The problem
Your bestseller might be losing money. Your biggest customer might be your least profitable. An averaged-up P&L hides both — and you’re making decisions on the average.
“Allocated” overheads are hidden overheads, and they lie to you about which products and customers actually pay the rent. Cost-plus pricing feels safe while it leaves money on every invoice. Operating leverage that flatters you on the way up will punish you just as hard on the way down.
Profitability lives in the detail the summary P&L erases. The businesses that price and cut well are the ones that did the granular work.
What this book gives you
How to Master Cost & Profitability Models gives you the 17 models that show where money is really made and lost — each a full chapter with the working model behind it.
- Fixed vs Variable Costs
- Operating Leverage
- Contribution Margin
- Break-even
- Activity-Based Costing
- Customer & Product Profitability
- Target Costing
- Throughput Accounting
… 17 in all, from cost behaviour to true customer profitability.
See it move
Build the contribution-margin model and rank your products by what each really contributes after variable cost — not after arbitrary overhead allocation. Watch the “bestseller” slide down the list and a quiet line rise to the top. Now you know which product to push and which to reprice. Same data, opposite decision.
Buying more than one category? All 25 books and every one of the 467 models are £29.99 in the Business Framework Omnibus — less than the price of a third book. Prefer to try first? The free Framework Starter Pack gives you five complete chapters and their live Excel models.
17 frameworks. One category. The complete learning path. Every model in Cost and Profitability Models — explained, applied, and ready to use.
How to Master Cost and Profitability Models walks you through the complete arc: 17 models, in the order you'd actually learn them, each with a full practitioner chapter and a live Excel companion.
- 17 models across Cost and Profitability Models, the complete learning path
- Full practitioner chapters plus a live Excel companion for every model
- Written from 30+ years in investment banking, M&A and private equity
Cost and Profitability Models at a Glance
