# When to Cut Your Losses in Business | Lean Built - Manufacturing Freedom E161

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-6617786/when-to-cut-your-losses-in-business-lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-e161
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-6617786/when-to-cut-your-losses-in-business-lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-e161.md
Podcast: [Lean Built: Manufacturing Freedom](https://stenobird.com/podcast/lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-6617786)
Published: 2026-08-31T05:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/2a462705
Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/2a462705/0e49bed9.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-6617786/episodes/when-to-cut-your-losses-in-business-lean-built-manufacturing-freedom-e161
Duration seconds: 2635

## Resource

Andrew recently sold an underutilized CNC lathe, which raises a bigger question: when an investment does not work out as planned, was the money wasted? How do you gauge what value you got out of it, even in learning? Andrew and Jay discuss knowing when to experiment, when to hire expertise instead of learning everything yourself, and why good business owners need to understand what they should and should not personally master. Then the conversation turns to KPIs, benchmarking, revenue per employee, and the danger of comparing your company against businesses operating under completely different constraints. They also dig into the levers a business owner can actually control, why discounts may simply pull future sales into the present, and the relative value of Pierson's traditional IMTS sale.

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## Transcript

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