The owner behind The Owner's Call
Before this was a website, it was three businesses: collision repair, drycleaning, and fast food. From 1990 to 2010, I built and ran all three, with partners who each wore different hats. That was twenty years of payroll, pricing, and customers walking in the door, making calls where being wrong cost real money.
What twenty years teaches you that a book doesn't
Some of it I learned the hard way. In the auto body business, we were busy, good busy, making solid profit. But we weren't spending time working on the business instead of just in it. A competitor was. We lost an insurance account over that gap. I wrote about it here: Why "Wait and See" on AI Is Already a Decision →
Some of it went better than I expected. In the drycleaning business, our subcontractor raised their prices, and we had to raise ours. We explained it once, plainly, and didn't apologize for it. The customer backlash we braced for never really came, because the rapport we'd built did the work. Raise It. Explain It Once. Don't Apologize Twice. →
What I do now
Since 2010, I've worked across different companies, and I'm currently with a national corporation in the auto body industry. That's given me a direct, ongoing look at how a company that size actually runs efficiently, sitting right next to what I already knew from running small ones.
Most small business advice is written by people who've never made the call with their own money on the line. Most big-company advice assumes staff and budget an owner doesn't have. I've spent time on both sides.
Always learning
Reading and studying business and technology has played a very important part in where I am today, and it's ongoing. Books, podcasts, and school have all been part of it, and I'm still at it. I don't treat what I know as finished.
Why The Owner's Call exists
Small businesses can compete with larger corporations in the same field. But the owner has to understand how the big players get their efficiency and customer service, and get it in a form that doesn't need a bigger team or budget.
That's the job here. Every Playbook article is built around a single decision, and each one ends with The Call: what to do, plus a rule of thumb you can use the same day. No jargon. No theory. Browse the Playbook →
Who Owns Tomorrow? comes out once every tool, price and step in it has been checked against what's current. It's a historical framework paired with a practical field guide for small business owners navigating AI, and it's the longer argument behind everything on this site.
Join the list →How this site is made
The stories and advice here are mine. They come from those twenty years. I use AI tools to help draft and build the site, and I read and approve everything before it goes live. Some videos use AI-generated actors to dramatize a scene, and those are labeled on screen.
Get in touch
You can reach me at whoownstomorrowai@gmail.com.