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Know Your Numbers or Pay the Price: Surviving Isn’t Enough
Stephen Edwards
July 30, 2025
Table of Contents
🏆 This Week’s Profit First Club Newsletter
Estimated Read Time: 3 mins
Hey Profit First Champions 👋
It’s Stephen Edwards from We Are Gro Accountants, and welcome back to another edition of the Profit First podcast and newsletter. Whether you’re tuning in via Spotify, YouTube, or reading along on Beehive, I’m glad you’re here.
As always, our mission is to help you not just survive in business—but thrive. Profit First isn’t just a system. It’s a philosophy that ensures your business supports you, not the other way around. We want you to earn what you deserve, build a sustainable team, and make empowered financial decisions with clarity.
This week, I want to share a deeply personal insight, something so fundamental it's even featured in my book How to Build a Business That Runs Without You. It’s what I call Busy Fool Mistake No. 7: The Cash Problem.
Around 80% of business owners are in survival mode. Because of that, they often say yes to every client or job—even the ones that don’t serve their business. Why? Because of cash flow stress. They’re just trying to pay the bills, but it leads to the wrong decisions.
📉 The Danger of Discounting Work
Let me break this down with an example:
Ideal project price: £6,000
Team delivery cost (40%): £2,400
Overheads: £1,200
Net Profit: £2,400 (40%)
Now imagine you discount it to £4,000 to get the job.
Cost to deliver: Still £2,400
Overheads: Still £1,200
Net Profit: Only £400
You’ve just slashed your profit by over 80%. In fact, you'd need 6 discounted jobs to match the profit of one full-price project. That's business suicide—and many don't even realise it's happening because they don’t know their numbers.
🧲 Attracting the Right Clients
To break this survival cycle, you must know:
Who your ideal customer is (also called ICP—Ideal Customer Profile)
What type of jobs are your most profitable
How your best clients think, act, and communicate
Model your strategy around these ideal clients and say no to jobs that don’t serve you.
🎓 Introducing Grow Academy
We're thrilled to announce the launch of Grow Academy, exclusively for our clients. Inside, you’ll find over £200,000 worth of training and insights gathered over the last decade—including all things Profit First, job margin tools, and real-life strategies to build a sustainable business.
This is not just about knowledge—it’s about getting things done. If you're already a client, you’ll gain access soon. If you’re not, reach out and let’s talk.
Final Thoughts
Remember: not every customer or job is created equal. Your business is here to serve you, not the other way around. Be intentional about the work you take on, and keep your eye on profitability, not just revenue.
If you’d like a free copy of my book, or want to learn more about Grow Academy, just reply to this email or reach out.
Until next week—keep putting Profit First!
—Stephen Edwards
Profit First Accountant | Business Coach
We Are Gro Accountants
📗 Haven’t read my book yet?
Get your copy of How to Build a Business That Runs Without You on Amazon now.
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3 Ways I can help you.
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