business day.
Why Most Business Owners Miss It
Here is what I see over and over.
Almost all the time, money, and mental energy goes into systems. Hiring. Managing. Operations. Firefighting. Just generally, getting stuff done.
And I get it. There are payables due. There is a client issue. There is a hire that is not working out. Culture feels like something you will get to later. When things calm down. When there is more time.
But things never calm down.
And culture, left unattended, does not stay neutral. It drifts. And usually not in the direction you would choose.
The Day I Cracked My Own Ming Vase
I love our culture at Controllership Plus. I am genuinely proud of it.
It is built on respect. Excellence. Kindness. Results over process. Going the extra mile for our clients. We did not stumble into it. It was deliberately created, carefully tended, and it shows in the team we have and the clients we keep.
Which is why what happened next shocked me.
I raised my voice. In an interaction with a team member. It was one moment. Not a tirade. Not a blow-up. Just a raised voice that left someone feeling devalued.
And I was the one who did it.
Me. The person who created this culture. Who initiated it. Who breathed life into it. Who writes blogs about it, for goodness sake.
I cracked the Ming vase.
Here is what I learned in that moment. I had made a quiet, dangerous assumption. I had started to think of our culture as tensile steel. Permanent. Unbreakable. Something that could absorb anything I threw at it because we had built it so well.
It is not tensile steel. Or rather — it is both things at once. Strong enough to survive. Fragile enough to crack in a single careless moment. Like a tree that has weathered decades of storms but can still be split by one bolt of lightning.
I caught it quickly. I apologized. Directly. Sincerely. I followed up with an email so there was no ambiguity about where I stood. I paid closer attention to my words in the days that followed.
Our culture was not destroyed. It is strong and intact. But it woke me up.
As in any relationship — a marriage, a friendship, a team — it only takes one or two bad acts to begin unraveling a lifetime of tenderness. The repair is possible. But the prevention is everything.
Now Some of You Are Ready to Scream
“Mark, this is all very nice. But I run a business. Not a monastery. I need results. Revenue. Accountability.”
I hear you.
But here is what I have seen, time and again, in the businesses I work with closely.
Strong culture means lower turnover. Lower turnover means lower hiring and training costs. Lower costs mean higher margins. Higher margins mean more profit.
Culture also drives customer experience. Customer experience drives loyalty. Loyalty drives referrals. And referrals are the cheapest, highest-converting leads you will ever get.
Culture is not soft. Culture is a balance sheet item. We just do not have a way to put it there yet.
The Businesses That Last
Go find a business that has been genuinely thriving for 30, 40, 50 years. One that has outlasted its founder. One that has survived recessions, leadership transitions, and the chaos of the world.
I will make you a bet.
Somewhere in that company’s history, a leader made culture a deliberate priority. Not a side project. A priority. They were intentional about how people spoke to each other. What got celebrated and what was not tolerated. The tone. The standards. The values. They put in the work — not with a big budget, but with consistency and relentless care.
And it stuck. It became the way things are done here. Even when no one could quite explain why.
That is the real power of culture. It outlives the people who built it.
Where to Start
You do not need a consultant. You do not need a two-day offsite. You do not need a culture committee.
You need one question.
“What do I want it to feel like to work here? And to be a customer here?”
Then start living it. In your next team meeting. In your next client call. In how you respond to the first difficult thing that happens today.
Culture is built one moment at a time.
I know. Because I almost forgot that. And a good person reminded me.
Thanks for reading…
by MHolland | Jun 12, 2026 | Business Tips, Cash Flow, Systems, Uncategorized
Does the world feel a bit unstable right now?
A bit?
Tariffs. War in the Middle East. Rising prices. A sluggish economy. High taxes. Governments that make you shake your head.
Of course, in times past, everything rolled along quite nicely, right?
Let’s take a little trip back. Just 100 years or so.
The 1920s gave us The Great Crash. The 1930s handed us The Great Depression — unemployment hitting 25%, banks failing, families devastated for a full decade. The 1940s? A World War that consumed the entire planet. The 1950s brought the Korean War, the Cold War, and the very real daily anxiety of nuclear annihilation. Duck and cover, kids.
The 1960s? Vietnam. The assassinations of JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King. Cities burning. A society tearing itself apart in real time. The 1970s served up stagflation, oil embargoes, and interest rates that climbed to 20%. Twenty percent. Businesses were crushed by the simple act of borrowing money. The 1980s collapsed the Savings and Loan industry — a $130 billion taxpayer bailout to clean up the mess.
The 1990s? The Gulf War, the Asian Financial Crisis, and a Dot-Com bubble inflating to dangerous, absurd levels. The 2000s opened with 9/11 — a single morning that reshaped the entire world — and closed with the 2008 Housing Collapse that nearly took the global financial system down with it. The 2010s brought European Debt Crisis, Brexit chaos, and trade wars quietly beginning to simmer. And the 2020s? COVID shut down the global economy overnight. Then came inflation, supply chain collapse, and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
So. Still dreaming of those stable, peaceful good old days?
I am sorry to have dragged you through all of that with such relentless cheerfulness.
But here is the point — and it is an important one.
There has not been a single calm, stable, uneventful decade in 100 years.
Not one.
And yet — businesses were built. Families were fed. Companies grew, adapted, and thrived. Through all of it.
Oh, But Wait — The 2030s Will Fix Everything
No inflation. No tariffs. Supply chains humming beautifully. Global trade expanding. Employees thriving. Businesses prospering. Peace and goodwill washing over the entire planet.
Right?
Yeah. Do not hold your breath.
The storm is not a temporary detour from normal. The storm is normal. The sooner we accept that as business owners, the sooner we can get on with the real work.
So What Do We Actually Control?
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
First — keep your fixed costs lean. Fixed costs are the enemy in volatile times. The lower your overhead, the more agile you are. When the next crisis hits — and it will — a lean cost structure lets you pivot, absorb, and survive while your bloated competitors are gasping for air. Review every fixed cost. Ask the hard question: do I truly need this right now?
Second — obsess over your customers. Here is the one thread that runs consistently through every single decade of chaos listed above. The businesses that survived and thrived were the ones that were kind, responsive, reliable, and genuinely caring. Every time. Soft skills, it turns out, are remarkably resilient in the face of wars, recessions, and pandemics. Weird, right? Be on time. Answer the phone. Do what you say you will do. Care — genuinely care — about the people who do business with you. That never goes out of style, regardless of what the economy is doing.
Third — build systems that adapt. A business without solid systems is fragile by design. When external chaos hits, your internal systems are what keep you steady. Document how you do things. Build processes that do not depend entirely on one person. Create a financial dashboard so you always know where you stand — weekly, not monthly. You cannot navigate a storm without instruments.
Fourth — always be adding value. Price increases, tariffs, and rising costs are much easier to absorb — for both you and your customers — when you are relentlessly focused on delivering value. The businesses that get squeezed hardest in tough times are the ones competing on price alone. Do not be that business.
The Bottom Line
The world has always been unstable. It always will be.
The businesses thriving right now are not the ones that predicted the chaos. They are the ones that were built to absorb it — lean, customer-focused, systemized, and clear-eyed about what they can and cannot control.
Focus on what is inside your four walls. Keep your costs tight. Love your customers. Build great systems. Add value every single day.
The storm will pass. It always does.
And the businesses still standing when it does? They were ready.
Thanks for reading…
by MHolland | May 29, 2026 | Business Tips, Systems
Are you a little sick and tired of being fire-hosed with the latest and greatest on AI? Yeah, me too.
And yet… I am also genuinely fascinated with what it can do.
So, let me share what I have been learning – practically, on the ground, with my Team – about working with AI effectively. No hype. Just what is working.
Step One – Pick One or Two Tools and Stick With Them
First things first. Beware of shiny object syndrome.
There is a new AI tool launching every single week. It is tempting to jump from one to the next, sampling each one like a buffet. Resist that urge.
Right now, I am highly focused on Claude. I have a Teams account and have enrolled most of my Team in using it. Why Claude? Because I have gone deep with it. Depth beats breadth every time.
Before you dive in, ask yourself – what do I actually want to accomplish with this? Start there. Then pick your tool and commit.
What Can It Actually Do? More Than You Think.
Start simple. Here are a few easy wins to get going:
- Reformatting emails so they sound clear and professional
- Writing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) from scratch
- Summarizing long documents in seconds
But go a little further and it gets impressive fast.
Claude’s design work is stunning. I used it to create a standard look and feel for our Controller’s Reports across all of our clients. Clean, consistent, professional.
It maneuvers through Excel like Circ’ de Soleil. Seriously.
And now? It connects directly to our accounting software – Xero and QuickBooks Online.
A Real-Life Example That Blew My Mind
One of our Team members recently asked me if Claude could update hundreds of contacts in Xero for currency settings.
Manually, this was a painful, repetitive task. Open a contact. Scroll to the currency field. Click the dropdown. Choose USD or CAD. Save. Close. Repeat. Hundreds of times.
Claude could not write directly to the contacts because Xero only provides read-only access. But then it asked – “Would you like me to build a program?”
I said sure – for fun!
Using the Xero API, Claude built a custom software interface. In minutes, it updated hundreds of contacts – with one click of a button.
That is not just impressive. That is a game-changer for productivity.
Think of Yourself as the Director – Not the Programmer
Here is a mental shift that changed everything for me.
Do not think of AI as just computer code. Think of it like you are the human director on a movie set. AI is an improvisational actor, ready to play any role you give it.
The sky is the limit with the roles you assign. Try something like this – “You are a PhD-level scientist who has studied weather patterns in sub-Saharan Africa for 90 years.”
You get the idea. The more specific and vivid the role, the better the performance you will get.
And Here’s the Part That Might Surprise You – Be Polite
In using Claude, I am super polite and friendly. Please. Thank you. That sort of thing.
Is that a bit over the top? Perhaps. Yet I genuinely believe I get much better responses as a result.
Think about it this way. If AI functions more like an actor – or a series of actors, depending on what you need – then wouldn’t it make sense to coax out the very best performance possible?
I cannot prove it scientifically. But I feel it works better with kindness.
Just like your Team does.
In Summary
Here are the key takeaways to get the most out of AI in your business:
- Pick one or two tools and go deep. Avoid shiny object syndrome.
- Start with simple tasks – emails, SOPs, formatting – and build from there.
- Think like a director, not a programmer. Give it a vivid role to play.
- Be specific about what you want it to accomplish.
- Be kind. You may be surprised at the results.
Thanks for reading…
by MHolland | May 8, 2026 | Business Tips, Selling Tips, Systems
I marvel at how little most businesses understand about customer service.
It is the single greatest differentiator available to any business—big or small. It compensates for product failures. It softens the blow when things go sideways. And when it is done right, it transforms a frustrated customer into a raving fan.
The problem? Most businesses treat customer service as a cost centre. A necessary evil. A complaint-handling department staffed by people who are chained to a rulebook written by someone who has never spoken to an actual customer.
Let me tell you about a company that gets it completely right.
The Screen That Died—and the Company That Didn’t
A few months ago, I bought a dual-screen extender from a company called Blackview on Amazon. Clever little device—two extra screens slide over your laptop, giving you a total of three screens. Sounds like a productivity dream, right?
After about three weeks, the left screen went dark. Black screen of death. I tried everything—rebooting, reconnecting, re-signalling. Nothing. And by then, I was past Amazon’s 30-day return window.
Now, here is where most people groan and write it off as a loss. Because we all know what usually happens next: the soul-destroying experience of contacting customer “service” with a big company. I use the word “service” very loosely.
For laughs—and with zero expectations—I reached out to Blackview through the Amazon website.
The First Good Sign: Someone Actually Responded
They heard back right away. Immediately, I sat up a little straighter.
A professional and polite representative named Liz walked me through a few technical troubleshooting steps. No canned responses. No “please allow 5–7 business days.” Just genuine, helpful engagement.
When the fixes did not work, Liz offered to send me a brand-new replacement package—and here is the kicker—she offered to pay for the shipping. Something she said they do not normally do.
First brownie point earned. But the story gets better.
Going Off-Script—and Still Saying Yes
Here is the honest truth: by this point, I had lost interest in the dual-screen setup entirely. Three screens turned out to be too much for me—too much on display, too little focus. So I asked Liz if they could send me a single replacement screen instead of the full double.
She said that was not possible. I understood. Fair enough.
A few days later, I came back with another ask: could they credit me 55% of the purchase price—about $150 USD—and I would keep the unit as-is?
Liz’s response was quick, warm, and extraordinary. She said—and I’m paraphrasing—“Normally we do not do this, but as long as you would be willing to leave us a positive review, we will make an exception.”
I left the review. She credited me the $150 USD.
At no point did I feel like Liz was running upstairs to check with a supervisor. She was empowered to act. And that empowerment is everything.
And Then—A Free Laptop
If the story ended there, I would already be telling everyone I know about Blackview.
But it did not end there.
A few days later, Liz emailed again—out of the blue—to invite me to join a product-testing program. The deal? I purchase one of their brand-new laptop models, write an honest review, and they refund me the full purchase price.
I signed up immediately.
So let’s tally this up: a failed screen became a $150 USD credit plus a free laptop. And a company that could have easily stonewalled me behind a 30-day return policy has earned a customer—and a LinkedIn blog post—for life.
The Real Test of Your Business
Here is what I want every business owner reading this to take away:
The true mettle of your business is revealed not when everything goes right—but when something goes wrong.
Are your front-line people empowered to act on behalf of the customer? Or are they handcuffed by rigid policies, waiting for sign-off from someone three levels up who has never met the customer?
Liz did not need a committee. She had the authority, the confidence, and—clearly—the training to handle a difficult situation with grace and creativity. That is not an accident. That is culture. That is leadership.
And it costs a fraction of what a lost customer—and their network—would have cost Blackview.
Three Questions to Ask Yourself Today
- Are your people empowered—truly empowered—to solve problems on the spot?
- Do your systems and policies exist to serve your customers, or to protect your business from them?
- When was the last time a breakdown in your business became a breakthrough for a customer relationship?
Customer service is not a department. It is not a policy manual. It is a mindset—and it starts at the top.
Get it right, and your customers will do your marketing for you.
Thanks for reading…
