They say there is no CEO playbook. There is.
The Slow Bleed is it. Why your business is losing cash — and why it isn't a sales problem. Not a business book to be read once and shelved; a field guide you open on a Tuesday morning and run against your own numbers.
Something feels wrong, off, sluggish to run. You can't quite name it, but the feeling won't go away. Every number you're being fed is a lagging indicator of what has already happened. The dashboard says revenue and EBIT are fine — until they aren't. What your instincts are feeling is the Slow Bleed.
Forty-five years in and around boardrooms — global sales, turnarounds, integrations, buyouts — and it's always the same. The board reviews data nobody owns. They step back. They look at the CEO. The ball passes to you. You didn't create the numbers, so you'd better start validating them on your own terms.
Hardback · Paperback · 304 pages · 16 chapters · 16 working tools
It is practical. Direct. Sometimes uncomfortable. But importantly, it is written by someone who has actually had to make these decisions in real environments where cash flow, customers, politics and execution collide.
Ian Wright · CEO & Founder, VirtualNonExecs.com
Plugged into 30,000 board members, CEOs, Chairs and NEDs.
Published by Redline Press, 2026.
You feel it before the accounts show it
Decisions slow down. Customers become harder work. Sales cycles stretch. Meetings multiply. Everyone looks busy, but the business is wading through mud.
It's a velocity problem
You cannot cost-cut your way into growth, or workshop your way into commercial relevance. What matters is how fast you turn customer intent into cleared cash.
Tools, not theory
Forty-five years of what actually worked — distilled into diagnostics, calculators, templates and a 100-day plan you run against your own numbers.
Five moves, sixteen chapters
Read it once end to end, then keep it on the desk and work the tools.
See it
The slow bleed, knowing yourself, reading the room, and what it's not.
Understand it
The 80/20 truth, Cash Conversion Velocity and the Order-to-Cash cycle.
Remove it
The ERP trap, function blockers, the big shift and transformation myths.
Build it
The sales function, the sales operating model and large complex deals.
Lead it
Metrics that tell the truth, and the one role the CEO cannot delegate.
The Vault
Every diagnostic and calculator, live and applied to your own numbers. Every copy carries an unlock code. No subscription.
Ninety per cent of what you inherit is predictable.
The received wisdom is that you cannot know what you will inherit as CEO until you land. That is wrong, and believing it costs you the first hundred days you don't have.
Numbers that aren't yours. A board pack that tells you what already happened. A board protecting its own positions. The true health of the business unknown. Owners with no patience and no settling-in period. Value trapped as the machine slows. Delays and friction normalised until nobody questions them.
All of it predictable. All of it can be planned for. That is what this book is for.
Nick, in ninety seconds
Available for podcasts
Direct, quotable, and comfortable being disagreed with. Best on why businesses quietly die and what CEOs actually inherit.
Enquire →Writing for CEOs who feel it
Short, direct essays on the parts of the job nobody briefs you on.
Why is my profitable business running out of cash?
Profit is an opinion. Cash is a fact. If the two are pulling apart, you don't have an accounting problem.
Read → The mandateThe first 100 days as a new CEO
There is no settling-in period. Forget the listening tour — here is what the hundred days should contain.
Read → The boardroomHow to read a board pack you didn't build
It is not a report. It is an argument, assembled by people with something to protect.
Read → TransformationWhy do transformation programmes fail?
Around 95% deliver nothing of significance. Almost every time, it was misdiagnosis in week one.
Read → Early warningSigns your business is in trouble before the numbers show it
The P&L is four to eight quarters late. Twelve signals that move first.
Read → The mandateThe CEO playbook does exist
They say you can't know what you'll inherit until you land. I disagree — and I can list what you'll find.
Read →Start finding the bleed today
Available in hardback and paperback — on Amazon globally, or direct from the publisher.
Every copy carries a code that unlocks The Vault, where the diagnostics and calculators from the book run live against your own numbers. No subscription.
Direct from Redline Press. Secure checkout by Square — card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Dispatched within 24 hours.
| Edition | ISBN |
|---|---|
| Hardback | 978-1-0666374-4-7 |
| Paperback | 978-1-0666374-1-6 |
Bulk orders for boards and leadership teams — enquire
The book is the field guide. Sometimes you want someone in the room.
Reading it will tell you what is happening in your business. If you would rather have it measured — your actual Cash Conversion Velocity, where value is trapped, and a board-ready set of numbers that are yours — that is what Nick does.
Diagnostics, a 100-day recovery programme, leadership workshops and private one-to-one advisory. Every engagement runs on the tools in this book — and includes copies for your leadership team.
Put the tools to work on your own numbers
Every diagnostic and calculator from the field guide — live, saved to your account, and applied to your own numbers.
Every copy of the book carries a code that unlocks the full toolkit. No subscription.
Cash Conversion Velocity™ calculator. Order-to-Cash mapping. The 80/20 customer analysis. The 100-day plan. All sixteen tools, running against your data rather than an example in a book.