The Simple Disciplines That Protect Profit (and Stops the Panic)

Most small business owners don’t ignore their numbers because they don’t care.
They ignore them because they’re busy delivering, selling, and keeping everything moving.

But as Debbie Porter shared on What One Thing, the cost of ‘not looking’ rarely shows up gently. It shows up as surprise VAT bills, profitless revenue, or the sudden loss of a big client that was holding everything together.

During COVID, Debbie said, she’d “never been sacked so often, so quickly.” Hospitality clients disappeared overnight. Wedding clients vanished. Income lines were literally being deleted from the spreadsheet.

And that’s when her “one thing” became non-negotiable:

Know your numbers.
Not in a vague, “my accountant will tell me” way, but in a practical, week-by-week system that keeps you close enough to lead with confidence.

Here are the lessons that stood out.

Lesson 1: Stop guessing. Lead with facts.

Debbie’s shift wasn’t about becoming a finance expert. It was about moving from gut feel to a business where decisions are made with confidence because she understands the margins, profit, tax liabilities are, and where the risks and opportunities are.

·         Ask yourself one weekly question: Do I know what’s driving profit right now?

·         Separate revenue from profit: high sales can still hide low margins.

·         Look for patterns: which work is consistently worth it, and which work ‘feels busy’ but underperforms?

Lesson 2: Know the real cost to deliver work, before you say yes.

Debbie talked about early contracts where the price seemed fine… until you account for time, tools, and the true cost of delivery. Over time, she learned to recognise loss-making work in advance, and to say no.

·         Before you quote, list the delivery inputs: time, tools, people, and overhead allocation.

·         Don’t underestimate the power of your ‘spidey senses’ if they tingle, there’s probably a reason!

·         Build the habit of rejecting work that doesn’t clear your minimum margin.

 Saying no does require nerve, but saying yes to loss-making work just causes more prolonged discomfort.

Lesson 3: Don’t let a ‘whale’ customer disguise your risk.

A big client can be brilliant. But it can also mask poor margins elsewhere, and it carries the risk of becoming a single point of failure. Debbie’s COVID experience made this very real, very quickly.

·         Calculate customer contribution % (who makes up 10%+ of revenue?).

·         Define a replacement plan: how would you replace 20% revenue if it disappeared?

·         Diversify thoughtfully: not random work, but a more resilient mix.

Consider the impact if any one of your clients walked tomorrow. Could the business absorb it? Or would it cause a major wobble?

Lesson 4: Tools are helpful, but forecasting is the secret sauce.

Debbie loves Xero for keeping the books clean, but she’s clear: accounting software tells you what already happened. Her forward-looking layer is a simple sales ledger spreadsheet that projects retainers, wages, and key ratios.

·         Keep your bookkeeping current (weekly is way easier than quarterly).

·         Add one forward-looking view: projected income vs projected wages/overheads.

·         Use simple alerts (even just ‘red cells’) to signal when a month needs action.

It’s much easier to solve a problem before it happens than to react from desperation when you find you can’t meet the wage bill mid-month.

Lesson 5: Discipline beats drama.

What makes Debbie’s approach powerful isn’t complexity, it’s consistency. Processing receipts weekly, allocating costs correctly, and removing the ‘surprise’ element from VAT and corporation tax.

·         Put a recurring slot in your diary (Finance Fridays or any day that works).

·         Avoid the ‘shoebox of receipts’ trap: reconcile little and often.

·         Treat tax like money you’re holding (because it is!), not money you can spend.

The bigger point running through the whole conversation: knowing your numbers isn’t about being obsessed with spreadsheets. It’s about becoming the kind of business owner who can meet curveballs with foresight, instead of panic.

Brought to you by Corbar Accounting and Affirm IT Services Ltd.