Nearly two in five business owners could not tell you whether they made money last month. More than one in five are too embarrassed to ask.

Charlie leads with a Xero survey of a thousand UK small business owners. Thirty eight percent did not know whether the previous month had been profitable. Fifty five percent were struggling with cash flow. Twenty two percent were too afraid to ask a financial question because they felt they should already know the answer. Charlie's first response is to admit he and Tom probably sit in all three.

Matt walks through what his month end actually looks like, and the distinction that comes out of it is the useful part. Management accounts confirm what happened. KPIs are how you navigate in between. He names his three, and explains why advertising spend gets watched every single day.

Then the practical half. How much accounting rigour a business needs at each stage, why management accounts built on unreconciled data are worse than none, and why Matt reckons his own finance team is the weakest part of his business. Charlie finishes with two questions: what number have you obsessed over that turned out to mean nothing, and what number do you know you should be watching and are not. Matt's answer to the second is one most owners will recognise.

Takeaways:
📊 38 percent of UK small business owners did not know if they were profitable last month, and 22 percent are too embarrassed to ask

🧠 Management accounts confirm performance, KPIs are how you navigate between them

⚖️ How much accounting rigour a business needs at 50k net profit, at 100k, and once you carry a payroll
🚩 Why management accounts built on unreconciled data are worse than none at all
🎯 The number you can safely stop chasing, and the one you know you are neglecting

Chapters:
(00:00) Whose fault is it when the podcast breaks?
(01:00) Charlie has not read his own show notes
(02:19) Lagging, leading or lying

(03:18) Claude's Fact of the Week: 38, 55 and 22 percent
(03:57) Charlie: we probably sit in all three
(06:26) Why those numbers do not surprise Matt
(09:08) Could you say whether last month was profitable?
(11:08) KPIs navigate, management accounts confirm
(11:40) Matt's three KPIs
(12:53) How Charlie's dad ran the business
(14:09) Allocating time and resource to the numbers
(15:19) Learning accountancy through pain
(15:51) When Matt started monthly management accounts
(16:39) "But I know my numbers"
(17:31) The Formula One driver analogy
(20:15) Build the business you want to be, not the one you are
(21:38) How much accounting you need at 50k, 100k and beyond
(23:26) Are you doing quarterly management accounts?
(23:48) Bad data makes management accounts worthless
(24:24) Reconcile weekly, or daily
(25:19) Why Matt thinks his own finance team is weak
(25:48) Building now for 25 million and 50 million
(27:34) Where the KPIs still need levelling up
(29:58) Focus on the biggest bottleneck
(30:37) Win of the Week
(31:27) Matt: a conversation about a second store
(33:27) Charlie: back to the gym, and time with no phone
(34:51) Eight weeks, nine kilos, and cold plunges
(38:47) The number you obsessed over that meant nothing
(40:45) Why cash stopped being the obsession
(42:03) Turnover, and the professional money mover
(44:08) The number you should be watching and are not
(47:25) "There's loads of space in that warehouse"
(53:23) Claude's Question of the Week
(54:02) One number on the wall for the whole team

Follow Matt:
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mrmattholland/
👨‍💻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrmattholland/

📱 TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@mrmattholland
❌ X - https://x.com/mrmattholland1

Follow Charlie:
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theworkwearexpert
👨‍💻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-smith-1a55295b/

Every business owner has a model they defend and a model they secretly wonder about. Matt puts the question to Charlie and answers it himself.

Recording from France for the last time this trip, Matt opens with an Alex Hormozi clip that stuck with him. A British bloke with an office fit out business, £180 million turnover, £5 million average order value, asking how to grow it. The answer had nothing to do with finding more customers, and everything to do with one question a US security door company started asking on sales calls.

From there they get into the ugly side of B2B. The £26 billion sat unpaid across UK businesses, invoice factoring and why Matt thinks it is admitting defeat, and the early settlement discount that does the same job for less. Charlie makes the case that B2B is simply a better place to build a business, better relationships, better conversations, customers who understand what you are dealing with. Then he flips it, because you never really own a B2B customer, you borrow them, and you are riding their trading conditions as much as your own.

Wins of the week cover a Sage to Xero migration twenty odd years in the making, and six weeks of Matt actually prioritising his health. There is a screen time confession neither of them comes out of well. And Matt finishes by arguing that B2B owners get lazy at winning customers, with a very specific challenge for Charlie and Tom. When the question of the week lands, both of them stick with what they know, for reasons that say more about the owner than the model.

Takeaways:
📊 UK businesses are owed an estimated £26 billion in late payments at any one time, roughly £17,000 each and 86 hours a year spent chasing it
🧠 Why one extra question on a sales call lifted a door company's average order value by around 160 percent
💷 Invoice factoring versus a 2 percent early settlement discount, and why one of them is a bad sign
🤝 B2B gets you the relationship, but you are only ever borrowing the customer
🎯 The case that B2B owners are lazy at acquisition, and the two hour lunch that fixes it

Chapters:
(00:00) Intro and a formal apology to Charlie
(02:33) Summer holidays, one car and a borrowed van
(04:53) The weather just moved our conversion rate
(05:38) Bordeaux was English for 300 years
(08:23) A four hour mileage claim done in twenty minutes
(10:25) B2B or D2C, which would you build again?
(11:41) 180m turnover and a 5m average order value
(12:30) The one question that lifted AOV by 160 percent
(14:29) Why our average order value drops every summer
(17:02) British Business Fact of the Week: 26bn in late payments
(17:42) Being everyone else's bank
(19:01) Invoice factoring is admitting defeat
(23:41) Win of the Week: Sage to Xero, twenty years later
(33:02) Win of the Week: six weeks of prioritising health
(34:51) The screen time confession
(37:55) Why Charlie has always been pro B2B
(42:27) You never own a B2B customer, you borrow them
(45:07) Why D2C brands are the hardest model of all
(47:37) B2B owners are lazy at winning customers(50:13) Question of the Week: businesses or the public?
(51:05) School uniform and the new branded items rule
(55:46) Shout out to Gareth from NC Recovery

Follow Matt:
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mrmattholland/
👨‍💻 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrmattholland/
📱 TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@mrmattholland
❌ X - https://x.com/mrmattholland1

Follow Charlie:
📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theworkwearexpert
📸 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlie-smith-1a55295b/