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09/01/2026

Same plants, same spot, all season long and they still grew six feet. 🌿

This week's blog uses a milkweed patch to ask the question a lot of us dodge: what if the answer isn't "what else could we do" but "what's already in progress that deserves one more round of bloom"? A good gut-check on focus vs. avoidance in business. Read it on the blog.

The milkweed never got bored

For a few months now we have been enjoying the common milkweed growing along the road we walk each morning.

The leaves are thick and coarse. The stem is sturdy and straight.

The globe of pink umbel bloom looks odd to me, but the butterflies do not care what I think. They love it.

At first the plants were about three feet tall.

When they bloomed they were a magnet for the fritillaries.

Dozens of them swarming eight or ten plants, with a monarch visiting.

My attempt to get a video was a lot of burnt orange blur.

Then time passed, and as the plants grew, we started noticing the black and tiger swallowtails.

We realized the stems had put on another six to eight inches and started a new round of bloom.

The old blooms hung spent below.

The plants are done blooming now.

They are about six feet tall and the pods that will open this fall are growing in a bulbous, again odd to me, almost an alien form, covered in small orange aphids.

Such a good host plant for so much life. And thankfully, the deer don't eat it.

As I thought on all this, I realized that the milkweed plants never got bored.

They did not decide at four feet that they would rather try being a shrub.

They kept pushing and bloomed. Then pushed and bloomed again.

Then they put everything into seed.

Same plants, same spot, same road, all season long.

I was thinking about this after listening to David Epstein on Elise Loehnen's podcast, talking about his new book on constraints.

He and Elise got into why creative people sabotage their own businesses.

We get bored with the core work before the core work has fully landed.

So we start something new. It feels like ambition. Often, it is avoidance.

There is a line in that conversation about how startups don't starve to death.

They die of indigestion. Too much taken on, not too little.

I have done this, and I suspect you have too.

The offer is working but it isn't finished, and instead of finishing it we go build the next thing, because the next thing is more fun than the unglamorous work of making the current thing actually land.

So the question I am sitting with is not what else could we do.

It is what are we in the middle of that deserves another round of bloom.

Those milkweed plants grew six feet because they focused on one thing at a time.

How far could we get if we did the same thing.

One question before you go

I am revising my current book, Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers, about this exact pull.

The pull that shows up right when the current thing is close but not finished.

I do not want to write it from research alone.

I want to write it from what is actually happening in your business.

Could you help me out by answering the below question?

What most often keeps the core thing from getting finished?

A. I lose interest before it lands.
B. No team capacity to see it through.
C. I don't know what finished looks like.
D. Cash flow forced me somewhere else.

08/27/2026

Debt doesn’t disappear by paying whatever is left over.

With Profit First, you can build debt repayment into your cash flow, one payout at a time.

Start small. Stay consistent. Stop adding to the balance.

Read the full blog to learn how to create a sustainable debt paydown plan. 👇

How do I pay down debt using Profit First?

The first move in paying down business debt is to stop adding to it.

New borrowing keeps covering old obligations.

The balance never actually shrinks.

The plan to pay it off keeps getting pushed to next quarter, because there's always something more urgent than the debt itself.

Once that cycle stops, here's the mechanic I use with clients.

Set up a Debt Repayment account as part of your Profit First system.

Every time a payout hits your account, allocate a fixed percentage toward that account before anything else touches the cash.

Start small if you need to with one or two percent.

Consistency matters more than the size of the allocation.

As you tighten operating expenses and improve margins using the other Profit First principles, you'll have more cash to work with.

That's when the allocation grows.

Three percent, then five, then whatever the business can actually sustain.

While that's building, look hard at the debt itself.

Not all of it is equally urgent.

Line up every obligation by interest rate and terms.

The highest-rate, highest-risk debt gets paid down first.

A credit card at 24% and a term loan at 7% are not the same problem, even if the balances look similar on paper.

Sometimes the terms themselves can change.

Lenders are often more willing to renegotiate than owners expect, especially once you can walk in with a clear cash forecast and a real repayment plan instead of just asking for relief.

None of this happens overnight, but it does happen, as long as the debt stops growing and the repayment account keeps getting funded, payout after payout.

If you'd like help building a debt paydown plan that fits your specific numbers, reach out and let's chat about what that could look like for your business.

P.S. As you may have read in my last email, I'm rewriting my book and would love for you to be a part of the journey!

As I write I will send you some questions in the form of a poll.

I want to ensure I address the most important issues to you.

Please help me do that by taking the quick poll below.

Cyndi

My biggest concern about my ecommerce business is:

A. I want to grow revenue faster
B. I want to pay myself more
C. I want more time with my family
D. I want more cash in the bank

08/25/2026

Sometimes, all it takes is one spark to turn an idea you’ve been putting off into something exciting.

Cyndi shares what inspired her to revisit Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers—and why listening to that little tug can lead to something valuable.

Read the full story and join her journey.

All It Takes Is a Spark of Inspiration

For several months I have felt pulled to revisit my book Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers.

I would talk to other Profit First Professionals as they considered writing a book for their niche and advise on my experience launching my books.

I could feel the tug: I need to revisit my book, so much has changed, and we have developed better tools.

Then I'd get back into the day to day, and I'd forget that tug for a while. Last week a spark changed that.

I was attending a workshop and the presenter answering a question said “you only need 35% for new content for a second edition.”

Hmm could this be true?

This woman was knowledgeable in the publishing field so I trusted her judgment.

And I knew that the Special Report that we completed recently also gave me much of the backbone for that new content.

This spark gave me permission to look into the crack of that open door and I liked what I saw.

I could see that my new insights for the revised edition would be valuable and serve my reader.

I didn't have to think about it another minute.

I pushed that door open and started writing an introduction.

I started scheming about which clients I would want to interview.

I started thinking about how to segway from the first edition to the new world of ecommerce.

I started looking at the 1–3 star reviews of my current book so I can address those concerns.

I am excited about the process of writing again and I would love to take you on the journey with me.

This is your invitation to join me.

As I write I will send you some questions in the form of a poll.

I want to ensure I address the most important issues to you.

Please help me do that by taking the quick poll below.

Cyndi

08/20/2026

Inventory bills don’t wait until your cash flow is ready.

If you’re constantly scrambling to pay for your next order, it may be time to change what happens to your cash when sales come in.

Our blog shares a simple Profit First strategy to help you set aside money for inventory before you need it.

Read the full blog to learn how. 👇

How do I set aside cash from product sales to pay for future inventory?

When your next inventory bill comes due, is the cash already there?

For most ecommerce owners, the honest answer is no.

Out of over 200 ecommerce owners who took our Assessment, only about a third said they consistently set aside cash from sales to pay for their next inventory order.

The rest are scrambling when the bill comes due.

Reaching for a credit card, delaying a supplier payment, borrowing against sales that haven't happened yet.

I understand why.

When a payout hits your account, it feels like yours to use.

Payroll needs it, ads need it, a dozen things need it right now.

The next inventory order feels far enough away that it can wait.

Except it never actually waits. It just shows up at the worst possible moment.

Here's the mechanic I teach every client, straight out of Profit First for Ecommerce.

Every time a payout hits your account, immediately move a percentage of it into a separate Inventory account.

That percentage should roughly match your cost of goods sold as a percentage of revenue.

If your COGS runs 30% of revenue, move 30% of every payout.

Don't touch that account for anything else.

Not payroll, not ads, not a good month where you feel flush.

When your next purchase order comes due, the cash is already sitting there.

You're not scrambling or reaching for a credit card, and you're not borrowing against sales you haven't made yet.

You're pre-funding your next order with the revenue from your current sales.

It's a small mechanical shift, but it changes the entire feeling of running the business.

Instead of dreading the next inventory bill, you already know it's covered.

If you're in the two-thirds who aren't doing this yet, this is the week to open that account.

If you want to know where you stand, take our Ecommerce Business Performance Assessment. Take here https://quiz.yourprofitteam.com

Then let's talk about how to change it. Schedule here https://link.msgsndr.com/sp/23e6e1b8c70

Cyndi

08/18/2026

Debt isn’t always a bad thing. The difference is what it’s doing for your business.

Our Special Report reveals a surprising gap between struggling, healthy, and thriving businesses and how each uses debt differently.

Read the report and see what the numbers reveal. 👇

Special Report on Debt

There's a number from our research that surprised even me.

The businesses we categorized as Struggling carry the most debt by far, at 40% of annual revenue, but that part wasn't surprising.

Debt piles up when the underlying economics are broken and cash keeps running short.

Here's the part that surprised me.

Healthy businesses carry the least debt, at just 6.6% of revenue.

Thriving businesses actually carry 12.3%, almost double the Healthy group.

If debt were simply bad, Thriving businesses should have the least of it, but they don't.

The difference isn't how much debt a business carries. It's what the debt is doing.

The Struggling group is using debt to survive by covering payroll, buying inventory they can't otherwise afford.

Keeping the lights on through a rough stretch, with no clear plan for how the debt gets paid down.

The Thriving group is using debt to build with a calculated inventory buy ahead of a proven product's peak season, or a bulk order where the margins are already validated, maybe a short-term bridge on a move they know will pay for itself.

Same debt. Completely different purpose.

Healthy businesses tend to be conservative with debt because they're still building the confidence and the margin cushion to use it well.

That's not a criticism. It's often exactly the right instinct at that stage.

But once the structure is solid, debt stops being a risk and starts being a lever.

The businesses that grow fastest aren't avoiding it but using it on purpose for specific moves they've already done the math on.

If you're sitting on debt right now, the question isn't whether to feel bad about it, it's whether you know exactly what that debt is doing for you, and whether it's paying for itself.

See the proof in our report here. https://link.msgsndr.com/sp/350b512cce0

Then let's talk about how to fix it. https://link.msgsndr.com/sp/eb1da948e03

Cyndi

08/13/2026

Sometimes, stepping away is exactly what you need to move forward.

Read Cyndi’s latest blog, A Weekend Away, and get a reminder that rest isn’t a reward—it’s part of doing your best work.

A Weekend Away

I spent a couple of days in a small North Carolina town near where I grew up.

Nothing was on the agenda.

No meetings, no deadlines, no inbox open on my phone every twenty minutes.

Just a weekend to slow down and appreciate life.

There's something about being back in that part of the world that puts everything else in perspective.

It made me think about how much distance I've traveled.

The version of me who grew up nearby could not have imagined the business I've built, the team I lead, or the clients I get to serve.

I came home with a full heart and a clear head.

I also came home with a reminder I want to pass along to you.

Rest isn't a reward you earn after the work is done.

It's part of how the work gets done well.

The businesses I see thriving aren't the ones where the owner never stops.

They're the ones where the owner has built enough structure that stepping away, even for a weekend, is possible.

If you haven't taken a real breath in a while, I hope you find a weekend soon where you can.

Cyndi

08/11/2026

AI anxiety is real. And if you’ve ever felt like you’re falling behind, you’re definitely not alone.

Cyndi shares her honest experience with learning, using, and building with AI and how she learned to embrace it without losing the value of human judgment.

AI may be changing how we work, but experience, critical thinking, and human connection still matter.

Have you been feeling a little AI anxiety too? 👇

Is anyone else experiencing AI anxiety?

I'll be honest with you about something.

For a while, the feeling was just unsettledness. A sense of being behind.

Everyone around me seemed to be racing ahead, and I was standing still.

Then I sat in on a Tony Robbins AI summit, and one idea reframed the whole thing for me.

Learning and mastery, the way we experienced them in the past, are not the way things work going forward.

The technology is changing so fast that we likely won't master any of it before something new arrives.

That gave me the permission I had unknowingly been needing. Permission to go at my own pace.

Maybe you need that permission too.

Underneath the unsettledness was a deeper fear I had.

Would AI replace the need for my business?

Would it do the accounting and the advisory work and take the place of my team?

Those fears kept me up at night.

So I did what I always do. I went digging.

I embraced the very thing I was afraid of.

I found Claude, and I dabbled, and I played, and I fell in love with the ease of the answers.

I spent a season in pure wonder, but the honeymoon did have rocky moments.

The calculations were sometimes just wrong.

I caught them, because I have years of experience and judgment around numbers.

I made it check and double check.

I rebuilt all the work in Excel the hard way, to be sure.

And in the span of a few months, I watched the models themselves get noticeably better.

Then I read a book by a friend in the UK, Alexis Kingsbury, called Accrual Intentions.

He documented building an entire accounting firm run by AI agents, with himself as the only employee.

That book moved me from using AI to building with AI.

And the building came with its own rocks along the shore.

I used Claude to compare some legal agreements.

I started leaning on it being directionally right, even while my attorney reviewed the same documents.

Then my attorney's advice pointed a different way.

Here's what I came to understand.

Math is easy to check, but your own thinking is not.

That judgment layer, the conversation with my attorney about how I actually feel about risk, is exactly where our true value lives with our clients too.

Even now, with all of it working, I feel a quiet undercurrent.

Did I check it fully? Did I trust the answer too much? Did I let its certainty steer my thinking?

So I found a few answers.

Then I added three instructions to my Claude settings.

Answer first, then the reasoning, then how it could be wrong.

Never state a specific number or date from memory without flagging it as unverified.

If my question and my real goal seem different, say so.

My results are richer now.

When I finish an analysis, I ask it to rate itself from zero to one hundred, and to tell me where it excelled and where it could have done better.

And I keep tending to myself through all of it.

Journaling. Painting. Daily walks with my pup

I'd love to know if AI anxiety real for you and how you're coping if so.

Cynd

08/06/2026

Your next step depends on where your business is today.

Are you struggling, healthy, or thriving? Each stage requires a different strategy—and doing the wrong thing first can slow your growth.

What I tell each group to do first

The research report ends with three sets of recommendations.

One for the Struggling group. One for the Healthy group. One for the Thriving group.

Most of the conversation around the report has been about the diagnosis, which group you're in and why.

I want to spend a few minutes on what comes after that.

Here's what I actually tell each group.

If you're Struggling, with a net margin below 5%, the first move isn't advertising. It isn't a new product. It isn't a new channel.

It's cash flow forecasting.

Before anything tactical, you need to see where the cash is going.

What's coming in, what's going out, when the gaps are going to hit.

Most Struggling businesses are making decisions without that visibility, and the decisions compound the problem.

Cut unnecessary expenses now. Negotiate with suppliers and lenders to reset expectations. Get ahead of the shortfalls before they become crises.

Then fix the SKU economics while you work on the channel structure.

Cut advertising on unprofitable products. Be ruthless about low-margin SKUs. Get your unit economics right before you try to scale anything.

If you're Healthy, with a net margin 5% to 10%, the first move is building the financial foundation you'll need to grow.

A 13-week cash flow forecast. Unit economics review for every SKU.

Profit First allocation so working capital is set aside for inventory and the next channel.

Then build toward multichannel because fee gaps are your profitability ceiling.

You're the ideal candidate for this move because your low debt means savings go straight to growth.

Don't increase advertising until the multichannel presence is delivering savings. The sequence matters.

If you're Thriving, with a net margin above 10%, the work is maintaining discipline during hypergrowth.

Margin erosion is the risk, not stalled growth.

Monthly margin reviews across gross, contribution, and net. SKU-level unit economics so you catch compression early.

Use debt strategically to scale, delegate operations, build systems that run without you, take real time away.

The pattern across all three groups is the same. Fix the structure, then grow.

Read our report here.

Figure out what areas you're struggling in and where to start by taking our Ecommerce Business Performance Assessment.

Then reach out and let's talk about what your specific sequence looks like.

Cyndi

08/04/2026

What if the way you sell is costing your business more than you realize?

Two ecommerce businesses can have the same revenue, products, and team—but end up with very different amounts of cash left over.

Our latest blog breaks down the numbers behind Amazon vs. Shopify and reveals why your sales channel could be the hidden factor limiting your growth.

Read the full blog to see what the numbers reveal.

See how adding Shopify to an Amazon-only ecommerce business more than doubles the profit margin left to fund ads, payroll, and owner pay.

07/30/2026

54% of ecommerce owners think their business is "healthy." 72% of them also say it doesn't pay them enough. 49% run on debt.

That's not failure it's a visibility problem, and it's fixable.

👉 Take the free 5-min Assessment: https://quiz.yourprofitteam.com/
📄 Get the full report: https://yourprofitteam.com/special-report-sign-up/

The Assessment and the Report

One of the harder things I've learned in my years working with ecommerce owners is that most people don't have an accurate picture of where their business stands.

That isn't a criticism. It's a structural reality of running a business.

You're inside it every day.

You see the sales, the emails, the reviews, the shipments going out.

You feel busy and needed.

The revenue is a number you can watch move.

And if the number is generally going in the right direction, the natural conclusion is that the business is healthy.

We wanted to see how accurate that intuition actually is.

So while we were analyzing the financials of ecommerce businesses for the research report, we also surveyed a separate group of owners and asked them how they see their own business.

Fifty-four percent of them described their business as healthy.

That would be a good number, if the follow-up answers matched.

They didn't.

Among the same group of owners who said their business was healthy, seventy-two percent also said the business doesn't provide sufficient income.

Forty-nine percent said they rely on debt or credit cards to operate.

That's the gap. Healthy on the outside. Something else underneath.

If you saw yourself in either of those numbers, that doesn't mean your business is failing.

It means the picture you have of your business might be relying on the visible parts, and the underneath parts might be telling a different story.

Most owners in that gap don't know they're in it, because the numbers that would tell them aren't in their line of sight.

The reason this finding sits with me is that it's fixable.

The gap between what you see and what's actually happening isn't a permanent condition.

It's a visibility problem.

Once you can see the underneath parts, you can make different decisions.

If you want a quick read on where you stand, take our Ecommerce Business Performance Assessment.

It takes about 5 minutes and it'll show you which of the underneath parts might be quietly costing you.

If you want to see the full research and where these numbers came from, the report is here.

Cyndi

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