Michalowicz’s Profit First system goes against traditional business knowledge in an important way. A strong emphasis on growing sales and expanding services, can lead entrepreneurs to believe that these techniques will automatically lead to more profit. Instead, the author argues, growing sales often comes at a high cost, sometimes so high that business owners may not make any more money than before their growth. Michalowicz explains, “This problem here is not obvious, but it is insidious. As your income climbs, expenses quickly follow” (17). By paying more attention to reducing expenses, gaining regular profits and expanding mindfully and efficiently, entrepreneurs can avoid the mistake of financially wasteful growth.

Profit First urges business owners to think about profit and growth in a new way. By reallocating a portion of operating funds to profit, a business owner may see that they’ve grown their business more than they realize. Implementing the Profit First system helps owners look at the success they’ve already achieved and strategize how to make their current operations more profitable rather than looking to the future as the only source of growth and improvement.

Michalowicz argues that leaving profit as an afterthought is a common but disastrous mistake amongst entrepreneurs. Instead, he believes that businesses only become financially healthy by building profits into their everyday financial decisions. He tells the reader, “Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit” (19). This approach ensures that businesses can properly reward their owners and withstand the pressures of slow sales periods. 

This mindset shift is crucial to the system’s success. Just like business owners have to face their discomfort in the assessment phase, in the implementation phase, they must confront the limited mindset that may be holding them back. For Profit First to be successful, accounting and mindset must develop together.

One of the author’s repeated pieces of advice is to operate your business as frugally as possible. By presenting overspending as a barrier to profit, the author suggests that most companies can find money within the business to reallocate as profit instead of spending funds. He coaches the reader to reject the seemingly glamorous office spaces and other company expenses and embrace a low-cost approach that will leave more in their pocket. He writes, “Make the game of winning based upon efficiency, frugality, and innovation, not on size, flair, and looks” (128). This approach takes the emphasis from external symbols of success to internal measures, such as solid accounting and increased self-confidence, as metrics by which to judge a business’s health.