Making money is easy. Keeping it—and growing it—is where the wheels fall off. If you've ever spent a night staring at a spreadsheet wondering why your bank account doesn't match your "revenue," you aren't alone. We’ve been fed this diet of hustle culture that prioritizes the top line. But the truth is, the best way to make profit isn't just about selling more stuff; it’s about the surgical management of the gap between what you spend and what you keep.
Honestly, it’s about margin.
Most people think profit is what's left over at the end of the month. They pay the rent, they pay the staff, they buy the inventory, and then they look at the crumbs in the jar. That’s reactive. It’s a recipe for burnout. True profitability is a proactive design. It's a choice you make before you even launch a product or sign a client. When you look at companies like Apple, they don't just sell phones; they sell a hardware-software ecosystem with a gross margin that would make a traditional manufacturer weep. They decided to be profitable first.
Stop Obsessing Over Revenue
Revenue is a vanity metric. It's an ego stroke. You can do $10 million in sales and still be broke if your COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) and overhead are $10.1 million. I've seen it happen to brilliant founders who were so focused on "scaling" that they scaled their way right into bankruptcy.
The best way to make profit is to flip the script. Have you heard of the "Profit First" method by Mike Michalowicz? It’s a simple, almost primitive psychological hack. Instead of the traditional formula (Sales - Expenses = Profit), he suggests (Sales - Profit = Expenses). You take your cut first. It sounds irresponsible until you realize that humans are like goldfish—we expand our spending to fill the size of the bowl. If you give yourself a smaller bowl of operating cash, you get more creative. You stop paying for that SaaS subscription you haven't logged into since 2023. You negotiate better terms with suppliers.
The High-Margin Trap and How to Avoid It
Not all profit is created equal. Some profit is "expensive." If you have to spend 80 hours a week managing a high-ticket client to net $5,000, your hourly rate is trash. You're just a glorified employee of your own business.
To really find the best way to make profit, you have to look at LTV (Lifetime Value) vs. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost). This is the heartbeat of any sustainable venture. If it costs you $100 to get a customer through Google Ads, but they only ever buy a $40 widget once, you’re subsidizing their lifestyle with your savings. You need a "back end." You need a reason for them to come back and buy again without you having to pay Mark Zuckerberg another dime.
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Think about a local coffee shop. The first latte they sell you barely covers the labor and the beans. The profit happens on the 50th latte. It happens on the bags of beans you take home. It happens because you've become a "regular."
Why Efficiency Is Actually Your Best Friend
Efficiency is boring. It doesn't look good on Instagram. But tightening your supply chain or automating your lead generation is literally free money.
Let's look at real-world examples. Amazon didn't become a behemoth just by selling books. They became a titan by mastering logistics and then selling that logistics infrastructure to everyone else (Fulfillment by Amazon). They turned a massive expense—warehousing—into a profit center. That’s the "best way to make profit" at scale: turning your internal solutions into external products.
The Psychology of Pricing
You’re probably charging too little.
Most entrepreneurs price based on their competitors. "Well, Bob down the street charges $50, so I'll charge $45 to be competitive." That is a race to the bottom. In a race to the bottom, the only winner is the person who dies last.
Price is a signal of value. If you charge more, you often attract better customers. High-paying clients are usually less demanding than "budget" clients because they value their time as much as yours. They want the result, not a breakdown of every minute you spent working. By raising your prices, you increase your margin immediately. No extra work required. Just the courage to say a higher number with a straight face.
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The best way to make profit is often just having the "guts" to be the most expensive option in the room—provided your quality backs it up.
Diversification vs. Focus
There is a weird tension here. You've heard "the riches are in the niches," right? It’s true. Focus allows for excellence. Excellence allows for premium pricing. However, relying on a single revenue stream is a gamble.
- Service-based businesses: Move toward productized services. Turn your "bespoke" work into a repeatable process.
- E-commerce: Stop relying on one platform. If Amazon shuts your account tomorrow, are you dead?
- Content creators: Don't just rely on ad sense. Sell products, sell access, sell expertise.
The most profitable people I know have "stacked" revenue. They have the active income (the grind), the recurring income (the subscription), and the passive income (the investments).
Operational Drag is Killing You
Every time you add a new "feature" or a new "service," you add complexity. Complexity is the silent killer of profit. It’s called "Operational Drag." Every new thing requires a meeting, a process, a person to manage it.
Sometimes the best way to make profit is to stop doing things. Cut the bottom 20% of your products that cause 80% of your headaches. Fire the "D-grade" clients who complain about every invoice. You'll find that your overhead drops significantly, and your focus on the "winners" in your portfolio drives the profit margin through the roof.
Real Examples of Profit Transformation
Look at the software industry. It’s the gold standard for profit because the marginal cost of a new user is essentially zero. Once the code is written, selling to the 1,000th customer costs almost the same as selling to the 1,001st.
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Compare that to a consultancy. If a consultant wants to double their profit, they usually have to double their hours or hire more people. Hiring people introduces "leakage." People get sick. People need training. People have bad days.
If you're in a low-margin business, look for ways to "software-ize" your knowledge. Can you create a course? A template? A proprietary tool? This shifts your profit from linear (1:1) to exponential.
Tactical Next Steps for Increasing Profit
Don't just read this and go back to your emails. Do something.
- Audit your bank statements from the last 90 days. Find three recurring subscriptions you don't use and kill them immediately. It’s a small win, but it sets the tone.
- Analyze your "Profit per Hour." Don't just look at the total project fee. Calculate how much time you (and your team) actually spent. You might find your "biggest" client is actually your least profitable.
- Raise your prices by 10% tomorrow. For new leads, just quote 10% higher. Most won't even blink. That 10% goes straight to your bottom line—it’s pure profit.
- Implement a "Profit Hold" account. Every time money comes in, move a small percentage (even just 1% or 2% to start) into a separate account that you do not touch for expenses. This is your profit. It’s no longer a "leftover"; it’s a dedicated pile.
The best way to make profit is a mindset shift from "how much can I make?" to "how much can I keep?" It’s not flashy. It doesn’t involve "growth hacks" or viral TikToks. It involves the disciplined, sometimes boring work of managing margins and saying "no" to low-value opportunities. Profit is the oxygen of your business. Without it, the mission dies. With it, you have the freedom to actually build something that matters.
Start looking at your numbers with cold, hard honesty. The math doesn't lie, even when our optimism does. Eliminate the waste, protect the margin, and prioritize the "keep" over the "make."