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"I finally know where we stand."
Your Business Is Making Money.
Or Does It Just Look That Way?
There are two types of business owners: those working frantically to look profitable, and those with the clarity to know they actually are. The only question is: which side are you on?
$67 $21 EARLY BIRD
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Your friends, family and employees see someone in command.
Underneath, you can't say whether last quarter was profitable.
You're not bad with numbers, you just don't have time to be a glorified bookkeeper.
There's always a client emergency, someone out sick, a vendor waiting.
And your books were written for the IRS, not your Monday meeting.
So you've been running a real business on a feeling.
Because you cannot measure what you cannot see.
After two decades as a CFO, I'll show you exactly where to look.
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AVAILABLE IN BOOK, EBOOK & AUDIO
AVAILABLE IN BOOK, EBOOK & AUDIO
This is not an accounting book.
This is not a book about accounting. No ledgers, no debits and credits, no lecture on the fundamentals. It is not a book about your money mindset either. You already run a real business. You just cannot see inside it, yet.
Why good owners make expensive decisions.
I asked him one question. Do you feel the first restaurant is strong enough to sustain a second? He paused, then said it was too late, he had already signed the lease. Six months later he lost both businesses.
Alberto did not have to lose anything. He needed one honest look at his own numbers before he signed. He was not reckless, and he was not short on business sense. He was making a decision the size executives make, without the information that is supposed to sit behind it. Nobody had ever shown him the difference.
That is the position most owners are in. Inside the companies where I was CFO, nobody ever guessed. There were systems, and somebody whose job was to read the numbers forward instead of backward.
Small businesses almost never get that layer, and most owners have never been told it exists. It is not accounting. It is the difference between a business that looks profitable and one that is. That is what this book hands you.
The gap between how it looks and how it performs.
Most owners do not go looking. Something makes them look. A line of credit declined. A tax bill you cannot check. A question from your partner you cannot answer. The condition underneath is always the same.
"The Missing Middle"
The problem has a name. The Missing Middle. Someone posts your transactions. Someone files your return. Nobody with financial knowledge sits between them telling you what it means.
A banker asked one of my clients why her revenue was up twelve percent while her cash position had dropped twenty. She could not answer. Nobody had ever been paid to know.
You have not been failing at your finances. You have been making the same decisions large company owners make, without the information that is supposed to sit behind them. That was never yours to supply.
Every owner I work with is somewhere between $250,000 and $5 million, with a payroll to meet and vendors who need paying. The size is not the problem. The blind spot is.
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You have already tried to fix this.
You have tried. A part-time bookkeeper who did the minimum. QuickBooks set up years ago and never properly maintained. A CPA who tells you about last year at tax time. Maybe a book, maybe a workshop, maybe a weekend with a shoebox of receipts that you gave up on by Sunday night.
None of it added up to a system, so you started to wonder if the problem was you. It was not. Each piece was doing its own narrow job correctly, and not one of them was ever responsible for telling you what to do next. You were sold parts and left to build the machine.
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One shift turns looking into knowing.
One shift sits underneath this entire book:
Stop treating your books as a record of what already happened, and start treating them as the control panel for what you do next.
Here's what this book gives you:
Control. You open your books and know exactly where the business stands.
You become fundable. Numbers that hold up to a bank, a partner, or a buyer, and an approval on the first ask instead of the third.
Underneath both, sleep. Opening a bank statement without that drop in your stomach, because nothing is hiding from you.
There are seven steps and they only work in order. Most owners start at step four, which is why the cleanups never hold. The first step takes thirty minutes and costs nothing.
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Your books are not wrong. They are answering the wrong question.
Most owners think the answer is a better bookkeeper, or that they need to finally learn to read a P&L. So they shop on price, or buy a course, or avoid the whole thing for another quarter. None of it works, because none of it touches the actual problem. Your books are not wrong. They were built for a different reader, and they have been serving that reader faithfully for years.
Think of your books as a dashboard. The dashboard is on and the gauges are reading. The problem is not that you cannot read them. It is that they are answering the wrong questions. Transactional bookkeeping records what already happened. Strategic Bookkeeping reads the same data and tells you what to do next. One is a record. The other is a control panel.
You are not being asked to become your own bookkeeper, or to pay for more bookkeeping. This is the layer that sits above it, and it is the one nobody has been doing for you.
What My Clients Found
What is inside the book?
The thirty-minute exercise that tells you where your business actually stands, before you change a single thing.
Why your P&L can look healthy while your bank account quietly empties, and which of your three statements is telling the truth.
The Missing Middle: why having a bookkeeper and a CPA still leaves nobody answering the one question you need answered.
How one restaurant recovered $51,000 in overpaid sales tax and $18,000 in unused tip credits that had been sitting there the whole time.
The three layers of spending to cut, in the right order, and why starting with the obvious one is why most cleanups never hold.
What to say when a banker asks why your revenue is up twelve percent and your cash is down twenty.
Why QuickBooks was never the problem, and the one Monday morning report that turns it from a filing cabinet into a control panel.
The FSE Method for making funding, strategy and execution calls from your numbers instead of your gut.
Why the seven steps only work in order, and what happens to the owners who start at step four. Most do.
The Performance Gap Calculator, free with the book, that shows you in two minutes what your business is really keeping.
The cost of another year of guessing.
You know what the performance costs. Nodding along when someone mentions margins, hoping nobody notices you are not sure what yours are. The statement that sits unopened for three days. The quiet arithmetic at two in the morning. You have carried a real business on operations and instinct for years and done it well. You have just done it as the only person who suspected anything was wrong.
What keeps this going is not the mess. It is the fear of what you would find. The mess is only information, and the fear is worse than the truth every single time. Nothing in your books is beyond repair. Another twelve months of guessing costs more than looking does. You do not have to fix any of it this week. You only have to look.
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Different businesses. Same framework.
If you have employees, vendors, payroll and real overhead, the seven steps run the same way, whatever it is you sell.
Read it. If it does not deliver, you pay nothing.
You have 100 days. Read the whole book, work the quick win at the end of each chapter, and if you do not see your business more clearly than you do today, email us and we refund every penny.
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Frequently answered questions.
How quickly will I receive the book?
The ebook and audiobook arrive instantly. Paperbacks ship within 3 to 7 business days, and every paperback includes the audiobook free. Your confirmation email arrives straight away.
Is this worth the price?
At $21, the real question is not the money. It is what another year costs you of not knowing whether the business is profitable or only looks that way.
Can I get a refund if I change my mind?
Yes. You have 100 days, which is far longer than it takes to read the book and work the quick wins. If it does not deliver, email us for a full refund. No hoops and no awkward questions.
What formats does the book come in?
Paperback, ebook, and audiobook. Take one or all three. Every paperback order includes the audiobook at no extra cost.
I have been burned by a bookkeeper before. How is this different?
Fairly. Most were hired to record transactions, and that is all they did. This book is about the layer above that, the one that reads the numbers and tells you what to do next.
I am afraid of what a cleanup would uncover.
That fear is normal and it is the main reason owners wait. Nothing in your books is beyond repair. The ugliest cleanup I have done still ended with an owner who could finally sleep.
My business is smaller and messier than most. Is it too late?
No. The framework does not need clean books to start. It needs your willingness to look. Messy books are the normal starting condition, not a disqualification.
Is my payment information secure?
Yes. Checkout runs through an encrypted, PCI-compliant processor. Your card details are never stored on our systems.
Can I speak to someone about my order?
Of course. Email and you will hear back within one business day.
Jacqueline Oberst
About the author
I am Jacqueline Oberst. Thirty-five years as a financial executive, including more than two decades as a senior CFO at two national firms, first in healthcare consulting, then in digital marketing.
I hold a Master of Science in Data Analytics and I am a Certified Exit Planning Advisor, which means I read your books through the lens of where you want to end up, not only where you have been.
I am not a guru and I do not sell inspiration. I run Sunderland Valley Enterprises in Las Vegas, and I do this work for small business owners every day.
You have read this far for a reason.
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Nothing on this page asks you to become a numbers person. It asks you to stop guessing about a business you built. The payoff is not tidier books. It is a business that performs the same way it looks, and the choice of what to do next. Grow, borrow, sell, or change nothing at all, decided from strength.
Clarity replaces chaos. Nothing is beyond repair. Whatever you find can be fixed, and the frantic work underneath stops once you can see. The door is open whenever you are ready to look.
$67 $21 EARLY BIRD
Jacqueline A. Oberst helps small business owners who suspect their financials are a mess and are not sure what they would find if they looked. Looks Profitable shows you the difference between a business that looks profitable and one that is, and gives you a seven-step path to growth ready, loan ready, and sale ready.
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The testimonials and sales figures presented are exceptional results of our existing clients and are not indicative of typical experiences. Jacqueline A. Oberst provides no guarantees of financial outcomes; your results may vary significantly. Your earnings depend on various personal factors and there is an inherent risk of loss of capital. Past performance is not a predictor of future results. We are not liable for your financial decisions or actions, and our products or services should be used with due diligence and understanding of your individual circumstances. By using our services, you acknowledge and agree to the potential for varying financial outcomes and assume responsibility for all associated risks.
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