Annette's Profit First Journey
I remember the most frightening day of my life like it was yesterday.
At the time, life was good. Business was doing well. My accounting firm was doing over 6 figures a year.
But there was an underlying issue…I wasn’t actually paying myself, hardly anything at all.
I remember the most frightening day of my life like it was yesterday.
At the time, life was good. Business was doing well. My accounting firm was doing over 6 figures a year.
But there was an underlying issue…I wasn’t actually paying myself, hardly anything at all.
I was grateful for the clients that I had.
I felt really busy but I thought that’s how it’s supposed to be.
We’d just had a baby and things were going well.
Except…

I was grateful for the clients that I had. I felt really busy but I thought that’s how it’s supposed to be. We’d just had a baby and things were going well.
Except…
One late evening, I was in bed feeding my 6 week-old son and literally out of nowhere he just stopped moving.
I had to call an ambulance because he was unresponsive, he was floppy and not moving. So we rushed him to the hospital and we just crossed our fingers that he would be okay. I was so scared and so confused…waiting for answers and for him to be ok again.
We were admitted to hospital while they did test to find out why this had all happened (and thankfully he was improving as each hour passed)
For the 3 days that I was in hospital with him, I was getting phone calls and emails from clients and I felt like I HAD to pick up the phone.
In all honestly I was also feeling a little resentful for it because frankly, even though my business was making 6 figures and my team was paid well, I haven’t taken money out of the business for myself for a long time and then whilst I was in hospital (and hadn’t even taken any maternity leave) this client rang me and asked me if I knew where he could find his bank statement.
BANK STATEMENTS???
That was the moment when I realized.
WHAT AM I DOING?!
My business was not working for me.
I started this business to support me and my family and I am here in the hospital, with a tiny baby and not able to be present with him, whilst doing something I wasn’t even that well paid for (yes the business was earning money – but not me personally)?
What was wrong with me?
In that moment, I made a decision. This business will no longer run me. MY family comes first and it always will. I switched my phone off.
I said screw it. I am not responding to anyone.
I let my team handle the business for a week so I can spend the time caring for my son and thankfully, within a few days he recovered and was able to get back home and be his normal self.
The moment we got home, I put a plan of action so this NEVER happens again.
And that plan started with picking up the book – Profit First by Mike Michalowicz.
I read it cover to cover, more than once!
What I realized is that up until that point, I was building my life around my business and was accommodating for clients before accommodating for myself and my family.
So I flipped that and I decided to build my business around my life.
That meant spending more time with my kids, being more present with my husband, planning our family finances as well the business ones and actually putting some family intentions on what we wanted to experience together and what money we’d need for that.
A BIG mistake I was making, I was purely focused on revenue growth and even as an accountant, I wasn’t paying attention to my profit.
I forgot about reviewing basic numbers such as cost per client acquisition and lifetime value of a client.
So I was making all my decisions based on making more sales, rather than based on profit.
That ended that day.
Within a few months, I have put a solid bespoke system in place that included planning measuring and tweaking the numbers so my business can have a healthy sustainable growth (this is what I now call the Profit Plan and teach inside The Wealth Lab) and suddenly I was seeing my revenue grow WHILE I was able to spend more time with my family and crucially, take home MORE money for me and my family to enjoy.
Within 18 months my husband was able to quit his job and become a stay at home dad, I now spend weekends and evenings entirely with him and the kids, we have breakfast, lunch and dinner together, 7 days a week. And I did that while also GROWING my business by over 50%, and profit over 300%
And I thought WOW, this system does work.
So I started implementing it with my accounting clients and they were all getting the results they wanted WITHOUT sacrificing their time too. The results being – much more money home.
One client was able to pay off all their debt (around £60k).
Another client who hasn’t taken any salary for 4 years, has now been consistently able to take more home without making any extra sales.
This was the proof I needed to know that this system wasn’t just a one-trick pony, it worked for all my clients and I am now on a mission to share this with the entire world.
I am so confident in this system and I know if every 6, 7 and 8 figure business had it, their business and family life will transform.
I have developed the Profit First system to not only work with UK businesses (since it’s a USA based book) but also added things to it, to make it work EVEN BETTER.
You see I am committed to making sure nobody ever experiences what I did – That nobody feels like they are working so hard for such little reward and feeling resentful.
I am committed to making sure that no mother or father ever feels the guilt that I did, when I thought I was failing and letting my family down.
So if you have reached the point where enough is enough and you are ready to make a change in your 6 or 7 figure business, so that the business can support your lifestyle, I invite you to join me on a FREE Financial Strategy Call where we can talk about how we can plug Profit First Into your business.
Your family will thank you for it.