Most entrepreneurs chase growth by adding.
Add a new marketing channel.
Add a new hire.
Add another tool.
But the smartest business owners know:
The fastest way to grow profit isn’t always addition.
It’s subtraction.
In Your Business Growth Playbook , I brought in Marc Freedman, a man who’s audited over 25,000 businesses and saved clients more than a billion dollars, to talk about where most business owners lose profit without realizing it.
Marc’s insight was simple but brutal:
“You can’t grow what’s leaking.”
- Because every business carries hidden expenses that compound quietly.
- Unused software subscriptions.
- Duplicate vendor services.
- Health insurance premiums that grow faster than revenue.
One of the biggest and least discussed drains? Employee healthcare costs.
However, here’s where smart companies play the long game.
For example, Johnson & Johnson introduced proactive wellness programs decades ago—simple things like fitness incentives, preventative screenings, and stress-management resources.
Over a decade, they reported saving $250 million in health costs – that’s about $565 per employee every year.
That’s not “nice to have.” That’s a new profit center.
And you don’t need a Fortune 500 budget to follow their lead. In fact, the same principle applies to small and mid-sized businesses:
Encourage walking meetings or subsidize gym memberships.
Offer mental health resources – even a single session a month.
Replace “pizza Fridays” with healthier team meals.
In short, what looks like a soft expense today can become a hard return tomorrow.
In Your Business Growth Playbook, I call this “expense reduction with impact”—cutting smarter, not deeper.
It’s not about trimming muscle. It’s about removing fat.
And often, wellness is the scalpel.
Expense reduction isn’t the opposite of growth.
It’s what funds it.
🧠 In Summary
The companies winning tomorrow aren’t just saving money – they’re saving energy.
Because when your team is healthier, your margins are too.
Where could a little wellness today save your business thousands tomorrow?