Even Great Systems Deserve a Second Look

Your business is running well. Clients are happy, your team knows what they’re doing, and your operations feel solid. You’re not spending your days plugging holes. You’ve built something durable.

But even well-built systems tend to drift over time. A few extra steps here, a tool added there, a role that’s evolved gradually but hasn’t been reassessed. None of it is broken. But if you’re not careful, you’ll end up paying for things that don’t align with how your business actually operates anymore. And that misalignment, left unchecked, can quietly erode profitability.

This week’s $25K opportunity isn’t about cost-cutting for its own sake. It’s about restoring clarity and sharpening your systems so they reflect the business you run today, not the one you ran two years ago.

Profitability is built on alignment

There’s a concept in Buy Back Your Time that’s simple but powerful: every team member should be delivering at least 1.8 times their fully loaded cost in gross profit (the number itself isn’t written in stone, so find the one that feels right for you). Not because they’re being pushed harder, but because their time and responsibilities are properly aligned with their role, their skillset, their passions, and your business goals.

That lens can be applied across the board. To roles. To workflows. To tools and subscriptions. To handoffs and internal processes that have grown a little more tangled than they used to be.

The goal isn’t to trim. It’s to realign. Because when your business evolves, your systems need to evolve with it.

A fictional example

Monica runs a respected CPA firm with a small, seasoned team. Her systems are strong, her operations are clean, and she’s not looking to reinvent anything. What prompted her quarterly operations review wasn’t a fire. It was a question: are we still using our time and tools in the best way?

Instead of starting with expenses, Monica started with people. She looked at each team member’s responsibilities through the lens of profitability and focus, asking whether the work they were doing was creating the kind of return and energy it should.

One senior team member had taken ownership of a weekly internal report. It was well-crafted and consistently delivered, but it took several hours each week and wasn’t the kind of work that lit her up. She was doing it because it needed to get done, not because it made the most sense for her to be doing it.

Monica considered automating the report, but after a conversation, they realized the context and commentary this person added to the report were valuable in a way automation couldn’t replicate. So instead of eliminating the task, they restructured it.

Now, a junior team member pulls the data and builds the initial framework. The senior reviews, refines, and provides strategic insight. The report gets even better. The junior team member gains experience and ownership. And the senior has 8 to 10 hours back each month to focus on higher-leverage work that brings more value and energy.

No cuts. No outsourcing. No software overhaul. Just a thoughtful realignment of who does what and why.

The math

Let’s say a team member earns $90,000 a year fully loaded. For their role to meet the 1.8x benchmark, they need to be producing at least $162,000 in gross profit.

If they spend 20 percent of their time on lower-value work that could be reassigned, you’re potentially losing $18,000 per year in margin. Shift that time to higher-leverage efforts, and it doesn’t take much to recapture $25,000 in annual profit.

Do that across two or three roles, and you’re not chasing new clients or working more hours. You’re simply creating more value from the team you already have.

What to look at next

Start by carving out an hour for a quarterly operational check-in. You’re not rebuilding anything—you’re looking for points of drift. Review roles, tools, and team responsibilities with two questions in mind:

1. Time alignment:

• Are your highest-paid team members spending time on high-leverage work?
• Have any responsibilities shifted that don’t quite match their role or level?
• Are there places where a process could be streamlined or supported by someone else?

2. Energy alignment:

• What feels like a drag—for you or for your team?
• Are people doing work they’re great at, or work they’ve absorbed out of necessity?
• Could that energy-draining task be reassigned to someone who enjoys it, or supported by a system?

Then pick one task, one tool, or one process to realign.
Not because it’s broken—but because there may be a better way.

Want help spotting opportunities that are easy to miss when things are already working well?

Download the Double Your Profit, Halve Your Chaos checklist and start identifying where small changes could make a big impact.

Or, if you’d rather walk through it together, let’s schedule a strategy session.