When Your Revenue Looks Great, But Your Take Home Tells A Different Story
Welcome to The Real 411, a series where I take the kinds of questions and patterns I see repeatedly from founders whose businesses look strong on paper, but who can feel something is not quite lining up, and break down what is really going on underneath.
These are not hypothetical examples. They are real scenarios that show up in the businesses of founders whose revenue looks solid on paper, but who feel that something in their money or in their way of running their business is not quite lining up.
My goal with The Real 411 is simple. I want you to see yourself in these questions, understand why the usual advice hasn't been enough, and walk away with a clearer way to look at your own numbers and decisions.
So with that in mind, here is the question we are starting with.
The Question
This one is for the Small Business Owner/Founder who is making strong, consistent revenue, yet feels a quiet disconnect between what the business earns and what actually shows up in her personal bank account.
On paper, things look solid. In real life, thoughts start to creep in like:
“Based on how much this business makes, I thought I would be paying myself more by now.”
“I do not really see where all of this money is going.”
“My take-home does not feel like a match for the level I am operating at.”
Here is how one woman put it when she reached out to me:
“The business is performing well on paper, yet something in the cash flow is not lining up, and I cannot see why. I went to my bookkeeper for insight on how to improve things, and the response was either vague or simply that I should cut my own pay.”
If you have ever looked at your revenue and your take-home side by side and thought, “Something is not lining up here,” this conversation is for you.
What You Are Really Asking
When I get these kinds of questions, what I am really hearing you are saying underneath sounds like:
“I thought this level of revenue would feel different than it does right now.”
“I do not have a clear line between what the business is making and how it is actually improving my life.”
“Everyone around me keeps giving me small fixes, but nobody is looking at the whole picture of my business and my life together.”
That is not a basic budgeting problem.
What you are bumping up against is a mix of what I call:
Money Misalignment
The money is moving, but it is not pointed at what you actually care about.Miscalibrated Leadership and an Integration Gap
You have grown, the business has grown, but the way decisions are made with money has not caught up to who you are now.Progress Blindness
Things may have improved compared to a few years ago, but you cannot feel it because you only recognize success at a final finish line.
I want you to hear this clearly. This is a design and leadership question, not evidence that you are irresponsible or ungrateful.
Why Your Bookkeeper’s Answer Feels So Off
Let me take the pressure off your bookkeeper for a second.
Their job is to:
Record what has already happened.
Keep your books organized.
Make sure things are accurate for tax time and compliance.
Most bookkeepers are not hired to:
Design a business model that pays you as the owner in a way that reflects the lifestyle and wealth you want to create.
Think about your nervous system, capacity, or time.
Align every dollar with your real definition of wealth, beyond “hit $1 million in revenue.”
So when you ask, “How can I make more money?”, they are often looking at a very narrow board. From their seat, the obvious levers are:
Cut expenses
Cut how much you pay yourself
Maybe mention “raise your prices” in a vague way without context
That is accounting survival mode, not strategy. The question you are actually asking is closer to:
“What is this money supposed to be doing for my life and my business, and where is that breaking down?”
That is a different conversation entirely.
Where I Actually Go Looking For The Real Gap
If you came to me with this situation, I would not start with “here’s how you need to make more.” I would start by looking for the real leaks and frictions that never show up in a simple “income minus expenses” conversation.
Here are four places I go first.
1. Strong Revenue, Thin Margins
Many small business owners at your stage are booked out and carrying a heavy load with less personal payoff than they expected.
On paper, it can look like this:
$500k, $750k, maybe flirting with $1 million+ in revenue
A full client roster
A small team to help deliver
But when we run the numbers:
Team, contractors, and delivery eat a big chunk
Tools and software pile up
You are over-delivering to compensate for your own doubts
By the time everything is covered, there is not enough left to pay you in a way that reflects the weight you carry.
That is not you “being bad with money.” That is a business model and profit margin issue.
2. Money Working, But Not For What You Actually Want
Sometimes the business is funding a lot of things that made sense at one point, but do not match the season you are in now.
For example:
Programs, masterminds, or subscriptions you outgrew but never paused to cancel
Tools and platforms you pay for because “we might use that again”
Lifestyle upgrades that kind of just happened, without being anchored to a clear plan
So the money is working. It is just not working for the life, wealth, and security you keep saying you want now.
3. Timing Friction, Not Income Problems
You can be profitable over the year and still feel like you never quite have the cash available when you need it.
That usually sounds like:
Retainers or invoices hit the account on the 20th
Payroll is on the 15th
Tax installments, HST or sales tax, and big annual renewals land in random clusters
On a 12-month view, you are fine. In the middle of the month, it feels like an unnecessary scramble.
The issue is not automatically “you need more revenue.” It is that the timing of when money comes in and when it goes out has never been deliberately designed.
4. Progress Blindness
There are also situations where:
Your numbers have improved.
Your owner's pay is higher than it used to be.
Debt has come down, or savings have gone up.
Yet, you only recognize success at the “I hit seven figures” or “I have this much in savings” finish line, your brain logs it as “still not enough.”
When you cannot see your own progress, you will keep chasing more revenue instead of stabilizing and enjoying what you have already created. That keeps you in a constant state of “not quite there yet”, even while you are making meaningful moves.
If You Were Sitting Across From Me Right Now
Let me walk you through how I would actually handle this with you as a client.
I am not pulling another tactic out of a hat. I am realigning your business with the life you say you want.
Step 1: Get Honest About Your “Worth It” Number
First, we talk about you.
Not the brand, not the business, you.
How much do you actually want to pay yourself, consistently, for this business to feel worth the time, energy, and opportunity cost?
What does wealth mean for you beyond money, including time freedom, health, being present with your people, stability and options?
We anchor to your version of “enough” and “this feels good,” not the internet’s version.
Step 2: Give Every Dollar A Job
Next, we look at where the money currently goes.
I usually pull the last three to six months of:
Business accounts and credit cards
Key personal accounts, because your life and business are not separated in your nervous system, even if they are on paper.
Then we sort every line into three buckets:
Operational Baseline: Keeps the business running and able to deliver
Strategic Vision: Directly funds the future, and aligns with where you’re headed
Misaligned Money Decisions: Funds that are not in alignment with your current needs/goals
The goal is to turn:
“I do not know where my money is going.”
into:
“I know exactly what this money is doing, and now I can see what needs to change.”
Step 3: Adjust The Biz Model, Not Just The Line Items
Once we see the truth, we start looking at the structure.
We ask:
Do your offers and pricing actually support your “worth it” number?
Is the way you deliver your work chewing through your capacity?
Is your team structured around who you are now, or an older version of the business?
Instead of shaving five dollars here and fifty dollars there, we focus on:
Cleaning up misaligned offers
Reshaping how and when clients pay
Creating space for higher margin work
The aim is a business that can afford you, not one you keep subsidizing with your body and your bandwidth.
Step 4: Rebuild Self-Trust Around Money Decisions
The numbers are only half the story.
The pattern I see over and over is a lack of self-trust:
Second-guessing every decision
Over-explaining or justifying investments to yourself
Avoiding the numbers until you are forced to look
So part of our work here is:
Naming where self-trust is shaky
Tracking your actual evidence
Practicing clean money decisions that you can stand behind, even when things are not perfectly certain
When your self-trust grows stronger, your decisions start to align with the identity you are growing into, rather than the version of you who was just trying to make it work.
If This Is You, Start Here This Week
You do not need to overhaul your business model by Friday. I want you to get clearer and calmer first.
Here are a few moves you can make this week.
Pull the last three months of business bank and credit card statements.
Skim through and mark:Anything that clearly belongs to the “old you” or an old season
Anything you are paying for regularly that you have not used in the last 60 to 90 days
Write down your “worth it” number.
Ask yourself:“If my business stayed at this revenue level for the next year, what would I need to be paying myself monthly to feel like this is worth it in this season of my life?” No judgment, just the truth.
Name one place where your time or health is subsidizing the business.
This may look like:Working nights to make up for a low-priced offer.
Saying yes to misaligned clients because “it is good money.”
Skipping rest because you are afraid the revenue will drop.
Just name it. Awareness is data.
Make one decision this month that honours your “worth it” number.
It can be small:Retire an offer that no longer fits.
Raise the price on a custom service.
Cancel a recurring expense that does not serve you now.
The point is to start moving in alignment with the life you are actually building, not the one you think you are allowed to want.
You Are Not Asking For Too Much
If you are reading this and recognizing yourself, please know:
Nothing has gone wrong. Your awareness is a sign that your leadership is paying attention.
Wanting your business to deliver both strong numbers and a life that feels sovereign and secure is not greedy or unrealistic. It is the whole point.
What you are bumping into is not a moral failing or a lack of discipline. It is a signal that the way your business is structured and the way your money is flowing need to catch up with who you are now and what you actually need.
This is the lane I work in with my clients. We look at your business and your life in the same conversation and design your money to serve both.
If you want support seeing your own numbers this clearly and making decisions that feel clean and aligned, that is exactly the work we do inside my strategy intensives and ongoing partnerships.
And even if we never work together, I want you to remember this:
You never have to shrink your life to fix your cash flow. All you need is a clearer map, cleaner decisions, and a business model that truly aligns with what you are building toward.