I find your leaks. We design your profit.
Choose what feels off. Start with an answer.
A profitable month does not explain where your cash went. Start with the gap between earning money and having it available.
Why is my cash tight when I'm profitable?Winning the work is not the same as pricing it correctly. Start with what your prices must cover, not what the competitor charges.
How do I know if my prices are right?Your paycheck should not be whatever is left over. Start by separating what you earn for doing the job from what you earn for owning the business.
What should I pay myself as the owner?A busy schedule is not enough to justify another fixed cost. Start with whether the business can support the next hire.
When should I hire my next employee?A starting point, not a diagnosis.
Statesmen. Publishers. Elite performers. Business operators. Every room in this record shaped a specific way I look at a small business today.
Host of The Profit on CNBC. Chairman of Beyond Inc. Marcus put the same thesis I run every day on national television.
Secretary of State. Nobel Peace laureate. Kissinger thought in twenty-year arcs while the room thought in headlines.
Chicago, 2001. The tax code, trade posture, and credit environment American businesses run inside today were largely written under his signature.
United States Senator. Secretary of State. Twice a candidate for the presidency. The kind of room you leave thinking differently about how power moves.
Editor-in-chief of Forbes. Chairman of Forbes Media. Two-time presidential candidate. When Forbes talks about money, the room listens.
Civil rights leader. Founder of Rainbow PUSH and the Wall Street Project. Nobody pushed harder on capital access for minority-owned businesses.
Three Super Bowl rings. Owns pieces of the Royals, Sporting KC, Alpine F1, KC Current, Whataburger, and 1Password. He picks cash-flowing businesses the way he picks receivers open on the boundary.
The only athlete to make all-star teams in two major American sports. Now runs Bo Jackson Enterprises and serves as advisory director at Burr Ridge Bank & Trust.
Author of 12 Rules for Life, over ten million copies sold. Founder of Peterson Academy. Turned a psychology professorship into one of the most consequential publishing businesses of the decade.
“Growth without design is not a strategy.”
Jay Aldebert
Over 26 years, Jay has recovered more than $2 billion in profit leaks for owner-operated businesses. Not from a classroom. From 86,000+ diagnostics across construction, the trades, manufacturing, transportation, distribution, and services. Businesses profitable on paper and bleeding cash in reality.
He created Return to Owner, the Business Biomarker Index, and The Aldebert Financial Ecosystem. The methodology behind the diagnostic team he built at International Services Inc., which generated over $1 billion in consulting fees along the way.
Today he is Chief Growth Officer of International Services Inc., hosts The Chief of Growth Show, and authored Return to Owner and the forthcoming The Seven Lies That Are Destroying Your Business. Father of three. Lives in Kildeer, Illinois.
Four stages, one continuous diagnostic. Each stage feeds the next. You do not repeat data entry. You do not wait for a monthly close. The system reads your business the way a cardiologist reads a heart.
Reads eleven proprietary Business Biomarkers on your business, continuously. Not once a year. Not once a quarter. Constant. Think blood panel and MRI, running while the patient is still alive.
Five layers, top to bottom. Minimum Mandatory Profit at the top. Then Fixed Cost Capacity. Then Required Gross Margin dollars. Then Intended Gross Margin percent. Breakeven Sales Volume at the bottom. This is the math that turns a profit floor into a revenue target.
The eleven biomarkers roll into one composite score. Every dimension carries meaning, cause, action, and pushback. This is what your analyst delivers to you, not a spreadsheet, but a diagnosis.
A fifteen-page written verdict. Not a dashboard. Not a slide deck. A written diagnosis in the order the doctrine demands, telling you where you are right now based on every decision you have made, and what has to happen next: today, tomorrow, and next week.
The Aldebert Financial Ecosystem does one thing. It measures where you are right now based on every decision you have made, and tells you exactly what the next move is: today, tomorrow, and next week.
Every tool available to business owners right now is a lagging indicator. It tells them what already happened. The Aldebert Financial Ecosystem tells them what to do next. Not generically. Specifically. In what order. And how fast.
The diagnostic instrument the whole ecosystem runs on. Return to Owner is the MRI and CAT scan on your business. It reads across 11 proprietary Business Biomarkers, calibrated against 86,000+ prior diagnostics, and produces the one number every owner must know.
Cash. Debt service. Margin. Working capital. Owner draw. Five more. The eleven signals a real diagnostic reads before it declares anything.
The verdict, and the visual output of RTO. Layer Cake is fed by the 11 Biomarkers, starts with Minimum Mandatory Profit at the top, and cascades down to the Breakeven Sales the business must produce.
Debt Service. Working Capital. Retirement Funding. Owner's Compensation. Exit Strategy. The five mandatory claims on profit funded before profit is optional.
The health score of the business. Once the Layer Cake resolves to Breakeven Sales, BBI scores whether the business can hit it, reads like a vital sign, and isolates the constraint point holding it back.
The one biomarker holding the business back. Named, not implied. The score every owner leaves with, and the one number the diagnostic team turns into a plan.
RTO reads the business like an MRI. Layer Cake delivers the verdict. BBI scores the health and isolates the constraint. What to fix. In what order. How fast.
A member of Jay's diagnostic team comes to your location for a two-day on-site analysis across operations, sales and marketing, finance, and measurement and management tools. We look at all the plays you're calling and how they're working out on the field. You get the written Verdict. No retainer required.
Ask the owner in the mirror: Is there a better way to make profit? Can I improve my quality of life? Do I know my numbers as well as I should? If the answer to any of those is honest, you already know the next step.
Click Find My Leak. Tell us where the business stands today and what feels off. We reply within one business day to scope the diagnostic.
A member of Jay's diagnostic team comes to your location for a two-day analysis across operations, sales and marketing, finance, and measurement and management tools. We look at every play you're calling and how it's working out on the field.
A 15-page written diagnostic delivered afterward. Yours. What you do with it is your decision. No retainer required.
The diagnostic runs whether you hire the team for the fix or not. Some owners walk away with the Verdict and solve it themselves. Some ask us to stay.
Find My LeakTV, press, and podcast appearances.
Television
Two excerpts from one interview, plus additional Fox News article coverage. Original sources, clearly attributed.
Explore the Fox News Digital coverage →
KFC traded Pepsi for Coke. Jay says the real change customers want is on the menu, not in the cup.
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The Kelly Clarkson and Art of Play dispute, and why owners should embrace the spotlight instead of defending against it.
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Both sides of the tariff: price competitiveness and input-cost pressure. Watch the combined 11-minute Chicago Live interview.
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Verify financial requests. Train your people. Build the system before adding AI.
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What small cash-rounding decisions can mean for margins, customers and the register.
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Franchise risk, thin margins, and financial warning signs. September 25, 2026.
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10-minute panel debate with host Brandis Friedman. September 23, 2026.
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Extended 7-minute Loop interview. August 25, 2026.
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With Lauren Scafidi. August 24, 2026.
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With Carel Lajara. August 23, 2026.
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With Lauren Scafidi. August 19, 2026.
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With Sam Vadas and Marley Kayden. August 17, 2026.
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With Lauren Scafidi. August 4, 2026.
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Live segment. July 21, 2026.
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Cost per plate, supplier transparency, and what it means for small restaurants. July 2026.
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Chicago Live segment. July 9, 2026.
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Premiered July 4, 2026.
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June 12, 2026.
Watch segment →As a Guest On
Selected appearances on other shows. Watch on the host's YouTube channel or listen on your preferred podcast platform.
On the operator pattern behind 86,000+ diagnostics, the two cancers that kill privately held businesses, and what accountants are not telling their clients.
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On patterns across 86,000+ businesses and the 11 biomarkers behind them.
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On the show with Kevin Harrington and Seth Greene.
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A conversation on the mechanics of profit.
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The truth behind the failure rate.
Watch or Listen →As Featured In
Conversations with operators, founders, and executives shaping the next wave of business growth.
New episodes drop Thursdays.
Are younger generations really less willing to work, or are leaders failing to adapt to a changing workforce?
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Jay Aldebert and Thomas Camarda discuss military leadership, time as a business asset, operational control and why AI cannot replace understanding your business.
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Melissa Dotson on personal change, her CPA career and the move from accountant to business owner.
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What buyers pay for, why owner dependency costs you, and how to build value before selling.
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Carolyn Litton on finding clarity, avoiding burnout, and making room for personal growth.
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Jason Palmer on business turnarounds, education, leadership, and his run for president.
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A minisode on humanoid robots, AI, and how close robotics is to everyday life.
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A conversation on AI, robotics, and what the future of work means for business owners.
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The business side of dentistry, from running a practice to leading hundreds of locations.
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Justin Sloan on systems, duplication, and calculated risk across cell phones, real estate, and AI.
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A conversation on what separates elite business operators from everyone else.
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On the mission behind the diagnostic work.
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On tariffs, pricing, and the real math for small business owners.
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Barbara of Thesis Painting on building an $8M family business.
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Andrea Biwer, Schaumburg Business Association.
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Jay Aldebert on the seven lies quietly holding operators back.
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Dave Alwan on going from milk crates to Mark Cuban.
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Pete Hassen, former Chicago Blackhawks executive.
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David Hlatky of H&H Service Company.
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A crossover with The Business Game Podcast.
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Terry Mitchell's unfiltered truth.
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Why most small business owners get this wrong.
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Chad Peterson on building a brokerage empire.
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The premiere. How thousands of analyses became a framework.
Watch episode →Three libraries. Seventy-eight answers. Every one grounded in doctrine. Read what you need before you book, or skip straight to the diagnostic.
Long-form documentaries and short-form breakdowns of the businesses that shape the economy. Weekly. Free. Subscribe on YouTube.
The intake is not a form. It is the first minute of what happens when someone hires Jay. Doctrine-aware, four questions, three minutes. Jay reads every intake himself and replies within one business day.
Start the IntakePrefer to skip the intake? Email leak@jayaldebert.com. Urgent? Text 773-984-1183.
Diagnostic engagements are scoped to your revenue tier. Jay confirms scope on the first call.
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