Ludus Novus — The One Thing

An X-ray
for your business.

It shows you the one thing that's holding everything back, so you can drive again instead of firefighting — without another six-month consultant marathon.

A diagnostic session for stuck owners. Tell me your case — we'll see together whether it fits. 3,500 USD if we proceed. Same-day refund if the diagnosis tells you nothing you didn't already know.

You're not stuck in firefighting mode because there's too much going on. You're stuck because one handbrake is still on — and no, you haven't already tried everything.

Dear business owner,

I know how your day goes.

You're on your phone before you're awake. Breakfast with the family, except you're not really there — you're already at the office in your head. And the moment you walk in, you're putting out fires.

Every decision runs through you. Nothing moves without you. You're not the boss — you're the bottleneck. And you keep it that way, because you've learned that when someone else does it, it gets done wrong.

The afternoon calls start. The agency blames your website. The supplier blames the agency. Nobody owns it. And it lands, like it always does, back on your desk.

You've run like this for years. And there's a sentence you say to yourself, quietly, that no business owner wants to think: I'm not running this anymore. It's running me.

Maybe that's you. Maybe it's something else.

Maybe you're the one who can't let go — and can't work out why the company won't grow.

Or you're spread across too much. Three businesses, none of them done properly, because you won't give up a single one.

It always worked. And now you can feel that it doesn't anymore — but that thought is too expensive to look at.

You already know exactly what needs doing. And you still haven't done it. For months.

It doesn't matter which one you are. They all come down to the same thing.

You didn't try to fix it with knowledge. You tried to fix it with people. A consultant. An agency. Maybe a six-figure IT project that created more problems than it solved.

Every one of them worked on their piece. Every one of them left a deck behind. And the problem was still sitting there afterwards — only now there was a new invoice next to it.

That's not because they were bad at their jobs. It's because each of them only ever saw their piece. The accountant sees the numbers. The agency sees the traffic. Nobody sees how it all connects — and nobody touches the one thing sitting underneath all of it.

Because your problem isn't a technical problem.

You're not firefighting because too much is on fire. You're firefighting because one handbrake is still on. A decision you've been avoiding for three years. A person nobody will name out loud. A way of doing things that used to work and quietly stopped.

You can't see it. Not because you're blind — because you're too close. There's a word for it: you're inside-blind. And it's not a weakness. It hits the sharpest owners hardest — you're so deep inside the thing that the one spot where it's jammed is the one spot you can't see.

I call it the blind spot. And until someone names it, you can work as hard as you like. You'll still be firefighting.

You already know where this goes. I'll say it once anyway, plainly.

Margins slip. Slowly, then not slowly. One day you catch yourself checking the price of groceries. Whatever comes in is gone by the end of the month. You work more, not less. You stop being there for the people you're supposedly doing all of this for. And eventually your body sends you the bill.

That's not bad luck. That's just what happens when the handbrake stays on too long.

I find the handbrake. I name it. And I tell you what to do first — so you can drive again instead of firefighting.

That's the job.

Here's how I work.

How this works. Three levels, one look.

You don't have an information problem. You have too many fronts and no order to them. You don't know which one to tackle first.

This isn't about more analysis. It's about a different kind of looking. You answer a few sharp questions in advance, I prepare on your case. In the 90 minutes, we look at three levels together:

Numbers & Strategy

Does the business still add up — or are you fighting math that was never going to work?

Offer & Sales

Does every sale actually make you money — or are you selling something well that nobody really wants?

The Human Level

The belief. The conversation you keep avoiding. The pattern of yours that's been quietly dressing itself up as a business problem. No specialist will go near this level. It's almost always where the real cause is.

The handbrake is almost never on one level. It's in the way the three connect. An accountant sees the numbers. A coach sees the person. Nobody sees the chain.

I see the chain. That's the X-ray.

The One Thing.

You answer a few sharp questions. We meet for 90 minutes. You leave with a page — and the first step.

Not a program. Not coaching. Not a retainer. A diagnosis — done, with a clear answer in your hands.

Before

You fill out an intake — about an hour of your time. What you don't write down, you'll never ask yourself. On that basis, I prepare for you. I read, I study your situation, your industry, your real competitors. We don't open the session at zero. We open deep.

The session

90 minutes. In person, by video, or by phone. You bring the problem that's costing you the most sleep. I ask the questions you don't ask yourself — and the ones you've been ducking.

After

Within 48 hours: The One Page. Written. One page. No more. It isn't the transcript of our conversation. It's the synthesis I write afterwards. Several hours of work to land it on a single page. The core insight. The one lever. The concrete next move.

$3,500

Two sessions a week. No more than that.

Same Day Refund.

If The One Page tells you nothing you didn't already know, you get every cent back. Same day.

No questions. No explanation. No discussion.

Marian van der Elst

I'm Marian van der Elst. Three worlds sit inside this work, and they don't usually come together.

First, corporate strategy. Nine years as an executive at a Swiss energy corporation. Responsible for strategic calls — and for the uncomfortable questions that make those calls actually hold. One of them stopped €500 million in bad investment before the money left the building.

Second, running my own companies. Three of them, on my own capital, my own risk, my own mistakes. Solar finance, virtual power plant, e-commerce. Each one taught me what I'd never have understood from the outside — what really happens when an owner is juggling more than he should be.

Third, the human level. Direct-response marketing from the school of Frank Kern and Sabri Suby. Strategic Intervention with Tony Robbins. A twelve-meter cliff fall in 2015. It taught me not to wait with the truth.

Most consultants have the first. Some have the second. The third is the one most diagnoses fail at. It's also the one I work hardest on.

Here's what I took from all of it: the most expensive decision in any business is almost always the one nobody will name out loud.

That's what my work is about.

From past cases.

The Plant That Should Never Have Been Built

An industry on the move. Everyone wanted to build new gas-fired plants — best-in-class technology, every competitor moving on it. Hundreds of millions already budgeted. One question nobody had asked: If every player builds the same plant and they all come online at once — does the economics still hold? The honest answer was no. €500 million in bad investment, stopped on the record.

The Product Nobody Wanted

A pipeline full of technically impressive platform offerings. Partnerships in motion. A go-to-market date on the calendar. One question had never been answered: Does the customer actually want this? We asked it. The honest answer rewrote the product strategy — before the real money left the building.

Three Businesses, No Boss

One owner. Three parallel businesses. None properly resourced. Staff doubling up. The owner everywhere as bottleneck, nowhere as driver. One question: What if each business gets one named owner — with its own budget and headcount? Three half-companies started running as three real ones. For the first time in years, the owner had room to think strategically again.

The One Thing isn't for everyone.

Don't book it if you:

  • want a thirty-point plan. I give you one point — the first one. If you want the long list, you already have the problem: too many fronts, no priorities.
  • want to be told you're right. I tell you what I see. Including the part you won't enjoy.
  • need the cause to be anywhere but you. Often the blind spot is exactly there.
  • are looking for someone to blame. I don't find culprits. I find the one thing you can actually move.
  • if you already know what the uncomfortable answer is, and you're looking for confirmation that you don't have to face it. I won't make the decision for you. I'll just make it harder to avoid.

If you've read that and you're still here — you're probably exactly who this is for.

When knowing isn't the problem — doing it is

The Operation.

One more thing, for completeness — because it gets asked.

To be clear upfront: most people don't need this. If you have The One Page, you go out and implement it yourself. The Operation is the exception, not a hidden second step.

Sometimes The One Page isn't enough. The one thing is named, clearly — and you already know you won't get it done on your own.

Because the team blocks it. Because a partner stonewalls. Because the structure won't hold. Because you're too close to it to stay hard on it. Because something is going on in your company that you can feel but can't prove.

That's what the Operation is for. Six weeks, on site, with you.

I don't walk in as the visible consultant — the one whose presence tells everyone something's wrong. I walk in as whatever the situation needs. An external strategy partner. An extra pair of hands. Authorized by you, unremarkable to everyone else. And I stay until the one thing is done — not until a contract runs out.

From $75,000. Three Operations a year. By request only.

Frequently asked questions.

Because it was never about more information — you already have plenty. It's about seeing the pattern. Ninety minutes on the cause beats six months on the symptom.
A retainer is paid to keep your problem alive. My guarantee does the opposite — it forces me to hand you something real in a single session, or walk away with nothing.
Almost everyone believes that. The complexity is usually the symptom — fifty fronts, all tangled. The cause underneath is almost always simple, once someone names it.
Your call. It doesn't change the diagnosis.
It's cheap next to another year of firefighting — in lost margin, in lost ground, in lost life. And there's no risk: if The One Page tells you nothing new, the money's back the same day.
That's the Operation. It isn't a required next step — most owners need no one after The One Page.
It stays between us. Permanently. Everything in that session is confidential.
Me. The whole thing. No junior consultants, no team behind a curtain. You talk to the person making the diagnosis.

Blog — so Google can find me more easily ;-)

Your Business Is Stuck. Where Do You Actually Start?

When everything is urgent, nothing comes first. The one question that unsticks it.

Three Consultants In. Nothing Has Changed.

Why good consultants often deliver nothing — and what a real diagnosis does differently.

Inside-Blind. Why the Best Owners Can't See It.

The price of experience. Where the blind spot hits — and three signs.

You've been firefighting for months.
It won't stop on its own.

One handbrake is holding your business back. While it's on, every hour you work is an hour worked against it.

You answer a few sharp questions. We meet for 90 minutes. You leave with a page — and the first step.