The most powerful lever in the profit equation

Reza Hooda

You can’t manage profit. Profit is simply an end result. It’s the end result of a series of processes.

It’s the business model.

Numbers drive that business model. When you fully understand your business model and how the numbers work you will be able manage and improve the drivers of profit.

Every business is different and will have its own unique business model and profit drivers. Nevertheless, for most businesses there is a generic model. This model has 9 drivers, so let’s explore that.


A model of your business


Profit is the end result of deducting costs from sales.


It looks like this:

PROFIT = SALES – COSTS

But that’s far too simplistic. We have to understand both sales and costs in more detail.


What drives costs?


Costs are made up of fixed costs and variable costs. It’s important to differentiate between the two because they have a very different impact on your business model.

Variable costs – sometimes referred to as direct costs – change in proportion to changes in sales. Typical examples are direct labour and the cost of raw materials.

Fixed costs, as the name suggests, don’t change (at least, not in the short term). Typical examples are premises costs, sales force salaries and administrative staff salaries.


Fixed costs are usually fixed in the short term, but over the longer term can vary. Whilst a 10% increase in sales is unlikely to have any impact, a doubling of the business may lead to the need to hire more administrative staff or larger premises.

Other forms of cost exist, such as stepped costs, which are a form of fixed costs that jump in steps as business activity and sales increase.


For example, if you manufacture widgets and you increase your sales by 10% your variable costs also increase by 10%.


Your fixed costs probably won’t change with a small change in sales.

If your sales of widgets increase by a larger amount, say 50%, your direct costs would increase by 50%. Some of your fixed costs such as premises costs may continue to be unchanged.


But to generate that increase in sales of 50% the cost of your sales force is likely to rise (possibly by as much as 50%, or even more). Those costs will not vary directly with sales, but they will increase in steps.

Whilst you should be aware of different costs and how they react to changes in sales and business activities, splitting costs between variable and fixed will usually suffice. So, we’ll keep things simple.

So, our formula now becomes:

PROFIT = SALES – VARIABLE COSTS – FIXED COSTS

Have you spotted something about this formula?

This is how accountants set out your end of year financial statements. Go and check them out.


Here again is Eddie’s financial statement (I’ve just added the terms used in the above formula for clarity).

You’ll see that accountants simply add in a line for gross profit which simply means sales less variable costs (and often this is expressed as a ratio too, often referred to as gross margin):.

Whilst this analysis of a business provides some useful insights – measuring trends in these numbers over time and analysing changes in gross margins – it doesn’t go anywhere near far enough.

Let me explain why…

You could improve profit by focusing on fixed costs. The trouble is there is only so much fixed cost you can remove from a business before it has a seriously detrimental impact.


You almost certainly can’t halve your fixed costs without radically redesigning the whole business model. It’s quite hard to reduce fixed costs by 10% without harming the business in some way.

Whilst you should be mindful of costs at all times, improving this profit driver will only result in a relatively small improvement in profit.

It’s the same with variable costs.

Realistically, if you focus on reducing your fixed and variable costs you would probably achieve a 5% improvement in both, and for Eddie that would increase his profits from £33,000 to £73,850. Certainly worthwhile, but not game-changing.

Unfortunately, this is where the advice from many accounting professionals stops. When asking for advice on how to improve profits, most focus on the cost drivers. The real power lies tucked away in the drivers of sales.


What drives sales?


The famous marketer, Jay Abraham, championed the idea of “Three ways to grow a business” which describes a powerful way of looking at how sales are made up.


He describes it like this:

SALES = NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS x AVERAGE AMOUNT OF EACH TRANSACTION x AVERAGE NUMBER OF TRANSACTIONS IN A YEAR

Let’s simplify the terminology into this:

SALES = CUSTOMERS x SPEND x TRANSACTIONS

From a marketing perspective, this is very powerful. Most business owners wanting to grow their business focus solely on the first component; winning more customers. And whilst there is nothing wrong with that, it limits what is possible.

For example, let’s imagine Eddie (who we first introduced in last week's article) wants to grow his business by 10%.


He could carry out some marketing activities to win 10% more customers. If he does that, his sales and profits would look like this.


Winning 10% more customers

I’m assuming here that fixed costs will not change. However, there are likely to be some additional costs in respect of the marketing, such as advertising or hiring a marketing consultant.


Consequently, the impact on bottom-line profit is likely to be a little less.

He could of course achieve exactly the same result if instead he puts some systems in place to increase the amount of money his existing customers spend with him each time they do business by 10%.


Increasing the average amount of each transaction has the same impact on sales.

Alternatively, Eddie could implement some strategies for getting his existing customers to buy more often each year by 10%, i.e. increase the average number of transactions in a year.

A 10% improvement in any one of these three drivers will increase sales by 10%.

However, marketers teach us that working on the second of those sales drivers is much easier because you already have an existing relationship with your customers. It’s much easier to sell more to an existing customer who knows you, than to acquire a new customer.


The power of synergy


What would happen if Eddie put in place some strategies and systems to increase each of those three sales drivers?


What if he acquired 10% more customers, and got his customers to spend more each time by 10% and by 10% more frequently?

What would be the overall impact on sales?

Not 10%. Much better than that.

And not 30% either.

It’s actually 33.1%.

What happens is each of the drivers interacts with each other and we get synergy. For this reason, you grow your business faster if you make small improvements in all the drivers, rather than focusing on just one thing, like winning new customers.


Putting this together


We now have 5 drivers of profit in our business model:

PROFIT = (CUSTOMERS x SPEND x TRANSACTIONS) – VARIABLE COSTS – FIXED COSTS

This is a much more useful model of a business. But we can take this a step further.


What determines the number of customers you have?


If you want to increase the profits of your business you could focus your attention on the first sales driver, number of customers. But what determines the number of customers?

We can break this driver into 3 separate components:

CUSTOMERS = CUSTOMERS LAST YEAR + (NUMBER OF SALES LEADS x SALES CONVERSION RATE) – CUSTOMER DEFECTION RATE

In other words, there are 3 things that drive the change in the number of customers:

1.     Getting more sales leads (which is MARKETING)

2.     Converting more of those sales leads into customers (which is SALES)

3.     Reducing the number of customers that leave (which is CUSTOMER SERVICE)

Once again, we can model this mathematically and identify how a change in each of these drivers impacts on profit. A good accounting professional will be able to do this for you.


Why is the price driver different?


The second of Jay Abraham’s 3 ways to grow a business is the average amount of each transaction. In other words, what can you do to get customers to spend more money with you every time they do business with you?

This is very powerful.

But to build our mathematical business model we need to break this down into two separate components.


Essentially there are two ways of getting customers to spend more:

1.     Buy more from you each time (for example, by creating some up-selling systems), and

2.     Changing the price.

It’s important to consider these two separately because they each have a different impact on costs. Buying more of your products or services means variable, or direct, costs also go up.


Changing price has no impact on costs.

This is one of the reasons why, mathematically, price is the most powerful lever in the profit equation. To illustrate, let’s go back to Eddie.

Remember, if Eddie wants to grow his business by 10% he could get his existing customers to buy more from him every time they do business.


For example, when he agrees the price for doing a film shoot he might then offer some enhancements such as creating a blooper reel, doing a multi camera shoot or something else that enhances the service and increases the order by 10%.


This is the impact doing this would have on Eddie’s profit:


Customers buying 10% more

Notice that these additional sales will increase the variable costs by 10% too.

However, he could instead increase the amount his customers spend by increasing the price.


If he does this by increasing average prices by 10%, and assuming no resulting loss of customers, his profit will now look like this:


Increasing price by 10% without losing customers

Changing price does not impact on the cost structure. The impact on profit is much greater than increasing sales in other ways.


The latter increases Eddie’s profit by 249.4% to £82,300 which is a great result. But even more impressive is the 357.6% increase to £118,000 by changing average prices.Not only is the potential impact on profit much greater, it is also faster. In other words, to grow sales using any of the 3 sales drivers takes time.


To grow a business by 10% with a focus on winning new customers can easily take a year or more (unless you are a new business Start Up). In contrast, you can change your pricing structure tomorrow.


But there is a big problem


If you put your average prices up by 10% you will lose business. Possibly as much as 10% of customers. And possibly much more.

At least, that’s the common reaction.

However, the reality is likely to be very different. In most cases, the number of customers you lose from a price rise is much less than expected. Sometimes it’s even no loss of customers. And sometimes it results in an increase in new customers.

Of course, you may well be sceptical. And there is nothing wrong with healthy scepticism.

Very often, the number of customers you can afford to lose and maintain profits is higher than you might think.


For example, if Eddie increases his prices by 10% and loses 10% of his customers, his bottom-line profit will still increase by £27,200.

Why is that?

With a 10% increase in price and a 10% loss of customers, sales don’t change much (they would actually reduce by just 1%). Much more importantly, with 10% less customers to serve, those variable costs also reduce by 10%.

In fact, Eddie can afford to lose 14.71% of his customers and his profit won’t change. And that would still be a great result. Making the same profit but with 14.71% less customers, Eddie can work less hard for the same money.

Not only that. Think about which customers leave when you put your prices up. Is it those loyal customers who love what you do, are a joy to work with, give you the most – and most interesting – work and always pay you on time?

No. Those are the customers who will stay with you. The ones you lose are the ones who always moan and complain about your price. They are the ones who pay you late. In short, the customers you hate dealing with.

In contrast, when you cut prices you attract price shoppers. And the problem with price shoppers is, they have no loyalty. They are the first to leave you when someone else cheaper comes along. Here’s a simple rule:


Reducing your prices attracts the worst customers


Putting your prices up improves the quality of your customer base

I’ve shared with you some numbers for Eddie’s business. Every business is different. Your business is different. The results you would get depend upon your cost structure.


Nevertheless, you can build a mathematical model to describe your business. When you do this, you can see the impact on your profit from making changes to any of these 8 profit drivers.

If you don’t know how to build that mathematical model, speak to a specialist (like us :-) who can do this for you. Get in touch today!

That just leaves one more driver.


The 9th driver


The final driver is a little different, but no less important.

The first 8 drivers can be built into a complex mathematical model; a model that predicts what happens to profit when you manage and change any of the drivers.

The final driver is to systemise everything. To create systems for improving each of the drivers of profits, e.g. customer service systems, selling systems, referral systems, pricing systems.


Quick summary of the 9 drivers of profit


Here are the 9 profit drivers (and the function of a business they fall within):

1.     Getting more sales leads (Marketing)

2.     Converting sales leads into customers (Sales)

3.     Getting customers to spend more (Marketing)

4.     Getting customers to spend more often (Marketing)

5.     Getting customers to remain customers for longer (Customer Service)

6.     Pricing for maximum profit (Pricing/Marketing)

7.     Variable costs (Operational)

8.     Fixed costs (Operational)

9.     Systemise everything (Operational)


Which profit driver should you focus on?


You should work on all of them simultaneously. But if you were to pick one you should always start with price.


Firstly, it is the most powerful lever in the profit equation, i.e. it has the biggest mathematical impact on profit. Secondly, it can have an immediate impact on profit.

You must also understand how each of the drivers impacts on other elements of the profit equation. Most businesses focus on getting more sales leads and winning more customers.


However, if the price is wrong (or by giving discounts to attract new customers) very often this can have a negative impact on profit.

I often come across business owners who are working way too hard, getting very stressed and not making enough money. They think the solution is to win new business.


However, the real problem is usually the wrong pricing. If your prices are too low, winning new customers simply compounds the problem… you just find yourself working harder and harder.

This is why pricing is so important. Get your pricing right and you’ll see your profits rising significantly. Get it wrong and it’s a fast way to go out of business.

You must understand the numbers.

This is why you always start with the numbers before creating your pricing strategy.

Appreciate it's been a long post but hopefully has been valuable!

Would love to hear you pricing stories, feel free to share.

Very best

Reza

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Worldwide Disclosure Facility: Your Guide to Offshore Tax Compliance

By Reza Hooda • December 3, 2024
The Worldwide Disclosure Facility (WDF) is a program set up by HMRC to help people and businesses follow the rules for taxes on money from outside the UK. If you have income or money from other countries that you haven't told HMRC about before, this program gives you a chance to fix your tax situation and make sure you're following the law. Key Points: Worldwide Disclosure Facility Opportunity for UK taxpayers to tell HMRC about offshore issues they didn't report before Covers tax years up to and including 2022-2023 It gives you 90 days to tell HMRC everything after you let them know you want to use the facility Works for people living in the UK and those living elsewhere who need to pay UK taxes It could mean that you pay less in fines compared to if HMRC found out on their own What is the Worldwide Disclosure Facility? The Worldwide Disclosure Facility is a way for people and companies to tell HMRC about money or things they own in other countries that they should have paid UK tax on but didn't. This includes money from houses in other countries, money from investments abroad, and gifts or inheritances from people in other countries that you didn't tell HMRC about before. Who can use the Worldwide Disclosure Facility? The WDF is for anyone who wants to disclose a UK tax liability wholly or partly related to an offshore issue. This includes unpaid or omitted tax related to the following: Income arising from a source in a territory outside the UK Assets situated or held in a territory outside the UK Activities carried on wholly or mainly in a territory outside the UK Funds connected to unpaid or omitted UK tax that you have transferred to a territory outside the UK A common misconception that UK resident and non-domiciled taxpayers are unaware of is, that a UK tax liability arises on: Rental income from property located outside the UK If you’re not resident in the UK, you can still make a disclosure if you meet the eligibility criteria. The WDF may not cover 22/23 as you are still within time limits to submit an amended tax return (deadline is 31 January 2025). Why Use the Worldwide Disclosure Facility? Using the WDF can help you avoid bigger fines and possible criminal investigation that could happen if HMRC found out about your overseas money on their own. It's a way to be honest about your taxes from other countries and get back on track with what HMRC requires. It's ok to have investments in other countries, but not telling HMRC about the money you make from them is against the law. The WDF gives you a chance to fix this mistake and show that you want to follow the tax rules. How to Respond to HMRC Nudge Letter HMRC identifies those who need to make a tax disclosure and sends them a nudge letter based on data they have obtained. If you’ve received a nudge letter, HMRC has identified a potential issue in your UK tax affairs. Rather than ignoring this, it's best to seek advice from a tax professional to ensure compliance with your offshore tax affairs. We can assist you in finding irregularities in your offshore affairs before making a disclosure through the WDF. It’s important to seek professional advice and take careful consideration before responding to a nudge letter, as making a false declaration can lead to serious consequences. How Does the Disclosure Process Work? The WDF process has several important steps: Notify HMRC that you want to make a disclosure. This means letting them know you want to use the facility. To register, use the Digital Disclosure Service. You’ll need some key information such as your address, DOB, and National Insurance to notify and disclose. On receiving your unique Disclosure Reference Number (DRN), you must make your disclosure within 90 days after getting the notification acknowledgement. If your disclosure is prompted by a letter from HMRC, you’ll need to state this in the disclosure. Depending on your reasons for not disclosing your tax liability, the penalties will vary. If you’re unsure on the self-assessing behaviour option that applies, seek professional advice. Figure out how much tax, interest, and penalties you owe. You’ll need to disclose any unreported income or gains, as well as the associated tax, interest and penalties. You might need help from a professional for this part. Tell HMRC everything within 90 days of receiving the unique DRN from them. You need to include all the important information about your money and things you own in other countries. Offer to pay the full amount you owe or agree to the HMRC terms to pay it over time, using your Payment Reference Number (PRN). It's really important to be thorough, honest, and clear when you're telling HMRC everything. They can check the information you give them, and if you don't tell the truth or leave things out, you could get in big trouble. The 90-day window to tell them everything is strict, so start gathering all the information you need as soon as you decide to use the WDF. What Penalties Might I Face? If you’re not following offshore tax rules, HMRC takes this very seriously. However, if your disclosure is unprompted, you could reduce the penalties you are liable for. Your penalty amount is based on whether it was a mistake, if it was deliberate or not, and how long you didn’t follow the rules. The Benefits of Disclosing through the WDF Voluntarily sorting out your tax affairs can provide many benefits. HMRC prefers when you come forward rather than having to be tracked down by them. This can prove that you are responsible in your tax affairs. Also, you could potentially reduce the penalties by coming forward, and reduce the number of years assessed. What Should I Look Out For? When using the WDF, there are some important things to remember: Make sure to tell HMRC about everything - if you leave things out, you could get bigger fines and HMRC might investigate you more. Remember to include the interest you owe on unpaid tax when you're figuring out how much to pay. Think about getting help from a professional, especially if your tax situation is complicated or involves many countries. Be ready to show proof of everything to HMRC. This might include bank statements, investment records, and documents about properties you own. Remember that HMRC can look into your finances from up to 20 years ago for serious cases. Know that if you didn't follow the rules on purpose, you could be in really big trouble. Being honest when you use the WDF can help avoid this. If you're not sure about anything when using the WDF, it's a good idea to ask a tax expert for help . They can guide you through the process and make sure you're doing everything right. Conclusion The Worldwide Disclosure Facility is an important tool for people and businesses who need to fix their offshore tax situation. While it might seem scary to tell HMRC about money or gains you didn't report before, using the WDF is usually much better than risking HMRC finding out on their own. It's worth knowing that many countries now share financial information automatically, so it's much more likely that HMRC will find out about offshore money that has yet to be reported. It's important to know that telling HMRC everything can be complicated, especially if you have money in different countries. In these cases, it's a good idea to get help from a tax professional to make sure you're telling HMRC everything they need to know correctly. At Walji, we can offer specialist advice on your tax affairs and help you with your disclosure. To apply for a callback, please fill in our contact form and we’ll be sure to get back to you.

The Let Property Campaign: A Landlord's Guide to Tax Compliance

By Reza Hooda • November 19, 2024
As a landlord, it's important to keep up with your taxes. The Let Property Campaign (LPC) helps those who might have forgotten to report all their rental income. Let's look at what this means for you and how to make sure you're doing everything right. Key Points The Let Property Campaign is a programme for landlords to report missed rental income It often has lower penalties than if HMRC finds out on their own It's for different types of rentals, including UK and overseas properties You have 90 days to figure out and pay taxes after telling HMRC It's better to tell HMRC yourself to avoid bigger problems later What is the Let Property Campaign? The Let Property Campaign is a service by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to encourage residential property landlords to straighten out their taxes. It helps landlords fix their taxes if they haven’t reported all their rental income beforehand. This programme gives landlords a way to come forward, report any unpaid taxes, and follow the tax rules properly. If you haven't disclosed your rental income, you may have received a nudge letter from HMRC. This letter is to notify you to come forward through the Let Property Campaign to disclose your taxes, and ensure you don’t end up with bigger penalties or face criminal investigation. Who is eligible for the Let Property Campaign? The LPC is for many types of landlords, if you are: Renting out one or more properties Renting out holiday homes Renting out rooms in their own home Those who have inherited a property and are renting it out UK residents renting out properties in other countries Non-UK residents renting out UK properties If you're one of these and haven't reported all your rental income, the LPC can help you fix your taxes. It's especially helpful if you didn't know you had to report everything or if you fell behind by accident. The LPC is not for landlords who: Have non-residential properties like shops, garages or lockups, etc. Want to disclose income on behalf of a trust or company How to make the Let Property Campaign Disclosure 1. Tell HMRC First, you need to tell HMRC you want to report your income. You can do this online through the Digital Disclosure Service (DDS) . After you notify HMRC, you have 90 days to make your disclosure. This first step is important because it shows you want to cooperate. 2. Collect Information Use this time to gather all your financial records about your rental income from your property. This includes: Details about you and when you bought the property Details about the property The total rental income for each year (not declared to HMRC) You don’t need to include income which you’ve told HMRC about (previously declared in a tax return) Work out allowable expenses incurred on income (day-to-day money spent) Deduct allowable expenses from income to determine taxable profit Being thorough here will help make sure your report is correct and complete, which can prevent problems later. Read our blog post to learn more about expenses landlords can claim . 3. Calculate Taxes Once you’ve worked out the additional rental income you need to figure out how much tax you owe. The rates of income tax that you’ll pay depend on how much you earn above the Personal Allowance. 4. Submit and Pay Once you've calculated the amount of tax you owe, you need to make a formal offer for the full amount to HMRC. Essentially you need to complete the disclosure and provide details of the rental income not declared to HMRC. Once your offer is met with an acceptance letter, it will create a legally binding contract between you and HMRC. You'll need to pay the taxes you owe, plus any interest and penalties before the 90-day deadline on your notification acknowledgement letter. If you can't pay it all at once, you need to speak to HMRC before submitting your disclosure or payment. How many years are included for the disclosure in the LPC? It depends. HMRC will ask the reason why you didn’t declare, whether it was deliberate or not. Depending on how many years you have not reported income from your property, this can range from four to 20 years. Understanding Let Property Campaign Penalties While the LPC has better terms than if HMRC investigates you, there are still penalties. The exact penalty will depend on things like: How long you didn't report the income Why you didn't report it How helpful you are during the process Whether you didn't report on purpose or by mistake Penalties can be from 0% for honest mistakes to up to 100% of the tax owed for hiding income on purpose. But by coming forward through the LPC, you'll likely face lower penalties. How HMRC finds unreported Income HMRC has smart ways to find unreported rental income. Their system, called "Connect", gets information from many places, including land registry records, letting agencies, local councils, bank and credit card transactions etc. This makes it more likely that unreported income will be found, showing why it's important to report yourself. HMRC keeps getting better at this, making it harder for landlords who don't report to stay hidden. Staying on top of taxes in the future After joining the Let Property Campaign, it's important to keep following tax rules. This includes: Keeping good records of all rental income and expenses Sending in Self Assessment tax returns on time Staying informed about changes in tax laws for landlords Regularly checking your tax situation to make sure you're still following the rules Thinking about using property management software to help keep records Download a free book (from our Partner Reza Hooda) to answer all your property tax questions. Conclusion The Let Property Campaign gives landlords a chance to fix their taxes and avoid big problems. By choosing to report unreported rental income yourself, you can get lower penalties and peace of mind. Since tax laws can be tricky, especially for property owners, it's often a good idea to get professional advice. This helps make sure you're following current rules and are ready for future changes in property taxes. At Walji, we can offer specialist advice on your property situation. To apply for a callback, please fill in our contact form and we’ll be sure to get back to you.