The Serena Williams guide to better margins

Read time: 2 mins

Hey there!

Serena Williams once said, “Luck has nothing to do with it.”

If anyone knows what it takes to win, it’s her.

Did you know she won the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant?!

She didn’t become one of the greatest athletes of all time by hoping things would work out.

She trained, prepared, reviewed, adjusted, and kept raising the standard.

And that’s the point.

Success is intentional.

In business, one of the most important things to be intentional about is your margin, the actual money you make after delivering the work, not just how much revenue you bring in.

So many small businesses focus on sales without a strategy to maximise margin, to their detriment.

Margins matter a lot if you ever want to sell, attract investors, or simply build something more profitable and enjoyable to run.

And per Serena, healthy margins don’t just come from hoping it will all work out.

So here are a few fundamentals to think about, because luck has nothing to do with it.

How to build healthier margins, the Serena Williams way

1. Know which work actually makes you money

Not all revenue is good revenue.

Some work looks great on the surface because the invoice is big, but by the time you factor in the real cost of delivering it, you’re underwater.

Have you ever had a client who needed 14 follow-ups, 3 revisions and emotional support?

Or a ton of “quick little extras” that somehow become half a day.

Or just extra meetings, rework, admin and team time.

You need to know the true costs to deliver, including all those little things that add up and eat into your margins.

After a tennis match, Serena wouldn’t just look at the final score and call it a day.

She’d play the tape, and examine where points were won or lost.

Same here.

Ask yourself: 

Which work is genuinely profitable once we include the real cost of delivering it?

2. Price for profit, not just acceptance

A lot of business owners price to get a yes.

Which makes sense, because getting a yes feels good.

But if the price only works when everything goes perfectly, the price does not work.

Because things rarely go perfectly.

• Jobs take longer.
• Clients ask extra questions.
• Scope creeps.
• The team needs more time.
• Suppliers increase prices.
• Something gets missed and has to be fixed.

Healthy pricing allows you to deliver well and make a profit, and gives you contingency when things go wrong.

That way, you don’t need everyone to sprint through the job with their hair on fire.

This is where you need a bit of Serena energy.

Not arrogance.

Just the quiet confidence to know your value, set the standard, and stop apologising for charging properly.

Ask yourself: 

Are we pricing based on the profit we need, or the fear that someone might say no?

3. Make delivery easier to repeat

Great performance is not random.

It comes from routines, systems, coaching, practice, review and a game plan.

That is true in sport, and it is true in business.

If every job is custom, every quote is reinvented, every client experience is different, and every team member has to figure it out from memory, your margins will suffer.

Repeatability protects profit.

That might mean clearer scopes, better templates, documented processes, stronger onboarding, better handovers, delivery checklists, team training, and clear rules for what is included and what costs extra.

The goal is not to turn your business into a robot.

The goal is to stop wasting profit on avoidable chaos.

Ask yourself: 

Where are we reinventing the wheel when we should have a repeatable way to deliver?

4. Keep improving the mix

If the same shot kept losing Serena points, she would adjust.

Quickly.

That is the mindset great businesses need.

Because not all products, services, clients or jobs contribute equally.

Some are high-margin and easy to deliver.

Some are high-margin but need careful management.

Some are low-margin but strategically useful.

Some are just annoying and unprofitable.

Improving your margin is not about selling more.

Sometimes it is about changing the mix of what you’re selling:

• Promoting more of your higher-margin offers
• Reducing low-margin work
• Lifting prices
• Packaging services differently
• Sending the wrong-fit work somewhere else
• Creating clearer pathways for clients into the work that is most profitable and most valuable

Ask yourself: 

Are we actively trying to sell more of the right things, or just saying yes to whatever comes through the door?

⭐ Bottom line

Healthy margins make your business more valuable.

Whether you want to sell one day, attract investors, step back a little, or simply build something with more cash and less stress, margin matters.

So take inspiration from Serena.

Don’t hope profit will magically appear at the end.

Know what actually makes you money, price properly, make delivery easier, and keep improving the mix.

And if you want help improving the profitability and value of your business, get in touch.

Speak soon,

Lynne & Steve

P.S.

Next week, we’re looking at another big value lever, reducing reliance on you, because if the business only works when you are involved in everything, that is not a business, that is a job you can never escape.

 

 

TLDR

• Healthy margins make your business more valuable.
• Build them by:
  • knowing which work actually makes you money
  • pricing for profit, not just acceptance
  • making delivery easier to repeat
  • improving the mix of what you sell
• Take inspiration from Serena, luck has nothing to do with it.

And if you want help with this, check out our Business Consulting services page, or get in touch with us here.

 

P.P.S.

Know someone who’d get value from this? Feel free to forward it on, it might be exactly what they need to hear right now. 😉