As a business owner and entrepreneur looking to grow a profitable business, your number one go-to person needs to be a Profit First Professional (PFP).
Why?
Because they are trained and certified in the Profit First methodology, which seeks to help business owners move away from operating in a panic-driven cycle that relies on each and every invoice, towards a profitable business with sustainable cash flow.
That was a long sentence, wasn’t it?
Let’s break it down a bit into more manageable bite-sized pieces:
So, What Exactly Are Profit First Professionals?
At the core of it, they’re a unique and exclusive community of financial professionals.
But we’re not just talking about your average accountants, bookkeepers, or business coaches who manage books, cross-check figures, or submit taxes.
PFPs are professional advisors who have been certified in Profit First application after successfully:
- Completing mandatory training in the Profit First methodology and its application across industry and business types;
- Implementing the methodology successfully within, not just their own, but TWO other businesses; and
- Achieving financial stability, sustainable cash flow and profit growth within their own business and at least 2 other businesses.
Through the certification process, they learn not only the ins and outs of the Profit First methodology, but they firmly demonstrate their knowledge to help real-life businesses create and steadily increase their profits.
Once they have achieved certification, Profit First Professionals can then legally teach and advise other business owners how to thrive and see profit year on year.
Note: If you are receiving Profit First advice, training or implementation from a non-certified Profit First Professional, please contact us here and let us know. We’d just like to make sure you’re being looked after appropriately.
A Profit First Professional Considers More Than Just “The Figures”
Another way that a Profit First Professional stands out from the rest in their wider accountancy, bookkeeping, or coaching field, is that they specialise in a specific niche or industry.
Not only are they across how the methodology works, but they know how to best implement it within a specific industry and business type. This places them in a position where they can provide strategic advice around how your business can see profitability within your actual industry.
This is more than just balancing the books and accounting for income, expenses, taxes, wages, and operating costs. It’s about knowing the intricacies of how YOUR industry works and the best way for YOUR business to achieve sustainable cash flow.
This is key, because just like every business is different, so is every industry. And a money management system that uses the Profit First methodology needs to be set up correctly. Once it is, you’re no longer going to find yourself agonising over financial decisions.
The industries that some of our Australian & New Zealander Profit First Professionals specialise in are:
- Tradies
- Start-up businesses
- Solopreneurs, Freelancers, and Contractors
- Online Entrepreneurs
- Small-Medium Service Businesses
- Creatives and Makers
- Law/Legal
- Hospitality & Leisure
- E-commerce and Tech
- Industry
- Agriculture
- Companies <50 staff
- And many more
Let’s Look A Little More At The Profit First Principle
Before we dive into exactly how a Profit First Professional is going to help you grow a profitable business with sustainable cash flow, let’s take a closer look at the Profit First principle.
In its most simplistic form, it’s all about changing how you view your profits and how you manage your expenses.
Traditionally in business, this is how we were taught to calculate profits:
SALES – EXPENSES = PROFITS
When we use the Profit First methodology, we flip this calculation to:
SALES – PROFITS = EXPENSES
This shifts our mindset to focusing on finding a way to manage the level of expenses we have left to work with. When we do this, we also start to prioritise the level of profit we want to achieve.
This principle is key to how your First Profit Professional is going to help you sustain cash flow in your profitable business.
How A Profit First Professional Can Help You
1. Create freedom in business that suits your lifestyle
Creating freedom in business comes from initiating change.
The changes your Profit First Professional are going to make will help you create a business that suits your life, rather than a life that suits your business.
You’re going to take your sales, minus your profits, and be left with your expenses. Your profits and your expenses will be divided up into different accounts and your profits, when left untouched, will continue to grow.
You’ll pay yourself a wage. You’ll stop worrying about taxes. You’ll erase all your debts.
These may seem like unreachable goals, but when you work with a Profit First Professional to implement the methodology and make tweaks that are specific to your business and niche, you will be receiving the direct guidance you need to create this freedom in your business faster.
And yes! It really does work!
2. Create habits that are going to result in more cash flow
Yes, new money management habits can be difficult to create and even harder to maintain. Especially when you’re used to the old way of managing business finances. But you are literally setting yourself up for success when you work with a Profit First Professional who has helped countless other businesses create and sustain these new money management habits.
Your Profit First Professional will work with you (or your finance team) to help with money mindset, establishing new money management habits, and rethink what you really need to run your business.
As soon as the new systems are in place, you’ll see more cash in your back-pocket after that first invoice gets paid. And by checking in with the system periodically, and making tweaks as necessary, you’re going to continue to see that cash flow into, and then stay, within your business.
The money is no longer going to move through your business. That profit is going to stay firmly within the business because you’ve created and maintained your new habits, with the support of your Profit First Professional.
3. Be an integral part of your success
Remember those points of difference we touched on at the start of this article, around what a Profit First Professional is?
Because they don’t just focus on the figures or balance the books, they’re going to become an integral part of your success.
The systems they set up are going to keep your business safe from financial mistakes and they are going to help stop any further worry or anxiety you may have about your financial matters.
You’re going to focus on doing what you do best in your business, while they implement the systems, tweak them to suit your industry, and then manage them so that you continue to see cash flow and profitability.
Put Profit First In Your Business
By flipping the equation and looking at profit first you’re going to create a profitable business with sustainable cash flow.
Yes, getting there can be time-consuming because the systems need to be implemented correctly at the start of the process. But the rewards are going to be worth the investment.
You can work through the methodology yourself by buying the book, or you can be matched with an Australian or New Zealander Profit First Professional to help you on your way to building a profitable business backed by a tried and tested money management methodology.
For all other enquiries about Profit First, send us a message here.
