Feeling overworked, stressed, and tired from juggling all the things to grow your small business? How would you rate the quality of your decision-making or financial discipline in that state? Yeah, not great – you’re not alone there. This article focuses on how to make a business profitable by helping you draw clear boundary lines around your finances, so you can continue growing your business with confidence. 

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How to Make a Business Profitable Without the Pressure & Self-Judgement 😨

As a business owner, you have a lot of decisions to make every day. 

You might need to make big decisions under stressful circumstances, like when something important breaks and you need to fix it urgently. 

You might be able to take your time with other decisions, like making choices about the direction of your brand identity or which product shots might improve your marketing. 

Critically, every decision adds up. 

It’s enough to drain anyone of their creative energy.

Think about the last time you were in that state – when you’re burnt out and in desperate need of a break. 

How would you rate your decision quality at that point? 

Probably not very good. 

Stress creates tunnel-vision, limiting our view of the problem and closing our minds to potential solutions. 

| RELATED: 1 Simple Strategy You Need To Prevent Burnout

Here’s the problem: as a business owner, because you have so many decisions to make every day, you risk always being in that state. 

And, of course, stress makes financial mistakes in business more likely too. 

Also, money just might be a stressful topic for you generally. 

| RELATED: How to Manage Money in Business Always Starts with a Mindset Boost

When you’re tired and overworked, you might: 

• Make stress purchases to try to make yourself feel better
• Buy unnecessary solutions to solve problems
• Fail to monitor critical details, like costs or deadlines
• Say yes to prices that don’t serve your bottom line

These are all things you could probably handle well if you had the energy and capacity to do so. 

Profitability gets much harder when all of these poor decisions add up. 

| RELATED: How to Manage Small Business Finances And Spark Your Imagination with an Income Statement

Good news, there’s a way to make dealing with all your decisions much simpler, so you can protect your profitability. 

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Learn How to Increase Profitability with Better Financial Decisions 🤑

This isn’t about putting pressure on yourself to “be more disciplined.” 

It’s not about cutting up your credit card. 

It’s about making the right choices easier to execute in the moment, so you can increase your decision quality, reduce decision fatigue and juggle your tasks sustainably. 

Mistakes happen in business for a variety of reasons, but you don’t want decision fatigue to be the cause of any self-inflicted damage. 

| RELATED: How to Manage Business Finances & Avoid These Big 5 Costly Mistakes

You can make it easier for yourself to make effective, high-quality decisions with clear financial boundaries. 

Think of boundaries as intentional constraints, placing limits on your behavior. 

That might sound like a negative, but it’s actually incredibly useful – especially when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed. 

By naming what’s okay and what’s not okay to think, say, or do in a particular circumstance, you make it easier to choose the right behavior in the moment, when you’re likely going to feel stress and pressure, tempting you into the wrong behavior. 

Boundaries are short-cuts that keep you moving in the right direction. 

Financial boundaries, therefore, are about the rules you put in place to govern any money-related decisions about your business. 

Critically, financial boundaries can be even more effective when they protect a financially healthy business. Need a check-up? Try my FREE Business Financial Health Checklist.

| FREE CHECKLIST: You Absolutely Need This Simple Business Financial Health Checklist

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Essential Tools for Strong Financial Boundaries ⚒️

There are two simple tools you can use to establish financial boundaries for your business. 

Tool 01: Name What’s Okay & What’s Not Okay

Yes, this tool takes the definition of boundary quite literally. 

Make a table with two columns: 

• Label the column on the left: “it’s okay to…”
• Label the column on the right: “it’s NOT okay to…”

Now, pick a specific situation, like: 

• “When I need to make a tough financial decision for my business…”
• “When I fail or make a mistake…”
• “When I’m tired and overworked…”

Finally, name some rules. 

For example:

“When I need to make a tough financial decision for my business…”

It’s okay to… 

• Pause and consider alternatives tomorrow
• Invest to improve long-term profitability

It’s not okay to… 

• Rush the decision today because I’m too tired to think
• Impulse buy a short-term solution

Remember, learning how to increase small business profits isn’t about one, big sweeping move. 

Rather, it’s about the decisions you make every day that add up to profitability over time. 

Tool 02: Establish “yes criteria”

“Yes criteria” serve as quick tests to help you consider and decide if something serves you and your business or if it does not. 

Identify 1-3 specific criteria that have to be met for you to say yes to something or take some other action. 

If one or more of those criteria are not met, it might be an automatic no – or, at least, it gets you thinking about whether it’s a good idea or not. 

For example, let’s say someone asks you to change your prices for them or you have an idea to expand your product line. 

In any of these or other scenarios, just ask yourself: 

• What would have to be true for me to say yes to this request? 
• What do I need to protect or preserve? 

The resulting answers you identify can become your rules. 

Example of Financial Boundaries in Action

One of my previous 1:1 coaching clients made custom apparel and accessories

Her products were super popular and she had orders coming in constantly, including requests asking for free products or for trades. 

She needed a way to easily prioritize requests that would actually grow her business. 

Together, we established “yes criteria” to help her establish better financial boundaries and protect her profitability. 

Here’s what she identified: 

“In order for me to say yes to an order it has to: 

1. Challenge me, creatively 
2. Be profitable 
3. Grow my brand.” 

Notice how simple that list is – don’t overthink it. 

In fact, the shorter and stickier the better, because you’ll be more easily able to call it to mind in a moment of need. 

If you’re just deciding what to do in the moment when a decision presents itself, you’ll be unprepared and more likely to compromise. 

Naming criteria in advance makes it more likely you’ll be able to resist temptation. 

Clear financial boundaries make it easier to exercise financial discipline in business – they help make each decision easier, which in turn: 

• Increases your capacity for making decisions overall
• Ensures you make more effective decisions in the moment
• Primes your brain to protect your profitability before each decision

Now, if you can maintain strong financial boundaries while dealing with the natural financial growing pains associated with starting and growing a business, you’ll be better prepared to handle stress and pressure.

You can learn more about financial growing pains in my email course on Small Business Money Management.

| EMAIL COURSES: 4 Amazingly Simple Email Courses For Small Business Owners

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How to Make a Business Profitable & Keep it That Way 💸

Now that you’re armed with the right tools, here are 4 financial boundaries you might want to consider to help you practice financial discipline in business: 

Prices

You may get requests from people asking for reduced rates, product trades, or even doing work for free. 

Assuming your prices are something you feel confident about…

| RELATED: How to Set Prices For Your Small Business You Can Feel Confident About in 5 Steps

…you might want to name a financial boundary to hold firm and protect your profitability. 

For example: 

It’s okay to… 

• “Name what I’m worth”
• “Let some customers walk away”

It’s not okay to… 

• “Sell myself short”
• “Try to please everyone”

By the way, if those ideas make you uncomfortable, you might benefit from developing a few essential entrepreneurial skills with my workbook!

| WORKBOOK: How to Run a Business Successfully with These 3 Essential Entrepreneurial Skills

Spending

Sometimes as your revenue grows, it’s easy to justify spending more. 

Investing in yourself and your business is important for long term growth. But, remember, the higher your costs, the lower your profit margin. 

Weigh the trade-offs by asking yourself questions, like: 

• How does this expense support my business’ goals? 
• What am I forgoing by saying yes to this expense? 

Try coming up with a set of “yes criteria” for expenses. For example:

“In order for me to take on another expense, I need to first: 

• Check that it’s imperative
• Name if it’s a short-term or long-term solution
• Know how I’ll pay for it.”

Sometimes your criteria will lead you to a clear no, like in my client’s case above. 

But, sometimes, as in this example, you just need a brief pause before swiping your business credit card to ensure your actions are conscious. 

Paying Yourself

You’ve probably already heard that it’s better to keep your business and personal finances separate. That’s true – it’s much easier to keep track of everything. 

So, when it comes time to pay yourself, you might need to make a bank transfer or deposit. 

At that moment, you might want to pause and consider “yes criteria” to ensure the business has enough cash on hand. For example:

“In order for me to pay myself, my business first needs to:

• Make $10,000 in profit after all taxes and expenses
• Have $5,000 in cash for next quarter’s expenses
• Have 12 orders or clients booked already for next month.”

These rules might be very personal and unique to your business. Make a list that supports whatever you’re trying to achieve. 

New Products or Services

Adding new products or services to your business can be exciting, but to get them off the ground takes financial resources, time, and attention. 

If you’re concerned about being distracted or stretched thin, you might try something like this: 

It’s okay to… 

• “Brainstorm new products or services”
• “Conduct a small experiment to get evidence”

It’s not okay to… 

• “Jump in without doing the math or getting customer feedback”
• “Change the business overnight on a whim”

To be clear, these kinds of constraints might not be right for everyone. 

Just think about what you personally need in order to feel effective and make better decisions. 

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You Still Need Financial Discipline In Business 💰

With every order you accept (or appointment you book) and every swipe of your business’ credit card, you’re making a choice about how to grow or evolve your business. 

Financial boundaries are not a guarantee for how to make a business profitable. 

You still need to exercise financial discipline in business. 

But, remember, relying on discipline alone can be exhausting – leaving you open to temptation and risk. 

Rather, financial boundaries are simply a way to make your financial decisions more intentional and deliberate. 

Learning how to make a business profitable requires a detailed understanding of what’s driving your costs, setting prices you can be confident in, and more. 

These are just a place for you to start. Find a system that works for you. 

Additionally, each tool – the “it’s okay & It’s not okay” table and the “yes criteria” – can be used interchangeably. 

These examples are just meant to get you thinking. 

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How to Make a Business Profitable & Keep it That Way – Start Here 🤓

Learning how to make a business profitable isn’t easy and it can be exhausting. 

Financial boundaries can lighten the load by simplifying decisions, helping you navigate them more efficiently. 

Naming your financial boundaries is only the beginning, of course. 

Writing them down is not enough – you have to actually put them into practice. 

Know that you won’t get it right all the time. And, you may have to improve them as your intentions meet reality. 

As with all new things, just do your best. Then, analyze and improve what you’re doing over time.