Consumers and anyone who studies business understand the subscription economy, but what about the usage economy? What is it? How does it differ from the subscription economy? Does it matter? Adam Howatson is the CEO of LogiSense and the author of The Usage Economy . In this conversation, Adam will give examples of companies that got it right with their usage-based pricing models and those that made serious mistakes, such as Wink. We'll also learn about telemetry, AI's fit, and the most...
May 11, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 211
Have you ever left a movie theater where a film left you speechless and made you feel like you needed to rewatch parts of it to figure out what you were missing? Jeff Hooke's book, The Myth of Private Equity , left me feeling that way after finishing each chapter of his tell-all book about the exaggerations and overstatements of the private equity marketing machine. During this conversation, we learned much about the myths of PE funds focused on leveraged buyouts. Some of the big ideas in t...
May 04, 2024•55 min•Season 1Ep. 210
My favorite go-to person on all matters, Tableau and Dataviz, is Andy Kriebel. Andy was the first person to create a YouTube channel on Tableau. His subscriber base has surpassed 61,000, and his 750+ videos have 7.5 million views and counting. Andy is the co-author with Eva Murray of the book #Makeover Monday, and you can also follow his informative and insightful helpful hints each day on LinkedIn. In this conversation, we find out why Andy has been publishing online for more than ten years, wh...
Apr 27, 2024•44 min•Season 1Ep. 209
I have my theories on why W. Edwards Deming is not a household name in 'all' business circles. Many view him as the 'quality' guy who had an impact on Japanese manufacturing after the Second World War. That view is limiting as Deming's management mindset was complete with four central tenets: Pragmatism The Law of Variation Human psychology Systems Thinking I used to recommend Mary Walton's book to start learning about Deming. That book gave way to a new title by Ed...
Apr 20, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 208
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, technology activist, and journalist. He has written many books, most recently The Bezzle, a follow-up to Red Team Blues, which are the two books we'll discuss in this episode. These two books are the beginning of a series featuring the fictional forensic accountant Martin Hench. Hench is self-employed, loves being on the red team, and rakes in 25% of the assets he can recover. Cory's books are fast-paced and entertaining but also deeply though...
Apr 12, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 207
Alfred Sloan's My Years with General Motors was an immediate success and is considered one of the best management books written by CEOs of his era. Before his book, we'd probably have to go back to Henry Ford's autobiography to find a management book of this popularity. And then there's Harvey Firestone's book, which CFO Bookshelf considers a gem. Originally published in 1926, the great people behind the Farnam Street blog have republished Men and Rubber , and the author...
Apr 06, 2024•57 min•Season 1Ep. 206
Gary Stevenson grew up in an impoverished area of East London where he could hold his life's belongings in two arms. About three years after graduating from the London School of Economics, Citibank made him a millionaire at a very young age. Gary was 'all in' on winning the trading game. But did overnight success bring him happiness? And why did he want to leave the Citibank trading floor? Gary tells his story in his new book, The Trading Game , which I believe is this era's ...
Mar 29, 2024•53 min•Season 1Ep. 205
Agile, DevOps, TPS, TOC, Deming's System of Profound Knowledge. Is there a mental construct or latticework that connects these robust systems? In Wiring the Winning Organization , Gene Kim and Steve Spear introduce the concepts of the three layers of work and social circuitry. The book also explains the author's three biggest learning pillars: Simplification, Slowification, and Amplification. Health Supplement Business Mastery Grow your dietary supplement D2C eCommerce business. Listen...
Mar 23, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 1Ep. 204
Readers of Corporate Counsel do not need to be legal professionals to enjoy this short book writen as a business fable. Anna is leaving a prestigious law firm to become the first in-house lawyer at a regional real estate firm in the Midwest. The book includes drama, conflict, and a grey beard, Anna's guide throughout the story. Our guest is the author, Peter Carayiannis, and some of the topics we address include: Anna's first 100 days The wrong reason to hire an in-house lawyer The con...
Mar 16, 2024•54 min•Season 1Ep. 203
Of all the books written about Warren Buffett, I am unaware of any authors who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and went to school with his children. Todd Finkle is the author of Warren Buffett: Investor and Entrepreneur , a book that was fourteen years in the making. If you are a Buffett student, perhaps you will have heard several of Todd's stories, but are you aware of Buffett's numerous investing mistakes throughout the years or several of Charlie Munger's thoughts on behavioral inv...
Mar 09, 2024•51 min•Season 1Ep. 202
John Rossman is making his second appearance on CFO Bookshelf. We interviewed him two years ago for one of our top 10 books of 2022, The Amazon Way, Amazon's 14 Leadership Principles . John's newest book which he co-authored with Kevin McCaffrey is Big Bet Leadership . Highlights from the conversation include: What is and what is not a big bet A topic for low- and high-tech companies, both Big bets are generally found in Day 1 organizations Small teams vs. R&D labs Thinking, enviro...
Mar 02, 2024•43 min•Season 1Ep. 201
Gary Harpst co-founded the ERP solution Solomon Software, which was ultimately sold to Great Plains. The CFO Bookshelf enjoys Gary's work and past books, including Six Disciplines for Excellence and Six Disciplines Revolution . Gary's newest book has been 40 years in the making. The title is Built to Beat Chaos: Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others . A few of the themes we cover in this conversation include: addressing the elephant in the room, the integration of faith in th...
Jan 27, 2024•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 200
A Beautiful Constrain t by Morgan and Barden: is it a marketing, branding, psychology, or management book? Or is it all four? In this episode, Willy Donaldson (Simple_Complexity and Estimated Time of Departure) and I discuss five of the biggest ideas in the thought-provoking book A Beautiful Constraint . The authors state the goal is not to eliminate a constraint but to leverage it. Their book explains how. Below are some of the topics we addressed: the definition of a constraint Goldratt's...
Jan 20, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 199
Since starting the CFO Bookshelf podcast, I have released a ‘favorite books’ show each January. I’ve always been reluctant to do so because my reading tastes may differ from yours. However, these episodes are some of the most downloaded in our podcast catalog. In this discussion, I list my Top 10 books, honorable mentions, fiction, and even books that I did not like. Other insights include what and how much to read and if fiction matters. Access the List Health Supplement Business Mastery Grow y...
Jan 13, 2024•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 198
Many pricing books are heavy in ideas, abstractions, and behavioral science mind-shifting. Others are focused merely on simple tactics. Jean-Manual Izaret's (JMI) book, Game Changer , fills a void by showing readers and pricing practitioners how to approach pricing strategically through cleverly designed frameworks and thought-provoking questions. This conversation starts with who should read this book and why a cover-to-cover reading is unnecessary. Other topics include: Ford's greate...
Jan 07, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 197
CFO Bookshelf considers The Wisdom of Finance one of its favorite 25 business books. Mihir Desai combines abstract and obtuse finance concepts with literature, history, movies, and poems in his book, which was released in 2017. In this bookclub-style episode, we cover several of the themes Mihir highlighted in his educational and entertaining book: Bankruptcy (the history of Robert Morris) Options and Diversification (Pride and Prejudice) Value Creation (The Parable of the Talents) Corporate Gov...
Dec 16, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 196
One of the best books we've read on private equity is by Adam Coffey. The title is The Private Equity Playbook . Adam's newest book is based on a two-day presentation he gave on how to roll up an industry purposely and effectively. He turned his 300-plus page slide deck into the book Empire Builder: The Road to a Billion . Some of the topics we cover include: investing in what you know a simple example using a mowing company and its unit economics the industry traits for empire buildin...
Dec 08, 2023•52 min•Season 1Ep. 195
Since I am not a customer of Dunkin' Donuts, I know very little about their origin story. When Around the Corner, Around the World hit my reading radar, I was intrigued and was compelled to read it. I was pleasantly surprised because the book was a mini MBA on how to grow a small business into an international brand. Bruce Reed joins the host to uncover some of the big ideas in this book, including: working for a father after graduation knowing when and how to turn down a $7.5 million offer...
Dec 02, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 194
I had never considered the business aspects of pirating until I read Katherine Howe's newest book, A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates, Written by Herself. Every ship's captain had a vision, as did the crew. A mission steered each voyage. The crew was kept in line with its bylaws or code of conduct. Loot was allocated based on a profit-sharing plan. In this conversation, Katherine reveals why moviegoers romanticize the golden era of pirating. Not only do we...
Nov 25, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 193
I'd recommend The Phoenix Project if I could only recommend one book to a CEO, CFO, or COO about the essentials or the heart of IT in a heartbeat. The Phoenix Project is the IT version of The Goal , as both are written as a novel with a protagonist with doubts, worries, and fears. Like The Goal , the main character in The Phoenix project encounters a sage who helps him glean insights from the manufacturing plant floor and apply them in a DevOps environment. Gene Kim is one of the co-authors...
Nov 18, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 192
I cannot begin to count the number of times I've heard the following question or something similar, "Mark, I've heard my industry EBITDA multiple is 5x. What do you think?" As much as I want to scream at that question, this type of thinking on business value is prevalent amongst many CEOs of both big and small companies. When the book Quick Value by Reed Phillips hit my radar, I bought it immediately and couldn't put it down as I started reading it. Reed's process f...
Nov 04, 2023•59 min•Season 1Ep. 191
As much as I enjoy reading the Goldratt books and his theory of constraints (TOC), I never considered his early book, The Race , a solid and readable primer on throughput for financial minds. Several books have been published on throughput accounting since The Race was released in the early 1990s. In 2019, three TOC experts finished what I believe is now the best work on throughput accounting that even CEOs should read. The title is Throughput Economics . In this conversation, we address simple ...
Oct 28, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 190
If you have read any books on pricing, the title that stands above the rest is Hermann Simon's Confessions of The Pricing Man . However, suppose you are looking for a book that includes nearly every pricing tactic ever used in business. In that case, I'd start with Handbook on the Psychology of Pricing by Dr. Markus Husemann-Kopetzky. The subtitle is 100+ effects on persuasion and influence every entrepreneur, marketer and pricing manager needs to know. While this book is for the hardc...
Oct 21, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 189
One of my favorite books in the value investing niche is 100 Baggers by Chris Mayer, a title that is also worth reading for CEOs, CFOs, and all other business managers. During this conversation, Chris explains how small acorn businesses become large and strong oak trees. Other topics we hit include: the coffee can portfolio the reluctant seller owner-operators John Kelly's formula SQGLP - a power framework for finding 100 Baggers You can learn and read more about Chris Mayer on his blog . H...
Oct 14, 2023•47 min•Season 1Ep. 188
When I finished Nick Gray's The 2-Hour Cocktail Party , I immediately thought that this was the perfect follow-up book to start applying all of the teachings of Dale Carnegie in his classic, How to Win Friends and Influence Others . Beyond Nick's practical advice in teaching readers how to host a party for friends and casual acquaintances, one of my favorite insights is the power of loose connections. Nick provides the perfect device on how to make the most of those loose connections t...
Oct 07, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 187
As a child growing up in rural Missouri who listened to countless baseball games on the radio of my favorite baseball team, I heard the names Budweiser and Busch repeatedly over the course of many years. Because of the rise in popularity of TV shows like Riches, Succession, and Yellowstone, I was curious about the Busch family--the Kennedys of St. Louis. What became of that dynasty? How did it get started? How did it grow in fame and fortune? What caused its downfall? To find the answers to thos...
Sep 30, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 186
Confessions of a Pricing Man is easily the best book ever written on this topic. The author is Hermann Simon, the Chairman of Simon-Kucher. He's also one of this generation's most prolific business thinkers, whose writing parallels Peter Drucker's. In this conversation, our topic is Hermann's 2021 book, True Profit . Topics include profit maximization, the reason why pricing as a profit lever trumps volume increases or cost reductions, and the differences between profit and f...
Sep 23, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 185
I predict that Number Go Up will be considered the most fascinating and entertaining book in narrative non-fiction for 2023. Our guest is Zeke Faux, an investigative reporter. Several years ago, he was asked to check out Tether and the money supporting that cryptocurrency. Zeke had no idea that story would take him across the globe, logging many air miles along the way. If you are challenged or intimidated by the vocabulary surrounding cryptocurrencies, we attack about ten terms to lay the groun...
Sep 15, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 188
Dan Murray is the author of Tableau Your Data , and he recently published a blog series called The BI Cantos . The 21-post series is about how to successfully deploy a business intelligence system. Dan is the Director of Strategic Innovations at Interworks, where he has spoken across the country with audiences, including many in the Fortune 500. What exactly is business intelligence? What are the best tools to use? How do we separate fact from fiction in these implementations? And what is the be...
Sep 08, 2023•53 min•Season 1Ep. 187
Joel Salatin is more than a gifted farm entrepreneur in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Joel is the author of twelve books and speaks around the globe on not just farming but simultaneously protecting and replenishing the land. The book we focused on was Folks, This Ain't Normal , which includes plenty of satire and humor. Our topics included open-book farming, the difference between buying natural vs. processed food, and several fascinating concepts revolving around money. If you want t...
Sep 02, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 186
