Numbers Don't Lie (But Your Gut Feelings Do)

Why treating your business like it has feelings is killing your profits

Hey friends!

Your business is its own living and breathing entity.

Read that sentence again.

And again.

When I owned e by design, my design team came to me insisting that we NOT create solid color pillows. It was “already done,” they said. They had a gut feeling that it was a waste of time and money.

I listened to their concerns. Then I did market research.

Fast forward three months: the 16”x16” Navy Blue Solid pillow was our best seller for 18 months and remained in the top 10 the entire time I owned the business.

My design team wanted to go with gut feelings to make design decisions. I chose to go with numbers instead.

Why? Because I understood something that most small business owners struggle with:

Your business is its own living and breathing entity.

The Concept That Changes Everything

I talk about this concept quite a bit, and people always nod along like “yeah, of course.” But here’s the truth: 90% of small business owners don’t actually think of their business this way.

They think their business is an extension of themselves. They take every piece of feedback about their business as a personal critique. They make decisions based on how they feel instead of what the numbers say.

And it’s killing their businesses.

What I Actually Mean

When I say you need to treat your business as a separate living and breathing entity, I mean you need to step back and outside of “yourself” - and in this case, “yourself” is the business.

Look at the situation with a clear set of eyes. Maybe even critically. Think critically.

Stop taking everything so personally.

The Personal Critique Problem

People tend to take any comments or feedback about things in their business as a personal attack. It isn’t. It should be a business decision. Feelings don’t play a part in that.

Let me give you a real example:

You’re hemorrhaging money. You aren’t paying yourself and you are turning yourself inside and out to keep on team members that you can’t afford and honestly probably don’t need.

The decision to let them go isn’t about them as a person. It’s a black and white financial decision.

But because you’re treating your business like it has feelings - like it’s an extension of you - you can’t make that call. You keep bleeding money because firing someone feels mean, feels personal, feels like a reflection of your failure.

It’s not. It’s a business decision based on financial reality.

Numbers Don’t Lie (But Gut Feelings Do)

My design team had gut feelings about those solid pillows. Strong feelings. Confident feelings.

They were completely wrong.

You know what didn’t lie? The market research. The data. The numbers that showed exactly what customers were buying and what price points were working.

Numbers don’t lie. Gut feelings absolutely do.

This doesn’t mean you ignore your instincts entirely. It means you back them up with data. You test them against reality. You let the business itself tell you what’s working and what isn’t.

The First Thing You Should Do

So what’s the first thing you should do when you want to stop treating your business like it has feelings and is all warm and fuzzy?

Dive into your P&L (Profit and Loss statement).

Find out what’s selling and what isn’t. Is something selling but costing too much to make, deliver, or produce? Are you holding onto a product line or service because you love it, even though it’s draining resources?

In other words, get out the shovel and dig into those numbers. Then and only then can you make informed decisions.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Numbers

“But Heather,” you might be thinking, “I’m not a numbers person. I’m creative/a people person/terrible at math.”

Stop it.

You know what your mortgage is, right? Your car payment? Your grocery bill? The business finances are the same thing.

If you can manage a household budget (and if you’re running a business, you probably can), you can understand your business numbers. You just have to actually look at them.

The resistance to learning your numbers? That’s you treating your business like it’s somehow different from every other financial responsibility in your life. It’s not.

If You Don’t Treat It Separately, Who Will?

Here’s the real kicker: If you don’t treat your business as separate from you, who will?

No one. That’s who.

Your team members won’t. Your clients won’t. Your accountant might try, but if you’re making emotional decisions, they can’t help you.

Just like any other decision you make in life, if you are informed, then you can head in the direction you want to go.

But if you’re making decisions based on feelings, gut instincts, and what you wish were true instead of what the numbers show? You’re driving blind.

What This Actually Looks Like

Treating your business as a separate entity means:

You can look at your offerings objectively. That service you love delivering? If it’s not profitable and it’s draining your time, it needs to go or be restructured. Your feelings about it don’t change the math.

You can evaluate team members based on performance. Are they contributing to the business’s health and growth? That’s the question. Not “are they nice?” or “have they been here a long time?” or “will they be upset if I let them go?”

You can make strategic decisions without guilt. Raising prices, eliminating products, changing your business model - these aren’t betrayals. They’re strategic pivots based on what the business needs to thrive.

You can receive feedback without defensiveness. When someone critiques your pricing structure or suggests a different approach, they’re not attacking you personally. They’re observing something about the business entity.

The Freedom in Separation

Here’s what I’ve discovered: When you truly separate yourself from your business, you gain freedom.

Freedom to make hard decisions without it feeling like you’re cutting off a part of yourself.

Freedom to experiment and pivot without your identity being on the line.

Freedom to let the business tell you what it needs instead of imposing what you want it to be.

Your business is not your baby. It’s not an extension of your worth. It’s not a reflection of your value as a human being.

It’s a living, breathing entity with its own needs, its own health markers, and its own requirements for survival and growth.

The sooner you treat it that way, the better decisions you’ll make.

Your Assignment

This week, I want you to do one thing:

Pull up your P&L. Look at your numbers with fresh eyes - not as a reflection of you, but as data about a separate entity you’re responsible for managing.

Ask yourself:

• What is this business actually telling me?

• What decisions have I been avoiding because of how I feel about them?

• Where am I letting emotion override financial reality?

Then make one business decision based purely on the numbers, not on your feelings about it.

It might feel cold at first. It might feel harsh. But I promise you, your business - that separate living breathing entity - will thank you.

Drop a comment below: What’s one business decision you’ve been avoiding because it feels too personal?

xx, Heather

P.S. Those designers who didn’t want to make solid pillows? They were talented, creative people. But they were wrong about what the business needed. The business told us through sales data exactly what customers wanted. I’m grateful we listened to the entity instead of just the feelings.

P.P.S. Your turn — how are you navigating this? ⬆️ Leave a comment, reply, or try this out and tell me what happens.