CEO, something feels wrong
but you can’t name it.

Name: The Slow Bleed
Price: 39.95 GBP
Author: Nick Ayton
ISBN: 978-1-0666374-4-7

You manage this business. You lead it every day. Revenue is growing. Margins are holding. The dashboard is green. But something feels heavy. Yet the business is harder to lead than the numbers suggest.

Cash is tighter than it should be. You sense there’s more going on — but you can’t put your finger on it. Because every tool you’re relying on was designed to look backwards.

You don’t have proof. You don’t have data. But you feel it. And it’s keeping you awake at night.

CEO, this is yours to fix. The Slow Bleed shows you how.

The new business bible for the modern CEO.

See if this sounds familiar ↓

CEO — do you recognise any of these?

You don’t have proof. You don’t have data.
But you feel it. Every day.

These are the symptoms of something deeper. No dashboard will show them. No board pack will mention them. But you experience them — and they’re all signs of the slow bleed.

Everything takes longer

Deals that used to close in weeks now take months. Decisions that should take a day take a committee. Getting anything done feels like pushing through treacle. The business is sluggish and you can’t explain why.

More internal meetings than external ones

Your diary is full of alignment calls, steering groups, and status updates. You’re spending more time managing the organisation than leading the business. Internal politics consume executive time that should be in front of customers.

Your best people are leaving or complaining

The ones who deliver are frustrated. They’re blocked by internal barriers, slowed by compliance, suffocated by process. The ones who stay quiet are the ones you should be worried about — they’ve already checked out.

Internal friction is increasing

Compliance. GDPR. Legal review. Procurement process. Every support function adds days to the cycle and calls it governance. Customer complaints are up. Response times are slowing. The business can’t move at the speed the market demands.

Transformation hasn’t delivered

You spent the money. You hired the consultants. You ran the programme. Eighteen months later you have a new CRM, a Slack instance, and a dashboard nobody trusts. The operating model didn’t change. The cash cycle got worse.

The CFO wants to cut. The COO wants to spend.

The CFO says cut cost. The COO says upgrade tech and hire more consultants. Neither is solving the real problem. They’re treating symptoms — one with a scalpel, one with a chequebook. The disease is in the operating velocity.

The numbers say fine. Your gut says otherwise.

Revenue growing. Margins holding. Dashboard green. But cash is tight. The business feels heavier than it should. You sense there’s more going on but you can’t prove it — because every tool you have was built to look backwards.

These aren’t seven separate problems. They’re seven symptoms of one disease.

CEO, this is yours to fix.
The Slow Bleed is how.

It shows up first in sales — but sales is the symptom, not the cause. Every leading indicator your board relies on is actually a lagging indicator. Every board pack is history dressed as governance. The real health of your business is invisible to the tools you’re using to measure it.

There is one number that reveals the truth. Cash Conversion Velocity™ — measured in days, owned by name, fixed in ninety. As CEO, you own it.

The Slow Bleed — Hardback edition by Nick Ayton

The new business bible for the modern CEO.

Most businesses are slowly dying. The reason is the Slow Bleed.

Every indicator your board relies on is a lagging indicator. Every dashboard faces backwards. Every board pack is a curated history that tells you what happened, not what’s happening. The real health of your business is invisible to the tools you’re using to measure it.

The Slow Bleed shows up first in sales — but sales is the symptom, not the cause. The cause is Cash Conversion Velocity™ — the speed at which your operating model turns activity into cash. This book diagnoses it. Then gives you a real 90-day programme to fix it. Fast.

Written for

CEOs and founders who sense the business is heavier than the numbers justify. PE operating partners who suspect at least two portfolio companies are bleeding. Family office principals who want the inside track on true operating health. Chairs and NEDs who want the questions that expose whether the CEO is running the business or managing a story.

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Direct from the author · Visa / Mastercard / Amex / Apple Pay / Google Pay

Also distributed via IngramSpark to Amazon, Waterstones, Gardners, and bookshops worldwide

CEO — what this book gives you in 90 days

Follow the sequence and within ninety days you will have:

Your CCV™ baseline measured

The number that tells you more about the health of your business than any dashboard you currently run. Measured in days. Owned by name.

Your customer portfolio ranked by real contribution

Not revenue. Net contribution — fully loaded, cost-allocated, per customer. The ranking will be dramatically different. The Dear John conversations will follow.

Your worst customers exited or upgraded

Working capital released. Resources redeployed to the accounts that actually fund the business. Margin quality improved before revenue recovers.

Your support functions accountable to commercial outcomes

Written charters. CCV™ metrics. Explicit authority limits. Legal embedded in deal teams. HR hiring at commercial speed. Procurement measured on partnership, not price.

Your board operating on forward-looking metrics

Earnings quality. Cash Conversion Velocity™. Customer net contribution by tier. The conversation shifts from explaining the past to governing the future.

15 chapters · 15 CEO Action Cards · 75 actions · 16 tools

Every chapter ends with a CEO Action Card — five actions you can take this week, not next quarter. Every tool was built to be used in a real meeting, not studied in isolation.

The velocity. The heartbeat. Your move.

Nick Ayton

Fixing operating models — the Cash Conversion Velocity™ problem

Not a consultant. A practitioner. Four decades inside operating businesses — restructuring, building, fixing the cash conversion problems that the Big 4 charge you millions to diagnose and then leave you to solve.

He helps founders, owners, and CEOs enter the Middle East — working with businesses across the UAE and UK who need their cash cycle fixed, not theorised about.

The Slow Bleed is the book he wishes someone had handed him 40 years ago.

Nick in action

Podcast guest. Keynote speaker. Chairman.

Entertaining, direct, and vibrant. 45 years of practitioner stories delivered without a script.

Podcast guest — in conversation

Podcast clip

Speaker & keynote

Chairman & MC

The Big Shift — data geopolitics

Beyond the book

Advisory & speaking

The book gives you the framework. These sessions help you apply it — with the author working alongside you.

Advisory sessions

For CEOs who want to get to grips with CCV™, apply it to their business, and establish an ongoing advisory relationship. Tailored, practical, measurable.

POA

Keynote & speaking

Bring The Slow Bleed to your leadership team, board offsite, conference, or industry event. Tailored to your sector with live CCV™ analysis.

POA

Podcast guest

Nick is a frequent, entertaining, and vibrant guest — an experienced podcast host and speaker. Ready-made talking points on cash conversion, the consulting myth, operating model failure, and why Digital Transformation doesn’t deliver.

No fee

The Slow Bleed

Why Your Business Is Losing Cash — and It’s Not a Sales Problem

The CEO Field Guide

First published in Great Britain in 2026 by Redline Press · www.theslowbleed.co.uk

Trademark Notice

Cash Conversion Velocity™, CCV™, and The Slow Bleed™ are trademarks of Nick Ayton. Application for registered trademark status has been made to the UK Intellectual Property Office.

Proprietary Methodology and Licensing

Permitted use: Individual readers may use the tools for their own internal business purposes.

Restricted use: No part of the CCV™ methodology may be incorporated into any commercial training, consulting, or advisory service without written licence.

Licensing: Contact Redline Press

ISBN 978-1-0666374-4-7 (Hardback) · 978-1-0666374-1-6 (Paperback) · 978-1-0666374-0-9 (eBook) · 978-1-0666374-2-3 (Audio)

Published by Redline Press · Cover design by Nick Ayton · Typeset in Great Britain

CEO, something feels wrong
but you can’t name it.