Own or Be Owned: Build a Business So Good It Doesn't Need You

From the New York Times best-selling author of Main Street Millionaire

"Following my Owner Score is the best business decision I've made in 15 years." -- Meg Kinnerk, business owner

You didn't start a business to work 80 hours a week and feel broke on paper.

But here you are. The "we're not going to make it" fear. The 3 a.m. panic. The quiet realization that working harder isn't fixing anything. It's keeping you stuck.

Codie Sanchez has been there. She's also been on the other side. She built a nine-figure holding company across laundromats, car washes, roofing companies, and service businesses that now print cash whether she shows up or not. Along the way, she learned the lesson most owners never get told: Heroics don't scale. Systems do.

In Own or Be Owned, Sanchez hands you the private equity playbook the pros use to turn ordinary businesses into ones you actually enjoy running. This is the same playbook her advisory group, the Contrarian Boardroom, has used to help 14,000 owners scale.

Here's what you'll learn:

- The Owner Score. A 10-minute diagnostic across 12 dimensions to find out if you own a business or it owns you. Plus the exact moves to fix every weak score.

- The 12 P's. The framework for diagnosing the most painful problem in your business and fixing it before it costs you another quarter.

- Pricing that prints. How underpaid owners become high-margin operators without losing customers (most owners are leaving 30-50 percent on the table).

- The hiring filter. How to attract A-players to a Main Street business and avoid the bad hires that cost you six figures and your sanity.

- The one-page dashboard. Run your entire company at a glance. This is the same scoreboard the best operators check every Monday morning.

Real owners. Real numbers:

"I went from $60K to $100K a month."

--Owner, Security & Defense Contractor

"We finished $727K ahead of last year."

--Owner, Travel Agency

"12 P's is my unfair advantage."

--Owner, DJ & Entertainment Business

"This book took me from new owner to multi-generational business."

--Owner, Raw Materials Supplier

This is the manual most CEOs never get. It's not for slackers, dreamers, or anyone looking for a shortcut. It's for the owner who's already in the arena, bleeding, and ready to stop trading hours for a business that should be paying them back.

There's a smarter way to build wealth, and take your time back.

Codie Sanchez is a formidable force in the world of finance, known for her bold, contrarian thinking, financial acumen and entrepreneurial prowess.

Codie’s parents, a special education teacher and a self-made blue-collar builder, taught Codie the value of education and ownership. They inspired her to build her own future.

After graduating early from Arizona State University with a degree in journalism, Codie traveled to Juarez, Mexico to document the atrocities there. Her coverage earned her the Robert F. Kennedy Award for print journalism. It also taught her that people must have financial resources and education to change their future.

That’s when Codie switched from journalism to finance. In 2008, Codie took her first job at Vanguard, right before the financial crisis struck. Once again, she witnessed the devastating impact of financial illiteracy on ordinary people. She dedicated herself to learning how to earn more money so she could help others do the same.

Over the next several years, Codie continued to master the financial world, climbing the ranks at Goldman Sachs, State Street, and First Trust. But she never forgot her blue-collar entrepreneurial roots. She began to buy, build and invest in an array of businesses, like laundromats and cannabis companies, creating a diverse investment portfolio.

Then, after mastering the language of finance, dealmaking, mergers and acquisitions, Codie began empowering and educating others to do the same. In 2020, when a global pandemic brought the world to a standstill, Codie launched Contrarian Thinking, the world’s first free-thinking finance and media company. In just a few short years, Contrarian Thinking has empowered thousands worldwide to take control of their financial destinies and become successful small business owners.