We break down why “operational friction” quietly drains time, money, and leadership focus, even in companies that look successful on paper. We also lay out how clean processes, clear decision rights, and trustworthy data can raise business value and reduce risk before and after an M&A deal.

• Operational friction defined as anything that makes execution harder
• Owner dependency as a growth killer and a valuation risk
• Undocumented processes and inconsistent handoffs as hidden costs
• Single points of failure in small teams and big organizations
• Running the business like it must operate without the owner
• Core workflows, accountability, and decision rights that buyers expect
• Meaningful KPIs and reliable systems and data for due diligence
• Post-close integration ownership, culture, and operating rhythm
• Merger versus acquisition differences in roles, tech, and culture
• A practical AI approach: fix one painful process first
• The “hidden friction tax” exercise to find time and revenue leaks
• Intake as a universal process worth improving

They can reach me either by my website, which is thefrictionfixer.com. My email address is Trisha@thefrictionfixer.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn as Trisha Warren, MBA.

We sit down with technology transactions attorney Pooja Teckchandani to get practical about AI risk for entrepreneurs who are moving fast and shipping products. We break down what “AI” actually means, where liability can hide in vendor terms, and how to ask better questions before a launch turns into a fire drill.
• What a technology transactions lawyer does day to day inside a large company
• Career lessons from being the first and only in house lawyer at a fast growing brand
• The difference between automation, generative AI, and agentic AI
• Where AI shows up in real products and back office operations
• Why LLM providers can function like subcontractors and what that changes
• Data retention, deletion, and security posture questions to ask vendors
• How “improvement” language can become a training loophole
• Why AI compliance is often state by state and how to track legal updates
• Risk decisions when building agents and who owns output responsibility
You can go on to my website, which is tech-law.com, T E C K L A W.com or you can find me on LinkedIn.

Your company shouldn’t depend on a single human being to survive a surprise. I sit down with Ivy Slater, CEO of SlaterSuccess.com and author of Best of the Best, to talk about what happens when business gets messy fast: rejected sales calls, thin margins, partnership betrayal, and the moment you realize you need real infrastructure, not just hustle.

Ivy shares how she broke into New York City’s printing industry when it was openly a boys’ club, then learned profitability the hard way by digging into overhead and asking “show me the numbers.” We also walk through the day she opened the office door and found half the place emptied out, and why her first moves were practical: protect the checkbooks, call the attorney, call the accountant, call the bank. That experience shapes how she now coaches leaders through partnerships, mergers, separations, and the communication breakdowns that signal trouble.

Then we get into the core idea: succession planning is really legacy planning. Ivy explains the “life happens” moments that can hit any founder, why a strong growth strategy doubles as business continuity planning, and how her 365-day vacation thought experiment exposes whether you’re delegating, training your team, and spreading key knowledge across the organization. You’ll leave with a simple planning method that starts with a five-year vision and turns it into 90-day goals, weekly steps, and consistent progress.

If you care about small business growth strategy, leadership development, and building a sustainable company, subscribe, share this with a founder friend, and leave a review so more owners can find it.

Tina Hamilton, CEO and founder of myHR Partner, joins Bernard Williams to unpack HR outsourcing, the new hiring risks created by AI (including an all-AI reference-check scam), why employment disputes tend to be the most expensive litigation a company faces, and when a workplace issue needs an attorney. Plus Tina's 24-year founder journey: her first staffing franchise, surviving the 2007 crash by pivoting to HR, and why she runs the company debt-free.

Learn more about Tina and myHR Partner at myhrpartner.com.

How Was I Supposed To Know That? is a podcast for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs — hosted by Bernard Williams of Company Counsel.

On this episode of How Was I Supposed To Know That?, host Bernard A. Williams talks with Cass Bailey, CEO and founder of Slice Communications, a Philadelphia communications agency that helps high-risk and complex organizations communicate through change, crisis, and opportunity.

Cass Bailey shares her accidental path into PR and crisis communications, why she founded Slice in 2008 to bring social media and PR together, and how relentless networking carried the company through the recession. She and Bernard get real about selling the business in 2012, the acquisition that fell apart, and buying her own company back in just 23 days.

From there the conversation turns to Slice's growth-by-acquisition strategy: the red-flag/green-flag playbook, why buyer due diligence matters as much as seller due diligence, and why 70-80% of M&A communications should be aimed at internal audiences. If you are thinking about buying, selling, or scaling a company, this one is full of hard-won lessons.

In this episode:

• What Slice Communications does and the crisis calls that come in at 2 a.m.
• Founding a PR + social media agency in 2008
• The three reasons M&A deals fall apart
• Why internal communications drive M&A success
• Buyer due diligence: the questions sellers forget to ask
• Buying the company back in 23 days
• Cass Bailey's acquisition and integration playbook
• What is next for Slice, including AI and executive communications

Connect with Cass Bailey on LinkedIn (Cass Bailey, Slice Communications).

Presented by Company Counsel — fractional general counsel and business law for growing companies.

Small business owners obsess over revenue — but Alex Hayes, President of Boost Pricing, says that's exactly the trap. In this episode, Alex joins Bernard A. Williams, Esq of Company Counsel LLC to explain why "revenue is a vanity metric," and why profit margin is the number that actually keeps a business alive.

Drawing on 15+ years in sales leadership, Alex unpacks the difference between skill and confidence, why so many owners discount when they don't have to, and how to think about price increases without the fear of losing clients. She shares Boost Pricing's profitability calculator, the "$300-to-$200" discount problem, and why giving work away for free is often better than cutting your rate.

For any professional-services owner — law, marketing, consulting — this is a practical, mindset-shifting conversation about charging what you're worth.

Guest: Alex Hayes, President, Boost Pricing — alex@boostpricing.com. Ask about the book Fearless Pricing.

Most founders think selling a company is about agreeing on a price. Then the documents show up, and suddenly the deal feels like a maze of acronyms, redlines, and “standard” clauses that don’t feel standard at all. We sit down with attorney Jon Thielen, partner at Company Council, to translate the legal side of mergers and acquisitions into clear, practical steps you can actually use as a buyer or seller.

We walk through the M&A process from the first real document, the letter of intent (LOI), through due diligence and into the purchase agreement that ultimately governs the transaction. You’ll hear what typically belongs in an LOI, how exclusivity periods and confidentiality can become binding early, and what “redlining” really means when lawyers start negotiating language. We also talk about how to protect sensitive financial data during a small business sale, including limiting access and using secure document portals.

Then we get specific about the contracts that decide who owns what and who pays when something goes wrong: asset purchase agreement versus stock purchase agreement, representations and warranties, disclosure schedules, assignment and assumption agreements for key contracts and leases, purchase price allocation for tax purposes, and indemnification provisions that allocate post-closing risk. We also cover common add-on documents like promissory notes for seller financing and employment agreements when the seller stays on during a transition period.

If you’re preparing for a business acquisition, planning an exit, or just trying to understand M&A contracts without the legal fog, this conversation will save you time and stress. Subscribe, share this with a founder who’s heading toward a deal, and leave a review with the one contract question you want us to tackle next.