Which of your products actually makes the money?

Which of your products or services sells the most? Easy.

Which one makes you the most money? Pause.

Those are different questions, and in a lot of businesses the answers are different products. Which means effort, stock and attention are going to the wrong one, for years, with everybody working hard.

Why the loud one wins by default

The highest selling item is visible. Everybody in the office knows it, customers ask for it, and it feels like the heart of the business.

The margin is invisible unless somebody works it out, and working it out properly is awkward. It means allocating the time that goes into it, the service it needs afterwards, the returns, the discount that always gets given on it.

So the loud one gets pushed harder, and the quiet profitable one is treated as a side line because nobody ever added it up.

A rough version is enough

You do not need exact costing. Take your top ten items. Against each put the revenue last year, the direct cost, and then one honest adjustment for how much trouble it is, on a scale of one to three.

Trouble means the calls, the changes, the complaints, the credit taken.

That third column is unscientific and it is usually the one that changes the ranking. The item everybody assumed was the star often turns out to be the one holding the office hostage.

Then do the obvious thing. Quote keener on what earns, stop chasing what does not, and have one honest conversation about the item everybody is proud of that has not made money since 2023.

Rank your top ten by what they earn rather than what they sell. Does the order change?

Working out what each product actually earns, trouble included, is a short exercise that changes what a business pushes. Send us your top ten and we will do it with you.