Most product-based business owners think they need something new to grow. A new strategy, a shiny tool, a game-changing idea. But the truth, you don't need more exciting. You need what actually works. Because the businesses that win on profit and cash flow, yeah, they've mastered the fundamentals. And this is exactly what we do inside the Inventory Genius program. We clean up your financials so that you have a clear, accurate picture of your inventory and your real margins. We fix your product mix, making sure every single SKU is actually making you money, not just creating revenue. And we build a profit plan so that you can pay off debt, generate cash, and run your business with confidence. No fluff, no guesswork, no chasing trends, just a proven system that helps product-based businesses win again when it comes to profit and it comes to cash. Because long-term success isn't flashy, it's consistent. Join us in the Inventory Genius program. Let's make your business work for you. Hey friend, welcome to the Inventory Genius podcast, where we work together here to make you an inventory genius. We talk about profit, we talk about cash flow, and we definitely talk about your paycheck. Because at the end of the day, it's all related to your inventory. Let's go. Welcome to the Inventory Genius podcast. Every product-based business has a money mystery to solve. And every week, I solve one of them. I'm your host, Sierra Stockland, fractional CFO and creator of the Inventory Genius operating system. And here's what I know after digging through hundreds of numbers for hundreds of product-based business owners, just like you. The answers are usually hiding in plain sight. You just don't know where to look or how to keep looking week after week. And that's what we're exploring on this show. So let's dig in. Okay, these clients were consistently low on cash. In fact, it was a husband and wife team, and they hadn't taken a consistent paycheck in months. That's not great because when you're both working in the business and neither of you are getting consistently paid, that's gonna start to get just a little bit stressful. Now, their product was phenomenal. In fact, I flew out and saw their store, I saw their showroom, and I was blown away. Genuinely, the product that they had was best in the category. They totally had a corner on the market. Customers loved it. They actually had repeat orders coming in. They were selling all over the world. On paper, it looked like the business should be thriving. So I was like, where's the disconnect here? Why do you have this phenomenal product? You're doing over a million dollars in revenue, but you're not paying yourself. There's a cash leak somewhere, and I want to find it. So here's the question that pulled me in. They were bringing in that million dollars, but the top line didn't match what was in their pocket. I started to get really interested in figuring out this puzzle. And so I began to investigate. The first thing I did was not to look at their expenses, it was to look at what they were actually selling. Because their product was so strong, I knew that the cash leak was hiding in the inventory somewhere. So I had them find of all of their products their best-selling one, the one customers loved, trusted, and bought without any hesitation. From there, I had them make two moves. First, I wanted to build a monthly program around that product, meaning I wanted to create a way for them to simply sell more of what was already working instead of having them continue to spread energy across all of their inventory sales. Then I went back to that best-selling product and I had them start to work on the cost of the goods of that product because I wanted them, as we started to ramp up the sales of that one product, to keep more and more of what was actually being sold. Two changes, one product. Over the next 12 months, that combination, you guys, it added up to an additional $135,000 in revenue in their business. Here's what stands out to me every time I see or work on a story like this. The cash opportunity wasn't hiding in some obscure corner of the business. It was actually in their best-selling product, the thing that was already working. Nobody was ignoring this on purpose. It just wasn't being looked at through the right lens. Nobody had asked, hey, what would happen if we built a system around the thing that's already succeeding instead of just kind of letting it sell on its own? But I asked that question. I dug in and I found that cash leak. And that's what I want you to hear at the heart of today's story. It wasn't about doing more. It wasn't about adding new products, paying for marketing, or just hustling harder. It was about looking closely at something that already existed and asking two very specific questions. Number one, how do I sell more of this? And number two, how do I keep more of what I'm going to start selling? That's it. Two questions. Two questions asked with real information behind them. And the answer was worth $135,000. Could one overlooked opportunity be costing you thousands right now? I'm guessing the answer is yes. Maybe it's shipping. Maybe it's a subscription you should be launching. Maybe it's just sitting in your best-selling product, like it was for my clients, quietly under-leveraged because nobody's really stopped to take a look at it. Would you have caught this opportunity? Here's what I keep coming back to on this show. Finding one leak one time is something almost anybody could do if they looked hard enough, right? The episode is proof of that. We found it together in one conversation, me and my clients. But here's the honest question that I want you to sit with. Would you have found it on your own? And even if you did, would you find the next opportunity and the one after that, consistently, month after month, without someone pointing it out to you? Because you're the owner of your business. You're the boss of your brand. I'm not always going to be around. You need to be able to find these things on your own. And that's really the difference between knowledge and a system. Because knowledge tells you what happened maybe once. But an operating system, that's what teaches you to keep finding these answers yourself every single week without needing to stumble on them by accident. Knowledge doesn't create uh change in a business. It really, truly doesn't. But an operating system, now that does. I'm gonna leave you with that to think about because the goal isn't for you to just hear one more story about hidden cash. It's to start becoming the kind of business owner who can find it for yourself whenever you need to. All right, until next time, go out, create more profit, and keep more cash. I'll see y'all next week. Bye for now. Hey there, friend. Okay, if you've been around me long enough, you know how important I feel it is that you have a good bookkeeper on your team. And that's why I'm really excited to welcome TO to the Inventory Genius World. At TO, they help businesses organize and streamline their accounting, set up smart systems, and actually use their financials to make good decisions. They give you the financial tools that you need to grow your business and remain successful. And here's what else I love about them: they have a dedicated team member that will work on cleanups. That's right. So if you have books that are a disaster, maybe you've never kept your books in the past, maybe you kept your books and your past bookkeeper did not do a very good job. Whatever the case, TO has a dedicated team member on staff that works specifically to clean up books and bring them up to date. So if this sounds like something that you'd be interested in, check out TNO. The link for their information and their contact information is in the show notes.