Where the Money Goes

Find out why more revenue isn't becoming more profit.

A 20-minute business performance diagnostic for established business owners. Twenty-two questions, self-scored, one finding: the operating issue most likely holding your profit down, why it is probably happening, and what to look at first.

What you get

• The guide

  Twenty-seven pages. The four findings, growth that doesn't reach the bottom line, pricing and margin, owner-created capacity limits, cash conversion, each with what it looks like, the likely driver, the one calculation to run, the four documents to pull, and what would confirm or kill it. It needs no financials to read; only your answers.

• The workbook

  A scoring sheet and one calculator for each finding. You fill in only the one that matches your result. It puts a dollar size on the problem from your own records: two years of costs as a share of revenue, overhead per job against what you charge, a week's log of decisions that came to you, and a cash bridge from book profit to bank balance that tells you whether your numbers reconcile. No benchmarks, no averages. It compares your business to itself.

  The workbook needs real records: a balance sheet from the start and the end of the year, your AR aging, and twelve months of month-end bank balances. Your bookkeeper can send all three in one email.

  The pricing calculator applies only to businesses that sell billable hours, jobs or crew days. If you sell products, that one will tell you so and send you to your secondary finding.

What it will not do

It will not audit your business. It runs on your answers and your records, and it produces a direction, not a verdict.

It will not tell you what to change first. Sizing a problem and sequencing the fix are different work. The second is a conversation.

Who it is for

Owners of independent businesses between about $1M and $15M in revenue, who have financial records and are not using them to run the business.