3 Steps That Will Help Boost Your Profitability

Patrick McFadden

Most business owners think profitability and immediately think minimize collection costs and uncollectible accounts, unbillable bench time and minimize office space rent – you know, cost-saving measures. Heck, most financial professionals do the same thing.

I’ve been working with service based businesses for a handful of years now and I’m here today to once again affirm that marketing plays a role in boosting profitability too. I’ve also spent years learning how to improve the profitability of my own strategic marketing consulting firm.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all about employing cost-saving measures, but there’s another component at play.

So, how do you boost profitability? Take these three steps and get everyone on your team aligned around the search for answers.

1. Understand how to choose your customers and not the other way around

One of the most important elements of boosting profitability for a service based business is understanding the make up of your ideal customer. Effectively, understanding who makes an ideal customer allows you to build your entire marketing, sales and service efforts around attracting and converting this customer group.

Next you should start analyzing the common characteristics they share. Start asking yourself or your customer facing employees some questions about these people: what age, sex, illness, income, and particular area of town are they? what industry are they in?, where are they located?, what size is their organization?, what do they read?, what do they listen to?, what challenges do they face?, how do they buy? and most importantly what triggers them to start looking for a solution?

This information is the secret to unlocking massive profitability. Most service base businesses have a need triggered soon by some type of life or business cycle change, married, children, divorced, birthday, illness, pay raise, calendar event, budget refresh, office relocation, etc. (Hint: focusing on identifying what these triggers are with your current clients is the best way to immediately grow share of wallet.)

The answers to the questions above are not always available, but thinking about them in correlation to your ideal customer will allow you to boost profitability.

2. Offer some unique and desirable element that can’t be compared

Until you can firmly offer a solid reason for why a prospect should buy from or hire you over the competition, you’ll compete on price or shall I say a decrease your profitability.

When service based businesses solution sell and respond to RFPs they basically make every business look the same and make price the primary issue.

Working with your marketing/sales team or a strategic marketing consultant can help identify what service or product element really nails the buyers pain-point or desire. Working together marketing and sales efforts can communicate a unique way of doing business that will demonstrate a premium pricing value proposition.

Examples:

  • First Responder Cleaning. There are very few one-of-a-kind commercial cleaning services. They offer a 30 minute response time
  • Punctual Plumber.  We’re on time —offers to pay commercial customers $5 for every minute they’re late up to $300
  • Attorney’s are notorious for not returning phone calls in a timely manner —  one attorney offers a Return Call Guarantee. If clients’ calls aren’t returned in one business day, they’ll take $500 off the client’s next invoice
  • Contractors frequently overbid projects and rely on the power behind their license as a justification — G uarantee your work to pass Building and Safety inspection or you will fix it for free
  • Customer support don’t really care if you find a solution or not —  offer a No Hang Up Guarantee “We don’t hang up until you’re happy”
  • Marketing agencies and firms known for unclear deliverables, lack of results and using jargon —  one marketing firms offers a very detail “proof of concept” with a set project price, clear deliverables, a results review and education process.

3. Make keeping customers your new profit center (Upsell and Cross Sell)

Did you know that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer, than to keep an existing one? The first rule of any business is to retain customers and build a loyal relationship with them, and thereby avoid customer acquisition costs.

Moreover, let’s not forget that a customer’s needs grow and evolve with time. A smart business anticipates that and welcomes an opportunity of increased profits.

Upgrading to a better, costlier service offering or switching to a long-term (e.g., annual) payment plan are all options you can explore when dealing with long-term customers.

How you can use it:  Can your customers benefit from a product or service closely related to what they are already using? Or might they be interested in an upgrade that costs more but represents better value with respect to their needs?

Real World Business Examples:

  • A $3 car wash offers a $14.95 monthly unlimited car wash membership
  • McDonald’s employees always offer you a drink or some waffle fries with your purchase.
  • Medical practices offer nutritional supplements, protective products, and health action plans.
  • IKEA will soft-sell delivery and furniture assembly as additional services. Indispensable Marketing will offer you a digital and graphic design service management with your marketing plan project.
  • Gyms thrive on offering annual or even lifelong memberships.
  • Online marketers earn more by creating enhanced, premium versions of their content.
  • Financial institutions like credit unions and community banks will offer a savings account along with your checking account.

The theme here is that increasing profits is a direct result of improving the variables that ultimately determine your level of profitability. When you improve these variables about your business you will increase profits and affect your bottom line.

NOTE: I intentionally focus on the word “profitability” in the title of this post because I see so many service based businesses working hard just to sell – increase revenue. There is a much better approach, but it requires a shift in thinking about marketing in general and I hope this post will shed some light on an approach to profit.

The Missing Layer in AI: Why Judgment, Not Just Data, Will Define the Next Era of Intelligence

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Everyone is scaling outputs. Almost no one is scaling judgment.

Everyone Talks About AI Judgment. We Built It.

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Ask anyone in tech where AI is headed, and they’ll tell you: “The next leap is reasoning.” “AI needs judgment.” “We need assistants that think, not just answer.” They’re right. But while everyone’s talking about it, almost no one is actually shipping it. So we did. We built Thinking OS™ —a system that doesn’t just help AI answer questions… It helps AI think like a strategist. It helps AI decide like an operator. It helps teams and platforms scale judgment, n ot just generate output. The Theory Isn’t New. The Implementation Is. The idea of layering strategic thinking and judgment into AI isn’t new in theory. The problem is, no one’s been able to implement it effectively at scale. Let’s look at the current landscape. 1. Big Tech Has the Muscle—But Not the Mind OpenAI / ChatGPT ✅ Strength: Best-in-class language generation ❌ Limitation: No built-in judgment or reasoning. You must provide the structure. Otherwise, it follows instructions, not strategy. Google DeepMind / Gemini ✅ Known for advanced decision-making (e.g., AlphaGo) ❌ But only in structured environments like games—not messy, real-world business scenarios. Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), Microsoft Copilot ✅ Great at answering questions and following commands ❌ But they’re assistants, not advisors. They won’t reprioritize. They won’t challenge your assumptions. They don’t ask: “Is this the right move?” These tools are powerful—but they don’t think for outcomes the way a strategist or operator would. 2. Who’s Actually Building the Thinking Layer™? This is where it gets interesting—and thin. Startups and Indie Builders Some small teams are quietly: Creating custom GPTs that mimic how experts reason Layering in business context, priorities, and tradeoffs Embedding decision logic so AI can guide, not just execute But these efforts are: Highly manual Difficult to scale Fragmented and experimental Enterprise Experiments A few companies (Salesforce, HubSpot, and others) are exploring more “judgment-aware” AI copilots. These systems can: Flag inconsistencies Recommend next actions Occasionally surface priorities based on internal logic But most of it is still: In early R&D Custom-coded Unproven beyond narrow use cases That’s Why Thinking OS™ Is Different Instead of waiting for a lab to crack it, we built a modular thinking system that installs like infrastructure. Thinking OS™: Captures how real experts reason Embeds judgment into layers AI can use Deploys into tools like ChatGPT or enterprise systems Helps teams think together, consistently, at scale It’s not another assistant. It’s the missing layer that turns outputs into outcomes. So… Is This a New Innovation? Yes—in practice. Everyone says AI needs judgment. But judgment isn’t an idea. It’s a system. It requires: Persistent memory Contextual awareness Tradeoff evaluation Value-based decisions Strategy that evolves with goals Thinking OS™ delivers that. And unlike the R&D experiments in Big Tech, it’s built for: Operators Consultants Platform founders Growth-stage teams that need to scale decision quality, not just content creation If Someone Told You They’ve Built a Thinking + Judgment Layer™… They’ve built something only a handful of people in the world are even attempting. Because this isn’t just AI that speaks fluently. It’s AI that reasons, reflects , and chooses. And in a world that’s drowning in tools, judgment becomes the differentiator. That’s the OS We Built Thinking OS™ is not a prompt pack. It’s not a dashboard. It’s not a glorified chatbot. It’s a decision architecture you can license, embed, or deploy— To help your team, your platform, or your clients think better at scale. We’ve moved past content. We’re building cognition. Let’s talk.

We Found the Missing Layer AI Has Been Waiting For

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
In every era of innovation, there’s a silent bottleneck—something obvious in hindsight, but elusive until the moment it clicks. In today’s AI-driven world, that bottleneck is clear: AI has speed. It has scale. But it doesn’t have judgment . It doesn’t really think . What’s Actually Missing From AI? When experts talk about the “thinking and judgment layer” as the next leap for AI, they’re calling out a hard truth: Modern AI systems are powerful pattern machines. But they’re missing the human layer—the one that reasons, weighs tradeoffs, and makes strategic decisions in context. Let’s break that down: 1. The Thinking Layer = Reasoning with Purpose This layer doesn’t just process inputs— it structures logic. It’s the ability to: Ask the right questions before acting Break down complexity into solvable parts Adjust direction mid-course when reality changes Think beyond “what was asked” to uncover “what really matters” Today’s AI responds. But it rarely reflects. Unless told exactly what to do, it won’t work through problems the way a strategist or operator would. 2. The Judgment Layer = Decision-Making in the Gray Judgment is the ability to: Prioritize what matters most Choose between imperfect options Make decisions when there’s no clear answer Apply values, experience, and vision—not just data It’s why a founder might not pursue a lucrative deal. Why a marketer might ignore the click-through rate. Why a strategist knows when the timing isn’t right. AI doesn’t do this well. Not yet. Because judgment requires more than data—it requires discernment . Why This Is the Bottleneck Holding Back AI AI can write. It can summarize. It can automate. But it still can’t: Diagnose the real problem behind the question Evaluate tradeoffs like a founder or operator would Recommend a path based on context, constraints, and conviction AI today is still reactive. It follows instructions. But it doesn’t lead. It doesn’t guide. It doesn’t own the outcome. And for those building serious systems—whether you’re running a company, launching a platform, or leading a team—this is the wall you eventually hit. That’s Why We Built Thinking OS™ We stopped waiting for AI to learn judgment on its own. Instead, we created a system that embeds it—by design. Thinking OS™ is an installable decision layer that captures how top founders, strategists, and operators think… …and makes that thinking repeatable , scalable , and usable inside teams, tools, and platforms. It’s not a framework. It’s not a chatbot. It’s not another playbook. It’s the layer that knows how to: Think through complex decisions Apply judgment when rules don’t help Guide others —human or AI—toward strategic outcomes This Is the Missing Infrastructure Thinking OS™ isn’t just about better answers. It’s about better thinking—made operational. And that’s what’s been missing in AI, consulting, leadership development, and platform design. If you’re trying to scale expertise, install judgment, or move from tactical to strategic… You don’t need a faster AI. You need a thinking layer that knows what to do—and why. We built it. Let’s talk.
More Posts