Profit Mastery

Profit Mastery The financial operating system for growth-stage business owners.

14%.That's the price increase small businesses need to maintain margin in the current cost environment, per NFIB's month...
05/12/2026

14%.

That's the price increase small businesses need to maintain margin in the current cost environment, per NFIB's monthly survey.

The average increase actually taken is 6%.

Across SMB America, owners are absorbing 8 points of margin compression every quarter, voluntarily. On a $1M business at 35% gross margin, that's about $28,000 a year of margin you stopped collecting.

This week we go deep on the reasons. Fear of losing customers, not knowing real costs, anchoring on last year's price. And the math of getting it right.

Tomorrow we cover why contribution margin is the number that runs pricing decisions, not gross margin.

Ninety days into the system. What actually changes for an owner.Same business, same revenue, same product. The owner is ...
05/09/2026

Ninety days into the system. What actually changes for an owner.

Same business, same revenue, same product. The owner is the variable.

Before. The bank balance is the only number that gets checked. The P&L gets a glance at month-close. Decisions on hiring, pricing, and capex feel like guesses. Lender meetings feel defensive.

After. Operating cash flow gets a five-minute review every Sunday night. The 13-week forecast gets updated every Friday. Decisions on hiring, pricing, and capex tie back to the forecast. Lender meetings move from "what happened" to "what's next."

The change isn't in the business. The change is in the owner's read of the business.

We've watched this happen in PMU cohorts since 1983, across every industry and revenue size we work with. The pattern holds. Owners who put the system in place stop confusing motion with progress and start making decisions on the numbers actually in front of them.

This is what May is about. Five days in, the vocabulary has already shifted. By the end of the month, the system is running.

Tomorrow we close out the week with the four ideas that matter most.

Friday Forecast time.If we only got to teach one financial tool to PMU owners, it would be the 13-week cash flow forecas...
05/08/2026

Friday Forecast time.

If we only got to teach one financial tool to PMU owners, it would be the 13-week cash flow forecast.

Not a 12-month plan, not a five-year projection. Thirteen weeks (one quarter).
Why thirteen weeks. Long enough to show real seasonality. Short enough that the numbers are credible. By the time you reach week 4, you're already in the column.
By week 13, you're updating it.

What lives on the sheet.

Starting cash. The number from your bank, today.
Cash in. By customer or by line, weekly.
Cash out. Each week, broken into payroll, vendors, debt service, tax, and capex.
Ending cash. Each week's running balance.

Four rows of math. One spreadsheet.

The discipline is the update, not the build. Forty-five minutes to set up. Five minutes every Friday after.

Owners who run a 13-week forecast for 90 days make better decisions on every other thing in the business. Hiring, pricing, capex. Lender conversations stop being defensive.

The polished, fill-in template ships with PMU enrollment or PM Pro.

A common scenario in PMU office hours. An owner shows up, says operating cash flow is down this month, asks "what do I d...
05/07/2026

A common scenario in PMU office hours. An owner shows up, says operating cash flow is down this month, asks "what do I do?"

Three places to look before you do anything else.

Accounts receivable. If DSO is creeping up, your customers are paying slower and you're financing them. Pull the aged AR report. Anything over 45 days is a flag. The Friday afternoon nudge fixes most of it.

Inventory. If inventory is growing faster than revenue, you have cash sleeping on the shelf. Run weekly turns. Anything you haven't sold in 60 days needs a decision.

Accounts payable. If AP is shrinking, you're paying faster than you need to. Match your payment terms to your invoice terms. Pay on the 30th day, not the 15th, unless there's a discount worth taking.

Most operating cash flow drops trace back to one or two of those three. The fix is usually mechanical, not strategic.

If you've been doing the Sunday cash check, you probably caught it within a week. If not, you have the rest of the month to recover.

Tomorrow we'll cover the Friday Forecast. It's the cash habit that catches problems in real time, not at month-close.

Yesterday we asked what your bank balance is hiding. Today we'll show you where to look instead.Operating cash flow live...
05/06/2026

Yesterday we asked what your bank balance is hiding. Today we'll show you where to look instead.

Operating cash flow lives on the cash flow statement. Not the P&L most owners spend their time with. Not the balance sheet. The cash flow statement is the third report in your financials, and in PMU cohorts we find that most owners have never opened it.

These are the three steps we walk owners through.

One. Open your accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, whatever you use). Pull the cash flow statement for last month or the trailing 12 weeks.

Two. Look for the section labeled "Operating Activities" or "Cash Flows from Operations." It's almost always the top section.

Three. Find the bottom line of that section. It usually reads "Net Cash Provided by Operating Activities" or "Cash from Operations." That's your operating cash flow for the period.

If it's positive and growing, the business is producing cash. If it's negative or shrinking, the business is consuming cash.

Five minutes the first time. Two minutes every week after.

Tomorrow we'll cover what to do when the number moves the wrong way.

What's your bank balance actually hiding from you?When we sit with owners, the bank balance is usually the number they t...
05/05/2026

What's your bank balance actually hiding from you?

When we sit with owners, the bank balance is usually the number they trust most. It's right there. It's real. It's the easiest financial fact in the business. And it's the most misleading number on the screen.

Three things hide behind your bank balance.

Money you've already committed but haven't paid yet. AP timing makes cash that's about to leave look like cash you still have.

Money your customers owe you. Every dollar in receivables is a dollar you earned that's sitting on someone else's books.

Money tied up in inventory or capex that hasn't done its work yet. Cash on the shelf is not cash in the bank.

The number that strips all of that out is operating cash flow. It's the cleanest signal we have for whether the business is working. We teach owners to find it on the cash flow statement, note it weekly, and act on what changes.

Day 1 of a two-day Profit Mastery bootcamp in Traverse City is getting underway this morning.Colin King, CPA, CFA is tea...
05/04/2026

Day 1 of a two-day Profit Mastery bootcamp in Traverse City is getting underway this morning.

Colin King, CPA, CFA is teaching the Profit Mastery system to a room of small business owners from Northern Michigan. Ratios, breakeven, cash flow, bankability, managing growth.

By Day 2, owners are working through their own financials alongside the group. They walk out with their break-even number, a working cash flow forecast, and a clear view of how their bank reads their financials.

Hosted with Dart Bank, a partner of ours on these bootcamps for several years. Thanks to Jeff Hicks and Sara Andrus at Dart for getting it organized.

And to Traverse Connect for the grant program that covers tuition for qualifying small business owners.

Next stop with Dart is Lansing in October. Reach out if you want to join.

If your team or association wants to host one, email [email protected].

Three numbers that explain why most small business owners feel stuck.71%. The share of small business owners who don't h...
05/03/2026

Three numbers that explain why most small business owners feel stuck.

71%. The share of small business owners who don't have a written plan, per SCORE.

52 hours. The median work week, per NFIB and Bank of America.

Quarterly to never. How often most owners actually review their financial statements.

When we look at how owners actually run their businesses, the pattern holds. High effort, low visibility, no map.

What we teach in PMU looks different from day one.

The first tool we hand owners is a 13-week cash flow forecast. Forty-five minutes to set up. Five minutes a week to maintain.

The second is a Sunday-night cash check. Pull the cash flow statement. Note operating cash flow. Compare to last week. Five minutes.

The result is a week where owners stop working on the wrong things.

If you're putting in 52 hours and still can't tell whether you had a good week, that's a system problem.

A number I can't shake this week. 27 days.That's the median cash buffer for small businesses in the U.S., per the JPMorg...
05/02/2026

A number I can't shake this week. 27 days.

That's the median cash buffer for small businesses in the U.S., per the JPMorgan Chase Institute. Less than a month between a normal Tuesday and a payroll problem.

When we sit down with owners in PMU cohorts, almost none of them know they're sitting at that number. The bank balance looks calm. The forecast tells a different story.

This is what we teach. The target is 90 days of operating expenses in the bank. The fastest way to get there is not a sales push. It is a reading habit.

Every Friday at 3 PM, review every invoice over 30 days. One hour. Owners who hold that habit cut about 8 days of DSO inside a quarter.

Every Sunday night, pull the cash flow statement. Note operating cash flow. Up from last week, the system is working. Down, you have something to fix Monday morning.

Try it for 90 days. Then check the bank balance.

Most business owners we talk to share the same confession: "I don't really know how my numbers are doing until my accoun...
04/30/2026

Most business owners we talk to share the same confession: "I don't really know how my numbers are doing until my accountant tells me."

Sound familiar?

Running a business without clear financial visibility is like driving at night with no headlights. You know roughly where you're going, but you're reacting instead of planning, and hoping nothing goes wrong before you see it coming.

That's exactly why we built PM Pro.

It gives business owners a real-time financial dashboard so you can actually see what's happening in your business, not just hear about it weeks later. Cash flow, profitability, key metrics, all in one place, all easy to understand.

No more waiting. No more guessing. Just clarity.

We've watched business owners go from stressed and reactive to confident and in control, simply because they finally had the right information at the right time.

If you've ever felt like your finances were running you instead of the other way around, we'd love to show you what's possible.

How often do you actually look at your numbers?

Most business owners can run their operations in their sleep. But hand them a financial statement and suddenly it feels ...
04/29/2026

Most business owners can run their operations in their sleep. But hand them a financial statement and suddenly it feels like a foreign language. Sound familiar?

Here is the thing: you do not need to be an accountant to understand your numbers. You just need to know what each report is actually telling you.

The Income Statement shows you whether your business is profitable over a period of time. Think of it as your scoreboard. Revenue comes in, expenses go out, and what is left is your profit or loss.

The Balance Sheet is a snapshot of your financial position on a specific date. It tells you what your business owns, what it owes, and what is left over for you as the owner. It answers the question: is my business financially healthy right now?

The Cash Flow Statement is often the most overlooked, and the most important. A business can show profit on paper and still run out of cash. This report tracks the actual movement of money in and out, so you know if you can cover payroll, pay vendors, and keep the lights on.

Understanding these three reports together gives you the full picture of your business finances. And when you understand your numbers, you make better decisions.

Which one of these do you find most confusing?

Address

PO Box #219
Seattle, WA
98025

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Tuesday 7am - 3pm
Wednesday 7am - 3pm
Thursday 7am - 3pm
Friday 7am - 3pm

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+12062845102

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