Profit = Revenue – Cost.
Bob Fifer built his famous playbook on this equation in "Double Your Profits in Six Months or Less," and it remains one of the most useful profit books a CEO can read. The whole thing comes down to relentlessly pushing revenue up and costs down, and being far more disciplined about both than your competitors are.
The Big Idea: Strategic vs. Non-Strategic
Fifer's most valuable distinction is between strategic costs (the ones that bring in business, like effective sales and marketing) and non-strategic costs (everything else).
His rule: outspend your competition on strategic costs in good times and bad, and cut non-strategic costs to the bone. Most companies do the opposite, trimming sales and marketing when things get tight while letting overhead drift.
The same logic applies to your time. Start every day with three lists: things that raise revenue or cut costs, things that maintain the business, and things others want from you that add no real value.
Do the first list completely before touching the second, and never get to the third.
The Book Summary
Our condensed summary walks through all four parts of the book: building a profit-focused culture, cutting costs (starting with suppliers), increasing sales (including Fifer's five ingredients for closing and his hard-nosed "price to what the market will bear" approach), and his personal advice on stubbornness and keeping work in perspective.
Full summaryRead the full summary →
Get the book: Double Your Profits by Bob Fifer on Amazon.
Fifer's book is decades old and deliberately ruthless.
Some of it (the aggressive supplier tactics, the "fire 3% every year" rule, the pressure-selling) lands differently today, and we'd soften the edges with the relationship-first approach we believe in. But the core engine, focusing on the few things that actually move profit and refusing to waste time or money on the rest, is timeless. For how sales drives profit, see If Cash Is King, Then Sales Is Queen 2.0.
If profit is the problem you're trying to solve, a fractional CFO or sales executive can help you put these principles to work without the blunt-instrument tactics. Talk to our Team.