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You Need To Know Your Numbers

Name: You Need To Know Your Numbers
Uploaded: 2026-01-09T16:00:23+00:00
Duration: 28 s
Channel: Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP
Description: In this segment, speaker Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP, highlights a frequent unit‑economics error made by small business owners. Using a simple pen example…

9 Jan 2026 · 0 min

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0:28

In this segment, speaker Shanli Liu, CPA, CTP, highlights a frequent unit‑economics error made by small business owners. Using a simple pen example (selling price $10, cost $9, average purchase of 10 pens), she shows that a $100 sale generates only $10 gross profit. She then points out that spending $50 on customer acquisition to earn that $100 sale actually costs $50 to make just $10 of profit, illustrating why focusing on headline revenue or sales volume without accounting for gross profit leads to poor financial decisions.

This is probably one of the biggest mistakes that business owners make. Let's say I sell these for $10, but it costs me $9 and the average person buys 10 pens. So it's $100 in revenue, but it costs me $90 to sell the 100. But if my team comes to me and says, dude, we're killing it, we're spending $50 to get $100 sale, we should do this all day. But what's really happening? I'm actually spending $50 to make $10 in gross profit. Not a good equation.