Jul 13, 2026 · 20 min · 9 segments
You can be profitable on paper and still not be able to make payroll. Profit is an opinion. Cash is a fact. Most businesses don't fail because they're unprofitable. They fail because they run out of…
BJ O'NealHost
One of the challenges of business growth is clearly growing the business and having enough cash to not just sustain what you're going through right now, but the future, right? And so you can be profitable on paper, and this is where the conundrum comes in.
We've got coaches all over the world on our coaching team, 800 plus coaches coaching thousands of businesses all over the world.
oftentimes is in the operations, which, again, we have to sweep the doors, sweep the doors, sweep the floors, lock the doors, make the payroll, all that.
Clearly, we have to do those things, but that's not going to matter if we are not profitable.
In other words, how to take the profitability and accelerate it to make more profits, to grow the business, to be able to expand it, to pay more people, to pay better people, to keep them longer, to be a vibrant part of the community, and so on.
There is a methodical way to do that, but Oftentimes, we get trapped into thinking that, hey, profits are healthy.
And if you don't know, the average profits are around 8% to 10% for like 95%, 97% of businesses globally.
They just did their deal for, you know, 20-plus, 25 years, and they want to go do their own thing.
I don't want to confuse people, and I don't want to say something that sounds derogatory.
One of the challenges of business growth is clearly growing the business and having enough cash to not just sustain what you're going through right now, but the future, right? And so you can be profitable on paper, and this is where the conundrum comes in.
We've got coaches all over the world on our coaching team, 800 plus coaches coaching thousands of businesses all over the world.
oftentimes is in the operations, which, again, we have to sweep the doors, sweep the doors, sweep the floors, lock the doors, make the payroll, all that.
Clearly, we have to do those things, but that's not going to matter if we are not profitable.
In other words, how to take the profitability and accelerate it to make more profits, to grow the business, to be able to expand it, to pay more people, to pay better people, to keep them longer, to be a vibrant part of the community, and so on.
There is a methodical way to do that, but Oftentimes, we get trapped into thinking that, hey, profits are healthy.
And if you don't know, the average profits are around 8% to 10% for like 95%, 97% of businesses globally.
They just did their deal for, you know, 20-plus, 25 years, and they want to go do their own thing.
I don't want to confuse people, and I don't want to say something that sounds derogatory.
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