You Cut Your Salary Again to Save Your Business

Rent is due. Payroll needs to be covered. The equipment lease payment is coming out automatically. You look at your bank balance and do the math, and there's only one place left to cut: your own paycheck.

Again.

"It's just temporary," you tell yourself. "Once things pick up, I'll pay myself properly." But this is the third month in a row you've made this "temporary" sacrifice, and you're starting to wonder if you'll ever actually pay yourself what you're worth.

You're working 50+ hour weeks, running the business, seeing patients, managing staff, and you're paying yourself less than you'd make working part-time at Target. But hey, at least the lights are still on, right?

Wrong. This isn't heroic—it's unsustainable.

My "Martyr Owner" Wake-Up Call

I spent most of 2023 cutting my salary to keep my practices afloat. Some months I didn't pay myself at all because I convinced myself that paying my team and keeping the doors open was more important than paying the person who built the business.

I was working full-time hours but taking home part-time pay, all while pretending everything was fine. I told myself I was being responsible, being a good leader, sacrificing for the greater good.

The reality? I was being a martyr, and martyrs don't build sustainable businesses.

My husband would ask about our budget for date nights or vacations, and I'd have to tell him we couldn't afford it. Here I was, running two chiropractic offices, and I couldn't afford to take my own family out to dinner. The shame was crushing, but I kept telling myself it was temporary.

It wasn't temporary. It was a pattern that nearly destroyed both my business and my marriage.

Here's the Hard Truth

If your business can't afford to pay you a living wage, your business isn't viable. Period.

You cutting your salary isn't "saving" your business—it's prolonging its death. You're essentially subsidizing a failing business model with your personal financial security.

Think about it: if your overhead truly requires your full salary to be sustainable, then cutting your salary just kicks the problem down the road. What happens when you've cut your salary to zero? Do you start paying the business to stay open?

Let's do some real math. Say your total overhead should be $45,000 monthly (including a $5,000 salary for you), but you're only collecting $42,000. Instead of cutting your salary to $2,000, you need to ask why you're not collecting enough revenue.

Are you undercharging? Are you not seeing enough patients? Are you spending money on things that don't generate revenue? Are there expenses you can cut that aren't your salary?

The Actual Solutions

First: Treat your salary as a fixed expense, not a variable one. Put it in the same category as rent. Would you skip paying rent to save your business? Then don't skip paying yourself.

Second: If there's not enough money to pay everyone including you, something is fundamentally broken. Either your prices are too low, your expenses are too high, or your business model doesn't work. Cutting your salary masks the problem instead of solving it.

Third: Calculate what you actually need to earn. Not what you think you should be satisfied with—what you actually need to live comfortably and save for the future. Let's say that's $6,000 monthly.

Now work backwards. If you see 1,000 patient visits monthly and need $6,000 for yourself plus $39,000 for other overhead ($45,000 total), you need to charge at least $45 per visit. If you're only charging $35, there's your problem.

Fourth: Make the hard decisions about expenses that aren't generating revenue. That expensive software you never use? Gone. The marketing that doesn't bring in patients? Cut it. The staff member who isn't pulling their weight? Time for a difficult conversation.

How I Help Practitioners Stop Financial Martyrdom

I work with chiropractors, massage therapists, and acupuncturists who are tired of being the lowest-paid person in their own practice. We get brutally honest about what your business actually needs to pay you properly, then we make it happen.

In my 90-Day Profit Clarity Program, we start by calculating what you actually need to earn and building that into your business model as non-negotiable. We organize your expenses to find cuts that don't involve your salary, audit your pricing to ensure it supports proper owner compensation, and create systems that prioritize your financial stability alongside business growth.

I check in throughout the 90 days because it's easy to slip back into martyr mode when money gets tight.

Ready to stop sacrificing yourself to save your business? Download my free budget spreadsheet [Budget] to see what you should actually be paying yourself, or book a call [Work Together] to discuss building a business that pays you properly in the 90-Day Program.

Because you can't save a business by destroying yourself. A business that can't pay its owner isn't worth saving—it's worth fixing.