Business By Design

ProSolution
ProSolution
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  • Entrepreneurship
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Business by Design is the podcast for owners who want to start, scale or exit a business. Each week, Stuart Wemyss and Mena Abraham unpack the four things every business must get right: value, engine, reach and team. Using the VERT flywheel, they show how these fit together to build a business that runs without you, and how the choices you make inside the business flow through to your personal wealth, lifestyle and exit options. Every episode is short and to the point, with no fluff and no sales pitches. Go to https://www.vertflywheel.com

  1. 3d ago

    Ep 204: Business meeting rhythm: Stop oiling the squeaky wheel

    Send us Fan Mail Too many businesses run on firefighting, where the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Stuart and Mena set up a weekly, monthly, and quarterly meeting rhythm- part of the systems and processes for business growth that keeps decisions owned and on time. Weekly meetings keep delivery on track. They need a set agenda, one person running them, and a short scorecard that mixes lag indicators with lead indicators, the way FedEx replaced a single on-time promise with a 12-part service quality indexMonthly meetings are for improving the engine, with sales, operations and finance in the room. Domino’s eventually fixed its recipe, but a monthly rhythm with the right leading measures might have caught the drift years earlierQuarterly meetings turn strategy into one theme at a time. Ours was “make value visible”, and it only stuck because it was on the scorecard every MondayGiving every decision a clear owner is how to build a business that runs without you. When something goes wrong, blame the system, not the person, and celebrate whoever stops the line, as Toyota doesChapters 00:00 - From firefighting to a meeting rhythm  00:55 - Four features of a good meeting rhythm  01:46 - Three layers: weekly, monthly and quarterly  02:06 - The weekly meeting: keeping delivery on track  04:25 - Building the scorecard: lead and lag indicators  05:55 - FedEx’s service quality indicator  08:41 - The monthly meeting: improving the engine  09:54 - Domino’s and the recipe fix  12:04 - The quarterly meeting: one theme at a time  15:20 - Our quarterly theme: make value visible  19:24 - How long each meeting should run  20:51 - Separate sharing information from making decisions  24:10 - Measurement without micromanagement  26:32 - Toyota: celebrating whoever stops the line  28:46 - Where to start References NotebookLM, the tool Mena uses to turn long emails into audio he can listen to before a meeting: https://notebooklm.google.com If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  2. Oct 27

    Ep 203: Business scaling frameworks: Consistency beats heroics

    Send us Fan Mail Most businesses don’t break as they scale because of volume. They break because quality depends on a few heroic people. Mena and I share business scaling frameworks built on consistency, systemised judgment, fewer handovers, and real review. Clients judge you across many interactions, not one, so define quality in ways you can observe and measure. The Ritz-Carlton boils its service down to three simple steps everyone can followUse checklists and templates for repeatable work, and break expert judgment into decision points, decision trees, and case studies. That’s how to delegate without losing quality control, and AI makes this much faster than it used to beScaling tends to break business operations at handovers and approval chains. Netflix’s five-word expense policy shows how much friction you can remove when you trust the right peopleMake training part of the system: teach, supervise, then release. Review real work regularly, the way Pixar’s Braintrust does, while leaving the final call with the person who owns the workChapters 00:00 - From mapping to building an engine that scales  02:33 - Why consistency matters more than heroics  06:01 - The Ritz-Carlton’s three steps of service  08:07 - Checklists and templates for repeatable work  09:53 - The WHO surgical checklist  12:56 - How to systemise judgment  15:07 - Atul Gawande and the Cheesecake Factory  16:35 - Using AI to map your decision-making  18:16 - Cutting friction: Netflix’s five-word expense policy  21:26 - Making it stick: training, ownership and review  22:47 - Pixar’s Braintrust  25:38 - Where to start  28:13 - Free VERT flywheel downloads References Free VERT flywheel downloads: the offer clarity worksheet, pricing power workbook, trust engine guide, and value health check. https://vertflywheel.comEp 198: Trust is the real thing your customer is buying (the trust equation) https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/2006849/episodes/19832526-ep-198-trust-is-the-real-thing-your-customer-is-buyingEp 196: Pricing strategy: are you a price maker or a price taker? (the basis for the pricing power workbook) https://www.businessbydesignpodcast.com/2006849/episodes/19753474-ep-196-pricing-strategy-are-you-a-price-maker-or-a-price-taker If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  3. Oct 20

    Ep 202: Systems and processes for growth: Map before you fix

    Send us Fan Mail Most businesses lose time, margin and customers at the handovers nobody owns. Mena and I map the full customer journey, the backbone of systems and processes for business growth, then show how to assign owners and hunt down hidden waste. Every business runs on five stages: reach, sales, delivery, billing and after-sales care. Southwest Airlines’ 2022 meltdown shows what processes nobody can see end up costingGive each stage one directly responsible individual (Apple’s DRI idea) and a defined output. “The sales team looks after sales” isn’t an assignment; “sales ends with a signed proposal and deposit in hand” isScaling usually breaks business operations at the handovers, not inside the stages. When one owner is accountable for each handover, the founder can stop doing everything in the businessToyota’s seven wastes are a useful lens for finding the steps your processes have outgrown, such as duplicate spreadsheets or chasing information that should arrive automaticallyChapters 00:00 - Zooming out from one process to the whole business  01:20 - Why you can’t fix a process you can’t see  03:27 - Southwest Airlines: what invisible processes cost  05:20 - The five-stage customer journey  07:09 - Airtasker: a journey designed end to end  09:06 - One owner and one defined output per stage  10:56 - Apple’s directly responsible individual  13:28 - When handovers fail: the bank promotion example  16:41 - Hunting waste: Toyota’s seven categories  19:52 - Auditing your core processes  22:49 - What to do next: four steps References Ep 198: Trust is the real thing your customer is buying Ep 200, the customer advocacy episode Ep 201, the founder-as-hero episode If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  4. Oct 13

    Ep 201: Business systems and processes: Why talent won't scale

    Send us Fan Mail If your business still runs through you, that is an engine problem, not a people problem. Mena and I break down what systems and processes for business growth actually look like, and the four numbers that show whether yours work. Most owners start as what Michael Gerber calls the technician: excellent at the work, but stuck working in the business rather than on it. Learning to step off the tools as a business owner starts with building systems from day oneTry the holiday test. If you couldn't take two to four weeks off at short notice without clients or your P&L suffering, you have an engine problemA real system has five parts: a trigger, defined inputs, clear steps, a consistent output, and an owner who keeps it current. Codify the mechanical steps the way McDonald's did, and train for the judgment calls with decision trees and escalation pointsTo build a business that runs without you, track four numbers for each core process: cycle time, error rate, rework, and onboarding speedChapters 00:00 - From value to engine: the next VERT pillar  01:56 - Why talented people don't scale: the E-Myth technician  04:42 - The real cost of a founder-dependent business  07:26 - The holiday test  08:17 - What a business system actually is: five parts  11:15 - The WHO Surgical Safety Checklist  12:39 - Mechanical steps vs judgment calls  16:02 - Four numbers that show whether your engine is working  19:58 - Four questions to reflect on  22:39 - Next week: map the journey before you fix it References Ep 186: The Holiday Test: Can your business run without you?The E-Myth, by Michael GerberEp 200, last week's episode on customer advocacy If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  5. Oct 6

    Ep 200: Referral engine framework: Buy attention, earn advocacy

    Send us Fan Mail Your happiest clients are often your best source of new business, yet most owners leave referrals to chance. Mena and I walk through a referral engine framework: earn advocacy first, ask at the right moment, and make the introduction low risk. You can buy attention, but you have to earn advocacy. Fyre Festival's influencer spend couldn't cover for a promise it never deliveredThe right time to ask is straight after a client acknowledges the value they've received. Swap "do you know anyone?" for a question tied to the specific problem you just solvedReferring is risky for the client, so position introductions as a no-obligation second opinion, make the process simple, and commit to treating every referral with the same respectIf you're working out how to get consistent leads for your business, start with the clients you've already delighted. A pricing strategy for small business that protects margin funds the experience people talk about, while discounting trains clients to wait for a saleChapters 00:00 - Why customer advocacy needs a system  02:10 - Buying attention vs earning advocacy: Fyre Festival  04:32 - The right moment to ask for a referral  07:24 - A better question than "do you know anyone?"  09:46 - Why referrals feel risky, and how to reduce that risk  14:34 - Pricing power and the advocacy flywheel  18:10 - Five questions to test your advocacy system  21:22 - Our 200th episode, and what's next: the Engine pillar References Ep 199: Why are your best customers quietly leaving? Ep 198: Trust is the real thing your customer is buying Ep 197: Pricing is a system, not a sticker Ep 196: Pricing strategy: are you a price maker or a price taker?  If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  6. Sep 27

    Ep 199: Why are your best customers quietly leaving?

    Send us Fan Mail Here's the uncomfortable truth: by the time a customer tells you they're leaving, you're usually too late to do anything about it. The decision was made months earlier, when they quietly began questioning the value; nobody noticed, and the cancellation email just makes you the last to know.  In this final episode of the Value series, Stuart and Mena reframe churn as the most honest feedback your business receives, if you're willing to understand what's behind it. Mena explains why retention starts at onboarding, not the renewal conversation, with the goal being to make value visible as fast as possible, closing the gap where doubt creeps in (Canva as the example).  Stuart offers four lenses for reading every departure: value, trust, fit, and friction, using MoviePass to show how a single churn number can hide several problems at once. Mena insists each category needs a named owner (with Ritz-Carlton's $2,000 staff discretion showing what real authority looks like). Stuart then explores when losing customers is healthy: Nike's wholesale pullback and its telling reversal, and Mena covers how to end relationships respectfully, protecting your reputation.  If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  7. Sep 20

    Ep 198: Trust is the real thing your customer Is buying

    Send us Fan Mail Every time someone buys from you, they're taking a risk: will you do what you promised? Trust is what gives them the confidence to proceed, and without it, a great product, sensible pricing, and sharp marketing still won't close the sale. This episode unpacks how trust is built, borrowed, and lost. Mena explains why price and frequency determine how much trust a purchase requires: a $4 coffee versus a $40,000 renovation, and why your sales process must reflect the risk the customer feels (Guzman y Gomez versus a Koala mattress).  Stuart introduces the trust equation: credibility, reliability, and intimacy, divided by self-interest, with Vanguard's ownership structure as a striking example of how low self-interest can be built into the model rather than merely claimed. Mena draws the line between borrowed credibility, which opens the door, and earned trust, built through direct experience and the idea of a "trust account" where deposits and withdrawals are never equal.  Stuart offers four practical ways to make it easier for customers to trust you, and Mena connects consistency back to your systems and why delivering well 80% of the time still leaves customers worrying. If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

  8. Sep 15

    Ep 197: Pricing is a system, not a sticker

    Send us Fan Mail Two businesses can charge the same price today and be on opposite margin trajectories five years from now, purely because of the architecture sitting underneath that number. One gets more profitable as it grows; the other gets squeezed with every new customer. This episode is about designing that architecture on purpose. Mena starts with discounting as a diagnostic: persistent discounting isn't a sales problem but a signal pointing at one of three causes, and J.C. Penney's disastrous 2012 "fair and square" experiment shows why you can't simply switch off years of trained customer behaviour. Stuart then unpacks the traps of unit pricing, the default model most owners fall into without choosing it, from the billable hour that punishes efficiency to the petrol-station race no one wins on quality. Mena lays out the real choice between fixed, tiered and modular pricing (with Australia Post, Canva and IKEA as clean examples), and Stuart explains why scope is the boundary that makes any of them work. Finally, Mena drives home the cost base as a non-negotiable floor, using Porter Davis Homes' collapse under fixed-price contracts as the cautionary tale. Closes with four steps to build your own pricing system. If this episode resonated with you, please leave a rating on your favourite podcast platform. It helps us reach more incredible listeners like you. Thank you for being a part of the journey! Click here to subscribe to our weekly email. Work with Mena & Stuart's team: At ProSolution Private Clients we encourage clients to adopt a holistic and evidence-based approach when making financial decisions. Visit our website. Follow us: Stuart: Twitter/X and LinkedIn.  Mena: LinkedIn IMPORTANT: This podcast provides general information about finance, taxes, and credit. This means that the content does not consider your specific objectives, financial situation, or needs. It is crucial for you to assess whether the information is suitable for your circumstances before taking any actions based on it. If you find yourself uncertain about the relevance or your specific needs, it is advisable to seek advice from a licensed and trustworthy professional.

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Hosts & Guests

About

Business by Design is the podcast for owners who want to start, scale or exit a business. Each week, Stuart Wemyss and Mena Abraham unpack the four things every business must get right: value, engine, reach and team. Using the VERT flywheel, they show how these fit together to build a business that runs without you, and how the choices you make inside the business flow through to your personal wealth, lifestyle and exit options. Every episode is short and to the point, with no fluff and no sales pitches. Go to https://www.vertflywheel.com

Information

  • Channel
    ProSolution
  • Creator
    Stuart Wemyss & Mena Abraham
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    204
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Business By Design
  • Show Website
    Business By Design

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