More Than Just Sales: The Hidden Profit Leaks in Your Business

As a coach or entrepreneur, you likely started your business because you’re passionate about helping people. You wanted to make a difference, create impact, and serve at the highest level. But there’s one thing many business owners overlook in their pursuit of success—profitability.

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that more sales automatically mean more success, but that’s not always true. In fact, many business owners bring in great revenue but still struggle with cash flow, unexpected expenses, and financial instability.

In the latest episode of The Amanda Kaufman Show, we break down the biggest financial mistakes coaches and entrepreneurs make and, more importantly, how to fix them. If you’re ready to move beyond the “feast-or-famine” cycle and take control of your financial future, this episode is a must-listen.

The Biggest Financial Myth in Business

A common belief among entrepreneurs is that revenue solves all problems. If you can just make more money, everything will fall into place, right? Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.

The reality is that revenue does not equal profit.

Here’s why: As revenue increases, so do expenses. This is a well-documented principle called Parkinson’s Law, which states that people tend to use resources (including money) to the level of their availability.

For example, let’s say your coaching business generates $50,000 per month. That sounds amazing—but if you’re also spending $50,000 per month, you’re not actually making a profit. The problem gets worse when business owners assume that increasing revenue will fix everything. So they push to hit $75,000 per month in revenue, only to find that their expenses have crept up to $75,000 as well.

Without intentional financial management, this cycle continues indefinitely.

Where Most Coaches & Entrepreneurs Go Wrong with Money

So, if making more money isn’t the answer, what is? The key to financial success lies in managing your cash flow wisely and making data-driven decisions.

Here are some of the most common mistakes coaches and entrepreneurs make with their money—and what you can do to fix them:

1. Spending Based on Feelings Instead of Data

Many business owners make financial decisions based on emotion. They feel like they need to invest in the latest marketing strategy, the best software, or an expensive team before they’re ready.

Instead of guessing, take a data-driven approach. Look at your profit and loss (P&L) statements, analyze your cash flow, and ensure that every dollar spent is bringing a return.

2. Not Understanding the True Cost of Running a Business

A huge mistake many entrepreneurs make is underpricing their services because they don’t fully understand their expenses. When you set your prices, you need to consider:
✅ Marketing costs
✅ Client acquisition expenses
✅ Software and automation tools
✅ Team salaries or contractor fees
✅ Taxes and operational expenses

If you’re not factoring in all of these costs, you could be losing money without realizing it.

3. Letting Expenses Get Out of Control

When money starts coming in, it’s tempting to spend more on advertising, software, team members, and high-end business tools. While some investments are necessary, unchecked spending can quickly spiral out of control.

The solution? Be intentional with your spending. Track every expense and regularly evaluate whether it’s truly moving the business forward.

4. Failing to Separate Personal & Business Finances

Mixing personal and business finances can create serious financial headaches. It becomes difficult to track expenses, plan for taxes, and understand your true profit margins.

A better approach is to have separate bank accounts for:
💰 Operating expenses
💰 Taxes
💰 Owner’s compensation (your paycheck)
💰 Profit savings

Using this envelope-style system helps ensure that every dollar has a purpose and prevents overspending.

How to Build a Profitable & Sustainable Business

If you want to create financial stability in your business, you need a clear system for managing cash flow and maximizing profit. Here’s how:

Step 1: Pay Yourself First

As a business owner, you deserve to be compensated for your work. Many entrepreneurs underpay themselves while overinvesting in marketing, tools, and team members. Instead, set a percentage of revenue that goes directly into your personal paycheck.

Step 2: Set Up a Profit-First System

Instead of letting expenses dictate your profit, reverse the formula:
📌 Revenue – Profit = Expenses

By prioritizing profit and only allowing a fixed percentage of revenue for expenses, you force yourself to run a leaner, more efficient business.

Step 3: Regularly Audit Your Expenses

Set a recurring time (monthly or quarterly) to review your expenses. Look for:
❌ Unnecessary subscriptions
❌ High-cost services that don’t bring ROI
❌ Areas where you can consolidate spending

Reducing unnecessary expenses is one of the fastest ways to boost profitability.

Step 4: Make Financial Decisions Based on Data, Not Emotion

Before making any investment, ask yourself:
🔹 What is the expected return?
🔹 Does this expense directly contribute to revenue growth or profitability?
🔹 Am I spending based on emotion or strategy?

By focusing on data-driven decisions, you’ll avoid unnecessary expenses and keep your business financially healthy.

Final Thoughts: More Profit, Less Stress

Running a coaching or online business isn’t just about making money—it’s about keeping money and using it wisely. The most successful entrepreneurs aren’t just great at selling; they’re great at managing and maximizing their profits.

By taking control of your cash flow, tracking expenses, and making intentional financial decisions, you can build a business that not only thrives today but is also sustainable for years to come.

Want to dive deeper into profit-first strategies and cash flow management? Listen to the full episode of The Amanda Kaufman Show here: [Podcast Link] 🎧

What’s one financial change you’ve made that transformed your business? Let’s discuss in the comments! ⬇️

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Financial Clarity
03:22 Understanding the Financial Landscape for Small Businesses
06:32 The Importance of Profit and Pricing Strategies
09:13 Common Financial Missteps in Coaching Businesses
12:15 Strategies for Improving Cash Flow
14:52 Simplifying Financial Management for Business Owners
18:05 The Role of Technology in Financial Oversight
20:53 Conclusion and Resources for Financial Success

Full Transcript

Debra Angilletta (00:00)

reward yourself for all the hard work and the hours and the time and the grind, Because us as business owners, it's just us.

a lot of times and we have to be rewarded for the sacrifice, that we actually put in to be able to serve our clients on a high level.

Amanda Kaufman (00:34)

Well, hey, hey, welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show. And we are continuing our series on the coaches that don't suck. Hello, Deborah. Welcome to the show.

Debra Angilletta (00:46)

Hey Amanda, how are you? So great to see you here today.

Amanda Kaufman (00:49)

I'm so excited to have you here. Now, dear listener, Deborah Angeletta is a former Wall Street trader with 30 years, 30 and more years of finance experience and is the owner of a business advisory practice. She helps business owners improve their cashflow, yay, and boost profits, woohoo, through her proven profit powerhouse blueprint.

which has guided over 300 CEOs in recovering significant lost revenue. Debra empowers entrepreneurs to gain clarity on their finances, make confident decisions and scale their businesses for greater impact. So when Debra and I met over LinkedIn, I had to invite her to the show because these are just a few of my favorite things.

So Deborah, why don't you just take 30 seconds and catch us up on like, what are you working on lately and you know, what are you focused on?

Debra Angilletta (01:43)

Yeah, my gosh, it's so great to be here with you. Thanks so much for having me on. What I'm up to right now is how we met actually, Amanda, over LinkedIn. I'm writing a book, so I'm doing a lot of research and that's how we connected.

And it's a really interesting landscape when you talk about the financial landscape and supporting small businesses. And traditionally, we're used to having two people in our business. Now, if you're small, you're not gonna have like a CFO or some, or you're gonna hire in for a finance position. Typically, people have a bookkeeper and then they have someone who does their taxes. And the work that I've been doing over the years in business advisory is that I've discovered this big gap between those two people that typically have these

have these two resources in their business and the gap and the hole that people are falling into where they could get a lot more information and timely information to make better decisions to drive their business to profitability. Because what I discovered starting to partner with these two functions that are very, very important for your business, but that doesn't complete everything, is that when it comes to having a business, you gotta have a profitable business and not all businesses are profitable.

Amanda Kaufman (02:47)

Hmm.

A thousand percent. You know, I've chosen to focus a lot in the expert industry, particularly working with coaches and, you know, coaches. We tend to get into this because we're, you know, people people and we love being a part of other people's journey. And I know for me, I had a rude, shocking awakening when I was about 18 months into my business. I'd figured out how to acquire a client. I figured out how to sell. I figured out a lot of things. And so the money started flowing in, but the

but I also wound up overextended financially. And I know I felt stupid. I felt like I should know better because my background was business before I went into entrepreneurship. But I very quickly learned that, know, business is more than bean counting. It's more than sales and acquisition. It's like all of the things playing together, right, in that sandbox. So I violently shoved into learning about profit and profit first and

and all of that. So what are you seeing right now today? I mean, like, this is such a timely interview. Just a couple of weeks ago, one of the biggest bookkeeping firms in the space closed very abruptly. They got acquired and then reopened really quickly. And I saw a lot of chatter on the feeds all about your bookkeeping, having your taxes prepared properly, you know,

I know when I was an entrepreneur in the earlier days, I was just like, this feels like a hassle. Can you talk to us a little bit about like why people don't really think about the bookkeeping or the accounting in a proactive way and it's very reactionary? That's what I saw on the feeds was like a lot of reaction to what happened there.

Debra Angilletta (04:36)

Yeah, and I think a lot of times people are so consumed with the client getting, right? So it's the acquisition, it's the sales, it's the conversion, right? Because, you know, in this space, that's the big, big problem that most people have. But what's really interesting, one of those talents...

that coaches tend to have, I call them revenue generators. Like they're just really good at generating revenue. And you have to recognize when you're that person in that space, like, wow, I can generate revenue. But now, and I totally get it, right? You're so immersed in helping your people and making sure you're up-leveling people and making sure they're getting what they need and what they want, that the finances, it's kind of like you think, well, they'll take care of themselves because I have these two people in place. Hopefully you do, right? So that is really the first step.

Amanda Kaufman (04:58)

Mm-hmm.

Debra Angilletta (05:22)

But then once you do that, they kind of sit in these two boxes siloed. And it doesn't come together, the financial picture fully. And then you have to start making decisions in the business. And the business owner starts shooting from the hip saying, well, I feel like, or I think, versus looking at data to drive those decisions. And all of those decisions can be made by looking at the data. But also having someone who can interpret it for you.

Amanda Kaufman (05:42)

Hmm.

Debra Angilletta (05:49)

give it to you in a way that you can understand it because most business owners don't speak accounting speak, right? You have to be able to speak from on a business owner to business owner level and have that conversation so that they can understand what it is that they need to do to make the right decisions in their business.

Amanda Kaufman (06:07)

Totally, you I remember actually being kind of freaked out. Like, and it took me a bit of coaching to realize that I even had a terrible relationship with the word profit because I had, you know, come from a corporate environment and I had all this negative energy around that experience and that I'm going to be free. I'm going to be an entrepreneur and all this kind of thing. And when I realized that like, profits, the problem, I was like,

I felt guilty, but I also felt really conflicted. I think a lot of coaches don't charge what they should be charging for their services, for example, or they're not recognizing the true cost of the strategy that they've chosen for client acquisition or their marketing and all of those kinds of things. And it's pretty easy to find yourself behind that eight ball with the cash flying everywhere and not necessarily having a good idea of the picture.

I remember kind of getting slapped upside the head of realizing profit is just really kind of your savings in your business. And I had no energy around the word savings. I had all this energy around the word profit. So like, what are some examples of things that you see when you're working with people?

Debra Angilletta (07:01)

It, yeah.

Yeah, so those are some great points that you make. And when it comes to making these decisions and even raising your prices where people have that hesitation to do so, you know, it's because we're coming from that place of, it just doesn't feel right. But if you have someone that can actually show you if you're spending a dollar and getting 50 cents back, now you have a data-driven decision that actually makes you kind of upset. And so when you get to that point, then you're like, nah.

makes sense, why I can't stay at this level, I do have to charge at this level or else I'm not even covering my costs. And to tell you the truth, to be in business, right, you wanna be generating a profit. And it's important on so many levels, it's important for yourself. First of all, reward yourself for all the hard work and the hours and the time and the grind, right? Because us as business owners, right, it's just us.

a lot of times and we have to be rewarded for the sacrifice, right? The sacrifice that we actually put in to be able to serve our clients on a high level.

We absolutely use profits to reward ourselves in giving us the right level of pay for ourselves, but then also that extra money that we can actually use to do other things in our life, right? Which are maybe support your favorite causes, right? It doesn't have to be all about the corporate greed profits, right? Cause I know some people have that

Amanda Kaufman (08:28)

Mm-hmm.

Debra Angilletta (08:33)

connotation in their mind. It's not about that at all. It's being able to take your dollars and serve on a higher level and contribute to the areas in your life where you know you can make a bigger impact. So I think that's the bigger part of the story and that if you can start stepping into that, that that just makes you feel so much more.

Amanda Kaufman (08:47)

Mm-hmm.

That's so good, that's so good. So when you sit down with a client and you're looking at their P &L and the decisions you made, I've heard the mistake of just letting your feelings rule all of your decisions. I feel this, I feel that, and you're not backing up the feelings of data. What else do you see? I'm just being nosy here. If you have any examples of what are some common...

Debra Angilletta (09:11)

yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (09:13)

things that business owners and particularly coaches and experts tend to overlook that you help them to get on the right foot with.

Debra Angilletta (09:22)

Yeah, so one of the big things is that revenue solves all problems. Now, it can solve a lot of problems, right? But a lot of people think, all right, if I just bring in more revenue, it's gonna write the ship on the finances. But this funny little thing happens is actually called Parkinson's Law, right? It's got nothing to do with the disease, but Parkinson's Law, right, is that we wind up consuming a resource to the level of its availability. So let's kind of look at the example.

Amanda Kaufman (09:27)

Nope. Yeah.

I love that one.

Debra Angilletta (09:51)

Just say you're bringing in $50,000 a month in your coaching business, right? Great business, right? But if $50,000 a month is going out, you don't have a profitable business, right? So if you think that, okay, if we get it to 75, it's gonna solve everything. But once again, Parkinson's Law creeps in and says, all right, now we've got more money, that's going up. But guess what? Now expenses tend to increase in tandem with the revenue. And it happens all of the time. And that's one of the biggest things that I see.

So what's really cool, and it gives the business owner a lot of ease, right? It's like letting the air out of a balloon where it's like, hey, listen, you don't have to double or triple your revenue or do any crazy gymnastics here, right? All we have to do is make sure we look at everything with a keen eye, with profits in mind. And I actually just put together a case study on this. I had someone,

who had a $50,000 business and all we did was increase the revenue by about 16 or 17,000 and we turned our profit into a 50 % profit in the business. So revenue was only a small piece of it, but that's where everybody goes first.

Amanda Kaufman (11:02)

It's so true, it's so true. I actually found myself in this situation about a year and a half ago where I tricked myself into the psychology of I'll earn it back. Right, I'll earn it back. And I was in a period of investment, I wanted to scale, I wanted to grow the business, and it took kind of that rude, abrupt moment of going like, oh my gosh.

Girl, you've got multiple, multiple months of losses that you're carrying here. And if you don't change the behaviors in the business, you won't have one. So we radically fired our advertising agency. I let go of the strategy of having a sales team for the moment. And I say for the moment because a lot of these changes, they can be really.

painful, but you have to remember it's like, this is the thing that you're doing for the moment for the longevity of the business. One of my favorite mentors, Tom Bilyeu, he says, the CEO's job is to avoid a mortality event. And that's really where I felt like I was. But we like slashed a huge amount of operating expenses. We changed from having multiple different CRM systems and automations all over the place and just sort of this tech splay.

Debra Angilletta (12:15)

No.

Amanda Kaufman (12:15)

and we put

it all into one streamlined system. cut offers. was just like, 2024 was a season of absolute slashing and burning. It was also our most profitable year that we've had in a few years. And we didn't grow in magnitude, but the growth from doing that was just so tremendous that now in 2025, I'm much more optimistic about the future of the business. Yeah.

Debra Angilletta (12:38)

Yeah, and

that's great that you did that. you know, these are kind of the problems that evolve and really in essence, these are pleasant problems to have because it means that you're growing and that you just need to grow into a new skill set. So it sounds like 2024 was your year to make sure that you looked at every single dollar going into the business, that it was working really hard, that you could get at maximum ROI on everything.

Amanda Kaufman (13:02)

That was the whole idea. And I was freaked out at the time because I was like, well, what if I run out of hours in the day to be able to serve enough clients? Or what if, what if, what if? And I was living in the land of what if. So I really had to work on that. When you're working with someone, what are the steps that you tend to take people through? I I just shared what I did because I knew kind of what to do. But when you were working with someone, I'm sure if I was working with you, it probably would have gone a lot smoother, a lot faster.

Debra Angilletta (13:22)

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (13:30)

So what are your key main steps that you take people through?

Debra Angilletta (13:37)

Yeah, so I mean it really revolves around everything. What is it that the business owner wants and what's important at the time? Like what's the number one problem that if we solve together would create the biggest impact? And for a lot of people they say cash flow. Like my money's up, my money's down, my money's up, my money's down. And so one of the big things that I do is I'll go in the background, I'll look at the numbers in the background because a lot of times business owners, they tell me I'm not a numbers person and I get overwhelmed. And so...

Amanda Kaufman (13:48)

Mmm.

Debra Angilletta (14:04)

It's a matter of being able to make sure that you're working with the person on the level that they wanna be engaging on the numbers, right? And what's nice about being in between of like the accountant and the tax preparer is that I'm able to speak to the business owner from this level, right? From business owner to business owner and kind of translate all the accounting stuff into.

you know, something that if I was a fourth grader or a 10 year old that, you know, I could understand it, right? And I think that the accounting speak and all of that, that level is up here. And it just, if you can kind of dial it down and make sure you're just looking at it through the lens of something, making it really, really simple. I mean, you know, I could get into the complexities, but that's really what it comes down to is synthesizing everything and just having a conversation with the business owner.

And what do you think that one thing that we can work on to solve that would really move everything else? And like I said, it's typically cashflow. And so you have to remember, tell you a little story here about what used to happen back in the day. Now you can see that I've had a very, very long career. So now you know how old I am or about how old I am. So I am gonna tell you a story about back in the day. When I first started out in business, I actually partnered up with another gentleman and we had a high net worth financial planning practice.

And what was really interesting about what happened back then is that we didn't have the technology like today. So, you know, using credit cards and having all of these subscriptions and things like that really wasn't the thing that we really spent our money on. But I'll kind of tell you how it worked. Business worked back then. This is probably late 80s, early 90s. And so in that business, we had an office manager. And here's how business ran back then.

is that you would go ahead and have all of your money come into the business. So it all comes in to your operating account, you got to see your money, right? And yes, bills would come in, but they would come through snail mail, right? So you would get your bills in the mail, so you'd have all your bills, the office manager would take them, and then there was no credit cards, right? So you were working on a total cash basis, very different from now, right? And so checks would be written and have to be mailed out.

And so where this story goes is that how the office manager operated is that they had the whole month where they would collect checks, deposit the checks, look at the money in the account, right? Yes, there was payroll. So there was always money for payroll. But what they did, the one key thing that they did is that they had control over their expenses. So what do you think the office manager did? She took all of those bills from the month. She waited till the last day of the month, right?

wrote those checks, sent them out. How does that differ from today?

Amanda Kaufman (16:47)

huh.

my gosh, it is chaos.

Debra Angilletta (16:52)

Chaos, so this is where business has changed and become complex. But if we use that story to just have the base of how a business can operate and really wrangle cash flow, the idea is hang on to your money for as long as possible. And there are so many ways to do that. In this tech age where there's people going in your pockets at all different times of the month, and that's what really screws up business owners. They can't put their finger on the pulse

of where their money is or the inflows and outflows. So I use that story because it's a great example to say, hey, how do we kind of replicate that? How do we get back to that? Because that was total control and it worked, right?

Amanda Kaufman (17:35)

Totally. know, one of the one of the little I remember things in mandaisms, you know, just like little little catchphrases and the big one that came out of 2024 was Amanda never spend the same dollar or the same minute twice. And it's basically that principle of like, hey, like the reason we get into trouble is because our really it's a problem of organization. We're not organized to see that we've already committed that dollar.

or we're already committed to the debt repayment of the dollars we spent previously or whatever that is. So we accidentally spend 50 cents out of that dollar that was already spent. And now you've got like a real problem. But it's so hard to see that problem. And one of the key things that I actually did in 2024 is I changed banks so that I could have multiple different bank accounts and use more of an envelope system. And it's very similar to what the office manager in your story does is, you know, now when we're

Debra Angilletta (18:17)

Yes.

Amanda Kaufman (18:34)

you know, processing our compensation or payroll or we're paying out our contractors or whatever it is that we're doing, we're doing it using Parkinson's law, but taking like rather than operating out of one big operating account, we're operating on a rhythm and a system of these smaller accounts so that we can have a point in time of the money and avoid spending the same dollar twice.

Debra Angilletta (18:56)

which is fantastic because not

every dollar, like you said, that goes in the operating account is available to spend. You gotta carve off your big areas, that's typically the owner's compensation, you gotta pay yourself, right, profits, and then you gotta take care of the IRS. You gotta keep the IRS happy, so carve that off, and then what's left is you make decisions on, and that is the profit first way. So good going, Amanda, good going, yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (19:12)

Yep.

Awesome.

Deborah, I'm so curious. Like, yeah, thank you. Hey, you know what? That's what she said. She said that she said that we rocked. there you go. So good. Deborah, I love how you you break things down so simply. was thinking as you were telling the story of the office manager about how when I started my business, even though I'm very tech savvy, I've been using a computer since I was three years old. MS-DOS.

So now whoever's listening to this can, you know, age date me. But I've been using computers and very proficient with computers for a really long time, but I found that overwhelm to be just insane. And so when I started my business, I actually was operating from a clipboard to manage my relationships and to make sure I was doing the appropriate follow through. So sometimes, you know, taking a less technological view of things can

actually help you resolve that overwhelm and that getting frozen by so many things flying around all at once. Yeah, I love that so much.

Debra Angilletta (20:24)

Yeah.

my gosh. mean, respect on that because don't forget, it's how we learn too. And if you take the technology out of it and you get back to, you know, tactile, right? So I have, I always have this, I'm always taking notes on my client calls, even though I have my note taker. It's one of those things where you put pen to paper. It's kind of like, you know, writing it on your brain. So you're learning it and absorbing it it's becoming part of you. But technology has taken that piece out.

Amanda Kaufman (20:38)

Yup.

Debra Angilletta (20:53)

And that is why we miss so many things like you were saying and people spend a dollar twice. So that's a great practice.

Amanda Kaufman (20:57)

Totally.

That's it? Yeah.

I love it. love it. Deborah, I'm sure people want to follow you. What's the best way to do that?

Debra Angilletta (21:07)

great, they can find me over on LinkedIn. I'm very active over there on LinkedIn. So it's always great. And that's how we met. So always up for a message and for connecting.

Amanda Kaufman (21:15)

I love it. Awesome. Well, listener, we'll make sure to have Deborah's information below so that you can reference that in the show notes. you know, Deborah really brought it today. So do make sure you subscribe so you don't miss another interview just like this one. And also leave us a review. Five stars, please. Deborah worked really, really hard, but.

Seriously, leave an honest review of the Amanda Kaufman show so that other people can decide whether they're going to listen to us or something else when they're out for their daily walk. And we'll be back with another episode shortly. Thanks for joining us.