Unveiling the Secrets of Business Profitability with Jason Withers
In this episode, Tim Seymour sits down with Jason Withers to explore how an accounting graduate became one of the UK’s most recognised profitability coaches. Jason shares the real turning points that shaped his path — from navigating the challenges of a loss-making builders’ merchant to sharpening his financial skills in a design agency.
He reveals how discovering the Profit First methodology transformed both his career and the results he delivers for clients, ultimately leading to him being named the UK Profit First Professional of the Year in 2024 and Business Profitability Coach of 2025.
Listeners will hear practical insights on resilience, building advisory confidence, and using Profit First to create genuine financial clarity for business owners. This conversation is a powerful reminder that the journey to becoming a trusted advisor isn’t linear — but every experience can move you closer to doing your best work.
Transcript
Welcome to Profit first beyond the Book, a podcast that takes you beyond the book with Profit first brought to you by Tim Duncan and the rest of the Profit first professionals UK and Ireland.
Speaker A:And today I am joined by my good friend and colleague, Jason Withers.
Speaker A:So, Jason, thank you for joining me again.
Speaker B:Delighted to be here with you today, Tim.
Speaker B:Looking forward to this.
Speaker A:And Jason, you have recently won an award and I would like to highlight that on this call.
Speaker A:It's important for us to share success.
Speaker A:What's the award you've recently won?
Speaker B: business profitability coach: Speaker A:That's amazing.
Speaker A: business profitability coach: Speaker A:And who was it awarded by?
Speaker B:Sorry?
Speaker B:By SME News.
Speaker B:So shout out to them.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:So congratulations firstly on winning the award also.
Speaker A:I know firsthand it's very well deserved.
Speaker A:So, so many congratulations and, and what I want to do, Jason, is kind of talk through your career, as it were, your, your history, if that, that makes sense, and bring it, bring us into, you know, what actually made, you know, what made that possible over your journey.
Speaker A:So if, if we go right back, I don't know how far back you want to go, but is, is your degree in accounting at university a good place to start?
Speaker A:You know, where did you go to university?
Speaker A:You know, how, how was life at university for you?
Speaker B:Life at university was fantastic.
Speaker B:I was in Liverpool, so plenty to do.
Speaker B:Lived just around the corner from Liverpool's football ground.
Speaker B:So that was great.
Speaker B:You could, you know, get up at lunchtime and walk around the corner, eight pounds, go and stand on the cot to watch some great football back end of the 80s, early 90s.
Speaker B:So yeah, that was pretty good, really.
Speaker B:Thanks.
Speaker B:Yeah, the accounting degree side of things, perhaps not so much fun.
Speaker B:That was really born going back a few years into school life really no idea what I wanted to do was decent at maths, I suppose, loved economics as an A level.
Speaker B:As I say, no idea what to do.
Speaker B:My mum used to work in a firm of accountants at a point in time was like, people always need their money looking after.
Speaker B:There you go, no better idea.
Speaker B:Accounting and finance degree.
Speaker B:It became, I think, the one thing that really stuck with me though, as I went through that and I think about how things present now in the modern era online zoom calls, launches, presentations, these sorts of things that seem so easy to come by.
Speaker B:I can remember towards the end of my third year they had all the professional accounting bodies that came in to sort of pitch their wares and why you should try and affiliate with one of the, of the accounting bodies rather than any of the others and so on.
Speaker B:And I have to tell you, they made it sound like incredibly hard work.
Speaker B:The concept really seemed to be you'll work like a dog forever and then one magical day you'll become a partner and then it's all fine.
Speaker B:So there was this whole like tranche of time at the front end of that that I really didn't find that appealing.
Speaker B:What I did know though was that I really enjoyed the whole commercial process and understanding about what made businesses make or lose money.
Speaker B: Growing up in the: Speaker B:And he did, he did, he did a TV program.
Speaker B:I can't remember exactly what it was called, but it was basically like a troubleshooter kind of program.
Speaker B:He'd go into businesses, sort them out, tell them where they were going wrong.
Speaker B:You know, there's all sorts of iterations of that of course these days.
Speaker B:But I suppose that was my first real sort of inspiration for that whole commercial piece about how businesses work, what makes them successful, why businesses struggle and so on.
Speaker B:So yes, my conclusion really for my accounting and finance degree was it taught me that I didn't want to be an accountant, I think was kind of the biggest takeaway, but needed to find a way to pursue this sort of more general commercial pathway, I suppose over time.
Speaker A:It's really interesting, isn't it, what we learn when we go through these, these educations, whatever we want to call it.
Speaker A:I learned I didn't want to be an accountant not long after I set my own accountancy business out of the monastery.
Speaker A:But you do what you do, don't you?
Speaker A:And we find these things out as we go on.
Speaker A:So, okay, so you, so you got your degree and you left college, so you moved back from Liverpool, I guess back home and you went and worked in the Builders Merchants.
Speaker A:Have I got that right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I was on a graduate trainee program and I had the great fortune as I see it now, to be in a, to be in a branch, national, national chain of builders merchants.
Speaker B:About 140, 150 branches I think they had across the country.
Speaker B:And I had the great fortune to be in one of the top 10 loss making branches.
Speaker B:So as much as it sounds as if that's like the last place that to be, it's one of those things that has served me incredibly well through the rest of my commercial life.
Speaker B:Amazing what you learn when things aren't going your way relative to when life seems to be pretty straightforward and things work and businesses make money.
Speaker B:So yeah, very, very grateful for that experience.
Speaker B:On reflection, and I think I'd been there for about 18 months, there were a series of events that happened and I then ended up taking on the manager's role in the branch.
Speaker B:I was lucky.
Speaker B:I had a really, really good assistant manager who was really good on the sales and the, and the people side of the business if you like.
Speaker B:From a client perspective.
Speaker B:I was very back end organizational management kind of thinking, I suppose.
Speaker B:But between us we managed to perform this turnaround on a business that took it from about a quarter of a million pound loss a year to break even in about 18 months.
Speaker B:And the one thing I can remember sitting there and I can kind of see myself sat in the little office now I can see my area manager as it was coming in for my first ever meeting with him and he said, okay, here's the three things you need to know.
Speaker B:There's only three ways you're going to turn this branch.
Speaker B:Revenue margin and overhead.
Speaker B:So that's pretty much the be all and end of it.
Speaker B:And that has really, it has stuck with me ever since.
Speaker B:And so we basically looked at it from the perspective of not so much the question how do I make more profit?
Speaker B:Which as much as it sounds like the right question, it's kind of, it's too big a question, it's too broad, there's too many different ways to answer it.
Speaker B:So we ended up looking at it from a sales margin and overhead perspective and basically came up with strategies that focused on the three areas independently, trusting that the sum of the parts would work out and the actions would accumulate and the benefits would accumulate and that would create that turnaround.
Speaker B:And that's pretty much exactly what happened.
Speaker B:We got the revenue up, we focused hard on margin.
Speaker B:You know, in that kind of delivery model there were things like overtime to consider.
Speaker B:And so that was a feature.
Speaker B:And so we worked out how we ended up paying less overtime and those sorts of things as well as it's just general kind of margin management from a business that buys and sells goods, as it were.
Speaker B:And then there were some pretty fundamental overhead type things to solve as well.
Speaker B:So yes, over the past year of about 18 months or so, we managed to create that turnaround.
Speaker B:And I still very much use that technique with a lot of clients now.
Speaker B:They won't necessarily realize it, but a lot of the conversations that we have focus heavily on one area at a time and we develop strategies and thinking around that now.
Speaker B:So that Very much supplements a way of thinking for me now that very much sort of sits alongside profit first really.
Speaker B:But yeah, that was, that was, that was an experience seven days a week.
Speaker B:Learned to drive a forklift, you know, was kind of clearing up the yard on a Sunday.
Speaker B:Lots of good things that I would say I did in my early 20s that I definitely wouldn't have the stamina to deal with now.
Speaker B:So again, you know, these moments of learning as they come to us along the way, really, really instrumental in how things sort of ended up playing out and how my thinking worked from there.
Speaker B:So yeah, definitely of great benefit to apparently being one of the worst 10 branches in the country.
Speaker B:Not for, not for long.
Speaker B:And then I moved to London to live with my now wife.
Speaker B:So that was the dynamic that kind of changed there at a point in time.
Speaker B:But yeah, I'd kind of had enough after three years.
Speaker B:It was hard graft but has very much given me a platform through the rest of my working career I would say certainly in terms of thinking about attitudes towards businesses and actually how simple it can be at times to correct some adverse sets of circumstances with numbers as well.
Speaker B:From a slightly more traditional point of.
Speaker A:View, it's really interesting listening to because you've got a degree in accountancy that you did at Liverpool University which would have meant you've learned a lot of technically financial stuff like that, like all those accountants learn.
Speaker A:Yet you've shared so much on your work in the Builders Merchant that you learned from a commercial aspect, real life, real world experience of what happens with the money in a business.
Speaker A:And it sounds like you learned so much more in that environment and in that role than perhaps in university, which might be unfair to say, but it comes across in that way with your enthusiasm and the way you've shared that with us.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean definitely 30 years on it's much easier to think about working seven days a week and driving a forklift truck, that's for sure.
Speaker B:I think it's these things are, they're passages of time though, aren't they?
Speaker B:And things ultimately fit wherever they fit.
Speaker B:You know, whether that was O levels as it was in my day and A levels becomes the thing and degree and what have you.
Speaker B:And I think that one of the aspects that, that we face now is people are looking for practical solutions.
Speaker B:There are technical things that will help and solve problems, but if we can't translate what those technical things are into, I'll say everyday business owner language, we end up with this mismatch along the way.
Speaker B:So it's Always been important for me, I think, to really kind of dig into some of those very practical stories.
Speaker B:And as much as after that, my life ultimately went very financial, which was never the direct intent to be fair.
Speaker B:Actually, when I left Liverpool, it undoubtedly stood me in good stead because it has helped the way that I think generally about business over a much longer passage of time.
Speaker B:So, yeah, that, that really, I think, has been the key lesson for me.
Speaker B:You know, we don't always see the value in some of the things that we've done historically, but from time to time the things really do come together at other moments in time where they do make sense and they do carry an awful lot of value.
Speaker A:Yeah, without doubt, without doubt.
Speaker A:I appreciate you sharing all of that.
Speaker A:It's just really interesting hearing you talking about these things and what you've learned from these different areas and times in your life.
Speaker A:And, and so you mentioned that you, you left the builders merchants because you'd met Sandra and you moved to London to be with Sandra, who I know, I think you recently, you, you celebrated another wedding anniversary with Sandra.
Speaker B:How many, sorry, 21.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:I'll give, I'll give a quick nod to my best man here who in his best man speech said when Sandra met Jason, she heard the distant sound of wedding bells.
Speaker B:Little did she know how distant they would be.
Speaker B: prior nine years from the mid-: Speaker B:So, yeah, how these things kind of take the passage of time and what have you.
Speaker B:But yes, yeah, moved down here to live with her.
Speaker B:I then spent a year working for another Builders merchants as a sales rep through southeast London and then got introduced to a business that Sandra had actually worked with previously and went to go and do a wholly financial role there for 14 years.
Speaker B:So everything from manual cash, books processing, timesheets, had a great client list.
Speaker B:We're doing about a million in revenue.
Speaker B: I think when I joined, I left: Speaker B:But it was, it was time for a change for me.
Speaker B:You know, the world of fractional CFOs was going on.
Speaker B:Portfolio businesses in the marketing arena.
Speaker B:Design agencies have started to split themselves up in house.
Speaker B:Design teams had taken themselves external as agencies.
Speaker B: movement in that sort of post: Speaker B:Less commercial focus, more processing.
Speaker B:So it was moment in time 15 years on.
Speaker B:Yeah, wouldn't change it for the world.
Speaker B:Not always like that in the first year out in the wilderness.
Speaker B:But you know, these things change and time moves on.
Speaker B:Abilities change, skills change, mindsets change.
Speaker B:So yeah, that, that became really my kind of real financial grounding.
Speaker B:So I'm now one of those like really awkward people that has more than too much financial knowledge for most accountants and bookkeepers.
Speaker B:I can do double entry accounting and all the things that go with it, management accounts and what have you, which makes me a pain in the backside clearly for clients, bookkeepers and so on, because I know their language, I know where they're cutting corners, I know where things aren't going as they should be on that kind of technical back end.
Speaker B:But I think that kind of deepens my own resolve to get on the side of business owners even more to really help them out with that kind of translation, as it were, from a typical accountant, bookkeeper type discussion into a more commercial arena.
Speaker B:Certainly when I first started out on my own, my premise was surely this is going to be super easy to find clients.
Speaker B:Everybody wants to make more profit as a business.
Speaker B:Took me ages to work out.
Speaker B:Most business owners couldn't really care less.
Speaker B:What they really want to know is could they pay the staff on Friday?
Speaker B:And it's a completely different dynamic that actually starts to take over where we have this lens on profit and profitability.
Speaker B:But actually the way that a business owner is thinking about that tends to be much more cash oriented.
Speaker B:Do I have the money to do this?
Speaker B:Can I spend the money on that?
Speaker B:They tend to forget that they can spend money on themselves as well of course, but completely different story.
Speaker B:So yes, that whole kind of evolution through that period of time, again combining sales margin overhead with some different realizations about how businesses operate in that kind of way and again having to translate it into an idea where I was not the person making the change.
Speaker B:I sort of ended up in a sort of a hybrid coaching consultancy done for you financial arena.
Speaker B:So a lot of the time it was that guidance piece rather than the doing piece.
Speaker B:Completely different skill set involved in that of course as well.
Speaker A:Absolutely, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker A:And so actually it gave you great, great grandin for what was to come next, which at that point you didn't know what was around the corner.
Speaker A: But I think it was about: Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B: ne arena as it was in the mid: Speaker B:She had a.
Speaker B:It was international and through following her and what she was doing, that seemed to get me into a lot of Facebook groups with a lot of Americans, quite bizarrely.
Speaker B:And they kept talking about this thing, Profit First.
Speaker B:I'm thinking, it's all right, I've got my own strategy for dealing with profit.
Speaker B:I know what I'm doing here.
Speaker B:And I ended up my.
Speaker B: ne coach, as it were, back in: Speaker B: rogram with him subsequent to: Speaker B:But that's how I, how I really got into Profit First.
Speaker B:And I went on a, on a retreat with her out in Key west and was talking to her about what I thought I was doing next in my business and she was like, yep, all very interesting.
Speaker B:I really think you should read Profit First.
Speaker B:Okay, Adrian, I'll go in the way and do that.
Speaker B:And like most of these things in life, it then took me two, two years after that point to actually really get to grips with it and do something about it.
Speaker B: Profit first community until: Speaker B: Certified in: Speaker B:But yeah, I would say it was really around things that again, that just happened at a moment in time, didn't necessarily really understand the relevance of it, perhaps at that moment in time.
Speaker B:But again, like most of these things, her advice was very simple and straightforward.
Speaker B:There is like a best selling book out there.
Speaker B:All the entrepreneurs in America are reading it.
Speaker B:They're talking about it all the time.
Speaker B:Would you please start pushing against the open door and just go and certify.
Speaker B:So we don't always take that advice straight out, do we?
Speaker B:But that's ultimately what ended up happening.
Speaker B:So forever grateful to her for that.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B: And then certified in: Speaker B:Haven't looked back since, quite frankly.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker A:It's really interesting how she was quite forthright with her advice to you as well, that, you know, this is this place for you, not trying to get you to go on to a clockwork program necessarily, actually saying Profit first sits better for you.
Speaker A:And I think that that highlights how entrepreneurs and people that are successful in business Operate, they generally want to help others and so they point them in the right direction rather than try and grab.
Speaker A:Grab the money for the sake of it, which perhaps she could have done.
Speaker A:She could have tried to sell you down a different route, but she's not like that and she wouldn't do that.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But I just think it's great to point that out because, you know, we do know of people with not so not such great scruples that perhaps would do that just to get the sell.
Speaker A:But pushing you down that road towards profit first obviously was the right place for you.
Speaker A:You know, like a duck to water really, isn't it?
Speaker A:Profit first with you.
Speaker A:It sits so comfortable with everything you do for your clients and stuff.
Speaker A:So how was your experience of when you, when you certified, implemented proper first in your business and then started to talk to clients clients, how did it go for you at the beginning?
Speaker B:So one of the things that following the profit first route did for me, it really solidified this idea about businesses thinking about things in cash terms.
Speaker B:Do I have the cash to do this?
Speaker B:Can I spend the money on that?
Speaker B:As opposed to traditional balance sheets, P L, so on and so forth.
Speaker B:None of which really give people real time answers anyway.
Speaker B:So I think it was really getting used to not so much new language.
Speaker B:I think I've been talking about these things in my own way up to a point in time.
Speaker B:What it did do for me was give me the language and a framework and that made my world far more predictable.
Speaker B:It suddenly had some boundaries up to that point.
Speaker B:The sort of the freelance CFO type work that I've been doing.
Speaker B:I could turn up to anything in any given week.
Speaker B:Yes, projects were projects, clients were clients, but the topic could have been anything.
Speaker B:This gave me some really definitive boundaries and a method by which to, I would say, more proactively help clients create results for themselves in real cash terms as opposed to, you know, the sort of general idea, oh yes, this year was better than last year, but do I have any more money?
Speaker B:Not really.
Speaker B:So I think from that perspective this, you know, the framework talking to business owners very directly in that way at the point when I certified profit first was, was probably barely known.
Speaker B:I think it's, it's true to say in the UK there weren't many other people before me who'd been through the certification process.
Speaker B:So for me, I think I just saw it an extension of a regular conversation that I was having anyway.
Speaker B:But this idea that it gave me boundaries, it gave us some very clear objectives, it gave us a Pathway.
Speaker B:It created a plan to get to some better places and some ways to really crystallize and make it very obvious about whether or not we were doing okay or whether we weren't.
Speaker B:And that was really born of, do we have more cash in these places, in these various accounts than we had last month?
Speaker B:Are we headed in the right direction overall?
Speaker B:And how we tailor plans accordingly on the back of that.
Speaker B:So it became a very easy conversation, I would say, with clients and prospects to a degree, very clear set of outcomes, easy to verbalize what that looked like once I sort of pulled my own methodology together for delivering it and working out what that model looked like.
Speaker B:Very easy to demonstrate on a prospect call.
Speaker B:Yep, here we go.
Speaker B:Would you like to see it?
Speaker B:Yes, I would.
Speaker B:Okay, here's how it works.
Speaker B:We can do this, we can do that.
Speaker B:If you want to know about that, here's what we do with it.
Speaker B:There we go.
Speaker B:So the value also became very easy to present in real time on those calls.
Speaker B:You know, no need for lengthy quotes, prospects and getting into, into client data and all those kind of things.
Speaker B:So yes, I mean, it changed a number of things, I think, for me in that way.
Speaker B:But again, like most of these things, first couple of clients I had, I was going down a pathway with them and I was basically regurgitating the book.
Speaker B:I was bored by it, clients were bored by it.
Speaker B:And it became that moment where you kind of think, no, we need to get to the good stuff faster.
Speaker B:And I think that's where I then kind of really changed the model, as the model would now be today, I suppose, into a fast action.
Speaker B:Let's get into the numbers, let's create that plan as quickly as possible.
Speaker B:And quite frankly, we can backfill the theory behind profit first later on.
Speaker B:But it's easier to do that from a.
Speaker B:Demonstrate with the numbers, show the pathway, make the moves, so on and so forth to do that.
Speaker B:So yeah, it was, it was, it was a real seminal change for me.
Speaker B:I think that whole process about dealing with a sales call, understanding what the outcomes were, thinking about the translation of the real life issues that people had.
Speaker B:And I would say, unfortunately, a lot of the time, this idea that people thought they needed to change their bookkeeper or accountant, they didn't.
Speaker B:They just weren't being served in the way they needed or wanted to be served by those incumbent professionals.
Speaker B:So kind of going all the way back into the commercial nature of discussions I've had at the builders, merchants and carrying that through kind of a freelance career for a few years as well made that quite an easy conversation for me, you know, really listening hard what those clients were saying, what did they want?
Speaker B:Where were their problems?
Speaker B:And then really in my own mind mapping those issues to the traditional profit first accounts.
Speaker B:Okay, you have a problem in this area.
Speaker B:Okay, well we have a strategy for that under owners pay or tax or whatever it might be.
Speaker B:And so it became very easy to demonstrate some of those solutions well ahead of time really.
Speaker B:And a very easy way to create, as I say, obvious outcomes in terms of we were either doing the work and we have more money or we had less really.
Speaker B:So yeah, very straightforward pathway from that perspective.
Speaker B:Nice, straightforward framework to deal with.
Speaker B:Easy to create your own kind of language around it as well.
Speaker A:I think it's interesting as well because you sit, you sit quite comfortably between the business owner and the accountant or the bookkeeper, don't you?
Speaker A:And you're quite happy with that.
Speaker A:You don't by your own words, you don't not interested in doing the statutory account's, not interested in doing the management accounts, etc, you're just, you're there in the middle to guide the business owner towards that higher profitability through all of the things you've learned, including profit first and all of the experiences you've had before that, the builders, merchants, the design agency, etc, and it's interesting because, you know, a lot of people think that being a profit first professional is aimed at accountants and bookkeepers, in other words.
Speaker A:Of course it is, because obviously if you're doing the accounts, you're in a great position to better deliver the profit first advisory.
Speaker A:And that is a fantastic tool on top of your compliance work.
Speaker A:And the same if you're a bookkeeper.
Speaker A:If you're a bookkeeper, you're in the numbers regularly.
Speaker A:You can see exactly what's going on.
Speaker A:So the patterns and the movement of money would be so easy to then schedule in profit first into that and incorporate profit first within those services.
Speaker A:But there are also a few coaches that are profitable first professionals and you are the kind of the one that leads the way space through your experience.
Speaker A:So it's, it's interesting to hear you talk about this and it's something we probably don't talk about that much.
Speaker A:We seem to target everything towards accountants and bookkeepers.
Speaker A:So it's really interesting hearing your perspective and how you see where you sit and how that's worked for your clients and stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean I, I enjoy that kind of midpoint position for those elements of discussion because I know I truly can help a business owner who doesn't understand what their accountant or bookkeeper is telling them.
Speaker B:You know, I know that I can look at that traditional data, look at things and say this doesn't make sense to me, quite frankly, the business owner is going to have no idea of that.
Speaker B:But these are just different ways that we can lend expertise and experience, you know, in.
Speaker B:And that helps from a value proposition perspective as well.
Speaker B:But I think really, I mean, I go back to this idea about accountants and bookkeepers not necessarily serving in the way that business owners would wish to be served perhaps.
Speaker B:I think to be fair to the accountants and bookkeepers, their practices generally aren't set up in that way.
Speaker B:You know, it's a completely different business model serving different requirements.
Speaker B:But I think one of the ways that actually over time you and I have talked about this is my feeling is that like if the accountants of bookkeepers would sort of get up from their desk and walk round to the same side of the desk as their client, look at the same screen or the bit of paper up the same way as the client and start, it's kind of arm round the shoulder.
Speaker B:Here's what I think we can do about this next year.
Speaker B:Here is a direction.
Speaker B:I think we should look at this more or that more or we should work on this area more.
Speaker B:I think that just immediately changes how a business owner feels about that whole relationship.
Speaker B:Rightly or wrongly.
Speaker B:I think a lot of business owners would say they fear that kind of year end discussion.
Speaker B:It's not only once a year for many practices.
Speaker B:Now there are a lot of people who do pre year end meetings and interim quarterly meetings maybe along the way.
Speaker B:But I think it is that overarching feeling.
Speaker B:They want to feel like being helped.
Speaker B:They want the accountant to be on their side.
Speaker B:And that doesn't always come from the perspective of, of how can you save me more tax?
Speaker B:It's like if I don't understand anything else, what good is that bit?
Speaker B:I just want that zero tax bill.
Speaker B:And I think that there is this element for me that commercially I'm thinking, well surely the only way you end up with a zero tax bill is making losses, not paying yourself anything or a very minimal amount of money.
Speaker B:Like what fun is that?
Speaker B:So I think my perspective and definitely one of the areas that profit first helps that conversation is really this idea.
Speaker B:I want this disowners to kind of get their head above the parapet and say what could I earn?
Speaker B:Knowing that actually the way that we work profit first as a system, we are doing that forward looking calculation.
Speaker B:It won't be right to the penny.
Speaker B:Of course it won't.
Speaker B:But having an idea that a business owner says, this year I would like to earn this much money gives us enough information to say, okay, if that is the outcome, this is likely to be your personal tax bill.
Speaker B:That's not a difficult thing to do, but it gives people that bit of confidence that says every single money we now know what we're aiming for, they will earn more, they will earn less.
Speaker B:The answer will be whatever it is, but we know we can flex that within the profit first system to meet that level of expectation.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:Why limit ourselves?
Speaker B:Surely half the reason most people get into their own business is for more time, more money, or to create a greater impact.
Speaker B:How does a zero tax bill and not earning any money or certainly disposable money, how does that help achieve any of that?
Speaker B:Like, if I want to create an impact, I need, I need more money.
Speaker B:If I want more time, I probably need more money to pay some other people, you know, and it's like that's one side of the equation.
Speaker B:But if I don't have any money to go and do anything in my own life, what's the point of that?
Speaker B:So I, I think this idea really of helping business owners get their head above the parapet and see there is a way they can safely structure themselves to pay themselves more.
Speaker B:Yes, there are intricacies and technicalities, 100,000, 125,000 and so on and so forth, but it's like they, they, it shouldn't be the core focus of a conversation to me, how can I help you earn more money?
Speaker B:So certainly in all of my, like, original profit assessments that I do with clients, one of my objectives is always, how can we pay you more every single quarter going forward?
Speaker B:Doesn't matter if it's 100 pound, 200, 500, a thousand, pound, 5,000, it doesn't matter.
Speaker B:The point is we are looking at it from a progressive perspective in the business owner's favour.
Speaker B:That alone does a huge amount in that trust dynamic.
Speaker B:To say, now I feel like someone's on my side.
Speaker B:No one's ever told me I could pay myself more.
Speaker B:So I think a large part of it for me, and definitely a large part of the profit first element for me is the joy of people realizing they can pay themselves more.
Speaker B:That may be more for some people, less for others, but just the idea, we are trying to move them forward so they get back to that idea, bigger return from their business.
Speaker B:I don't want business owners to be left behind in their packet as they scale from, from 250,000 to a million.
Speaker B:There's no point in being paid the same.
Speaker B:You know, it's a wildly different business at that level.
Speaker B:More moving parts, greater risk, all the things.
Speaker B:Why on earth would you want to be paid the same or less to do that?
Speaker B:I want people to know when they're paid to move in tandem with the growth of their business.
Speaker B:Surely that must be much more fun.
Speaker A:I couldn't agree more.
Speaker A:I mean it's that it's those invisible barriers we set for ourselves when we, when we don't want to pay tax or when we don't want to earn that amount of money.
Speaker A:And like I say, there's only so much you can do with the, with the amount of money that you're taking out the business.
Speaker A:If that's the case, you're never going to get to what you wanted to achieve when you set the business up in the first place, which we all know people drift away from without, without the guidance that can be provided from Profit first professionals, for example.
Speaker A:And it's, it's, it's just the way unfortunately that it, that it's traditionally been handled from an accountant's traditional accountants point of view.
Speaker A:There's business owners out there that don't just dread the year end conversation when they're being delivered the annual this is your stature accounts, this is your profit, this is your tax bill.
Speaker A:You've only got three months to pay it.
Speaker A:It's even the quarterly VAT returns that people are dreading.
Speaker A:Isn't that a frightening way to think about running the business that you're dreading each three months when there's going to be a VAT build come in because you know you've already spent the money and too many businesses do this by the way, you know, this we don't need, you know, too many business are in this situation where they, it's, they're just stuck in this cycle of the money coming in and going out faster than it comes in.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think a little bit like the owner's pay discussion as well.
Speaker B:Just the whole idea that because let's just keep it very simple because our revenue is growing.
Speaker B:The idea that we are fearful of that, as good as we think it is that that revenue number is heading in the right direction, whether it's one we should be concentrating on, different topic of discussion.
Speaker B:But the idea that revenue is growing and that brings more fear because we think we're going to have a bigger VAT bill.
Speaker B:And even worse is the idea we think we have no idea about how big it's going to be.
Speaker B:So I'm just not going to spend anything, I'm not going to take anything, so I've got no idea what I'm going to need.
Speaker B:And yet, as much as you won't really read about it, obviously Profit First American text needs some degree of translation into the UK marketplace and this is definitely a reason why people should work with a certified profit nurse professional to get through these things.
Speaker B:VAT is not ultimately that difficult to work out and definitely not difficult to work out to get people in a much better place than they generally are are.
Speaker B:Again, you know, it's a tax thing, it will be conditional how much we sell, how much we buy and there's an offset in there.
Speaker B:But as long as we have the, you know, the wherewithal to go, looking at how that has shaped up over time for business, we can get pretty close.
Speaker B:We can give a business owner a much, much better answer to the question than the one they are typically served with, which is no answer at all.
Speaker B:Just wait and hope.
Speaker B:And as is often said, hope isn't a strategy at all.
Speaker B:So I think just the answer that, you know, we can get into some of these things and create degrees of control and certainty.
Speaker B:You know, let's face it, the world is becoming a much more uncertain place for, from any number of angles at the moment.
Speaker B:The more certainty we can introduce for business owners through a framework like Profit first, the better, you know, the more confidence they'll have to go and make decisions, hire people, get the next fans, spend on marketing, whatever these things are, the more juice we can give them to go into that decision making process with, with confidence in real time.
Speaker B:That has to be good for all of us from, from an economic point of view overall that we feel like we can move forward in this way.
Speaker B:So important, particularly at the moment, the uncertainty is really difficult, I think for business owners.
Speaker B:So definitely the more that we can do to introduce degrees of certainty around these things, I think the happier we can, we can make business owners as a whole.
Speaker A:Yeah, couldn't agree more.
Speaker A:And, and so going back to your journey, so Profit first, you know, coaching consultancy, business bought Profit first into it, worked with a lot of clients, part of the Profit First Professional community, an active part of the Profit first community.
Speaker A:And then three years ago, this January, I believe so, so yeah, three years coming up to three years, you became our main Profit first guide, so mentor to our members.
Speaker A:So you've gone from, you're still coaching your, your clients within your own business?
Speaker A:Yeah, the business owners and the different various businesses that they all work in.
Speaker A:But also for three years now, you've become guide to the members.
Speaker A:So that's looking after accountants, bookkeepers and coaches.
Speaker A:And that's how we laugh.
Speaker A:But that's helping them first and foremost implement profit first into their own business.
Speaker A:Of course, because you have to live and breathe profit first to be able to share it with the world as we know and then helping them work with their clients and deliver lots of guidance and coaching from your experience of business to help them create better businesses.
Speaker A:And how's that experience been for you?
Speaker A:And I know it's difficult because I'm the one asking you the question, how's that experience been?
Speaker B:So I.
Speaker B:It's been fantastic.
Speaker B:It is, I think that there is, and again, it's stereotypical viewpoint, but there's that whole kind of, you know, the groan about going to work on a Monday morning kind of discussion out there in, you know, in, in the business and commercial world couldn't be further from the truth for me.
Speaker B:I love my Monday mornings as it's now structured.
Speaker B:You know, we do certification calls for people going through certification.
Speaker B:We have a post certification group and then the community call after that.
Speaker B:Monday mornings for me are fantastic.
Speaker B:It's a subject that I love.
Speaker B:It's a subject that I love exploring with the members.
Speaker B:There are always great learning points and I think, and I believe that you'd recognize this as well, we learn a lot from the members as well.
Speaker B:How they take the information, start using the information, start thinking about the information, information in the framework, there's a huge amount that we can also take away from that.
Speaker B:But yeah, I have to say it is one of the most favorite parts of the week.
Speaker B:You know, going to work on a Monday morning is not that thing for a lot of people.
Speaker B:I definitely feel incredibly lucky that it is.
Speaker B:How I start my working week gets me in the right frame of mind for the week, gets me into great conversations early in the week, makes me think hard on a Monday morning, you know, and I enjoy that kind of, you know, the challenge of people, you know, keeping people moving forward, unpicking the questions, being a coach at times and very much getting into that kind of aspect of what's really going on.
Speaker B:But underneath this statement that you've just made, you know, a lot of that goes on as well.
Speaker B:So no, it's, it's incredibly enjoyable work.
Speaker B:Certainly for me personally, it's been great doing those calls over the last couple of years with you it's great having Kerry on board, sharing that experience now as well, bringing another dimension to those calls.
Speaker B:It's great having the members, you know, those that turn up week in, week out, they participate.
Speaker B:I hope they get a lot out of it.
Speaker B:I definitely do.
Speaker B:And I think it's a great community that shares information pretty freely as well.
Speaker B:There's a lot of vulnerability periodically in the group.
Speaker B:You know, as you mentioned, those accountants and bookkeepers, you know, we all think accountants and bookkeepers have got it all nailed.
Speaker B:Most of them don't.
Speaker B:And I think that that process again and the reason, as you, as you highlighted there, going through the implementation in your own business through certification is so important.
Speaker B:The fact that we allow ourselves to run feral a little bit, you know, and ignore some costs in the background that we don't really think we want to deal with or are we really overstaffed?
Speaker B:You know, there's all these things that crop up as part of a process, but that learning process makes those stories translatable for our clients down the line.
Speaker B:You know, the authenticity that comes with that, the learning experience, you know, the members rip me incessantly now for saying document your journey through that process.
Speaker B:And in the post certification era it creates great and easy marketing material with which to start talking about stories, stories of transformation, be that small micro pieces, be it great big transformations and anywhere in between.
Speaker B:But I think that that really as a whole, incredibly enjoyable work.
Speaker B:Again, it's evolving.
Speaker B:It's nothing like it was three years ago.
Speaker B:And we've got some more new exciting changes coming in the new year as part of the general structure of the membership as well, which is going to be great to see.
Speaker B:And I think that will give people greater incentive to move on, to progress, to become more proficient, to become more at the mastery end of utilizing and understanding profit first and the power of it as a tool.
Speaker B:That's going to be great work to do next year with them.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm really looking forward to all of that happening in January.
Speaker A:We won't share that information right now, but it is exciting.
Speaker A:And then if anyone is interested in joining us as a profit first profession and you do get on a call with me, then I will share that with you.
Speaker A:So you will get a heads up on what's coming because if you're thinking of joining, it would only be right to share that with you.
Speaker A:But it, it went down really well with the members when we shared that with them our plans for next year.
Speaker A:So, so that, that's a great, great thing to be able to add in and because of your, you know, yes, they do laugh because you always tell them to stop, document your story, but they do it in the right spirit because they, and, and what it tells me they don't forget because you keep telling them they don't forget.
Speaker A:So they're doing it, they're doing it in the background, which is what we need them to do and that's the accountability aspect of, of the membership.
Speaker A:But because of your given nature and you know, like I say, you joined us as a guy but you've always gone above and beyond to support the members.
Speaker A:You're always available to, to, for a one to one call with them if they ask or if they need a little bit of extra support.
Speaker A:You've always done that for them, you've always shared your knowledge and experiences with them and because of that you were our 20, 24 profit first profession of the year in the UK.
Speaker A:And, and I just want to ask how did that feel to win that award?
Speaker A:What did that mean to you?
Speaker B:Terrifically surprising to be fair actually when it was announced in the moment as they say.
Speaker B:But I think that is one of those, it's sort of one of those everything you could hope for moments from a recognition perspective.
Speaker B:You know, value within the community, you know, that giving, sharing, nature and as I say, you know, the community as a whole, you know, the members share all sorts of nuggets of information, you know, in the WhatsApp group, day in, day out now and that's fantastic to see but I think that really it's, there is that element of aspiration like I've seen profit first transform my own clients, businesses.
Speaker B:I've you know, been fortunate to understand and hear many other stories from, from preferred from PFPs over the course of years to understand the power of it as a system.
Speaker B:And I think particularly because I, I'll say shunned the life of being an accountant or bookkeeper originally and I think for some of the things that I see now, my desire to help accountants and bookke bookkeepers move into that side of an equation where they are more approachable with their clients, they are giving greater value.
Speaker B:That's not to say the work that accountants and bookkeepers do is, doesn't have value, but it's like does it really answer the questions that the business owners need answering at a moment in time?
Speaker B:That for me I think is, is the greatest joy as you start to see some of those moments unlock in the member's mind and it's like the ah, yeah, I see where that conversation goes.
Speaker B:Now I see how all of a sudden I get a competitive advantage against somebody who is talking about nothing other than compliance.
Speaker B:And this is like, you know, there are God knows how many accountants and bookkeepers in the country.
Speaker B:So anything we can do to stop the scroll, get a bit more visibility, you know, get some, some legitimate and integrity driven, you know, marketing hooks and things of value into, into a client's arena.
Speaker B:That's, that is a terrific thing for me because more business owners need more help.
Speaker B:The more that we, that we can help accountants and bookkeepers come round to that other side of the table, arm around the client's shoulder and start talking in that client language and have a framework to take them through that the business owner is just going to find so simple and straightforward to follow, you know, with some guidance.
Speaker B:It's incredibly powerful and rewarding work to be doing.
Speaker B:So, yeah, great surprise at the time, you know, and I'm delighted to see the progression of the other members, you know, who then go through that subsequently and start to really embrace what it can do down the line.
Speaker B:That's, that's, I think that is a great win for us within the community overall as you start to see that power unlock and those pennies drop.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker A: And so, so: Speaker A:2025, as we mentioned at the beginning.
Speaker A:Best business profitability Profitability coach.
Speaker A:Easy for me to say.
Speaker A:Let's do that again.
Speaker A: business profitability coach: Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A: what are you going to win in: Speaker B:Well, that's a really good question, Tim.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I think one of the things about it is there are these elements where again we go through phases, certain things at certain times.
Speaker B:And I wouldn't say that I'd ever kind of got out my way as you, as you mentioned earlier on, generally shy away from the limelight, generally happy to share quite openly within, you know, within our community and so on, but not my default position to be out in front of the world every day.
Speaker B:But I think there are these moments where all of a sudden you think, okay, that's two and two years.
Speaker B:There needs to be a third and a fourth and a fifth to keep the momentum going.
Speaker B:You know, there is so much good work I think we can do as financial professionals overall with our clients.
Speaker B:But I really think that, you know, this concept of transformation for clients now, you know, it's not just cut your costs, it's like, yeah, but what for the element of.
Speaker B:But what does that open up if I do that thing?
Speaker B:What does that mean?
Speaker B:How can I do better by taking that action?
Speaker B:So I think from that perspective, there is still an immense amount of work to do with business owners.
Speaker B:Generally, there's a huge amount to do with profit first from a general awareness perspective, certainly here in the U.K. still, there's a lot of business owners that we could all be helping.
Speaker B:How we do that, how we come about these things, how we create those transformations, those models, those pathways for clients to follow and have.
Speaker B:Have the success that we want them to have.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm not exactly sure, but they're definitely on the agenda now because I think there is that element of, you know, once, fair enough.
Speaker B:Twice, okay.
Speaker B:Definitely not a flu.
Speaker B:Three times, okay.
Speaker B:Now we really start to endorse the idea, you know, that these things carry weight.
Speaker B:We really need business owners to understand there are ways to not be afraid of their numbers anymore.
Speaker B:There are ways they can get clarity pretty quickly around the numbers that they have and if that helps them do more good work in their arena and create greater impact, all for that.
Speaker B:Yeah, personal success is fantastic.
Speaker B:But actually that's only built on the back of the community and having to show up for them.
Speaker B:It's built on the back of having clients and continually needing to turn up for them.
Speaker B:So, you know, I think it is, again, it becomes a sum of the parts kind of thing.
Speaker B:If you don't participate, you don't really end up anywhere.
Speaker B:And I think that's true of many things in life.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I think for me, this award this year definitely means a lot.
Speaker B:On the back of the Profitability first award the year before.
Speaker B:Yeah, I have to.
Speaker B:I have to take advantage of that, but with integrity to deepen the work that I do with clients, how I get to help more people do the thing that they're doing.
Speaker B:It's important for all of us in society at the moment.
Speaker B:I think.
Speaker B:I think we need a bit of purpose.
Speaker B:We need some good news stories around, you know, to carry the weight a little bit at the moment.
Speaker B:Let's, you know, get people into the idea it's not all doom and gloom.
Speaker B:And if they think it is, it doesn't have to be necessarily.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B: and we'll see what happens in: Speaker A:Yeah, We'll wait for that to happen.
Speaker A:Unless there's anything you want to share right now.
Speaker A:Jason, I really, really appreciate you joining me.
Speaker A:Pleasure to work alongside you, the Profit first professionals.
Speaker A:And you know that that's how I feel about it, but it doesn't hurt to say it once again and for other people outside to hear.
Speaker A:The members really do benefit from your wisdom and from your support, and I know they think the world of you as well.
Speaker A:So thank you for being part of Profit first, professionals first and foremost.
Speaker A:And thank you for joining me today to share your journey and your story.
Speaker A:And, and once again, congratulations on your, on your awards that you've won the last two years.
Speaker A: I really look forward to what: Speaker A:Is there anything else you want to share before we close off?
Speaker B:No, I just think that's amazing.
Speaker B:Thank you very much for chatting to me today.
Speaker B:It's been great to talk through some of those things.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think parting message There is a world of difference that accountants and bookkeepers can make, but we need the framework.
Speaker B:We need clarity around how we do that.
Speaker B:We need to understand the business of transformation more and what that really means through a client's eyes and the things that really are important to them.
Speaker B:I think we haven't touched on AI, have we?
Speaker B:And I think that actually AI is something that gets really interesting from my perspective.
Speaker B:So I'm going to say to you very quickly, you'll probably have a comeback on this, but very quickly for me, the introduction of AI should be helping accountants and bookkeepers make their firms more efficient, deal with some of that transactional volume and so on.
Speaker B:Plenty of tools out there to help people do that now, but that should be freeing people up to be able to spend more time working much more.
Speaker B:What I would think of as being client side in that relationship, you know, really helping business owners understand what it takes, really giving them some good, deep guidance.
Speaker B:I'm definitely forever, you know, grateful for the introduction to Profit first and the fact it gave me a framework within which to do that.
Speaker B:Simple, straightforward framework adds to the conversations that I was already having previously.
Speaker B:But it has made it so straightforward to translate into client terms, make the outcomes pretty obvious, give us great structure to help build client businesses and cash balances along the way.
Speaker B:So, yeah, keep going.
Speaker B:Leverage AI for everything you can with within your firms, for those that have traditional firms.
Speaker B:But understand that the part B to that should be what it allows you to go and do next.
Speaker B:It's not just that that side of life gets easier.
Speaker B:There is a part B to this and it sits with that transformation advisory side of a conversation for me.
Speaker A:Love that.
Speaker A:Thank you very much, Jason.
Speaker A:Really appreciate that.
Speaker A:And I think that's a good note for us to finish on.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining us again and we'll see you and speak to you very, very soon.
Speaker B:Fab.
Speaker B:Thanks very much, Tim.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining us on our podcast today.
Speaker A:Profit first beyond the book was brought to you by the Profit First Professionals UK and Ireland team.
Speaker A:If you'd like to find out more about Profit first or becoming a Profit First Professional, head to our website, profitfirstuk.co.uk.
