We’re Growing. Now I Want to Make Money

This week, Sarah Segal tells David C. Barnett and Jay Goltz that she has decided it’s time to pay more attention to something that can occasionally get lost amid the other demands of running a business: making money. Sarah’s agency is having a very good year, with revenue growing 40 to 50 percent. But she’s realized that growth alone isn’t enough. She wants to know exactly what it costs to hire each employee, what it costs to service each client, whether her fees are covering those costs—and what has to change if she’s going to hit a 20 percent profit margin. She’s also confronting something a lot of owners struggle with: how much to pay herself. For years, Sarah says, she’s been inclined to put the money back into the business rather than pay herself a market rate salary. Now she’s trying to do both—raise her own compensation while making the business more profitable.

Along the way, Sarah, Dave, and Jay weigh in on how owners can fool themselves about profitability, why growing businesses eventually require real budgets, and what owners should actually expect from their banks. Is a bank merely a safe place to park your cash, or can you expect it to help you finance and build your business?

Plus: When should a new business start paying its owner a salary? Dave argues that until a business can pay the owner for the work he or she is doing, it’s more of a hobby than a business. He also explains how entrepreneurs can get trapped in money-losing businesses—not necessarily because they still believe in the business, but because loans, leases, and personal guarantees can make shutting down even more expensive than continuing to operate. The episode is brought to you by Grasshopper Bank.