<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>Eugene Koltakoff</title><description>Field notes from inside the pricebook, and the arguments underneath them.</description><link>https://koltakoff.com/</link><language>en-us</language><item><title>Broken in two directions</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/thesis/broken-in-two-directions/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/thesis/broken-in-two-directions/</guid><description>One kind of owner decides from another state on annual numbers. The other decides from the truck and cannot read the report. Both land in the same blind spot.</description><pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The chair was filled before anybody asked what it was for</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/thesis/the-chair-was-filled-first/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/thesis/the-chair-was-filled-first/</guid><description>Most org charts grow by addition. Somebody gets busy, a box appears, and the box gets a name before anyone works out what the company needed done.</description><pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Who decides who decides</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/thesis/who-decides-who-decides/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/thesis/who-decides-who-decides/</guid><description>An owner with a people problem usually has a hiring problem, and a hiring problem is usually a decision that got made two levels above the hire.</description><pubDate>Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The work completed, the money arrived, and the report showed almost none of it</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/agreement-work-on-no-report/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/agreement-work-on-no-report/</guid><description>An owner came close to killing a membership programme that was earning, because the record connecting the work to the agreement had gone blank.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>He signed up for the discount and spent it the same afternoon</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/discount-spent-the-same-day/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/discount-spent-the-same-day/</guid><description>Whatever made him join was gone before the truck left. Month six is when that turns up on the cancellation report.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The script my techs are reading is fifty years old</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/fifty-year-old-script/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/fifty-year-old-script/</guid><description>Two visits a year, a discount, priority service. Your grandfather&apos;s version had the same three parts, and the men saying it can hear that it has gone flat.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The new plan went live and every existing member stayed on the old one</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/new-plan-old-members/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/new-plan-old-members/</guid><description>New tiers reach forward only. The people already signed sat where they were until somebody went and found them.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>One plan with three visit frequencies</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/one-plan-three-frequencies/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/one-plan-three-frequencies/</guid><description>A shop had three memberships and the techs sold the cheapest one every time, because it was the one they could explain standing in a hallway.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>When the weather turns, change the campaign already going out</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/pivot-the-campaign-already-running/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/pivot-the-campaign-already-running/</guid><description>A general offer landing during a heat wave reads like nobody is home. The list is already receiving something this week.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The visit he bought as care is the visit he has to get through</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/the-visit-he-has-to-get-through/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/the-visit-he-has-to-get-through/</guid><description>He agreed to be looked after. What knocks on the door is a man with something to offer, twice a year, in his own hallway.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A ball valve priced out at twelve hundred dollars</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/ball-valve-at-twelve-hundred/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/ball-valve-at-twelve-hundred/</guid><description>A whole stick of pipe was attached where one foot belonged, and it had been that way long enough that nobody questioned it.</description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>A shop did $800,000 and the system recorded no sales at all</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/eight-hundred-thousand-zero-sales/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/eight-hundred-thousand-zero-sales/</guid><description>Six months of work went straight onto invoices. Every dollar landed, and the sales number stayed at zero.</description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>Enter one foot of pipe as 0.1 of a stick</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/fractional-stick-quantities/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/fractional-stick-quantities/</guid><description>Materials that come in lengths have to be attached as the fraction you actually use, or every estimate bills the whole thing.</description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>The third option was worse than the second, and it had been shipping for months</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/option-ladder-stepped-down/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/option-ladder-stepped-down/</guid><description>Good, better and best, except best dropped to a lower-efficiency unit. Every customer who reached for the top rung was paying more for less.</description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item><item><title>I stopped saying dynamic pricing and the meeting changed</title><link>https://koltakoff.com/writing/owners-want-dollars-not-terms/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://koltakoff.com/writing/owners-want-dollars-not-terms/</guid><description>Owners were nodding along to the term and deciding nothing. The same idea priced in dollars a month got a yes in four minutes.</description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate></item></channel></rss>