Module 3 · Diagnosis
Your Profit Leak Audit
“Find your 3.”
What you recorded earlier
From your Profit Snapshot (Module 1)
Nothing saved here yet. Fill in that template and save it, and your figures will appear at the top of this page automatically.
What you'll walk away with
- Run a structured audit of your own offers, pricing and costs
- Score every offer on true profitability rather than revenue contribution
- Identify and name your specific three profit leaks
Worked example
Maya's audit, row by row
Maya lists four offers and enters monthly averages. Revenue adds up to her $8,200 snapshot figure, which is how she knows nothing is missing.
- Brand package — $3,600 revenue, $1,200 cost (the illustrator's rate crept from $300 to $400 a package over three years), 66 hours → $2,400 profit, 67% margin, $36/hr
- Logo mini — $1,800 revenue, $200 cost, 40 hours → $1,600 profit, 89% margin, $40/hr
- Retainers (2 clients) — $2,000 revenue, $700 cost, 70 hours → $1,300 profit, 65% margin, $19/hr
- Template shop — $800 revenue, $0 cost, 4 hours → $800 profit, 100% margin, $200/hr
- Biggest revenue offer
- Brand package
- Worst profit per hour
- Retainers, $19/hr
- Best profit per hour
- Templates, $200/hr
Maya's three leaks, written her way: (1) Pricing — 'My $1,200 brand package was priced three years ago and now takes 22 hours.' (2) Delivery — 'My retainer clients get unlimited calls and revisions I never priced for.' (3) Structural — 'I pay $1,050 a month in overhead, including a $600 assistant whose work I now do myself.'
Plain-English definitions
The words you actually need
The audit scores offers, not months. These terms are what each column means.
- Offer
One thing you sell at one price. If two things have different prices or different work behind them, they are two offers.
In Maya's business: Maya lists four: brand package, logo mini, monthly retainer, template pack.
- Direct cost
Another name for the cost of delivery you met in Module 1 — same thing, two names. It is anything you spend because a specific offer exists: contractors, materials, printing, transaction fees, ad spend tied to that offer. If you stopped selling that offer tomorrow, this cost disappears with it.
In Maya's business: Maya's illustrator is a direct cost of her brand package: no package sold, no illustrator invoice. Her website hosting is not a direct cost of anything — she pays it whether she sells or not, so it is overhead instead.
- Delivery hours
Every hour an offer takes from first enquiry to final handover — calls, emails, revisions, admin and invoicing included. Most founders under-count by roughly a third.
In Maya's business: Maya thought a brand package was 15 hours. Counting calls, three revision rounds and handover, it is 22.
- Profit per hour
What one hour spent on an offer actually pays you. It is the single number that makes different offers comparable — a $1,200 sale and a $300 sale stop looking obvious.
(Price − cost of delivery) ÷ delivery hours = profit per hour
In Maya's business: Brand package: ($1,200 − $400 illustrator) ÷ 22 hours = $36 an hour. Retainer: $1,000 ÷ 35 hours = $28.60. Template pack: $300 ÷ 1 hour = $300.
- Your three leaks
The three offers or costs with the worst numbers and the most money attached. Three, because it is the largest number of changes a solo business can actually make in 90 days.
In Maya's business: Maya's three: the retainer (worst hourly), the brand package (biggest revenue, wrong price), the overhead (leaks whether she works or not).
The deepest work in the program
Give this module a real block of time. Everything before it was building toward this, and everything after it fixes precisely what you find here. Have your Profit Snapshot from Module 1 open beside you.
Score offers, not revenue
The offer that brings in the most money is frequently the one destroying your margin, because volume and profitability are unrelated. Rank each offer three ways — profit in money, margin as a percentage, and profit per hour of your own time — and you will usually find the ranking changes each time.
Profit per hour is the number that ends arguments. It reveals the offer you love that pays you less than the one you find dull.
How to run the audit
- List every offer you actually sold in the last three months, including one-offs and favours
- Enter monthly averages, not three-month totals — the template compares like with like
- Direct cost (the delivery cost from Module 1) means anything that would disappear if you stopped selling that offer
- Count every hour you personally spent, including admin and follow-up
- Anything under 20% margin gets flagged; anything negative gets addressed first
Naming your three
Once every offer is scored, look at the pattern rather than any single row. Weak margin concentrated in one offer is a pricing leak. Strong margin on paper with no cash in the bank is a delivery leak. Healthy margins across the board with thin overall profit is a structural leak.
Write each leak as one plain sentence about your business, not a category label. 'My retainer clients get unlimited calls and I never priced for them' is useful. 'Delivery leak' is not.
If the numbers are worse than you expected
That is the common outcome, and it is the point. You have just converted a vague dread into three specific, addressable problems — which is the difference between anxiety and a plan. The next three modules exist to fix exactly what you just named.
Step by step — do this now
- 1
Open your Profit Snapshot and copy across four numbers
Average monthly revenue, cost of delivery, fixed overhead and true profit. Your snapshot is shown at the top of this page so you do not have to go back to Module 1.
- 2
List every offer you sold in the last three months
One row per offer in the table below — including one-offs, favours and the thing you only sell when someone asks. Use monthly averages, not three-month totals.
- 3
Fill in the revenue each offer brings in per month
Money actually received for that offer, after refunds and discounts.
- 4
Fill in the direct cost to deliver it
Anything that would disappear if you stopped selling that offer tomorrow: contractors, printing, transaction fees, ad spend tied to it. Leave your own time out here — you count it in the next step.
- 5
Fill in your own hours per month on that offer
Delivery plus everything around it: calls, emails, onboarding, revisions, invoicing, chasing. If you are guessing, guess high — founders underestimate by about a third.
- 6
Read the three rankings the template gives you
Profit in dollars, margin as a percentage, and profit per hour. Note the worst offer in each ranking. They are often three different offers, and that is the useful part.
- 7
Match the pattern to a leak type
One weak offer among healthy ones = a pricing leak. Healthy margins on paper but low profit per hour and no cash = a delivery leak. Healthy margins everywhere but thin profit at the bottom = a structural leak.
- 8
Size each candidate leak before you commit
For each one ask: if I fixed only this, roughly how much monthly profit comes back? A rough number is enough. Keep the three biggest and let the rest wait for your monthly review.
- 9
Write each leak as one plain sentence, then pick its category
'My retainer clients get unlimited calls I never priced for' is a leak. 'Delivery leak' is a label. Write the sentence first, choose the category second — Modules 4, 5 and 6 each fix one category.
Your deliverable
Profit Leak Audit + My 3 Leaks
Score every offer on true profit, then name your three leaks
Step one: list every offer, product or service you sold in the last three months — including the ones you'd rather not look at — and score each one using monthly averages. Step two: only once the offer analysis is in front of you, name the three leaks the numbers point to. You cannot know your leaks before you have scored the offers. This becomes the anchor document for the rest of the program.
Offer-by-offer audit (monthly averages)
My 3 leaks — the outcome of your offer analysis
Calculated for you
- Total monthly revenue audited
- $0
- Total direct delivery cost
- $0
- Combined gross profit
- $0
- Blended gross margin
- —
- Your hours across all offers
- —
- Highest profit offer
- —
- Lowest profit offer
- —
Start your fix-it work here.
Preview mode — this template works exactly as it does in the course, but nothing is saved.
Want to see the rest?
Modules 5–7 cover the pricing leak, the delivery leak, and the 90-day profitability roadmap that turns all of this into a monthly habit.
Back to the program map