As a big - but generally fair - generalisation, the success of most businesses comes down to the largest numbers in their accounts.
As an accountant, for example, the significant numbers are revenue from customers, and staff costs. Some of the overheads can be fairly significant (rent, software costs, that kind of thing), but an accountancy practice won't fail because of them. It might well be worth trimming some of them if it's not too time-consuming or disruptive to do so, but it's not going to turn a business around. If an accounting practice is struggling, it's not because of the overheads.
If you're running a restaurant, say, food and drink costs of course are very significant, along with staff costs, and premises costs might well be crucial too depending on the kind of place you're running. But that's largely it - again, the other overheads are really unlikely to kill the business.
What isn't going to make or break a business is something like phone bills or stationery (or even accountancy fees!). But very often an owner of a struggling business will fixate on those kinds of lines in the bottom half of their profit and loss account, talking about how they're too high and need to be cut, rather than getting their head up and looking at the top of the profit and loss account, which is where the problems really are.
It's a displacement activity, of course, which is initially easier than engaging with the real major structural issues. Engaging with those issues could cause great discomfort, as they might include big mistakes that the business owner has made, and difficult decisions that they need to make in future. It can be easier to seek refuge by pretending that the problems can be solved by admin and supplier switching. They probably can't. You're going to have to be brave and look up.
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