Stop Running Your Business Off Your Bank Balance

I ran my business by looking at my bank account for years. If the balance looked good, I felt good, and I’d pull the trigger on a $5,000-a-month decision without blinking. What I didn’t get back then is that money in the bank creates false confidence. It doesn’t tell you if you’re profitable, what liabilities are coming, or where the quiet leaks are.

I recently sat in a room at The Forum and heard Brandon Brittingham break down financial literacy for operators, and it changed how I read my own numbers. Here are the takeaways that stuck.

Accounting is a language, and you have to speak it. Brandon’s accountant told him accounting is the language of money, and if you run a business without speaking it, you’re operating without knowing the rules that govern the thing you built. That means living in your profit and loss statement, not your bank balance, because the P&L is where the leaks actually show up.

I’ll be honest, even once I had a P&L, sitting down and truly reading it was a little scary. But a monthly review with clean books is non-negotiable. Brandon compared it to blood work: It reveals your business’s health and flags what needs attention, and if you don’t look regularly, you won’t catch the problem until it’s too late.

Defend every expense, don’t just justify it. The move is a monthly review where you have to argue every line item, not explain it away. I’ll admit I’ve justified my expenses, but I hadn’t truly argued them: Do I need it? What ROI does it produce?

That’s how you kill shiny objects, redundant subscriptions, and forgotten recurring charges that pile up. Get ruthless and cut the $100, $200, and $500 monthly expenses that aren’t creating clear value.

Know your customer acquisition cost. Gross Commission Income (GCI) is not profit, and to know if your business is healthy, you have to know what it costs to generate a deal. The formula is simple: total expenses divided by total transactions.

If you spend $500,000 to close 200 deals, your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is $2,500. Brandon’s benchmark is that your average commission should be three to four times your CAC, so at $2,500, you want $7,500 or more per deal for healthy margins.

That gap between your commission and your CAC is the real profitability number, and your past clients and referrals are your most profitable source, because you already paid to acquire them once.

Plan for taxes, and pay yourself first. The IRS is the most overlooked expense in your business, potentially 30 to 37%, and ignoring it means you think you’re healthy when you’re not. And your own salary should be a fixed line item on the P&L, not whatever’s left over. Most people take the full commission, drop it in an account, and live off it, but not paying yourself first creates stress, weakens your leadership, and leads to burnout. Build it in, and you can look at your business any day and know exactly where you stand.

You can watch the full video above, or feel free to skip to the topics that interest you most using the timestamps below:

00:00 — Accounting Is Language
01:08 — Bank Balance Trap
02:55 — Defend Every Expense
04:41 — Know Your CAC
07:31 — Best Profit Sources
08:02 — Tax Planning Matters
08:30 — Pay Yourself First

If you want an honest look at where your business actually stands, and where you’re trying to take it, let’s have a confidential conversation. We’ll break down what’s working, what’s not, and what your next move should be. Call or text me at 517-343-1760, email me at jeff@jeffburkecoaching.com, or visit jeffburkecoaching.com.