A weekly show about small business money
Your business is leaking money and nobody's telling you where.
Equipment leases, vendor contracts, financing, hidden fees — the overhead quietly eating your margins, broken down in plain English by someone who spent twenty years on the vendor side of the table.
Now playing
The latest episode
New video every week. No gurus, no get-rich hype — just the numbers, and what to do about them.
Run your own numbers
The math your vendor did. Now you do it.
Three calculators, straight out of the episodes. Drag the sliders — every number updates live. Nothing is stored, nothing is sent anywhere.
What does that "up to 8% a year" really cost?
Most agreements let the price rise on a schedule without asking you. The ceiling is usually the plan.
Year five you're paying $408 a month on a contract you remember as $300. Find the adjustment clause and compute year five before you sign.
Your rate never changed. Your cost did.
A minimum monthly charge is the floor you pay whether you use it or not. Get smaller, and your real per-unit cost climbs.
You're paying for 2,000 pages a month you never print — $696 a year for the crime of getting smaller. Pull twelve months of usage and compare it to the minimum.
"We'll pay off your existing contract."
That money doesn't evaporate. It gets rolled into the new agreement and financed. It isn't free — it's spread out.
Reasonable for a vendor to do — it's how most mid-term upgrades happen. Just make sure the payoff is written into the agreement, not the proposal.
What we cover
The overhead you don't owe.
Five lanes, one rule: every episode ends with something you can check in your own agreements before Friday.
Lease vs. buy math on business equipment
Copiers, phone systems, vehicles, software seats. The full-term cost, the buyout nobody prices, and when leasing is the right call anyway.
Vendor contracts and the fine print
Auto-renewals, escalators, minimums, end-of-term fees. The five things every agreement hides and how to find them in twenty minutes.
Negotiation tactics that actually work
What the salesperson can and can't move, what leverage you have two years out, and what to get in writing before you sign.
Cash flow, cost cutting, financing explained
Where the money goes, which recurring charges move on their own, and how to read a financing offer like the person who wrote it.
Office technology costs
Printers, managed print, IT, telecom. The equipment side and the service side, and why one invoice is usually two contracts.
One thing to do this week
Every episode closes with a single action — a document to pull, a line to find, a question to ask. Small, specific, and done before the weekend.
Contract red-flag scanner
Pull your biggest vendor agreement. Check what you find.
Twenty minutes with your largest recurring bill. Tick each item you can't rule out, and the gauge tells you how much of the risk is sitting on your side of the table.
In a thousand contracts, I have never once found a surprise that broke in the customer's favor.The Overhead — Episode 4
About the show
Two decades inside the industry that sells you the overhead.
The Overhead is made by someone who spent twenty years in the business equipment and financing industry — writing the proposals, structuring the leases, and reading the agreements that small business owners sign every day.
Most of what's in those agreements is legitimate. None of it is explained. This channel explains it: what the numbers mean, where the risk moves, and what to check in your own paperwork while you still have leverage.
The show is faceless on purpose. The information is the point.
House rules
- 01No guru hype.No secrets, no courses, no claimed income. Just the math.
- 02Fair to vendors.Most pricing is a real trade. We show you which side of it you're on.
- 03Every number is real.Researched, computed, and stated with its range — never guessed.
- 04Not tax, legal, or financial advice.Your accountant and attorney still get the final word.
Follow along
Shorts, clips, and new episodes everywhere.
Business inquiries
Sponsorships, partnerships, and press. Topic requests welcome too — tell us which bill you want broken down.