The Brian Beers Show

Episode 301: The One Reason You’re Not Making Any Profit
Date: December 15, 2025
Host: Brian Beers

Episode Overview

In this episode, Brian Beers dives deep into the core reason why many business owners fail to realize meaningful profit — and it's not because they need to "move mountains" like opening more locations, hiring more staff, or spending extra money. Drawing on his experience running over 35 auto repair shops with $50M+ in revenue, Brian offers a practical, math-driven approach for diagnosing and improving profitability, focused on understanding and managing the key percentages in your business's finances. The goal: equip listeners with a simple, actionable framework to turn struggling locations or businesses into consistent profit-makers.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Understanding the Real Profit Problem

• Brian frames the central struggle: business owners wonder why they're not taking home more money despite working hard in their businesses.

  "The biggest thing that keeps business owners up at night is this question of how do I make more money? ... I'm in the thick of it and I look at the numbers and I'm just not taking as much money to the bank." (00:00)

• He positions himself as someone who's "been there," backing up his credibility with real-life P&L numbers from one of his locations that went from losses to five-figure profits per quarter.

Case Study: Turning Around a Struggling Location

• Brian gives a snapshot of a struggling franchise location:

  • Q4 '24: $192k revenue, -$6k loss
  • Q1: $11k loss
  • Then after changes:
    • Q2: $350k revenue, $71k profit
    • Q3: $64k profit

• He asks listeners to reflect:

  "What do I need to do to get it to this level? Right? This is the dream. I've been sold... and I'm not there. But I don't know what to do. So let's fix that right now." (04:10)

Brian's Simple Profit Framework: Everything Comes Down to Percentages

• Think in Percentages:

  "Everything your business comes down to percentages. I think of everything in percentages." (05:05)

  • He wants to see $125k in monthly revenue with a 20% profit target ($25k).
  • Categorizes expense types as slices of a "percentage pie":
    • Cost of Goods Sold (COGS): His average ~27.5%, wants 23%
    • Payroll: Largest expense; currently 30.8%, wants 25%
    • Variable Costs: e.g., royalty (10%), credit card fees (~3%), rebates (total ~13%)
    • Fixed Costs: Wants to get to 20%

• If your total costs add up to >100%, you’re losing money.

  • Example:

    "If I was to examine my P and L through my model, I'm at 104% cost, which means I'm losing 4%..." (09:30)

Reverse Engineering Your Way to Profit

• Start with fixed costs:

  "Start with your actual fixed expenses. That is the first number that you're going to put in." (12:10)

• Dilute fixed costs with more sales:

  • If fixed costs are $25k, to hit 20% fixed cost target, minimum required sales is $125k.

    "...if I only do a hundred thousand dollars, my fixed cost at $25,000, is it literally impossible to get there? Like, it's just math." (14:10)

• Rest is allocation:

  • From $125k sales, allocate according to target percentages.
  • Any shortfall (e.g., only making $63k in revenue) means you need to "pull levers" to increase sales.

Identifying and Pulling Revenue Levers

• Breakdown of revenue drivers:

  • Leads: How many people contact you
  • Conversion Rate: What % buy
  • Average Estimate: How much you attempt to sell per customer
  • Close Rate: What % of estimates are accepted
  • Average Sale: Resulting sales per customer

• Example scenarios:

  • 700 leads × 40% conversion = 280 customers × $800 estimated × 45% close = $100k sales
  • Adjusting up leads or conversion rates, or boosting average sale, can get you to the sales target

  "These are what you need to look at is how much interest is coming into your business. So that's through marketing, through referrals, through outbound. What percentage of those people interested you convert into customers? You do that through training, phone training..." (21:30)

Managing Payroll to Hit Targets

• Payroll is often off target not due to bad employees, but due to having a flawed model or overstaffing:

  "You want to look if you have a bad model or you're overstaffed." (29:10)

• Brian walks through a sample payroll model using different pay structures and staffing scenarios, demonstrating that small changes to staffing or pay can make a big impact on payroll percentage.

• Key insight:

  "There's no way that if this is how we're paying our people and this is the plan, we're ever going to get to 25% [payroll]." (29:55)

• Solution is continuous tweaking and model testing, even down to possibly eliminating a position or redistributing workload, not blindly reducing pay or staff.

The Power of Simple, Weekly Tracking

• No MBA or complex spreadsheets needed.

  • You just need to know:
    • Weekly payroll
    • Weekly COGS
    • Weekly revenue
  • If your percentages are off, you know immediately why you aren’t making money.

  "It's really as simple. Just think of everything in percentages. Because then if you know every single week, what was my payroll and what was my cost of goods, and if those numbers are not in line and your sales aren't in line, you know you're not going to make money. Like if you only do $80,000 in revenue and your payroll came in at... 35%, you know you're going to lose money. There's no possible way because of math." (36:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "You are sitting on a pile of diamonds. You just have to break through to get it first." (01:35) — Brian’s reminder that profitability is accessible by adjusting the math, not just by massive growth.
• "Everything comes down to percentages. Think about your businesses in percentages." (10:15) — The major theme for the entire episode.
• "The levers that you got to pull on your sales..." (25:55) — Emphasizing proactive action, not hope.
• "You don't need an mba. You don't need some crazy like spreadsheets. It's really as simple. Just think of everything in percentages." (34:30) — Emphasizing the value of simplicity and weekly discipline.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 — Introduction: The profit problem business owners face
• 02:35 — Brian's franchise performance case study (before/after changes)
• 05:05 — The importance of percentages in business finances
• 09:30 — Dissecting actual P&L numbers and margin math
• 12:10 — Reverse engineering fixed costs for profitability
• 14:10 — Why some revenue goals are mathematically impossible
• 19:20 — Identifying and adjusting revenue levers (leads, conversion, sale size)
• 21:30 — How training and process impact conversion rates
• 25:55 — The sales levers you can actually pull
• 29:10 — Diagnosing payroll problems: overstaffing and pay structure
• 34:30 — Weekly tracking: Simplicity over complexity
• 36:10 — Closing thoughts: If the math doesn’t work, neither does the business

Conclusion

Brian Beers delivers a direct, actionable, and honest assessment of why businesses struggle to make a profit and how to fix it. The heart of his method? Everything in percentages. By understanding costs, setting clear targets, and adjusting revenue and payroll levers, you can build a business that actually pays you — without needing more locations, staff, or stress. Brian's clear breakdowns and real-world numbers make this episode a masterclass in operational sanity for franchise and small business owners.

If you have questions or want deeper insights, Brian encourages you to reach out or drop your queries in the comments.