I was in Cardiff on Monday night for Wales v Belgium, The fixture conjures up images of one of my favourite ever nights – seeing us beat them in Lille in the quarter finals of Euro 2016 – but this time wasn’t quite as good.
And to add to it, the match was halted by a pitch invader… with whiskers.
A rat darted across the turf, Thibaut Courtois had a nibble at catching it, and Brennan Johnson helped usher it off before it disappeared behind the VAR monitor…not to be seen again.
Cardiff City later defended their pest control, saying they work closely with contractors and run bait stations, but sometimes one still sneaks in. Funny at first, but it did stop the game.
It got me thinking about business. Six and seven-figure companies rarely get sunk by one giant mistake. It’s the small repeat offenders – the rats in your margins – that scurry in unnoticed and stop play at the worst moment. If you want to double profits, start by trapping and binning the everyday pests that chew through cash.
Five profit rats to catch this quarter
- Zombie subscriptions – Old apps, extra users, duplicated tools. Do a 15-minute line-by-line audit and cull anything not essential. Every pound saved is a pound of extra profit.
- Leaky pricing – If you haven’t tested a price rise in the last 12 months, that’s a rat. Small, well-signposted increases typically drop straight to the bottom line. We use a simple matrix to model the effect, even if you lose a few customers.
- Slow debtors – Cash days creeping up will starve growth. Turn on automated reminders, add chasing rules, and create clear payment terms. Tools like Chaser and Xero reminders do the boring bit for you.
- Manual busywork – If a human retypes anything that a system already knows, that’s a pest. Map the flow, automate capture and approvals, then delegate what’s left. Systemise => automate => delegate. In that order.
- Scope creep – Extra queries and “can you just” tasks that never made the proposal. Track them, price them, and reset expectations in writing so your fixed fee stays profitable.
Keep the rats out with a matchday routine
- The scoreboard – If you can’t read it, you really do not know the score. Review your P&L, balance sheet and cash flow monthly so you spot movement early, not nine months after year-end.
- The five metrics – We track Revenue growth, Gross profit, Operating profit, Revenue per employee and Cash days as part of our Profit Diagnostic so you can see the compound effect of small tweaks.
- The weekly walk-round – Like a stadium litter sweep, do a 30-minute Friday “profit hygiene” check: new costs, aged debt, bank rules, WIP overruns, and any freebies sneaking into delivery.
If Roland and his mates have been causing you problems and you need wise advice from Splinter, get in touch. Small pests stop play. Small fixes win matches.
Cheers
Jon