One number a week, and where it came from

Most advice about running a business is somebody’s opinion dressed up as a rule. One Number is the opposite: one real, published figure each week about the money side of running a business, explained the way a person would explain it, with the source named every time so you can go and check the work.

It takes about two minutes to read. Every issue ends with one small thing you can actually do, the kind you can finish at eleven at night without opening a spreadsheet.

Numbers we have already covered

27 days

If the money stopped coming in this morning, the middle business in the country lasts 27 days. Half of all businesses sit below their own line, and almost none of the owners know which half they are in.

Source: JPMorgan Chase Institute, Cash is King

35%

Thirty five percent of owners say they have no idea what their business is worth, and only 14 percent have ever had it properly valued. Fifty two percent say they have an exit plan, so most of that planning rests on a guess.

Source: BizBuySell Insight Report, Q2 2026

42 hours

The average business took 42 hours to answer a lead that came in through its own website, and nearly a quarter never answered at all.

Source: Harvard Business Review, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads

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Free. One email a week, and you can leave whenever you like.

Subscribe to One Number

Your address goes to the mailing service that sends the letter and nowhere else. We do not sell or share it, every issue carries an unsubscribe link, and you can read the back issues before deciding.

What it is not

Not a drip sequence. There is no sales ladder waiting behind the signup.
Not invented. A figure cannot go in an issue unless it names a real published source, which is a rule enforced in the software that builds the letter, not a promise.
Not jargon. If a term needs an accounting degree, it gets explained or it does not go in.
Not daily. One email, once a week.

Who writes it

ClarIQ Advisory works on the money side of growing businesses: monthly reporting that tells you where the cash actually went, help for people buying and selling businesses, and practical automation. The letter is the same habit we run for clients, pointed at whoever wants to read it: find the real number, name where it came from, say what to do about it.

If a number ever raises a question about your own books, the first call is free and runs thirty minutes. Reading the letter costs nothing and commits you to nothing.