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Free chapters of Steer, Don't Guess and articles on the situations the book answers: what the numbers usually show, what to do first, and which chapter covers it in full.
Free sample: From the author, the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Steer, Don't Guess
Read the opening of Steer, Don't Guess by Martin Jirgenson free: From the author, the Introduction (control architecture in an age of change), the Prologue, Chapter 1 (Goal: not a dream but a list with an order, the refusal test) and the one-page cheat sheet. About 9,500 words.
1000 Subscribers: A One-Page Plan for a Small YouTube Channel
1000 subscribers is a goal, not a plan. Write a one-page YouTube channel plan in 15 minutes: levers, hours, limits, a weekly indicator and a check date.
Amazon Seller Success Rate: A One-Page Plan Before Launch
The Amazon seller success rate is low. Write one page per goal before you spend: levers in order, resources, limits, a weekly number and a check date.
Amazon Seller Tips: Know Where You Stand Before the First Sale
Amazon seller tips that start with your own numbers: cash counted in months of costs, a margin with every write-off in it, and one source for every figure.
Attention Economy: Pull the Levers You Own, Not the Views
The attention economy hands a few channels most of the views. Stop pushing on the result: list the levers you own, test each with three questions, start today.
Business Closure Comes Quietly: Look Three Cars Ahead
A business closure can come without any noise. Move your main goal from reacting to last month to a Monday forecast, and see the gap while the month is still open.
When Your Business Is Struggling Quietly: Set the Warning Lines
When a business is struggling, the signs rarely make noise. Set three zones for every goal in one evening, so a quiet slide shows up as a colour before the bank sees it.
Business Owner Burnout: Put Your Own Hours on the Panel
Business owner burnout starts with a missing row: your own hours. Put them on the panel with a red line, and hand one area to the person who sees it best.
Business Stress: Get the Numbers Out of Your Head in 20 Minutes
Business stress grows when every number lives in your head. Build a five-row panel with one source per number in 20 minutes, and set when you look at it.
Business Transformation: Find the Stage Nobody Is Running
Business transformation passes through eight stages, and a skipped one does not vanish. Find the empty stage in fifteen minutes, with a filled-in example.
Cost Overrun: See It Coming Weeks Before the Final Invoice
A cost overrun shows up in a weekly forecast long before it lands on the invoice. Move your budget from the calendar to the forecast, with a filled-in example.
Creator Economy for Small Creators: Read the Wind, Then Steer
The creator economy acts on your channel like wind on a yacht. List each factor, mark direction and strength, and pick one lever for each in 15 minutes.
Creator Income: Make It a Goal With a Number and a Deadline
Creator income swings every month. Write it as a goal: a three-month average, one source, a deadline, and a line for how much one client may hold.
Day Trading Statistics: Draw Your Red Line Before the Bell
Day trading statistics give the odds for everyone. Your own account needs three zones, a red line set in advance and a protocol for the day it turns red.
Day Trading Success Rate: Write the Goal Before the Trade
The day trading success rate gives the odds for everyone. Your own plan starts earlier: constraints, goals in refusal order and a stop line set in advance.
Etsy Statistics: Set Three Zones Before Your Shop Goes Dark
Etsy statistics count the shops that go dark. Set three zones for each of your numbers in a calm hour, so you know when to act and what to stop first.
Extra Income: Decide What It's For Before You Take the Gig
Extra income needs a job before it needs a gig. Write a short goal list in refusal order, six fields for the top goal and a minimum line. Fifteen minutes.
Failed Startup? Read the Warning Light Before the Cash Goes
A failed startup rarely dies on the day the cash ends. Set three zones for every goal, read the error each week, and act on red while there is time.
Fear of Failure in Business: Seven Steps Before You Decide
Fear of failure makes fast decisions and bad ones. Seven steps turn it into a written start: calm the noise, read your numbers, set a condition, then decide.
First Business: Plan It Backwards, From Opening Day to Today
Your first business needs a route, not a leap. Work back from the finish line, set a dated checkpoint every few months, and find the one task for this week.
Merger Integration: One Frame for Two Ways of Running a Business
Merger integration fails when two halves steer by two languages. Put both in one frame of goal, state and error, with two formulas and a filled-in example.
New Product Launch: Three Checks Before You Spend a Cent
A new product launch can break before work starts. Three checks in fifteen minutes: goals that clash, a starting number that isn't real, a market going under.
One Person Business: Decide What You Give Up First, in Advance
A one person business has nobody to break a tie. Write your goals as a ranked list, put your own pay and reserve on it, and let the order decide on hard days.
Personal Guarantee Business Loan: Draw Your Line Before You Sign
Before a personal guarantee business loan or one more transfer from savings, write what you will never risk. Four layers and the refusal test, in fifteen minutes.
Before a Personal Guarantee, Find What Is Pushing the Business
Before a personal guarantee or another transfer from savings, list what pushes your business off course, and test whether one factor is stronger than your levers.
Podcast Statistics: Get Past Episode One With a Manoeuvre Plan
Podcast statistics are harsh on new shows. Treat yours as a manoeuvre: three periods, a corridor, review dates and stop rules written before episode one.
Podcast Tips: Seven Steps Before You Quit After Episode One
Podcast tips for the week a show stalls: calm the noise, read the real numbers, find the trend, then decide. Seven steps that keep one bad week from ending it.
Product Launch Plan: Work Backwards From the Day After Launch
A product launch plan written backwards: the end state after launch day, a launch condition instead of a date, and a chain that names this week's task.
Shopify Statistics: The Levers You Can Pull Before Month Six
Shopify statistics show how fast new stores go dark. What to do instead: list the levers you can pull today, test each one, and read one early number weekly.
Side Hustle Income: Measure What You Keep, Not What You Earn
Side hustle income is what stays after costs and hours. Measure it in one evening: one source per number, a six-month average and an hourly figure.
Small Business Failure Rate: Measure Where You Stand Tonight
The small business failure rate is a rate for everyone. Measure your own state in one evening: five goals, one real number and one source for each.
Small Business Owner Stress: Sort Every Worry Into a Zone
Small business owner stress grows when every worry gets the same weight. Sort each one by goal and zone in fifteen minutes, then act on the red row first.
Solopreneur Dashboard: Six Rows You Can Read in One Minute
A solopreneur keeps the whole business in one head, until a hard week wipes it. Build a six-row dashboard with one source per number and read it in a minute.
Startup Burnout: Write the Goal List That Includes You
Startup burnout grows when every goal is equally urgent and the founder is on none of them. Build a four-layer goal list with an order, using a filled-in example.
Startup Failure Rate: Steer by Forecast, Not by the Calendar
The startup failure rate describes the crowd, not your company. Three ways to steer a startup, and why only control by forecast acts before the runway ends.
Startup Success Rate: Write Goals a Crisis Can't Rewrite
The startup success rate is set by the crowd. Your goals are set by you: six fields per goal, a refusal order, and a check for goals that cannot coexist.
Why Projects Fail: Three Checks Before the First Invoice
Why projects fail before work begins: a goal that contradicts itself, a wrong starting number, a sinking environment. Check all three in fifteen minutes.
Why Small Businesses Fail: Two Forecasts That Show It Coming
Why small businesses fail is a question for everyone. Draw two forecasts for yours, one if nothing changes and one if the plan works, and act while there is time.
Why Startups Fail: Three Checks Before the Money Runs Out
Why startups fail is rarely the money itself. Three written checks catch the broken goal, the wrong starting number and the fading market before cash runs out.
YouTube Growth: Steer Your Channel by Forecast, Not by Hope
YouTube growth depends on how you steer. Move your channel from plan and panic to a forecast, with a six-step check and a hundred croissants as the model.
Youtuber Income: Know Your Real Number in One Evening
Your youtuber income is a number, not a feeling. Build a five-row panel tonight: one definition, one source and one person behind every figure you steer by.
Action Plan Template: Five Rows That Turn a Goal Into Monday
An action plan template with five rows: levers, resources, constraints, a leading indicator and an owner. Filled in with a freelancer's real launch plan.
AI for Business Decisions: What to Let It Do, What to Check
AI for business decisions: the four jobs an assistant can do in your loop, the risk in each, and a one-line rule for which answers to check by hand.
AI for Small Business: You Need a Colleague With Rules
AI for small business pays off when it works like a colleague with rules, not a text machine. A test you can run tonight, and the free system that sets the rules.
AI Hallucinations Example: How to Spot an Invented Fact
An AI hallucinations example from business advice, the five shapes an invented fact takes, and a 15-minute audit that sorts every sentence before you act on it.
AI in Management: The Tool Computes, the Owner Decides
AI in management works when AI is a tool: it computes and warns, the owner keeps the wheel. A clear split of who decides what, and a free system that keeps it.
AI Sycophancy: Get an Assistant That Works From Your Priorities
AI sycophancy makes an assistant agree with you and chase its own ideas. Free files make ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini start from your priorities and your numbers.
Backward Planning Template: a Filled-In Example You Can Copy
A backward planning template with five columns, filled in for a freelancer's 14-month goal, plus the money check that shows if the chain really closes.
Balanced Scorecard Explained for the Small Business Owner
Balanced scorecard explained plainly: the four perspectives, a one-page version for a small business, and the question it leaves open when every side is red.
Book Launch Plan: One Page, Real Numbers, a Weekly Check
A book launch plan on one page for freelancers and first-time authors: levers, hours, budget, a sales forecast and a Monday check that catches a miss early.
Books Like The Goal: What to Read After Goldratt's Classic
Books like The Goal, matched to the five steps of the Theory of Constraints: what each one adds, which question it answers, and a ten-minute bottleneck test.
Business Crisis Plan: Write It in a Calm Week, on One Page
A business crisis plan you write before the crisis: one page, five blocks, filled in with a coffee shop's red lines and a freelancer's two-reds decision.
Business Levers: How to Find the Ones That Move Your Numbers
Business levers are what you can change by your own decision. Sort every number into lever, free parameter or outside factor, then test each lever in euros.
Cash Reserve Months of Expenses: How Long Your Money Lasts
Cash reserve months of expenses: turn the bank balance into time in ten minutes, read it against a red line, and see why a thin margin refills it so slowly.
ChatGPT Custom Instructions: An Employee Handbook for Your AI
ChatGPT custom instructions decide how good an AI answer is. Write them like an employee handbook: five house rules for tonight, and a free full rulebook.
Claude Prompts for Business: Set Up an Analyst in Five Minutes
Claude prompts that turn Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini into a careful business analyst: two free files, two messages and a five-sign check that it works.
Client Concentration Risk: How a Freelancer Went From 70% to 30%
Client concentration risk for freelancers: how to measure your largest client's share, write it as a goal with six fields, and cut it without firing anyone.
A Coffee Shop Book That Runs the Shop by the Numbers
A coffee shop book built on one owner's year: five numbers at month zero, the bin that ate the margin, a bad month, and the table that changed his Sundays.
Control Theory for Business, Explained With One Coffee Shop
Control theory for business in plain words: setpoint, sensor, error, actuator, delay and margin, each mapped onto one coffee shop, plus a 15-minute loop check.
Decision Fatigue in a Small Business: Decide Once, While Calm
Decision fatigue makes a tired owner say yes to the loudest request. Make three decisions in a calm hour, so the page decides for you when you are exhausted.
Delegating to the Right Person: Who Sees Furthest Ahead
Delegating to the right person means handing each area to whoever sees furthest ahead, not the top title. A 15-minute wheel test with a coffee shop example.
Eisenhower Matrix Alternative: Rank Your Goals, Not Your Tasks
An Eisenhower matrix alternative for owners whose every task looks urgent: rank goals once with the refusal test, then filter each request with three questions.
Factors Affecting Small Business: Sort Each One Into Four Bins
Factors affecting small business, from rain and heating bills to your own lack of time: list them, size them in your goal's units, and sort each into one of four bins.
Goal Setting for Entrepreneurs: Put the Owner on the List
Goal setting for entrepreneurs who run the business on their own hours: write the owner row, rank it with the refusal test, and give any overload an end date.
Gut Feeling vs Numbers: How to Stop Guessing in Your Business
Your gut feeling in business is a good question and a bad answer. Turn each hunch into one measured row: a definition, one source and a number you can trust.
Household Budget in Deficit: What to Cut First, and Why
A household budget in deficit needs an order, not a fight. Read the real numbers, test each cut, pull one lever at a time, and see when the savings run out.
How Often to Review KPIs: Two Rules That Set the Rhythm
How often to review KPIs: look before a number can cross its yellow band, and judge a lever only after its loop has turned. Coffee shop numbers, no software.
How to Measure Business Performance When Your Numbers Lie
How to measure business performance honestly: audit each number for source, method and period, then check its error is small enough to steer by.
How to Prioritize Your Life Without Putting Yourself Last
How to prioritize your life when work eats every evening: put your own time on the list, write your limits first, run the refusal test and plan the exceptions.
How to Save a Failing Business: Read the Current First
How to save a failing business without a midnight rescue: check for danger, read three things in an evening, then pull one lever that moves with the market.
KPI Zones: How to Turn Any Number Into a Clear Decision
KPI zones turn a gap into a decision: work out the error, then set green, yellow and red in advance. Five steps, a freelancer's and a coffee shop's numbers.
Management Glossary in Plain English, With Coffee Shop Examples
A management glossary in plain English: goal vector, refusal order, zones, stability margin, levers, phase lag, steady mode, each with one coffee shop example.
Management Self Check: Ten Yes or No Questions for Owners
A ten-question management self check for business owners. Each No is an empty row, not a failure: it shows your weakest area and what that gap costs you.
How to Build a Management System for a Small Business in a Week
A management system for a small business is seven simple tools, not software. Build the first five in one week with one spreadsheet and a short Monday meeting.
Margin vs Markup: One Coffee Shop, Four True Numbers
Margin vs markup with one coffee shop's figures: the conversion formula, how a 15% target becomes a price rule, and why the reserve grows at the markup rate.
Measurable Goals Example: Four Lists Filled In, Field by Field
A measurable goals example from four lives: a coffee shop, a freelancer, a family in deficit and a teenager. Every field filled in, with the mistake each one exposes.
Months of Runway: How Long Your Cash Lasts, and What Is Enough
Months of runway is two numbers, not one: how many months of costs you hold, and when the money runs out at today's pace. Here is how to calculate both.
Mutually Exclusive Goals: the Arithmetic Test Before You Plan
Mutually exclusive goals cannot both be met, however hard you work. Run a ten-minute arithmetic test, then pick one of four exits: drop, cap, sequence or condition.
OKR vs Balanced Scorecard: Which One Decides on a Bad Monday?
OKR vs balanced scorecard for a small business: one words the goals, the other picks what to measure. Neither says which goal wins. One sheet does both jobs.
Phase Lag: Why Your Reports Arrive After the Damage
Phase lag is the delay between a problem and your fix. Measure your three delays, set how often to look at each number, and stop judging levers too early.
Reactive vs Proactive Management: the 15-Minute Monday Forecast
Reactive vs proactive management in one weekly habit: forecast the month on Monday, act on the gap before it lands, and let next Monday's facts correct you.
How to Teach Kids to Save Money: A Plan Your Child Runs
How to teach kids to save money: let your child write the goal, pick levers they control and count every Sunday. A 13-year-old's €300 bicycle plan, filled in.
Too Many Goals? Cut the List to Nine, Then Put It in Order
Too many goals means the loudest problem wins. Cut your list with five filters, keep nine goals or fewer, and let the refusal test decide which one comes first.
Waste in Small Business: The Cost Your Margin Report Hides
Waste in small business never reaches the report, so the margin you read is wrong. A six-step gauge test, three questions for every figure, and how to cut the leak.
What Is a Leading Indicator? The Weekly Number That Warns You
What is a leading indicator? A weekly number that shows a plan is working before the deadline. Write one in 15 minutes, with a filled-in example.
When to Give Up on a Business Idea: The Titanic Test
When to give up on a business idea: rule out a broken goal and false numbers first, then run the Titanic test with four questions. Worked coffee shop numbers.
When to Pivot and When to Hold the Course: a Simple Test
When to pivot and when to hold the course: change the plan when the numbers miss, change the goal when conditions change, and launch big moves only on written conditions.
Backward planning: a two-column template from goal to this week
Backward planning in one two-column table: start at the finished goal, ask what must be true just before it, stop at this week. Free template, coffee shop example.
Books like Measure What Matters: five to read next
Books like Measure What Matters for owners and managers, from The Goal to Traction: what each one adds, and which to read for which problem.
Business triage: what to do when everything goes wrong at once
Business triage for a bad month: seven steps from calming the noise to one decision, which problem goes first, and a coffee shop's three scenarios in numbers.
ChatGPT prompt for business decisions: a free, tested one
A free ChatGPT prompt for business decisions that was blind-tested against a good generic consultant prompt: how to use it, what to write, and what comes back.
Competing priorities and objectives: when two goals cannot both win
Competing priorities, competing objectives and conflicting goals, with real numbers: how to spot two goals that cannot both win, and choose before a crisis does.
The control cycle: why reactive management always runs late
The control cycle in eight stages, why reactive management falls behind, and a croissant order run three ways with every error counted. PDCA side by side.
External factors in business: steer with the wind, not against it
External factors in business, from rain to rising supplier prices: how to list them, judge direction and strength, and choose a lever. Worked examples in euros.
Financial health check for a small business: one evening
A financial health check for a small business you can do in one evening: the key business metrics, where each number comes from, and how to tell a reading from a guess.
How to forecast cash flow: two lines every owner should draw
How to forecast cash flow in a small business without software: two forecasts with numbers, months until the money runs out, and a range instead of a guess.
Goal hierarchy: a prioritization method that survives a bad week
Build a goal hierarchy that decides for you on a bad day: four layers, a ranked list instead of weights, and the Eisenhower matrix put side by side with it.
How to set goals for next year as a business owner
How to set goals for next year as a business owner: a plan for tonight, this week and this month, a goals list in six areas, and a review rhythm.
How to calculate profit margin, and the cost that hides from it
How to calculate profit margin step by step, with a coffee shop worked in euros: the formula, margin vs markup, and the uncounted cost that turned 20% into 9%.
How to prevent AI hallucinations: from 7 in 10 answers to 1 in 120
How to prevent AI hallucinations in business advice: five rules that cut answers with an invented fact from 7 in 10 to 1 in 120 in a blind test.
How to set measurable goals: six fields that turn a wish into a plan
How to set measurable goals that you can actually steer by: six fields with a worked coffee shop example, a one-minute test, and a SMART goal put through all six.
How to track write-offs in a small business before they eat margin
How to track write-offs (waste, spoiled stock, giveaways) in a small business: why they vanish from reports, a simple sheet, and what they did to one café margin.
Lagging vs leading indicators: see the result before it lands
Lagging vs leading indicators for small business owners: what each tells you, real examples for a coffee shop, a freelancer and a teenager, and how to test a leading one.
Levers of control: what you can actually change in a business
Levers of control for small business owners: how to tell a lever from a result, the three questions to ask before pulling one, and a 5% price rise tested in euros.
Management frameworks explained: OKR, BSC, PDCA, TOC and EOS
Management frameworks explained plainly: OKR, Balanced Scorecard, PDCA, TOC and EOS, one coffee shop problem run through all five.
An OKR alternative for small business: what OKRs leave out
An OKR alternative for small business: one freelancer's goals written as OKRs and as a goal vector, side by side, plus OKR vs balanced scorecard.
One page business plan: five questions for every goal
A one page business plan for each goal: five questions, a filled-in coffee shop example, a sufficiency check in numbers, and the constraint most plans forget.
Predictability in business: who is at the wheel matters most
Predictability in business lives in the pair of the work and the person running it: why one Friday is chaos for a trainee and rhythm for a pro.
How to set priorities in life when everything feels important
How to set priorities in life with one honest question: what would you give up first? A teenager, a freelancer and a family budget show the refusal test at home.
How to save for a goal: a teenager's €300 bike plan that works
How to save for a goal with a plan that survives real life: a 13-year-old's €300 bicycle fund and a family budget in deficit, worked step by step from Steer, Don't Guess.
Small business KPIs: build a dashboard you can read in a minute
Small business KPIs without software: which to track, a dashboard built in six steps, how often to measure each number, and a nine-question completeness test.
Traffic light dashboard: set red, yellow and green in advance
How to build a traffic light dashboard for a small business: where to draw the red line, what yellow asks of you, and why green means leave it alone.
Why business plans fail: three checks before you start
Why business plans fail even when you do everything right: the three offsets from Steer, Don't Guess, a coffee shop example, and when to change the plan vs the goal.
How to handle a crisis in a small business: what to do first
How to handle a crisis in a small business: the red protocol from Steer, Don't Guess, the exact order of first moves, and a coffee shop worked in euros.
Busy but not profitable: how to see it in the numbers
Busy but not profitable? How a full coffee shop with an empty till finds its real margin, and the five numbers every owner should check weekly.
The Jirgenson Model: steer your business with 3 weekly questions
The Jirgenson Model: a management method for owners in three weekly questions: where you want to go, where you really are, what you can move. Free Chapter 1.
How to set priorities when everything is urgent: the refusal test
How to set priorities when everything is urgent: the refusal test from Steer, Don't Guess turns a wish list into a real order in ten seconds.
You call it busy. It is guessing, with extra steps.
Steer, Don't Guess replaces guessing with instruments. One method, about 250 pages, for owners, managers, freelancers and families who are the only thing holding it together.