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Business problems feel overwhelming because you're trying to fix everything at once. Fix My Business cuts through the noise by answering one real question per episode—giving you clarity, a clear diagnosis, and one action you can take this week. Hosted by author and entrepreneur Scott Todd, this show isn't about theory or motivation. It's about solving the actual problems that keep business owners stuck: revenue up but profit down, marketing that doesn't work, chaos that won't stop, and the constant feeling that you're one step behind. Scott left a Fortune 300 VP role to build multiple seven-figure companies. His book, Fix This Next for Real Estate Investors (releasing January 2026), introduced the Investor Priority Pyramid (IPP)—a framework for knowing exactly what to fix next when everything feels urgent. Now, he's bringing that same diagnostic approach to business owners across every industry. What makes this show different: Every episode starts with a real question from a real business owner. Scott diagnoses the actual problem (not the surface symptom), explains why it's happening, and gives you one clear move to make progress this week. No 10-step plans. No vague advice. Just: here's what's wrong, here's why, here's what to do. You'll learn how to: -Identify the real problem hiding underneath the chaos -Use frameworks like the Investor Priority Pyramid (IPP), the Survival Trap, and the Scaling Trap to understand where you're stuck -Fix margin erosion, cash flow issues, and operational breakdowns -Build systems that let your business run without running you -Move from grinding for revenue to printing profit Scott's background spans over three decades in corporate leadership (Fortune 300 executive in IT, operations, and finance) and entrepreneurship (Landmodo, Passion IT Group, and other ventures). He thinks like an operator, not a guru. His frameworks—IPP, the Freedom Number Formula, ACRE, and the DREAMS Framework—translate complex strategy into simple, repeatable actions. This show is for: -Business owners working harder but taking home less -Entrepreneurs stuck in the Survival Trap (revenue grows, chaos grows faster) -Operators who want clarity on what to fix first when everything feels broken -Anyone tired of motivational advice who wants tactical, diagnostic problem-solving Each episode includes: -The Question: A real problem from a real business owner -The Diagnosis: What's actually wrong (the thing you can't see on your own) -The Action: One move you can make this week to fix it If you're ready to stop guessing and start fixing, this is your show. Scott Todd is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, and author of Fix This Next for Real Estate Investors (January 2026). He's the creator of the Investor Priority Pyramid™ and the Freedom Number™ framework. Through his companies, writing, and this podcast, he helps business owners escape overwhelm and build businesses that operate without consuming their lives. Learn more at ScottTodd.net.

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I'm Testing an AI Bookkeeper Against My CPA. Here's the Setup.

2026/10/01

For the month of September, Scott has been running an AI bookkeeping agent in parallel with his existing accounting system and team. Nothing has been cut over. At month end, he's comparing both sets of financials. The setup, in five steps: Bank feed. BankSync.io (~$7/month) pulls daily transactions from connected accounts via Plaid. Daily ingest. At 8am, Stu — Scott's bookkeeping agent — grabs the prior day's transactions, filters out anything already processed, and ingests what's new. The queue. New charges wait to be categorized. Nothing posts automatically. Human confirmation. Stu proposes a category and the rule it believes applies. Scott confirms or corrects. Only then does it post to the ledger. Portability backup. The ledger copies to Dropbox, so the books can move to whatever agent platform comes next. The rule: The agent doesn't spend money and doesn't post anything unconfirmed. A second test inside the test: Grok recently released a Grok Finance plugin with read-only bank access — also via Plaid. Scott is comparing it against BankSync to see if both produce the same result, since Grok Finance is free. On the CPA question: The accounting team isn't going away. The CPA still oversees the work. The question is whether the low-level coding work can move, freeing people for higher-value work. Currently running three companies through the system. More advanced land-investing accounting is being tested separately — Accounting for Land Investors students should watch their class LMS. Before you try this: Vet any repo you connect to your financial data. Check the maintainer, the update history, and what the code does with your information. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

Another New AI Agent Dropped. Here's the One Thing It's Actually Good At

2026/09/22

Meta released a new AI agent framework called Muse. There will probably be another one next week, and another the week after. If you try to rebuild your business around every new agent, you'll get whiplash and never get traction. Scott's approach: Don't chase them. Learn what each one is good at, and use it for that. What Muse does well: It's tightly integrated with Facebook and Instagram. Scott gave it a link to a Chipley, Florida property on Landmodo (0.66 acres, owner financed, $200 down, $229/month). Muse pulled the photos and details, drafted a Facebook Marketplace listing, and asked for approval before posting. What Muse doesn't do: It's a single "God mode" agent. You can't build multi-agent workflows the way you can with Grokbot or Hermes. The bigger opportunity: Connect Facebook Messenger, then have Muse check for new messages every 30 minutes during business hours and auto-reply with your next step, like a link to your website. Coming up: Scott plans to have his Grokbot agents hand new listings to Muse automatically, and he'll map that workflow out on a future episode. The takeaway: Check out Muse if you sell on Facebook Marketplace. But don't build your whole business on it. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

I Was Frustrated. Turns Out I Was in the Wrong Seat

2026/09/17

Dan Sullivan told Scott that in fifty years of working with entrepreneurs, he'd never seen someone with the wrong business. What he saw over and over was someone in the wrong seat, doing the wrong job. What if being stuck isn't a business problem? Scott took two assessments — Kolbe and Working Genius. Neither is a sponsor. He's just a customer. Kolbe (Scott is 7-3-7-3): High Fact Finder. Low Follow Thru. High Quick Start. Low Implementor. Translation: wired to research and start things, then hand them off. Not wired to finish them. The reframe: When you don't know this about yourself, you beat yourself up for being who you are. When you do know it, you stop trying to rewire yourself and start filling the gaps — with people, or with AI. Working Genius (Scott is Invention + Discernment): Shows where you fit in a workflow. Six geniuses. Two are your strong suit. Scott's missing piece: Tenacity. Which is exactly what Kolbe said too. The team application: Scott ran assessments across his team. Suddenly he could see who was in the right spot and who was underutilized. (Callback to Episode 75 — talented people in the wrong positions.) The Training Council: Scott's IT training department is run by two people. Their assessments showed they were missing Wonder and Discernment. So Scott built a five-person training council to cover every genius area — pulling in his head of IT for Wonder and himself for Discernment. The swap: Scott found someone in marketing with the same profile as him. Now when Scott travels or speaks, that person covers Discernment. The business doesn't stop. The warning: Assessments aren't a personality horoscope and they aren't an excuse. "I don't do paperwork because it's my weakness" doesn't cut it. These are diagnostics for workflow design. The cost: About $80 per person for both. Start with Working Genius (~$25) — it gives you a visual map of where people fit. Coming soon: Scott's team is building their own assessment. Still in R&D. Listeners get a gift when it's ready. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

Meet My AI Team: 18 Agents Running My Business

2026/09/10

Last week: 9 use cases for AI agents. This week: the actual Grokbot agents Scott runs, by name and role. The principle: Each agent does one thing. One specialized task. Over and over. The agents: Simon (chief of staff), Lois Lane (daily brief), Lloyd (email manager), Sue (paralegal), Reed (researcher), Avi (video summarizer), Curtis (bridge to Hermes data), Pat (payroll), Walter (scheduling), Cindy (speaking/PR packages), Bob (developer), Tess (UI review), Stu (shadow bookkeeping), Chuck (IT), Vanessa (graphic designer), Ada (address changes), Pip (Python scripts), Drew (month-end close). Highlights: Lloyd filters junk email 5-6x/day, archives "got it" replies, surfaces urgent items Sue fills PDFs, reviews contracts, prepared entity conversion documents Curtis has the "secret handshake" with Hermes for internal data access Vanessa is A/B testing thumbnails against a human designer—and winning Stu is running shadow books alongside the CPA Workflow design: Scott is mapping his businesses from scratch—"If I were to design this today with AI built in, how would it look?" The book: Think First, Then Automate. September 2027. With the publisher now. The closer: "The winners won't be companies with the most AI agents. They'll be the ones who build the team to be most effective with AI and humans." Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

9 Ways I'm Using AI Agents Across My Businesses

2026/09/01

Scott and his team are using AI agents across multiple businesses. Here are the nine use cases: 1. Data Analysis: AI agents pull data from multiple sources, calculate metrics, identify trends. Most small businesses don't have data analysts. Now they can. 2. Revenue/Financial Analyst: Daily revenue calculations, transaction reconciliation, refund trend analysis, investment return evaluation. Paired with a human who reviews daily. 3. Business Operations Assistant: Reduces operational load. Example: finishing a studio recording kicks off file downloads, editor notifications, and workflow—all triggered by telling the agent "this is done." 4. Billing Investigations: AI reviews billing records and catches human errors. Found thousands of dollars in improper billing. Revenue recovery. 5. Automation Builder: Builds internal tools and scripts. Example: studio background auto-switches based on what Scott is recording. 6. Automation Supervisor: Daily 6 PM review of all automations. If something broke and didn't self-correct, the supervisor investigates, fixes it, and reruns it. Prompt: "You work for a self-improving organization. When something fails, it is your job to fix it." 7. Research/Due Diligence: Market research, property due diligence, historical records. "You'd be amazed at how much due diligence can be done by AI." 8. Customer Support (Tier 1): Drafts responses within defined rules. 90% confidence threshold—below that, escalate to a human. Never sends without review. 9. Customer Analysis: Before any call or email, the agent examines the full customer picture—email history, billing, meeting notes, last human touchpoint. Enables deeper conversations. The $80K story: An employee left. Management said: "Give us $20K for AI tools and we can augment her work." It's happening. The principle: Every use case pairs AI with a human. "It's never the AI running rampant. It's a true partnership." Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

I've Tested 4 AI Platforms in 8 Months. Here's What I Learned.

2026/08/25

2026 is the year of AI agents. Scott started with OpenClaw in January. Moved to Hermes months later. Then Buzz. Now Grokbot. Four platforms in eight months. The problem: Every new framework creates friction. If you're building business processes around one agent and a new one appears tomorrow, you feel like you have to start over. The book: Scott's upcoming book, Think First, Then Automate, is about exactly this. Slow down. Think about the thinking. Document before you automate. The solution: Documentation portability. Scott keeps all company systems, processes, and decision history in markdown files in Dropbox. When a new agent framework appears, he gives it access to the folder. It's not starting from zero. The Lewis story: Scott's first boss, Lewis, drilled documentation into his head. "Mr. Todd, where's the documentation?" Scott hated it then. He understands now—documentation is what makes everything portable. The Grokbot caveat: Grokbot is easy to start with, but it's more contained within its own environment. Other frameworks let you bring your own models and your own files. The feeling: "Over the weekend I was feeling overwhelmed. Which one do I choose?" You're not being left behind if you're experimenting. But if your head is in the sand, you might have a problem. The principle: Build processes first that are automatable. Document them. Store them portably. Then when the next framework comes, you're ready. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

Is Business Really Slow—Or Do You Just Not Know What Good Looks Like?

2026/08/18

Last week, Scott had two back-to-back calls. Two sellers. Same market. Same product. Same economy. Completely different results. Seller A: "It's slow. The economy. Infrastructure costs doubled. People are scared." Views were flat. Leads weren't converting. Copy was thin—same thing repeated over and over. Seller B: Same county. Same headwinds. Scott introduced them to the DREAMS framework in March. They applied it. Views exploded. Leads exploded. 4x growth in three months. The diagnosis: Seller A blamed the economy. Seller B changed the ads. The economy was the same for both. The real problem: If you've never experienced the highs, you don't know when you're in the lows. You accept bad as normal. Then you blame things you can't control. The market is always talking to you. Views without leads means you're not connecting. The market isn't the problem—your message is. Clickable and convertible: Two steps. Are people clicking? (Views.) Are they converting? (Leads.) If you're getting views but no leads, change the message. The controllable reframe: You can't control the economy. But you can control your ads, your copy, your delivery, your close. The challenge: Where in your business are you giving things a pass? Where are you blaming something you can't control? Pull it back in. What can you do differently this week? Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

We Analyzed 10,000 Ads—Here's What We Found

2026/08/11

How do you write your ads? Not physically—mentally. Do you have a framework? The research: In 2023, Scott's Land Moto team analyzed over 10,000 ads to answer one question: What makes an ad clickable and convertible? You have to win twice. First, they click. Then, they convert. Two separate wins. The finding: The highest performing ads consistently answered key questions already in the reader's mind. The DREAMS Framework — a six-point diagnostic: D — Destination Vision: Paint what life looks like after they buy. They have to see themselves getting what they want. R — Reasons to Act: Connect features to benefits. "Two and a half acres" → "You can spread out without being on top of your neighbor." E — Eliminate Objections: Quiet the logical brain. "I can't afford this" → "We can make it affordable." "I don't have credit" → "We don't worry about that." A — Accessibility Signals: Make the offer understandable. Clear price. Simple terms. Get them from "no" to "maybe." M — Motivational Trigger: Give them a reason to stop scrolling. But don't create fake urgency. Make the next step small—capture an email, not a credit card. S — Scannable: No walls of text. Make it easy to consume. The Instagram story: Scott clicked an ad, landed on a $27 Thrivecart page with a $67 upsell. He wasn't ready to buy. He left. She has no way to contact him without spending more on marketing. The Main Street store analogy: You walk in, browse, walk out. "Thanks, have a good day." They never captured that you were there. The key: DREAMS isn't a rigid template. It's a diagnostic checklist. The more elements you include, the stronger the copy. Learn more: scotttodd.net/dreams Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

We Had a Hot Mess in Our Business—Here's How We Fixed It

2026/08/06

How many things in your business are broken—little things you see every day but haven't fixed? Frictions: Scott captures every broken or inefficient process he sees. He calls them frictions. They go on the automation loop worksheet. Then he prioritizes by closeness to revenue and team efficiency, and fixes one or two at a time. The hot mess: In Scott's loan servicing business, the collections process was tracked in a spreadsheet. It worked—but it wasn't scalable and wasn't something to be proud of. It became the next priority. The process: Opened the spreadsheet, brought Claude in, explained the process end to end Asked Claude for a product requirements document (PRD) Read the PRD over two days, pushed back, refined it Applied the SCALE framework SCALE applied: S (Scope): Collections process only. Not the whole internal tool. C (Clarify the Flow): Whiteboard. Drew the future state. A (Automate the Trigger): Notify humans when new cases arrive. Don't automate judgment—humans decide before anything fires. L (Leverage the Data): Know when it's working AND when it's broken. "Automated processes die silently." E (Elevate the Experience): Make sure people can always get back to a human. The build: Fed the refined PRD to Claude Code. Built an internal tool replacing the spreadsheet—better tracking, security, visibility into who changed what and when. The principle: Think first before you build anything. Don't jump to "how do I automate this?" Think through the entire process first. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

Are You Building for You or Your Customer?

2026/08/04

How much of your time is spent obsessing over your customers' problems? Or how much is spent on the stuff you want to build? **The conference room story:** A business owner spent 45 minutes showing Scott everything he'd built. Impressive. Then Scott asked: "What does your customer need next?" Pause. "I don't know." **The problem:** We build things that meet our goals. But the thing that makes a business operate is the customer opening their wallet. **Scott's quick fix:** When things feel stuck, ask: "How can I serve my customer better?" It flips the focus outward. **The Doc story:** Scott was selling rural land. A buyer named Doc asked, "How close is the nearest Walmart?" Scott assumed close was good. Doc said: "Please tell me it's more than 20 minutes away." He was an Afghanistan veteran. The city was too loud. He wanted to take his son somewhere quiet—to be one with nature. He bought the property on the spot. 30 months later, Doc called. "I'm ready to be back in the city. The property served its purpose." He gave it back. **The lesson:** If Scott had assumed remoteness was bad, he would have carried that wrong inference into every future sales call. By staying open and asking why, he discovered that what he thought was a weakness was actually the feature. **The principle:** We cannot serve everybody. Find the people who want the solution you can offer. Obsess over their problems, not your goals. **The result:** The guy in the conference room went back, talked to customers, found out what they needed next, and built that. His business took off. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: [scotttodd.net/ask](https://www.scotttodd.net/ask)

The One Thing Successful Businesses Do That You're Probably Not Doing

2026/07/30

Successful businesses run experiments. Constantly. Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke found that companies like Amazon, Google, and Booking.com run thousands of experiments per year. They don't guess—they test. And they grow faster because of it. Scott's not Amazon. But yesterday, his team ran an experiment—and he's sharing it. The problem: Churn. One of Scott's SaaS businesses tracks churn monthly. The report shows the number, but not the why. Churn applies to everyone: Training companies, land investors, service businesses. Anytime you have to go get new customers, you have churn. The excuse: Someone on the team quoted Alex Hormozi—"small businesses go out of business." Scott's response: "You can't do that." The experiment: Scott gave AI access to the data. The insight: customers with reviews cancel 58% less. One package didn't allow reviews—and had the highest churn. They turned on reviews for that package yesterday. The hypothesis: Churn will drop. They're measuring over 30, 60, 90 days. Scott will report back. The Slack example: Slack found that the more colleagues you added early, the more likely you were to become a paying customer. That's why they push "bring your team." The lesson: What can you do early to help your customer succeed? When your customer succeeds, you succeed. The challenge: What experiment could you run this week? Change one thing. Measure before and after. True or false—did it work? Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

I'm Afraid to Hire Because They Might Steal My Business

2026/07/28

Cheryl writes: "I'm afraid to hire people because I don't want them to learn my business and then start their own. I know this is holding me back. Help me overcome this." The reality: 6% of the U.S. population owns a business. 94% don't—and don't want to. Scott's story: When he hired his first sales rep, she had a history of owning businesses. He was nervous. But he asked himself three questions: Does she have the capital?Does she have the interest?Does she have the burning desire? Most employees don't. They want stability, not risk. The car detailing story: A professional detailer—20 years in, van, full setup, referrals—worried about a neighborhood kid undercutting him on Facebook. Two years later: kid is gone. Professional is still thriving. The lesson: Just because someone can start a business against you doesn't mean they'll succeed. The reframe: You're holding your business back because of something that probably won't happen. This fear isn't unique to hiring—business owners make decisions all the time solving for things that probably won't happen. The real risk: Not hiring. Not growing. Staying stuck. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

I Hired a Marketing Company and Got No Leads—Here's What Went Wrong

2026/07/23

Mario hired a marketing company. They promised: "We'll put your ads out. You won't even have to think about it." And they did. The ads looked great. But they weren't converting into leads. The problem: They measured the wrong thing. The company delivered on their promise—ads. But Mario wanted leads. They never actually promised leads. Mario assumed it was implied. The lesson: If it's not specific, it's not the deliverable. "Ads" is activity. "Leads" is the result. Measure results. The outbound calls example: "We'll make a thousand outbound calls a day." Great. How many leads? "We can't guarantee leads." Same trap. Scott's corporate story (No Rev 7): At a Fortune 300 rental car company, there was a report tracking cars with no revenue in 7 days. The intent was to flag broken, lost, or stolen cars—or overfleeting. But locations started gaming it. They'd swap cars just to avoid appearing on the report. The company incurred costs to move stuff around so they didn't show up on a report. The principle: When you measure the wrong thing, you take actions that manipulate the data. The Variability Trap callback: Two employees can do the same work with completely different results. If you don't define what "done" looks like, you get inconsistency. The fix: Be specific. Not just "leads"—qualified leads. Not just "ads"—ads that convert. Define what success truly looks like. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

"I'm Ready to Throw in the Towel—What Do I Do?"

2026/07/21

Last week at an event, someone walked up to Scott after his presentation. Full-time job. Side hustle. New business. All kinds of doubts. Ready to throw in the towel. Here's what Scott told them. 12 years ago, Scott was in the same boat. VP at a Fortune 300 company. Saw the writing on the wall. Started a side hustle in real estate investing. The emotions—doubt, self-doubt, resistance—are all part of the process. You gotta keep going. You're going to have self-doubt. Can I do this? Am I doing it right? You gotta keep going anyway. Protect your money. The number one reason businesses fail is underfunding. Don't run out of capital. Budget for the hard times. Read The War of Art. Stephen Pressfield wrote it for creatives, but it should be required reading for every business owner. The inner critic troll will show up. Acknowledge it. Write it down. Say thank you. And keep moving. Pick one to three big things. Don't try to do everything. Pick the goal. Walk toward it. The arbitrary date: The target date you picked? It's arbitrary. You gave it your best. If you miss it, don't spiral. Look at the movement you made. Measure progress, not perfection. Give yourself grace. If it takes three years instead of twelve months—who cares? High achievers struggle with this. Keep grinding anyway. Move your feet. (The lacrosse story.) When the player froze, the defense didn't. If you stop, the world doesn't. Do something. Find a win. The wins journal: Every day, write down five wins. No matter how small. One person signed up for your email list? Win. You woke up and did something for your business? Win. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask

I Keep Doing My Team's Work—And I'm Better at It Than They Are

2026/07/16

Christopher writes: "My team is frustrating. I hire people and end up jumping in and doing better than them. What am I even paying for?" The two lies: "It's faster if I do it myself.""I can do it better than anybody else." The truth: When you jump in, your team learns they can just come to you. You become the bottleneck. The business can only move as fast as you can move. The Goal (Eli Goldratt): The Theory of Constraints. Find the weakest link in the chain. Fix it. Move on. (Also covered in Scott's book, Fix This Next for Real Estate Investors.) The Batman analogy (from Mike Michalowicz): When the police chief loses control, he turns on the bat signal. Batman swoops in and saves the day. But the movie ends with smoke and ruins. He left a mess. That's what happens when you swoop in to "save" your team. You're stealing their growth: Every time you jump in, you deprive them of learning. You prove they can't be trusted. And you exhaust yourself. The real problem: You haven't defined what "done" looks like. (Episode 56: Define the output, not the task.) The prescription: For one week—or one month—don't redo any work. Document what's wrong. At the end of the week, train on those gaps. The diagnostic question: Am I the constraint—or is my team the constraint? If the team is the constraint, don't step back in. If you're the constraint, figure out how to unconstrain yourself. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask