You Might Be Marketing the Wrong Thing
This is a story about a business doing a few million dollars a year in revenue. Healthy size. Multiple product lines. A real operation.
For years, one product line accounted for roughly 25% of total revenue. That number alone made it feel untouchable. You don't walk away from 25% of your revenue — that's not a line item, that's a pillar. At least that's what everyone assumed.
Then they finally looked at the real numbers. It wasn't a pillar. It was a drag.
What the Numbers Actually Said
The company's overall gross margin was 46%. That product line was running at 30%. On its own, that's a gap worth understanding. But the fuller picture was worse.
It was the only line anyone wanted to market — not because it was the best opportunity, but because it was the easiest to sell. So it got the budget, the attention, and the calendar space. And because it was easy to market, they did more of it, which meant more payroll going into work that was quietly pulling the overall margin down every single month.
The line wasn't losing money. That's the part that made the decision hard. It was profitable — just significantly less profitable than everything else. And in a business with limited resources, that distinction matters more than most owners realize.
The Decision
They didn't cut the line. That's not always the right answer, and it wasn't here. What they did instead was stop actively marketing it, start saying no to certain jobs within it, and move the budget toward the product lines with the strongest margins.
There was some pain. When you shift focus after years of operating a certain way, there's always an adjustment. Two years later, they haven't looked back. The business is leaner, more profitable, and — maybe most importantly — finally marketing the work they actually wanted more of.
How AI Can Help You See This
Most business owners aren't sitting on this kind of clarity. The data usually exists somewhere — in QuickBooks, a spreadsheet, or a stack of reports nobody has looked at closely. The problem isn't a lack of information. It's that nobody has asked the right questions of it.
This is where AI earns its place as a thinking partner. You don't need to be a bookkeeper. You need to be able to pull a few basic reports and have a real conversation about what they're telling you.
Prompt of the Week
Start with whatever you can pull from QuickBooks — a Profit & Loss by class, by job type, or by product line if you have that set up. Even a rough breakdown is enough to begin.
Here is a breakdown of my revenue and gross margin by [product line / service type / job category]: [paste your numbers]. My overall gross margin is [X%]. Based on this, which areas of my business appear to be dragging down my overall margin? Which lines are performing above average? I want to understand where my time, payroll, and marketing budget are going relative to what's actually most profitable — and what questions I should be asking that I'm probably not asking yet.
If your books aren't clean enough for that, start here instead:
I own a [type of business]. My rough sense of revenue by service or product line is: [list and estimate]. I don't have clean margin data, but here's what I know about the time, labor, and effort each one requires: [describe]. Help me figure out what information I should be tracking and what questions I should bring to my accountant or bookkeeper to get clarity on where my real margins are.
You might not love what comes back. But you'll know more than you did.
The Real Point
Monday's issue was about marketing the business you want — not the one you accidentally have. This is the step before that. You can't market toward your best opportunities if you don't know which ones they are.
The numbers usually know. Most owners just haven't asked them the right questions yet.