Finance
Margin, pricing, and cash: reading the numbers as a map, not a scorecard.
E.l.f. Beauty Raised Prices 15% for Tariffs. One Product Cut Shows What It Cost Them.
e.l.f. Beauty raised prices 15% to offset real tariff costs, then watched unit sales drop. A targeted $4 cut on one product produced a 40% sales lift almost immediately, showing the gap between a justified price and an accepted one.
Read more →Companies Passing Tariff Costs to Customers Jumped From 13% to 34% in Nine Months
KPMG's 2026 Tariff Survey found the share of organizations passing more than half of tariff-related costs on to customers rose from 13% in May
Commercial Chapter 11 Filings Are Up 28% This Year. 4,589 Companies Have Filed So Far.
Epiq AACER, the primary source for US bankruptcy filing data, recorded 4,589 commercial Chapter 11 filings in the first half of 2026, up 28%
63% of Small Business Owners Have Less Than 90 Days of Cash Left If Revenue Stopped
Revenued's Q1 2026 survey of 307 small business owners found 62.9% have fewer than 90 days of operating cash runway, and just 6.2% hold
41% of CFOs at Goods Companies Say Margins Fell in 2025. Only 12% Saw Them Improve.
PYMNTS Intelligence surveyed 60 CFOs at US middle-market goods and services firms and found 41% at goods companies reported falling operating margins in 2025,
Small business confidence held steady this quarter. Cash flow comfort just fell 15 points.
The US Chamber of Commerce's Q2 2026 Small Business Index held nearly steady at 66.5, but the share of owners very comfortable with their
Chipotle’s Margins Fell to 23.4%. Wingstop’s Hit 25%. Same Inflation, Opposite Bets.
Chipotle and Wingstop reported earnings within two weeks of each other, facing the same cost inflation, and came out with almost exactly opposite margin
Why The Economy Grows When Your Small Business Grows
In this short podcast episode, I share why Business Leaders Coach is explicitly on a mission to help small and medium-sized businesses grow from