Have you ever had a friend look at a business and randomly throw out numbers that made it seem like that business owner must be making serious bank? We’ve experienced that many times, and know from conversations with operators and owners in those industries that their real profitability is often far, far less. The reason is often that there are unique challenges to profitability in almost every industry and so we wanted to create a space for entrepreneurs from across industries and markets to discuss the challenges to profitability in their industries.

Pharoah T.k.e Harrington

I say the biggest challenge to profitability in my industry is keeping the audience engaged. A lot of people would say its not hard to keep attention but no one knows the work put in to keeping an audience engaged. I grew up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s so storytelling is a big thing so there was a lot of slow burners within film, books and television. Today with certain groups of audiences, an idea has to be entertaining enough within the first 5 pages or 10 minutes of any Show or film for the audiences to stay engaged. Most people would say that originality is the key but everything isn’t original, its a copy of something you just don’t see or have heard of in a while or at all. Example is Indiana Jones franchise and The Mummy franchise. Look at Raiders of the Lost Ark, It took Indy about 20 minutes to go steal a treasure, get chased by a bolder and a Endangered tribe where in the Mummy The film drops you into everything that’s happening or about to happen. There is a film for every audience but keeping them engaged is probably the toughest. Read more>>

Guadalupe Perez

In the photography industry, one of the biggest challenges to profitability is the oversaturation of the market. With the rise of smartphone cameras and social media, everyone’s a photographer these days. This has led to a surplus of photographers competing for a limited number of clients, which drives prices down and makes it harder to maintain profitability. I recall a story where I was hired to shoot a commercial campaign for a well-known brand. The client had a very specific vision in mind, and I spent hours scouting locations, preparing equipment, and working with the model to get the perfect shot. However, when it came time to negotiate the price, the client tried to lowball me, citing that they could get a similar quality of work from a newer photographer for a fraction of the cost. Read more>>

Ellise Giacomazzi

From the outside, the Pilates industry might seem like a highly profitable business. After all, boutique fitness is booming, and classes are often priced at a premium. However, there are significant challenges that impact profitability, especially when you’re dedicated to maintaining quality and creating a meaningful experience for your clients. One of the biggest challenges is balancing the high cost of running a studio with the accessibility I want to offer my clients. Pilates equipment, especially Reformers, are expensive to purchase and maintain. Studio rent in desirable locations can also be substantial. Add to that the need to hire highly trained, certified instructors who are professionals in every sense of the word, and the overhead quickly adds up. Read more>>

Timo Ellis

I would have to say, although in some ways it’s not entirely their doing…the now unavoidable commercial and social centrality/ ubiquity of the tech giant big streaming services; Spotify, Apple Music etc., who in cahoots with the big record companies, now have made it nearly impossible for smaller/ independent artists to generate any significant revenue from their music getting played (even millions of times!) on their platforms, as the payouts are obscenely, pitifully small; essentially this entire big streaming business model functions more like a sharecropping system, relative to anything approaching even being remotely fair or equitable. Read more>>

Miranda Cohen

I am the brand and my brand is how I make money. If people aren’t interested in me, or you online let’s say, it becomes almost impossible to make money. People want to feel like they are listening and relating to a real person. If there are any disconnects between the influencer and audience, it becomes very challenging to turn your hobby, into a full time job. Read more>>

Chase Gallagher

However, in my industry specifically, some of the biggest issues that beginner business owners have in the home services, they did you not know the true costs, for example, many business owners that I talk to as I coach them through my coaching platform, CMG university many students do not know their actual overnight what it cost to run their business every day, whether you have Sales or not, and then the landscaping industry specifically you have to know how many working days you have in that year within your market it’s gonna be different for Pennsylvania business owners, and it would be for Florida business owners, and so in conclusion, you can fix so many problems in your business by just knowing your number a true costs to run your business. And that is the biggest thing I see and why contractors don’t make a lot of money in the beginning is because they don’t know their real costs Read more>>

Natasha Murphy

The Hidden Profitability Challenge in E-commerce Development: Why Project Work is Unsustainable From the outside, custom e-commerce development might look highly profitable – after all, we charge significant rates for our technical expertise. However, my experience in 2024 revealed how project-based work creates major obstacles to sustainable profitability. Read more>>