Runs On One

Name: Runs On One
Price: 29 CAD
Availability: InStock
Author: Kenneth M.F. McGrath
ISBN: {{ISBN_PRINT — from the ISBN block}}

The Problem

You know how to do the work. Nobody taught you the rest.

Every business run by one person has two layers. The first is the craft you spent years on. The second is the one nobody taught: the number under your price, the one buyer you are for, the fence around your scope, the count of people to talk to on Monday, and the documents that turn each of those into something you can run. Most people running a business alone have none of it written down and all of it running in their head — which is why the head is tired and the account is thin. This book writes it down.

What You'll Walk Away With

The floor under your price — the number below which a job costs you money — worked out in twenty minutes
One buyer, named by the moment they go looking, with their pains ranked and their words collected
Three tiers, a four-list fence that stops scope creep, and the sentence you say when the price lands
The weekly contact number that ends feast and famine, with the arithmetic behind it
A proposal with three options instead of one price, and a close plan with dates
A month of posts from one piece of work, and the five email sequences that run when you are busy
Proof from the last engagement, captured before the specifics fade

Is this for you?

Written for readers like you

Self-employed, in the first three years

You are a consultant, designer, writer, coach, bookkeeper or trade with clients, invoices and a business that runs on improvisation. You'll get a floor, a buyer and a fenced offer in three evenings, and the other seven instruments at one a week.

Employed, with a leaving date

You are six months from going out on your own and want to know before you leave whether it pays. You'll get the arithmetic first — the honest week, the household number, the floor — and a way to see the gap before it costs you a year.

Established and tired of carrying it all in your head

You have been at this five years or more and the business works, mostly, on memory. You'll get the ten pages that make it a system, and a September re-run that keeps them true.

What's Inside

12 chapters, end to end

1. The part nobody taught you

2. Run the arithmetic

3. Decide how you sound

4. Choose your buyer

5. Fence and price your offer

6. Build the pipeline

7. Write the proposal

8. Run the engine

9. Set up nurture

10. Be found

11. Capture proof

12. Runs on one: the week and the year

About the Author

Kenneth M.F. McGrath

Kenneth M.F. McGrath is a publisher, a former public-school educator, and the sole operator of CIONAOD Inc., a federally incorporated Canadian company in Ottawa that runs on one. He writes across publishing, standards development and instructional design; Runs On One is the manual he built for his own company before he wrote it down for anyone else's.

Get Your Copy

$29 CAD

Buy Now

Kobo Apple Books

Not sure yet? Chapters 1 and 2 are free — download the sample (PDF) — and the floor calculator is free on this site. No card, no signup.

ISBN {{ISBN_PRINT — from the ISBN block}} · CIONAOD Inc.

Questions

Frequently asked

Is this another book about mindset?

No. It is ten instruments — worksheets that produce a number, a sentence, a fence, a count — each explained once and then filled in with your own numbers. There is no morning routine in it.

My business is different. Will the instruments fit?

Three businesses run through every chapter — a bookkeeper, a bindery and a course — and the same instrument gives each a different answer, because a bookkeeper's constraint is price, a bindery's is cash, and a course's is demand. The method is the same; the numbers are yours.

What formats is it in, and what does it cost?

Paperback at $29 and ebook at $14.99, in Canadian dollars. The worksheets are printed in the book and are yours to copy. The Binder — the same ten instruments as fillable files that read each other — is $99 and is a separate product on runsonone.com.

Can I read a sample first?

Yes. Chapters 1 and 2 — the foundation and the arithmetic — are free below as a PDF, and the instrument it teaches — the floor — is free as a calculator on this site. Twenty minutes, nothing to sign up for.

Is this financial or legal advice?

No. The arithmetic is structural — floors, ceilings and cash timing — and the book says plainly when a number should go to an accountant.

Who should not buy it?

Anyone looking for an idea for a business (this is for a business that exists), anyone building a team (the manual assumes one pair of hands), and anyone who wants to be told it is easy. The instruments are sized in evenings, and each takes one.

Your business, written down and priced.

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