Everyday Business Problems

Hosted by the Crysler Club

BusinessExplicit

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201

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Aug 2026

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About the show

When it comes to your business, you know everything – except what you don't. Hosted by David Crysler, each episode we dive into finding and solving everyday business problems. Learn from business leaders and subject matter experts about the challenges they've overcome, and the challenges they still face. Join us for fresh insights, real talk, and inspiration to grow your business!

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60 recent

August 25, 202649 min

The Badge of Honor That's Costing You Customers

Most manufacturers did not decide to be invisible. They grew on referrals, landed a handful of customers who covered the bills, and never had to explain themselves to a stranger. Dave Crysler sits down with Curt Anderson, founder of B2Btail and author of Stop Being the Best Kept Secret, to talk about how that quiet approach stopped working and what to do about it. Along the way they get into the part most marketing conversations skip: what happens when the phone finally rings and the shop cannot carry the work. What You'll Discover: • Why "we're the best kept secret" started as a badge of honor and quietly became a growth problem • The buyer who flew in to tour a plant, loved it, and admitted he almost cancelled the trip because of the website • How the Digital Game Plan actually starts, with strengths and opportunities rather than a new website • Why "we can do it for anybody" is almost never true, and how to find the niche a shop is already in • The rounding the bases exercise, and the contract manufacturer who learned half their customers added up to less than four percent of the business • What "out-teach the competition" means in practice, and the football coach line that answers the secret sauce objection • Why a 40-person steel company outside Buffalo is building a real audience on Instagram • What happened when Curt turned the marketing on for a manufacturer whose office could not absorb the RFQs • The teeter totter effect, where cutting lead times and freeing up capacity can feel exactly like failing • The first thing to do on Monday morning if you already know you are the best kept secret in your market If you have ever looked at a slow quarter and realized nobody in the building knows how to make the phone ring, this conversation is for you. It is also for the operations leader on the other side of that problem, the one who knows what happens when demand shows up before the shop is ready for it. Curt and Dave work opposite ends of the same growth problem, and this episode is about where those two ends meet. Connect with Curt Anderson: b2btail.com | LinkedIn

August 18, 202622 min

The Four Words I Couldn't Answer

In 2009, Dave Crysler was a brand new general manager who had just cleaned up the worst quality problem of his career. He got his boss on the phone, walked him through the investigation, the retraining, the new documentation, and the signed training records. His boss asked four words in response, and Dave didn't have an answer. In this solo episode, Dave breaks down what happened when they finally tested their fix, why it failed a week later, and why the verification step sitting inside every problem-solving framework is the one that always gets cut. What You'll Discover: • Why "how do you know?" is the hardest question anyone can ask about a fix you already closed • The difference between confirming a process ran and confirming it produced the outcome you needed • How a million-document order with duplicated serial numbers cost north of $60,000, and why the test that would have caught it cost under $1,000 • What happened when Dave deliberately recreated the error a week after all the retraining, and why the team thought he was tricking them • Why any preventative measure that depends on somebody remembering isn't preventative • Real examples of the same gap in completely different settings, from a company that never tested a backup restore to a certified quality system that closed a corrective action with "retrain the users" • Why 8D, the Process Playbook, and P.E.R.R.R. all contain a verification step, and why it's the first thing cut every time • The crawl, walk, run version of proactive testing, including the version that requires no technology at all If your operation keeps solving the same problems, the issue probably isn't your root cause analysis. It's that nobody ever confirmed the fix worked. This episode gives you the question to ask, the math to justify the time, and a specific place to start on Monday.

August 11, 202647 min

50 AI Tools Later, Here's What Actually Moved the Needle

Dave Crysler welcomes back Damon Pistulka, co-founder of Exit Your Way, to cut through the noise around AI in small and mid-market businesses. Damon downloaded and tested more than 50 AI tools before landing on what actually changes an operation, and it wasn't any of the apps filling his Instagram feed. The two get into where AI genuinely expands what a business can do, where it is flat out the wrong tool, and why the lever points in your operation haven't changed in decades even though the toolset has. What You'll Discover: • Why testing 50 AI tools led Damon to conclude most of them solve a real problem, just not the owner's problem • The difference between making a process faster and making a process possible, and why only one of those changes the business • Why you need someone inside the business who can imagine the solution before you hire anyone to build it • The long term maintenance and operating costs almost nobody puts in the business case, including real monthly numbers on AI voice systems • How the old lean question, what would we have to solve to get there, applies directly to AI projects • What a workflow system does that your ERP does not, and why the two work best side by side • The two things you find every single time you look closely at how the work actually gets done • Where AI is the wrong tool, and what to reach for instead when the numbers have to be exact • Why speed, not features, is still how businesses win • How to keep an AI project from eating hours without producing anything If you have been told AI will change your business but nobody can tell you where to start, this conversation gives you the filter. Start with the constraints that have been holding you back for years, then ask what it would take to solve them now. The tools changed. The question didn't.

August 4, 202646 min

Sounding Board or Trusted Advisor? Why the Difference Matters More Than You Think

Dave Crysler sits down with Mike O'Neill, founder of Bench Builders and host of the Get Unstuck and On Target podcast. After 25 years in corporate HR, Mike coaches senior leaders who need more than a sounding board, and trains the first-line supervisors most companies promote without ever preparing. Together they dig into why the top of the org chart is the most isolated seat in the building, and why the biggest leadership payoff lives at the bottom of it. What You'll Discover: • Why it really is lonely at the top, and how leaders end up surrounded by people who only tell them what they want to hear • The difference between a sounding board and a trusted advisor who pushes back when it matters • Why stepping into the C-suite is a whole new ball game, not just the next rung in the progression • How Mike's verbal 360 and leadership scouting report expose the gap between how leaders see themselves and how their teams see them • Why the hardest leadership transition is going from peer to supervisor • The real reason companies of every size skip supervisor training, from small shops to major automotive corporations • How untrained supervisors show up in turnover, safety numbers, and employee surveys • What happens between training sessions that makes new leadership skills actually stick • Why culture is the behavior you can observe, not the poster on the wall If you've ever promoted your best operator and watched them struggle, or looked around and realized nobody in the building pushes back on your thinking, this conversation is for you. Mike's approach to building strength at every level pairs with Dave's clarity-first operations lens for a practical look at developing leaders who can actually run the floor. Connect with Mike: Website: https://bench-builders.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpauloneill/ Podcast: Get Unstuck and On Target

July 28, 202624 min

I Built a 6S Tool. The Tool Won't Save Your Program.

Dave Crysler has walked nearly a hundred plant floors over the last 30 years, and most of them have the ghost of a dead 5S program somewhere: faded tape outlines, a shadow board missing half its tools, an audit sheet nobody has touched in years. In this episode, he breaks down why these programs die at the Sustain step and why the failure has almost nothing to do with your team's discipline. Both the consultants selling cleanup blitzes and the software vendors selling audit apps are treating the symptom, and Dave is willing to say so from inside the industry, as someone who just built a 6S audit tool himself. What You'll Discover: • Why nobody ever calls a consultant about a failed cleanup, and what that says about where programs actually die • How 5S gets sold as a project, and why the Sustain step is out of scope before the kickoff even happens • Why the blitz is billable and the sustain isn't, straight from a consultant willing to say it plainly • The real reason the messy floor keeps coming back: a missing rhythm, not missing discipline • How Sort, Straighten, and Shine create clarity, Standardize creates consistency, and Sustain is the accountability step • The hot-job-versus-audit moment, and what leadership's choice signals to the entire floor • How surfaced gaps that die going up the chain erode trust one finding at a time • Why culture is the output of a running system, not the input, and what people need to see before they start believing • What to do Monday morning, whether your program is dead, dying, or hasn't started yet If there's faded floor tape somewhere in your building, this episode is the honest autopsy and the restart plan. Start with one work center, build the audit rhythm before you expand anywhere, and give your team a reason to believe that raising their hand matters.

July 21, 202623 min

Your Exit Multiple Is Being Written Right Now

Dave Crysler unpacks what really determines the price of a business at exit, drawing on years spent on the buyer's side of acquisitions. Two owners with the same earnings can sell for wildly different numbers, and the difference has nothing to do with product, customers, or market. It comes down to whether the business runs without the owner, and buyers price that risk before the offer ever hits the table. What You'll Discover: • Why the risk in your business gets priced in before you ever see an offer • What buyers are really looking for beyond your financials, and why the shop floor tells them more than the books • How earn-out deals actually work, and why they turn owners into employees chasing targets they no longer control • The moment most owners first realize their infrastructure is not as strong as they thought • Why hiring a right-hand person relocates owner dependency instead of solving it • The fire drill exercise that shows you exactly what routes through you, and how strong your team really is • Why you can't reconfigure and systemize an entire business in six months, no matter what someone promises • How Planning, People, Process, and Technology, in that order, build a business that runs by design instead of by default • Why the same work applies whether you sell, hand it to the next generation, build an ESOP, or keep it 30 years If everything in your business routes through you, that's not just a stress problem, it's a valuation problem. This episode shows you how to see your operation the way a buyer will, and why the sooner you start systemizing by design, the faster the multiple grows.

July 15, 202622 min

Your Team Isn't Resisting Change. They Stopped Believing You.

A client of Dave's had an incredible first quarter, then one of the worst months on their recent record. In this episode, Dave Crysler breaks down what almost always happens the week after a bad month: the panic pivot, where leadership changes everything at once and calls it decisiveness. He unpacks why changing too many things simultaneously destroys your baseline, why constant course corrections read as fear to your team, and how the flavor of the month cycle quietly erodes trust until your best people stop investing effort in any initiative at all. What You'll Discover: • Why the reaction to a bad month is almost always a total shift, and why that instinct is so hard to resist • The difference between feeling decisive and actually being strategic when results disappoint • Why changing too many things at once means you never establish a baseline, and never learn which changes move the needle • How constant pivots create whiplash inside your business, and what that does to trust over time • The real reason leadership teams overreact: measuring the business through lagging indicators that report what already happened • How leading indicators give you a peek into the future, including how Dave knew where the month would land two weeks in when he ran manufacturing operations • The rule for when a change is actually justified: materially new information versus simply reacting to a miss • Why most bad months call for taking a breath and staying the course, and how the 80/20 rule applies • What's really at risk with every strategic pivot: the trust you've built across your organization If you just closed out a rough month or a soft first half, this episode is the pause button. Before you change everything, figure out what the numbers underneath the numbers are telling you. That's the difference between a leadership team that learns and one that starts over every quarter.

July 7, 202619 min

Why Chasing Efficiency Keeps You Stuck

Every operator says they want to be more efficient, and Dave Crysler argues that's exactly the wrong goal. In this solo episode he unpacks the one-word distinction that quietly holds most operations back, the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, and why nearly 30 years on the shop floor taught him that the two are not the same thing. He walks through why the localized efficiency we're all trained to chase can look like progress on the inside while the customer never feels a thing, and shares a recent custom manufacturing client that cut lead times from 30 to 45 days down to 5 to 10, with no additional resources. What You'll Discover: • Why the word efficiency may be the reason your operation stays stuck • The difference between efficiency, utilization, and effectiveness, in plain language • How chasing efficiency inside every department quietly sabotages the whole system • The rowing team analogy that makes effectiveness click in ten seconds • Why increasing flow means some parts of your business should be less efficient on purpose • How a custom manufacturer cut lead times from 30 to 45 days down to 5 to 10 with the same, and eventually fewer, resources • The teeter totter effect, why fixing one bottleneck just moves the constraint somewhere else • Why buying scheduling software almost never fixes a scheduling problem • The real cost of solving at the symptom level, in margin and in cash If your team feels busy but the numbers won't move, you're probably measuring the wrong thing. Start by looking at where the work actually waits, not at how busy everyone is. That's where your next real gain is hiding, and it usually doesn't cost a dime.

June 30, 202625 min

Same Problems, Different Day. Here's Why.

Every business is already running on a system. The only question is whether anybody actually designed it. In this solo episode, Dave Crysler breaks down the difference between running by design and running by default, and why the problems that keep coming back are not bad luck or bad people. They are the designed output of a system nobody chose. Dave explains how default systems quietly accrete over time, why you can't see yours from the inside, and the order you have to follow to rebuild it on purpose, without buying anything new. What You'll Discover: • Why firefighting is a system problem, not a discipline problem, and why you can't out-discipline your way out of it • What a "default system" actually is and how it accretes one shortcut and one bolt-on at a time • Why your recurring problems are the system working exactly as it was unintentionally built to work • How your "lens of experience" keeps the real problem invisible from the inside • Why swapping one CRM or ERP for another just extends the same broken system • The hidden tax a default system charges your people, and why your best ones leave first • Why the order matters: planning, then people, then process, then technology • How to use a Cost of Chaos calculator to put a real dollar number on the problem • The crawl, walk, run path from default to design you can start Monday morning If you feel like you are running the same fire drill every week, watching your capacity stall every time you try to grow, and asking your team why the output isn't there, the problem probably isn't your effort or your tools. It's the system underneath, and it's fixable. Start by making it visible, then design it on purpose.

June 23, 202644 min

Your Best Person Is About to Quit (And You Have No Idea)

Dave Crysler sits down with Greg Harrod, a 30-year manufacturing leader and Certified Working Genius facilitator, to unpack a pattern that quietly drains operations teams: the most dependable person on the floor is often the closest to burnout. Because leaders trust their best people, they keep handing them more, until reliable becomes overloaded and the resignation nobody saw coming lands on the desk. Greg and Dave dig into why it happens, the early warning signs most leaders miss, and how to redistribute ownership without lowering standards or sacrificing accountability. What You'll Discover: • Why the people you trust most are the ones you unknowingly push toward burnout • The difference between being good at the work and being energized by it, and why it matters • A simple two-question check that surfaces burnout before a resignation does • How "just because you can doesn't mean you should" reshapes the way you assign work • The early warning signs that a dependable person is running out of road • Why overload is almost always a clarity problem, not a people problem • How to redistribute work across a team without lowering standards or accountability • The story behind the Working Genius model and what it reveals about overloaded leaders • What to actually do Monday morning if you recognize one of these people on your team If you've got a go-to person who never drops the ball, this conversation is your early warning system. Greg and Dave give you the language and the questions to spot the strain before it costs you your best person. Greg's Leadership Clarity Scorecard is a ten-minute starting point you can find at leadershipclarityscorecard.com .