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Revenue Is Down 20%. What Should the CEO Do First?
Revenue is down 20%. The CFO wants cuts. Sales wants more investment. Operations warns that cutting too deeply could break service.
The wrong move is to react to the symptom before diagnosing the cause.
This Loom shows a simple executive decision process:
SYMPTOM → CAUSE → BOTTLENECK → ACTION
First, ask what actually changed. Is the decline coming from lower volume, weaker pricing, delayed collections, lost customers, margin compression, seasonality, or a deeper structural problem?
Then ask whether the problem is temporary or structural.
Next, identify what is actually dangerous. Is the real…
The skinny
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