BUILD-IT™: Six weeks to make this the quarter your business stops running through you.
Six live weekly sessions with Paul Lange for owners whose business works because they're in it every day. One step a week, built in your own business between sessions, then a seventh session in March to check the change has held.
Why it runs now
You built something that works. There's a team, there are clients who come back, and the business pays. It also works because you're in it every day, and you know it.
Decisions climb back up to you. Problems you solved last month come back this month. Capable people still wait for your yes. If you took three months off tomorrow, something would break, and you already know what it would be.
The cause is rarely the people. What's obvious to you was never made explicit to them, so every gap climbs back up the chain to the one person who was always going to fix it.
Over the break you saw it more plainly than at any other time of year: you were meant to be off, and the business still found you. By the second week of January, the plan to change it is usually buried under the same fires as last year. BUILD-IT runs from 14 January to 18 February, so the change is in place before the first quarter's out.
A business that only works because you're in it isn't an asset yet.
It's a good job with your name on the door.
Six Thursdays, one step each
Each session takes one step and turns it into work you do in your own business before the next one. Every week ends with something written down and something done. The Ownership Playbook, your companion guide, fills one section a week, so by 18 February it's complete. In March, a seventh session checks that it held.
- Week 1
SPOT-IT™
The Carry Map
What you're carrying that the business should be carrying for you, where clarity breaks down, and the first thing that would fall over if you stepped away. Mapped for the whole business, on paper.
- Week 2
SHIFT-IT™
The Ownership Standard
The common sense you've been relying on, made explicit: one paragraph and three behaviours anyone can see.
- Week 3
SCRIPT-IT™
The Ownership Conversation
Written for one real person in your business, with the opening line sharpened live in the session.
- Week 4
SPRINT-IT™
The 30-Day Move
One behaviour to shift: a first step with a day, a time, and a person attached, the signal you'll look for on day 30, and your answer to the obstacle you can already see coming.
- Week 5
STICK-IT™
The Reinforcement Rhythm
A short, fixed slot in your week that checks whether the standard held: the sign it's holding, the sign it's slipping, and the one thing you'll stop doing.
- Week 6
The 90-day plan
Your next 90 days
One new standard a month for March, April, and May, each with its own 30-day move, and a completed Playbook.
- Check-in
The seventh session
The day 30 review
Your 30-day move from week four reaches day 30 in early March, so the group meets once more on 11 March to review it: did the day 30 signal you named show up?
Paul Lange runs every session
He started behind a bar. When he arrived at the Victorian in Düsseldorf in the late 1980s, the bar had six staff and took about 500 Deutschmark a day. When he left, it had a team of 15 to 18 and took around 15,000.
A bar doesn't grow thirtyfold because one person works harder. There aren't enough hours. It grows when the people in it know what good looks like and do it without waiting to be asked. That's what BUILD-IT puts in place, one step at a time.
The finance came later, and it came because he could already do this. Since then he's spent nearly four decades building his own businesses, taking five of them through to exit, and going inside the companies his firm invested in to make them work better.
He runs every session himself. Nothing is passed to a junior.
What the same steps have done over six months
The steps in BUILD-IT are the ones we work through, over six months and in more depth, in The Crucible™.
A $12 million professional services firm
Every client escalation landed on the owner's desk. Within 60 days of his first sprint, his senior team was handling 80 per cent of those escalations without him. By month four he took three weeks off, and came back to a business that had held together and closed a new contract without him.
A $22 million hospitality group, backed by private equity
It ran across several sites, and its investors were getting nervous because the business so visibly depended on its founder. Six months in, the leadership team was running weekly operating rhythms across every site, decision rights were mapped and working, and the board said, unprompted, that the business felt different. That shift influenced the next funding conversations.
Those results took six months. BUILD-IT is six weeks, built to put the first change in place in your business.
The guarantee
Do the work, and if it hasn't held, we keep going. Come to all seven sessions live, and post your action in the chat each week. If at our check-in on 11 March you can't name one thing your team now owns that you used to carry, you choose: do the next BUILD-IT at no charge, or Paul will work with you one to one, every fortnight, until it holds, for up to 90 days.
How each session runs
Every weekly session is 75 minutes on Zoom, and Paul runs it. Most of it is yours: three short blocks, each a few minutes from Paul and then writing time that's never cut. Cameras off is fine. You'll write more than you listen.
Report back, 12 minutes
What you did last week, and what's different because you did it. Everyone writes it in last week's section of the Playbook and posts it in the chat. Paul reads some aloud and says what each one tells him.
The question
This week's question, and a few minutes from Paul on why it counts. Then you answer it about your own business, on paper.
Your Playbook page
This week's piece of your Playbook. Paul walks through how it's done, then you write yours, from the Carry Map in week one to your 90-day plan in week six.
What breaks it
Where this usually goes wrong in a real business. Then you find your own weak point and write what you'll do about it. In the last week, you sign your Ownership Declaration.
Round-up and commitments, 10 minutes
Paul rounds up what the room wrote. Then your commitment in the chat: what, which day, what time, and with whom.
Within 24 hours of each session, a short written follow-up arrives.
Who it's for
It's for you if
- You own or run a business with a team, and the business works.
- It works because you're in it every day, and decisions keep climbing back up to you.
- You want the change in place before the first quarter's out, and you'll do the work between sessions to get it there.
It isn't for
- Start-ups looking for a business plan.
- Solo operators with no team to hand anything to.
- Anyone after motivation or a pep talk. You'll get homework and direct feedback instead.
- Anyone who wants someone else to fix their business. You do the work. Paul makes sure it's the right work, and that it holds.
If your situation is bigger than a group programme, write to us before you enrol. Paul also works with a small number of owners one to one, through CLEAR-IT™, and with a small group by application, through The Crucible. He'll tell you honestly which fits.
Questions
- What if I miss a session?
- Every session is recorded, so you can catch up on the week's step and still report back the following Thursday. But we encourage you to attend live. From experience, the work done in the room is more valuable and more effective than trying to play catch-up against a busy schedule.
- What time are the sessions?
- 7.00am Brisbane time on Thursdays, which is 8.00am in Sydney and Melbourne. In the Americas and Europe that's Wednesday: 4.00pm in New York, 1.00pm in Los Angeles, 9.00pm in London and 10.00pm in Berlin. If that time doesn't work where you are, write to us. If it doesn't suit enough of the group, we'll look at running a second session at another time.
- How much time does it take between sessions?
- The writing happens in the session, so between sessions there's one thing to do: put that week's step to work in your own business, with your own people. It's the part that changes things.
- Do I need to have come to the session on 7 January?
- No. If you came, you've already started on week one. If you didn't, week one starts from the beginning.
Who should stay away
Don't come if you haven't got a team. Don't come for motivation; there won't be any. And don't come expecting me to tell you what's wrong with your business. You'll find it yourself, on paper, in the first week.
Join BUILD-IT
USD $997
Thursdays, 14 January to 18 February 2027, then a check-in on Thursday 11 March 2027.
Sessions start at 7.00am Brisbane time, which is Wednesday in the Americas and Europe.
This BUILD-IT is full. The next one's dates will be here soon. Write to us at support@manolutions.com and we'll send them to you as soon as they're set.
What's included
- Six live 75-minute group sessions on Zoom, then the check-in on Thursday 11 March 2027, with Paul in every one
- A recording of every session
- The Ownership Playbook, completed one section a week
- Four of our micro tools: The Confusion Diffuser™, The Standards Sniper™, The Repetitionator™, and Unfunk My Flow™
- A short written follow-up within 24 hours of each session
- Email between sessions for questions of substance
Not included: one-to-one time, work inside your business, or a community. Those belong to CLEAR-IT and The Crucible.
Pay with Bitcoin or Monero
Want to pay in another cryptocurrency? Write to us and we'll send you a link.
Pay by card with a voucher
Enrolment closes Tuesday 12 January 2027, or sooner if it fills.
With the guarantee above: do the work, and if it hasn't held, Paul keeps going.
Card payments are taken securely by Stripe.
Refunds. Cancel by 11.59pm Brisbane time on Thursday 7 January for a full refund. From Friday 8 January until 9.00am Brisbane time on Tuesday 12 January, we refund 50 per cent. After that, there's no refund if you change your mind.
Payment plan. If you pay weekly, there's no refund if you change your mind. If the weekly payments stop, your access to the sessions, recordings and materials stops too.
These refund terms apply to BUILD-IT and are supplemental to the general refund terms in our Terms and Conditions. Where the two differ, these apply.