When we published The slow operators last week, several readers wrote in asking the same follow-up question: what, specifically, does the spreadsheet look like when a small-business owner decides not to grow?
Ellen Foley, who runs Foley Bindery in Ballarat and was one of the three founders profiled in that piece, agreed to walk us through the answer. We spoke for an hour in the bindery’s office. What follows is an edited transcript, lightly rearranged for flow. The numbers are hers; she gave permission to publish them on the condition that none be rounded in a way that changed what they described.
I am not a growth story. I am a small-business owner who decided the business was already the right size.
On the decision
Blogbox. Last week you said you stopped expanding in late 2021. What was the specific meeting where that decision happened?
Foley. It was not one meeting. There were three. The first was with my accountant, in July 2021. He had modelled the three-site plan and the numbers were fine. Not spectacular, but fine. The second was with my head bookbinder, in August. She had been with us for eleven years at that point. I asked her whether she wanted to run a second site. She said yes. She said, without a pause, she would rather leave.
The third was with me, in September, walking home from the bindery one Friday evening. I was working out what my workweek would look like if we were three sites instead of one. I had run the numbers on the financial side; I had not run the numbers on my time. The minute I did, the decision became obvious.
On what changed next
Blogbox. What changed about how you ran the business after that?
Foley. A lot of small things, some of which I did not expect. We stopped pursuing new wholesale accounts. We raised our consumer prices by roughly 11% over two years, which I had been afraid to do for a decade, because when the pressure to grow is off, the pressure to defend margin becomes easier to act on. We turned down two contracts I would have chased in 2020.
We also changed how we thought about staffing. The team stayed at seven; I am not interested in it being six, and I am not interested in it being eight. When someone leaves, we hire the closest replacement to the role they vacated, which is a boring sentence, but it is also a specific rejection of the idea that each vacancy is an opportunity to redesign.
On the money
Blogbox. You said we could look at the numbers. What do they show?
Foley. Revenue in 2021, the last year of the growth pitch, was $1.04 million. Revenue in 2025 was $1.31 million. That is roughly 6% compounded, fully self-funded, no debt raised against it. Margin has improved over the same period from 16% to 19.5%, which is the price rises more than any efficiency.
The part I find most interesting, looking back, is that the 2021 plan for three sites had modelled year-five revenue at $3.2 million. If I had executed it, I would have been running a business with three times the headcount, the same margin at best, and a much larger debt position. The counterfactual exists. I can do the maths on it.
The counterfactual exists. I can do the maths on it.
Blogbox. Do you wish you had grown?
Foley. No. I have a business I am still pleased to walk into in the morning, which is not a financial metric but turns out to be a material one. I have seven employees, four of whom have been here longer than ten years. I have zero debt. My husband and I own the building we operate from. By the standards my accountant works with, I am not a success story. By the standards my grandfather worked with, I very much am. I have decided which set of standards matters to me.
On what she would have done differently
Blogbox. Is there anything you would have done differently?
Foley. Two things. I would have priced our work more assertively from the start. I spent years in the 2010s at margins a specialist craft operation had no business running at, because I was afraid of customer loss. The customer loss, when I finally tested it, was minimal. The margin gain was substantial.
The other thing is I would have had the conversation with my head bookbinder earlier. She was the person most likely to leave if we expanded; she was also the person most likely to stay for another decade if we did not. I had not asked her what she wanted, in those terms, until the August meeting. I should have asked her in 2015.
On advice
Blogbox. Would you tell other small-business owners to do what you did?
Foley. I would not tell them to do anything. I would tell them to write down, on a single page, what they want the business to look like in ten years. Not financially. Operationally. Who is there. What the week feels like. What the owner does on a Tuesday. Then check it against the growth plan their accountant has written.
If the two documents agree, the growth plan is the right plan. If they do not, the growth plan is somebody else’s plan. In my case they did not, and I think that is true for more owner-operators than anyone writes about, because no-one writes about the Tuesday.
On what comes next
Blogbox. What does the next ten years of Foley Bindery look like?
Foley. Exactly like the last five, with slightly better margins and a single piece of new equipment I have been patient enough to wait for. I will be here in 2036. The team will mostly be the same team. We will bind books.
That is the plan. It is a boring plan. I recommend boring plans.
Ellen Foley spoke to Blogbox on 8 April 2026. She reviewed her own quotes before publication. The revenue and margin figures above are drawn from the bindery’s management accounts, shared at her discretion.