The Book in Three Sentences
Before you pay your expenses, take your profit first. Run your business based on what you can afford to do today, not what you hope to be able to afford someday. When profit comes first, it is the focus, and it is never forgotten.
Profit First summary
This is my book summary of Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. My notes are informal and often contain quotes from the book as well as my own thoughts. This summary includes key lessons and important passages from the book.
- The solution is profoundly simple: Take your profit first.
- Money is the foundation. Without enough money, we cannot take our message, our products, or our services to the world. Without enough money, we are slaves to the businesses we launched.
- Growth is only half the equation. It is an important half, but still only half.
- Most business owners try to grow their way out of their problems, hinging salvation on the next big sale or customer or investor, but the result is simply a bigger monster.
- The perfect size for your business? It will happen naturally, when you take your profit first.
- Profit is not an event. Profit is not something that happens at year-end or at the end of your five-year plan or someday.
- Profit isn’t even something that waits until tomorrow. Profit must happen now and always. Profit must be baked into your business. Every day, every transaction, every moment. Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit.
- Profit must be baked into your business. Every day, every transaction, every moment. Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit.
- Profit is not an event.
- “Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king”?
- Take profit first. You can’t grow out of your profit problem. You need to fix profit first, then grow.
- You must figure out the things that make profit and dump the things that don’t.
- Sustained profitability depends on efficiency.
- When less money is available to run your business, you will find ways to get the same or better results with less. By taking your profit first, you will be forced to think smarter and innovate more.
- We place additional significance on whatever we encounter first.
- When profit comes first, it is the focus, and it is never forgotten.
- Eliminating unnecessary expenses will bring more health to your business than you can ever imagine.
- If you get a $1,000 deposit, I am telling you, starting today, transfer $10 into your PROFIT account. If you could run your business off $1,000, you can surely run it off $990. If you get $20,000 in deposits, you transfer $200 into your PROFIT account. If you can run your business off $20,000 you absolutely can run it off $19,800. You’ll never miss that 1 percent. It is a low bar. But something magical will happen. You will start proving the system to yourself. You won’t get rich overnight this way, but you will get a wealth of confidence.
- Profit First is a cash-management system.
- Run your business based on what you can afford to do today, not what you hope to be able to afford someday.
