Field Notes

Short, specific essays on how operating problems actually behave: where workflows break, why handoffs fail, what the numbers say, and what fixes them. Written from operating experience, and from time spent inside real businesses studying how the work moves.

Field notes describe how we think about operating problems. They are not client case studies.

Thought Leadership

Before You Sell the Business, Fix What the Frontline Is Holding Together

Many owner-led businesses rely on unwritten rules, unofficial spreadsheets and a few trusted people to hit their numbers, and that dependence shapes what a buyer can count on after a sale. In this article for Distribution Strategy Group, Brad Berlin lays out five tests owners can run on one critical workflow to find the work the frontline is quietly holding together.

Published by Distribution Strategy Group · September 21, 2026
Transportation

What Happens to Freight Spend After the RFP Closes

A dashboard can show the symptom. It rarely shows who owns the exception, what happened last time, or whether the route-guide correction reached the TMS.

September 9, 2026
Thought Leadership

A Fresh Set of Eyes Can Find the Work an Industry Has Learned to Ignore

Expertise develops blind spots. How a fresh set of eyes exposes duplicated work, broken handoffs, and hidden process failure, and what it means for AI and hiring.

August 24, 2026
Workflows

Six signs the operation is not keeping up with the business

Growth can hide operating problems for a while. Six signs a business has outgrown how its work is designed, and a first step that costs nothing.

August 14, 2026
Management

Getting out of the day-to-day: an operator's approach

Owners stay trapped in daily operations because of design, not discipline. A five-step redesign of decision rights, ownership, and cadence.

August 14, 2026
Systems

Own the Workflow Before You Add Another Subscription

When software subscriptions help, when they create more work, and why the workflow should be clear before another tool is added.

May 15, 2026
Construction

What I Actually Look At in a Construction Operations Audit

An operations audit is not a software pitch. It is watching where the friction in a construction business actually lives. Here is what I look at, and why.

May 23, 2026
Construction

You Have Ten Years of Bid History. Most of It You Cannot Use.

The best estimating data a commercial GC owns is its own past bids, but it is trapped in scattered files. How historical bid data becomes a cost database you can use.

May 23, 2026
Construction

You Bought Togal and Building Connected. The Gap Between Them Is Still Manual.

You bought good takeoff and bid software. Estimating still feels slow because the friction lives in the hand-offs between the tools, where your estimator stands.

May 23, 2026
Construction

Hire Another Estimator, or Make the Four You Have Faster?

The instinct is to reach for a fifth estimator. Before hiring, check whether the real constraint is estimating capacity or workflow coordination.

May 23, 2026
Construction

Where the Hours Actually Go in a Commercial Construction Bid

Estimators assume bid prep time lives in the takeoff. After sitting with estimating teams, here is where the hours in a commercial construction bid actually go.

May 23, 2026

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