The March issue of Profit is the launch of a new look and expanded subject base for the business magazine that has been dedicated to small and mid-sized business owners since 1982.


Profit editor Ian Portsmouth says the magazine has always focused on growth companies, but has expanded its reach to small and medium business owners who aren’t actively seeking to expand their businesses. “As a result of our mandate, readers and advertisers may have felt that Profit wasn’t a magazine that spoke to the broader small business market,” he says. “We decided we had an opportunity to engage a larger small business audience. The thousands of people that own businesses but aren’t actively seeking to grow their companies. Not trying to become tycoons.”

Most of the changes in the magazine are subtle, says Portsmouth such as changing its vernacular from less talk about growth and more about management. “There are more stories in the magazines that appeal to lifestyle owners,” he says. “People who start their own businesses to obtain a certain degree of independence and lifestyle. Those are topics that we wouldn’t have tackled in the past.”

 The biggest architectural change to the magazine is a new front of book “Opportunity” section, which builds off Profit’s popular guide printed yearly in its December issue. “We have basically dedicated the first few pages to new trends for business owners to capitalize on,” he says. “New innovations, tools, or less tangible things like new ideas. Helping people understand how the world is changing around them, become more profitable.”

Design-wise, the 63-page March issue introduces a more streamlined, advertiser-friendly Profit, says Portsmouth. “When you look at the differences in the type and illustration you’ll notice that it is less loud than it used to be,” he says. “To do less battle with advertising in the magazine. Interestingly, the quieter approach mirrors what we did around 2002 in that redesign. When we had that visual identity we had our largest readership.”

Profit is published by Rogers six times per year and has an average total circulation of 129,000.