MARGIN AND GROWTH FOR OWNER‑OPERATED BUSINESSES
Your business is
making more than
you're keeping.
Small gains, every line
Most businesses have a few percent hiding in their pricing and every cost line. Enter your revenue, then slide to see what finding it is worth.
Fine-tune your cost breakdown
We’ve estimated your costs from a typical small-business mix. Enter your own annual figures to sharpen the result.
The maths is the easy part.
Book a margin reviewTHE REAL PROBLEM
Margin rarely disappears
in one place.
We help established owner-operators find and recover hidden margin.
It's almost never a single cause. It's years of small things: expense lines creeping up, pricing that hasn't kept pace, processes that grew on the fly and now depend on you for every single decision. Which is why you can't take a proper holiday.
You know your business and your customers better than anyone. What you don't have is the time, or the distance to pull it apart. That's the job we do.
01
Pricing that hasn't moved
Costs went up but your rates stayed loyal to customers from five years ago.
02
Expense creep
Small upward drifts across supplier, software and labour lines nobody has audited.
03
Processes in your head
Nothing written down, so work gets redone and every decision lands on you.
04
Decisions on gut feel
Without clear numbers, you're relying on assumptions instead of evidence.
Every P&L has a number hiding in it.
Most owners never go looking.
YOUR BRIEF
You run your own business for a reason. That reason sets the goal.
Not every owner wants the same thing from their business. We start by finding out which one is actually yours.
More time
We work out what to systemise so the business runs efficiently without you.
More profit
We find what's stopping revenue from showing up as profit, and fix it.
Room to grow
We model the paths and help you choose the one the numbers support.
HOW IT WORKS
Four steps. You can stop
after any of them.
01
One Session
Margin Check
Send us your P&L. We find one opportunity worth acting on, or you get your money back.
• A focused overview of your numbers
• One dollar-valued finding and what to do about it
• Fee credited toward the Diagnostic
02
2 weeks
Margin Diagnostic
We find what's holding the business back and provide an actionable number on it.
• P&L reconstruction and pricing review
• Ranked margin opportunities, each with a dollar value
• A clear call on what to fix first
03
60-90 days
Turnaround Sprint
We implement the highest-value findings with you, inside a set timeframe.
• Scoped directly from Diagnostic with Strategy built for execution
• Implemented alongside you, not handed over
• Measured in dollars, not hours
04
60-90 days
Fractional Ops / CFO
A part-time operations manager and financial controller inside your business, so the gains actually hold.
• Capped hours each month
• Performance tracked against agreed targets
• Offered once a Sprint is complete
In their words.
WHY THE MARGIN LAB?
We’ve been in your position.
Margin is not what's left over.
It's what you decide to protect.
"Before The Margin Lab, I built businesses from both sides of the table. I’ve co-founded, scaled and exited ventures, alone and with partners, and I’ve worked inside established businesses, from healthcare to trade services, as the outsider brought in to fix what wasn’t working."
Matthew Weir
Founder
Operator,
not advisor
Most SME consultants are ex-corporate. They've analysed businesses like yours. We've owned them, operated them, made payroll in, and sold them.
Investor-grade modelling, SME pricing
P&L reconstruction, discounted cash flow, sensitivity analysis and capital-raise materials where warranted - work normally out of reach for a business under $5M.
Fixed fees, dollar-denominated outcomes
Every engagement is a fixed fee, scoped against a ranked list of margin opportunities with dollar values attached. No open-ended hourly billing.
HOW IT WORKS
Fixed fees, agreed before we start.
Start with a $399 Margin Check. If we don't find at least one opportunity worth $[X] a year, you get your money back.
START HERE
Margin Check
$399
One finding, or your money back.
Credited toward the Diagnostic.
THE FULL PICTURE
Margin Diagnostic
$4,500*
Standard fee $5,500.
Less your $399 Margin Check.
THEN, IF IT MAKES SENSE
Turnaround Sprint
$12K - $20K
One fixed fee.
Set from your Diagnostic findings.
ONGOING MONTHLY
Fractional Ops / CFO
$2.5K–$4K/ month
Capped hours, set by scope. Offered after a Sprint.
*Founding-client rate for new clients until 31 Dec. All prices in AUD, incl.GST.ARE WE THE RIGHT FIT?
We're not for everyone,
and we'd rather say so up front.
Margin Lab is for you if:
• You run an established business turning over roughly $100K–$5M, and revenue isn't showing up as profit.
• You're in trades or field services, hospitality or venues, a service business, or consumer products. I’m flexible.
• You want the truth about your numbers and prepared to act within 90 days.
Margin Lab is not for you if:
• You're pre-revenue. That's a different problem requiring further analysis. Reach out to discuss your options.
• You're after validation rather than change. The diagnostic is honest, and that can sting.
• You want a report but you're not ready to act on it.