Cost savings can move the bottom line faster than chasing more sales. William McKissock joins host Eunicia Peret to break down how leaders can become more intentional about operational efficiency by studying the profit and loss, understanding vendor models, and building visibility into money that quietly leaks out of the business. They discuss where savings often hide, including telecom, shipping, and waste, why vendor negotiations are hard without benchmarking, and how internal gatekeeping can block meaningful improvements. William also shares a personal lesson from building a service business and why not hiring soon enough can cap growth, then closes with a reminder to try, fail, and keep moving.

Key Takeaways

A business can obsess over revenue and still underperform if it ignores the money going out the door.

William frames cost reduction as a growth lever, and shares a benchmark that a 5% cost reduction can equal 30% increased sales.

Vendor management improves when leaders understand how vendors make money, what is changing in their industries, and what peers are paying.

Telecom has many moving parts, which makes it one of the easiest places for costs to drift and hardest for teams to control without deep expertise.

Shipping and waste can be major cost centers, and waste in particular can show large percentage savings when contracts and service levels are right-sized.

Internal resistance often comes from fear of what an outside review will reveal, and owners do better when they focus on the bigger picture.

A common entrepreneurial regret is waiting too long to hire, which keeps the owner trapped in delivery and slows the path to scale.

Timeline

Early

00:00:00 Show intro and the podcast promise for business owners

00:01:00 William’s background, Scotland to Tampa Bay, and a decade focused on cost reduction

00:02:00 Moving to the US in 2011 and trying multiple businesses before finding his current lane

00:04:00 Eunicia frames cost reduction as legacy preservation and intentional growth

Middle

00:05:00 “Look at your profit and loss,” and why outgoing cash matters as much as incoming sales

00:06:00 The Gartner benchmark, 5% cost reduction compared to 30% increased sales

00:08:00 Where costs hide and why vendor negotiation is hard without knowing what others pay

00:09:00 Studying vendors, technology shifts, and how knowledge improves negotiation outcomes

00:12:00 Big opportunity areas named, telecom, shipping, and waste, plus payroll tax mentions

Late

00:16:00 Mindset and objections, why some teams resist external reviews even when savings are possible

00:19:00 How to reduce fear with owners, focusing on missing knowledge rather than blame

00:24:00 William’s regret from early entrepreneurship, not hiring at the right time

00:28:00 Closing advice, do not be afraid to fail, and take the step to try