Diane GardnerFounder, Adept Business Solutions · Profit First Professional

This Works in any Economy - The Business Priority Pyramid #fixthisnext #money #profit #sales

3 Jun 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:58

In this presentation Diane Gardner outlines the Business Priority Pyramid, a hierarchical framework for evaluating and growing a company. The pyramid consists of five levels: Sales, Profit, Order, Impact, and Legacy. At each level the speaker proposes a two‑question diagnostic: “Do we have any [level]?” and “Is it adequate to support the next level?” Sales is the foundation – without revenue the business cannot progress. Profit creates organizational stability; if a company is merely surviving check‑by‑check it experiences constant panic. Order refers to operational efficiency that enables the business to keep running smoothly. Impact moves the focus from mere transactions to transformational outcomes. Legacy is the ultimate goal, representing lasting permanence. The speaker emphasizes that each higher tier can only be pursued once the lower tier is both present and sufficient, making the pyramid a step‑by‑step roadmap that works in any economic environment.

Chapters

The next level is profit. Profit is the creation of stability for an organization. If you are not profitable, if you are surviving check by check, there is a constant panic going on. How the business priority pyramid works is we simply ask ourselves two questions. Do we have any? And is it adequate? Do we have any sales right now in our organization? If you've no sales going on, you got a sales issue. If you have some sales, our question then becomes, is it adequate to support profit? And the only way to determine that is to investigate our profitability. And you ask the same question at the profit level. Do we have any profit and is it adequate to support the next level? The next level is order. Order means efficiency through the organization. This allows your business to keep operating. The next level in a business's priority pyramid is impact. Impact is the creation of transformation as opposed to transactions. It's transformational. The highest level, legacy. Legacy is the creation of permanence.