Double Your Profit Without Doubling Your Business
This Week in the Profit First ClubEstimated Read Time: 6 mins
Hey Profit First Champions
This week, we're tackling one of the most powerful exercises a business owner can do: financial visioning and reverse engineering your dream life through your business. The goal? To help you reimagine your business model, challenge old assumptions, and intentionally design a business that funds your ideal lifestyle—not just pays the bills.
Let’s break it down.
Key Topics CoveredWhy business owners rarely achieve time and money freedom
The trap of traditional business growth models
How to reverse engineer your ideal profit
Using financial modelling to ask better questions
The role of Profit First in turning vision into reality
The Trap: Time and Money Freedom Eludes MostWhen you first start your business, it’s usually to gain more time and money freedom. Yet, the reality is that most business owners—regardless of revenue—end up with neither. Many don’t pay themselves enough and get stuck in the daily grind.
Even with a turnover of hundreds of thousands, owners often take home far less than they need to live their dream lifestyle. Why? Because they’ve never intentionally calculated what that lifestyle costs—and how their business can support it.
If you haven’t increased prices in over a year, you’re giving a silent discount—especially with rising costs.
Clients won’t flee over a small, fair increase. In fact, they expect it.
Start With the End in MindOne key coaching exercise involves asking: "How much do you want to earn to live your ideal life?"
List your lifestyle goals—housing, holidays, pensions, family support—and cost them out. Then ask:
What profit does my business need to generate to give me that?
Only once you know this number can you start to reverse-engineer your business model to support it.
Reverse Engineering with Financial ModellingLet’s say you currently run a £300K business with 10% profit (£30K). What if you wanted £90K instead?
Under Profit First, we flip the equation to:
Revenue – Profit = Expenses
That would leave £210K to run the business. Most business owners think, "That’s not possible!" But with financial modelling, you ask: what if it was? You reimagine pricing, cost structure, and business model to make it happen.
This isn’t about drastic cost-cutting. It’s about strategic redesign.
Ask Better Questions to Unlock Better OutcomesMost owners stay stuck because they don’t ask the right questions.
The magic of Profit First lies in forcing you to ask:
What must be true for this profit to be possible?
Could my business model be leaner, simpler, or more scalable? <...
THE Profit First Podcast
In this podcast series, Stephen Edwards , a Chartered Certified Accountant and the Director Gro Profit First Accountants delves into the real world of small business owners from the front line. You'll learn about how business owners really start off, how they survive and how they can flourish.
https://groprofitfirstaccountants.co.uk/
Where can you listen?
