Stop Paying Yourself Last: Your Business Should Be Paying You

I want you to answer a question.

Does your business actually pay you?

Not occasionally.

Not when you have a really good month.

Not when everybody else has been paid and there happens to be a little money hanging around in the bank account.

Does paying you have an actual place in your business finances?

Because if your business pays everyone else but you, we have a problem.

And I know this one because I’ve been there.

The Myth of Paying Yourself Last

There’s this strange badge of honor we sometimes wear as entrepreneurs.

I put everything back into the business.

Sounds responsible, right?

Except then the business pays the employees. It pays the contractors. It pays for software. It pays rent. It pays for marketing. It pays for all those little expenses that somehow become very big expenses.

And the owner?

We get whatever is left.

Sometimes that’s something.

Sometimes it’s nothing.

And somehow we’ve convinced ourselves that this is what entrepreneurship is supposed to look like.

It’s not.

Profit is not leftovers. And paying yourself is not leftovers.

They need to be intentional parts of your financial plan.

Flip the Way You Think About Your Money

A lot of business owners essentially manage cash like this:

Revenue → Expenses → Whatever Is Left

And whatever is left gets divided between profit, taxes, and maybe paying ourselves.

I want you to flip that around.

When money comes into the business, decide ahead of time how it will be allocated.

Think in four basic buckets:

1. Profit

2. Owner’s pay

3. Taxes

4. Operating expenses

Your percentages are going to depend on your business, and they don't need to be perfect on day one.

The important part is deciding that the first three buckets actually exist.

Because once you do that, operating expenses stop determining everything else.

Instead, you determine what the business can afford to spend.

Let's Put Some Numbers Behind It

Say your business brings in $5,000 this month.

Maybe your target looks something like this:

• 5% to profit

• 30% to owner's pay

• 20% to taxes

• 45% to operating expenses

That's $250 into profit.

$1,500 to you.

$1,000 set aside for taxes.

And $2,250 available to operate the business.

Now compare that to what actually happened last month.

Maybe you put nothing into profit.

Maybe you paid yourself $1,000.

Maybe you only put $500 toward taxes.

And maybe you spent $3,500 operating the business.

Okay.

No judgment.

We're not doing this exercise so you can kick yourself for what happened last month.

We're doing it so you can finally see it.

Once you know where you are versus where you want to be, you can start closing the gap.

You Don't Have to Fix Everything Tomorrow

This is where I don't want you getting stuck.

You might look at those target percentages and think:

There is absolutely no way I can do that right now.

Okay.

Don't.

If you haven't been consistently paying yourself, start with something.

$5.

$50.

$100.

Whatever works.

Put something into profit.

Put something toward paying yourself.

Then next month, make it a little better.

You don't need to completely restructure your finances overnight. You need to start moving in the right direction.

Small changes made consistently add up much faster than you think.

And Then the Money Mind Trash Shows Up

Here's the part nobody puts in the spreadsheet.

You might feel guilty.

You might think, The business needs this money.

You might worry about what happens if you take too much.

You might even feel selfish.

That's your money mind trash talking.

And believe me, it can get LOUD.

Years of beliefs about money, work, sacrifice, leadership, and what a “good” business owner is supposed to do don't disappear because you changed a percentage in a spreadsheet.

But feeling guilty about compensating yourself for your work doesn't mean paying yourself is wrong.

It means there's a mindset shift that needs to happen alongside the financial one.

You Need to Think Like the CEO

Here's the bigger reason this matters.

When you're constantly worried about whether there will be enough money left for you, you're operating from survival.

And your business doesn't need you thinking like a survivor.

It needs you thinking like a leader.

That means building a company that can support its team, fulfill its obligations, invest in its future—and compensate the person responsible for leading the whole thing.

So I'm giving you a new rule:

Starting today, I pay myself on purpose. Not by accident.

Write it down.

Stick it next to your computer.

Say it the next time guilt shows up.

Because you're not supposed to be last in line forever.

You're the CEO.

And the CEO gets paid.