Your Business Is Making Money. What About You?

Most business owners can tell you what is in the bank account. Almost none can answer the question Penny Armbruster asks first: what is your gross profit margin? This one is for every owner whose business is making money while their own paycheck is still guesswork.

Penny Armbruster is a Fractional CFO and the founder of 1610 Financial Solutions. She spent twenty years in the accounting industry watching owners of $300K to $2M businesses fly blind: guessing at cash flow, dreading tax time, and hearing from their CPA once a year when the bill arrived. She built 1610 Financial Solutions to replace that transactional model with real strategic partnership, teaching owners to pay themselves every single month, reserve tax money without the panic, and hear about their finances in plain English with none of the shame. She joins Amanda Kaufman to break down the number every business competes on, the three cash flow mistakes that kill businesses in their first five years, and her simple system for paying yourself.

In this episode, you will learn:

💰 What gross profit margin really means (how much does it cost you to make money?) and why it is the number you compete with your competitors on 🤖 Penny's actionable first step: ask your AI which KPIs to watch for your type of business, then benchmark against your competitors 📉 The three reasons businesses die in the first five years: not paying yourself, mixing personal and business finances, and taking too much money out 🌾 The farmer's rule for cash flow: you cannot eat all your seed and still have a harvest next year 💵 Penny's pay-yourself system: average the last three months of net profit, pay yourself on the first of the month, and live on last month's money 🍽️ The restaurant benchmarks that reveal exactly why a business is losing money: cost of goods sold and labor each between 25 and 30 percent 💡 The story of a $6M to $7M business owner who had no idea how bad last year was until the books got cleaned up 🗣️ Why Penny leads the money conversation in plain English, and how to find an accountant who does the same

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction to Penny Armbruster and her expertise 01:54 The importance of understanding gross profit margin 03:35 The role of gross profit margin in business performance 06:19 How Penny helps business owners pay themselves systematically 10:09 Real-life examples of financial cleanup and insights 12:30 Making data-driven trade-offs for growth 13:54 Penny's personal journey and passion for numbers 15:14 The importance of clear communication in finance 16:41 Free resource: How to pay yourself PDF 17:28 Separating personal and business finances

CONNECT WITH PENNY ARMBRUSTER

🌐 Website: https://www.1610consulting.com 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penny-armbruster/ 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parmbruster/ ▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PennyDawn 👍 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/penny.armbruster

🎁 Free gift: the Pay Yourself PDF, a simple, confidence-building guide for business owners who are ready to stop guessing and start paying themselves consistently, with the formula for how much to pay yourself and the mechanics of how to do it. DM Penny the keyword "Pay Yourself PDF" on LinkedIn to get your copy.

STAY IN THE LOOP

💌 Subscribe to The Quiet Part, Amanda's newsletter where she shares what is actually working in her business, without the performance. Sign up at: https://clairvenu.com/the-quiet-part

🎤 Want to be a guest? Amanda is always looking for guests who can help business owners build something that actually works. If that sounds like you, apply at https://clairvenu.com/the-podcast