Does 'Profit First' Work? Colleen Hilton Explains How Profit First Changed Her Business Ep #291 #EEP

All right, my friends, uh, strap it on. You know what it is? It's that rinky dinky knickers of yours. Cause we're about to discuss how someone was successful with Profit First. You're about to hear that and so much more in today's episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. That's a good, good terms from you two.

Finally, you're working as a team.

Usually you're despondent to each other. That's just, it's a team.

The idea is that we're not working as a team.

Yeah, we didn't collaborate at all.

It's supposed to be random.

That's a good point. My name's Mike Michalowicz. I'm an author on a mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. You know exactly what that is, but we'll explain it anyway. This is the gap between where the world thinks you are and where you really are. In fact, today's guest, Karleen Hilton, is coming on to explain her kind of lowest point of lows. She starts a business. What does the world think of her? What's the reality? And how did she close the gap? That's what we do on this episode and every episode of Entrepreneurship Elevated. Join studio by my favorite critic.

Hello, friend. Thank you so much for listening, and please don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening to us.

If I made that mistake, you'd be all over me.

I know.

Oh, and please don't subscribe.

You were just all over me.

And Jay Cablone. Hello, how are you, sir?

I'm good.

So a big dump truck got in your way today, huh?

Big old dump truck.

Yeah, wiped out. Not you, the dump truck.

Yeah, it was. Well, it didn't fall over, but it ran off the median and was just kind of chilling there. Honestly, the guy, it looked like the guy was just driving too fast, swerved, and then just went—

Oh, so you saw the accident happen?

No, I stumbled upon it after.

Oh, so that's your analysis is he was driving too fast. Okay.

That's my driving-by gaper analysis.

Yeah, it's like the Monday Night Quarterback.

How'd your trailer trash party go?

We didn't have it yet.

Oh yeah, isn't that next?

It's like Thursday. Yeah, next, next week.

I thought it was Halloween.

No, no, it's not. I knew that's not a Halloween party.

Confusing.

Yeah, yeah. How come people— I do that same thing. Like, I will judge if I see a car accident or any situation, I will judge how it came about, and I have no basis for my experience. I have no experience or knowledge.

The mind wants to give it a story. I wouldn't say you judge it, you just—

that's true—

hypothesize it.

I looked at the tire track.

How come everyone that's a rubbernecker— like, I get frustrated, all rubberneckers, and then I rubberneck more than anybody.

Yeah, because that's what happens. It's like you can't help but look.

But I blame them because I pull up to them like, I didn't want to look in the first place, but now since everyone else is looking, I'll look over my shoulder.

Well, I think you shouldn't blame them anymore.

How you been?

You just admitted.

I know.

Hmm, I've been good. Yeah, yeah, I've been really good. I love this weather right now.

I don't know, my hair transplant surgery is going well.

So you've gone 3 times?

3 times.

And then how long does it take to start to see?

Supposedly 3 months. So I'm 3 months in. I think I have less hair now.

Oh, scary.

Do you? Have you? You probably don't notice too much, right? I think it may be less. So the doctor's like, yeah, it looks like it's making some progress. I'm like, really? Really? So he's like, I don't want to show you the photos yet. He's like, I want to show you even more impressive progress the next month. So I signed up for 3 more months.

Okay.

So what they do is they—

They got you.

I know.

He sales you.

He did sales me. So they take your blood out, they put it in this centrifuge, they separate out the plasma, which he calls liquid gold, and the red blood cells and some other— there's 3 ingredients, if you will. Then they extract the plasma and inject it in your head, and the idea is it acts almost like an injury. So as you're injecting it in, right, the concentration promotes healing and growth. And they show some before and after pictures, and if they're not doctored or fake stories, there's been some examples that are pretty impressive, but so far I'm not one of those examples.

Is it still really painful?

Well, last time was less painful. He slaps on this topical lotion that numbs your skull. So I don't know if I told you this, I was perspiring the first time it happened and I kind of rubbed my hand up here and then I rubbed my lip and my lip went numb. So it really works. This time I must have got some on my tongue, because I noticed, he smears all over your head, oh, this is what happened, he puts it all over your head, then he puts some other injections, and then there's very little pain, because they block out all the nerves. But I wore a baseball cap out, 'cause it looks like you put way too much hair gel in it, right? So I just put a loose baseball cap on. Well, I took the cap off, and I must have done something with the cap, and then it hit my thumb, and it hit my tongue, 'cause all of a sudden my tongue starts going numb. I'm like, what's going on? I touched my baseball cap. So I don't know, I'm gonna keep doing it for a little bit longer, and then I gotta take— no more drastic actions, but I gotta make a decisive action. I might shave it down. You got yours super short, I might do that. Or I don't know if that'll go well for me though, I got too much of a pineapple-shaped head.

You say that, but—

Yeah, I really don't know, and it looks like it'd be fine, honestly. What was that alien that was—

Coneheads?

Yeah, close, but thank you. No, the alien that—

You made that shape.

I got you. Got your—

yeah, that was Sigourney Weaver.

Yeah, I think so, right? It disappeared. Predator. He's got that super long—

oh, the dreads.

Yeah, yeah, that one. But you see how long his head is? I'm not saying because you have dreads, his head is long like that. Mine's kind of Predator-like.

I think you're thinking—

I'm very simian-like.

You're thinking of this, the Sigourney Weaver alien, not the Predator alien. The one, the one, the one, yeah, with the, the long head that jumps.

The long head. Yeah, yeah, jumps around, comes out of your body. Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay, I think I'm like them. You ever notice how simian I am? Like, my eyes are sunk back, my protruding brow line.

Like one step away from—

one step away from a caveman. No, my mental— like, the, the amount of, um, decorum I have is indicative that I'm a caveman.

That's true. Yeah, that's my parents.

All right, Kels, um, hey, do we have any shout outs before we get into these?

Okay, so this one comes from Nick. He writes, hey Nick, I have to give you one more shout out. As a leadership coach and trainer, I've walked people through values clarification and visioning exercises for roughly 15 years. I've consistently reviewed and prayed over my personal values over the last 15 years, and that has been transformational. But the way you describe values clarification and vision work in your cheeky— I couldn't resist— book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, in terms of the importance of tapping emotion even to the point of tears is genuinely powerful. Because of your recommendations, I have been revisiting my work values in light of your recommendations, and it has been very cool. I look forward to redoing my vision work in light of your recommendations there too. I gotta say it once again, blessings to you, Mike. I look forward to growing and serving and blessing more people partially through your significant contributions.

Alright, well, blessings to you, Nick.

Yeah, it was very sweet.

A lot of people, you know, no one knows— not no one, but very few people know my religious background. It's— Really isn't one. That's the whole answer. But people say, oh, so are you Jewish? Shalom. I'm like, shalom. People are like, oh, you're a Christian guy, right? I'm like, am I? And they're like, blessings. I'm like, blessings to you. You know, so I will reciprocate. I think it's cool.

All good. You do look very WASPy.

Really?

I think so.

Yeah, well, it's the German blood, but a lot of people think I'm Jewish too.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah, very. Look at me.

I would never say that.

I can— I'm like a chameleon. Sometimes I'm predator, sometimes I'm I'm a Simeon, other times I'm a Jew.

Did you ever get your DNA tested? I did.

Did I tell you I did Ancestry?

Yeah.

Yeah, so we did Ancestry. Here's the interesting— have you done that? The Me Too, Me and the Ancestry?

No, my father did, but I don't know the results. Me Too, Me Too.

Hashtag Me Too.

Same difference.

Same difference. Have you ever done it?

My father did, but I don't know the results from it.

Oh, and have you, Kelsey?

Yeah.

What'd you find out?

Um, pretty much to be expected, but they keep changing it. Do you get the notifications that they keep updating it?

No. So it keeps switching.

So when I first came back, it came back that I was 2% Jewish, and now I'm not Jewish at all. But yeah, it's mostly Irish and then like English, Scottish, Welsh, and then Swedish.

Yeah, I used to think—

And then there's some like German, Western European.

I don't see the German part. I see every other country around Germany. I still see the German part. Yeah, yeah. The interesting thing— and then we'll get on to our guests— the interesting thing of these DNA breakdowns is I think it's the 1%. Like, the— yeah, you're, you're 2% Jewish. Now they rescinded that. That's kind of weird.

But yeah, isn't that weird?

It's kind of weird. Like, that points to major inaccuracy here. So now I'm questioning mine.

Yeah, you can't trust it.

Yeah, I'm 1% Armenian, but now I'm like, am I? Am I right? But that's the interesting part. Yeah, no one cares about the— oh, you're Irish. I couldn't figure that one out.

Well, that's what mine came back— 1% Melanesian. Did I tell you that?

I think— no, I don't know.

It's like mentally recorded. Yeah, Papua New Guinea.

Oh yeah, yeah, you did say that, you did say that.

I think, um, I read an article, it was really fascinating, that I think it was the Human Genome Project or something involved with it. The scientists have figured out that there's DNA that they don't know where it came from that like filled in our gaps. Oh, it's like they're calling it extraterrestrial DNA.

Predator, bro, predator. Hey, you know what we'll do on next episode is let's do the bingo game. So we'll do it real quickly. And, uh, how about like, what word we say? Yeah, so like you can get me, I'll get Jeremy, Jeremy gets you. And so you can pick the words you want.

I don't know what that is.

So like a word that Mike says all the time, and once he says it 5 times, I get bingo.

Yeah, so like the words I'll say is like, uh, instead of— I'll say purport.

Yeah, I'll say that was reported.

Or suspect. I suspect that's true. Purportedly. And if you had those words on your list, you check it off, and you can put any order you want. And your goal is to get bingo. Whoever gets bingo first just yells it out during the show.

I feel like for me it'd be like feel and love.

Yeah, I got to think. I want Jake Blone. Jake Blone will get Kelsey. Kelsey gets me. How's that sound?

Yeah.

Okay. All right. We'll do it next episode, though. All right. And don't cheat. Don't start to get started. Are you starting working already?

Yeah.

Because you're listening. Don't. Don't listen because you're going to listen to this episode and say, oh, I know what Mike will say next episode. That's how.

That's the exact way you're supposed to do it.

All right. I want to thank our corporate partner Nextiva for making the show a reality. We'll give you more details on them in a little bit. Let's get to our guest. Her name is Colleen Hilton. She holds her BA in psychology and MA in counseling psychology. In 2016, Colleen founded Seattle-based counseling company Acuity Counseling. She currently focuses on education, speaking on topics related to the first responder community, as well as leading the 18 therapists and staff she has over at Acuity Counseling. Now here's the deal, there was a time that business wasn't so sweet. She subsequently established a business new business and ultimately implement the product first. We're gonna get insider access to what the before and after is like. So with no further ado, please join me in welcoming Colleen Hilton. Colleen, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

So, uh, Colleen, let's start off with, with that trauma point or the, the turning point. It sounds like, uh, life wasn't always easy for you. And I understand at one point, uh, you got terminated, but you had a lot of burden on your shoulder. Tell us about that moment.

Yeah, so early 2016, I had been working as a contractor therapist for another agency and was suddenly terminated with only 3 weeks' notice. At the time, I was a single mom and I had 2 little girls under the age of 10. So I very quickly had to come up with Plan B and decided over the course of 3 weeks that I had before termination to start my own company, right? Because that sounds like a really smart idea.

Yeah, yeah.

Used my last little bit of savings and rented myself an office and started seeing clients on my own. Uh, about 6 months later, we rebranded to Acuity Counseling, and I started hiring clinicians to work with me, uh, and we just kind of grew from there. Awesome.

How much money did you have saved up that you used?

Uh, I used about $7,000 to get us started.

Okay, now was that all your savings? Was that there to support you and your daughters?

That was everything I had. I had gone through a really nasty divorce and I had a mortgage to pay and there just really wasn't much buffer zone. To be honest, everybody told me it was a really epically bad idea. They were like, "No, go get a real job." I guess the bad idea turned out okay.

First of all, it sounds like a real job, they can really fire you at their own whim. How did that come about?

Washington is an at-will state and the woman that I was working for previously, she and I had a personal disagreement around values. And because she was the boss, I found myself unemployed.

Oof.

Yeah. Was it— did you expect that to come, or did you think that your former boss would manage that situation a little differently?

No, I had no idea. I had gone to work at 8 o'clock in the morning and at 9 o'clock was told that my contract was terminated and I was fired.

Oh my gosh, so total blindside. Have you ever owned a business prior?

Nope. I actually was a stay-at-home mom for about 7 years while I was previously married. So I'd only been back in the workforce about 18 months at the time.

Okay. So then what inspires you to take what some would consider the ultimate risk in at least our careers and start your own company as opposed to seek employment?

Yeah. You know, I gotta say a little bit of naivete.

Yeah.

You know, I kind of had this sense that I was really good at being a therapist. And so how hard could it be? Right? Like, what's— I think if I had known how difficult it was at the beginning, I might not have. I think that ignorance actually helped me take the leap.

What was the hardest part? What was the most unexpected thing or things as running a business that you weren't prepared for?

Honestly, I think it was the managing employees and supporting them. I had always had a caseload of clients on my own, but managing employees puts a huge amount of responsibility on me as the employer. I'm suddenly making sure that somebody else has a paycheck to take home to their family, and that was something I did not anticipate at all.

Okay, so you had to start paying for other people, their families, but you spent your $7,000, so you had zero money for your family. How did you continue on? How did you support your family? What did you have to do in your personal life?

Yeah. So we cut way back. Um, I don't remember what those are called, but where they, uh, where you basically ask for forgiveness on your mortgage and get to refinance it. I did that on my mortgage. Um, we cut way back and when Acuity was young, honestly, I took very little of a paycheck for about the first 12 months. I only took home $2,500 a month. Um, so we just kind of tied things together with shoelaces in a lot of ways.

Okay, so $2,500 a month, uh, when you're starting Acuity. By this time, I assume you have to start paying your mortgage again after you were given that—

yep—

leniency.

You know, things just got really, really creative, to be quite honest.

Can you give me something? Because you got to feed your family. Like, you can't get creative and make, make food out of thin air. But what What did you get creative with?

I did do a lot of putting things on credit cards, to be quite honest, which I'm not proud of, but you do what you got to do to make sure the kids are okay. We fortunately had child support that I could also help push things along. There was a breaking point where I was looking at closing the doors to Acuity because I wasn't making any money and because there wasn't going to be any more runway. Ahead of me. Fortunately, I was actually turned on to your book, the Profit First book, which was the first one that I had read and just kind of had this massive, "Oh my God, I don't have to be broke." Martyring myself is not the answer.

Can you give me the day before, the day after you discovered Profit First? Leading up to this point where you started reading the book, what was the business like? How many employees did you have? What was the monthly spend you have, what were you taking home? Can you give us at least a sense for that?

Yeah. At that point, right before I read Profit First, we had 2 locations. We were probably carrying about $10,000 a month in hard expenses but also payroll for probably about 6 employees at that point. So quite a bit. Again, I was taking home $2,500 a month if we made any money that month. My employees came first. Their paychecks were more important than mine. Because I had a responsibility to them. And there were lots of conversations between myself and my accountant going, "How much longer can we do this? How much longer can we survive off of basically thin air?" And again, heard about your book, started reading it, asked my accountant to read it. And right after we got done crying together about how we've been doing everything wrong and backwards, we got really excited. And the next day went out and opened up a bunch of different checking and savings accounts. As per your suggestion.

Give me the sense for your emotions, like that exasperation point, and maybe that's the word you'll use, but how did you feel once you discovered the system and maybe saw the potential? How'd you feel? And then how do you feel today? Like, there's 3 stages, like the before, the during, the after. How's the emotions changed, if they have?

Uh, tremendously. Uh, before, before I read the book, I really felt like I'd been failing. I was I was failing my kids. I was failing the people that worked for my company because I had a responsibility to them. Kind of hearing all the advice in the back of my head, "Go get a real job," and going, "Oof, I forgot real job," where somebody else is responsible for the paycheck. When I read your book, there was really just a renewed sense of hope that I had an option, that it didn't have to be this way, that if we just kind of tilted the picture a quarter turn, we might be able to actually squeeze some water out of that rock. So that was exciting, but also terrifying all at the same time, to be honest.

And then what's the after? And then we're gonna dig into what you actually did, but where you sit today, what's the emotion like now?

Oh my gosh, it's so freeing.

Yes, tell me about it.

It feels so good. Since implementing your system, year over year, we have seen a 300% increase in revenues and profits. So—

and profits.

Yes, and profits. Been huge because the system that we built increases our profits with our revenues, so it's all proportionate. So it protects the money that comes back into the company for me and for the stability of Acuity. And to be honest, that stability has really enabled our continued growth. Without that, I would be pulling back. I would be worried about how to get through our slow seasons. I don't worry about that anymore. In fact, we throw holiday parties during the slow seasons because we're not as busy, so why not? That's awesome.

That's awesome.

So it's very different. And the freedom that it's allowed me in my own personal life, I can't put words. I mean, we just had Halloween last week. I took the day off and I was home with my kids and we went trick-or-treating. And the next day I went in late because I'm not integral to the business on a day-to-day basis.

Okay. So that's amazing. And I, I'm just going to presume you're taking more than $2,500 home now because, okay.

Yeah, no, now I get a salary and I get owner's distributions based on profits and, and I'm, I'm stable in my own personal life, which lets me be more stable as the CEO of my own company and the ripple effect is it.

Yeah.

It's just exponential.

How do you think it affects your daughters? I, I don't, I can only imagine how they must've felt with the instability, uh, through all the different transitions going on, coupled with the fact that there was a shoestring budget. How do you see that relationship with your daughter, Sandy? How are they responding to this?

Yeah.

Honestly, I'd like to think that I protected them from knowing, but we'll find out later as they get older.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

But now they just see me being more able to be involved. I can go to the after-school activities. I can volunteer in their classroom. We don't need for things. I hope that they want for things because I want them to be inspired to be ambitious in their own careers. But I don't worry about paying the mortgage anymore. If we need groceries, we go to the grocery store. If they need a new pair of shoes, we go and buy it. It's not a thing. We were able to take this wonderful trip to Walt Disney World last spring for spring break. I would never have been able to do that even 2 years ago. It's given us so much more time together as a family. Like I said, I'm just kind of at a loss for words, which to be honest is really impressive for me.

The fact you went to Disney means you must be making $1 million or more.

Right.

Because I don't afford Disney.

I know, it's so expensive.

Disney's so freaking expensive.

So much Disney's so expensive.

Oh my God. Tell me about the profit percentage. Maybe you can just share that percentage. What kind of percentage do you allocate toward profit?

Yeah, so we've been able to be pretty aggressive, and over the course of the last 12 months, we've upped our percentage for profits up to 23%. Um, and that's still setting aside other— I'm going to say, like, profit accounts for employee bonuses, for growth, for those holiday parties. Um, but like I said, it just— it provides us that stability that we have extra money that we can decide how we're going to move forward in the future.

Yep. And so you have a 23% profit and that's a cash profit, meaning it's actual cash allocated. You, you additionally take owner's compensation, right? You also take a paycheck for yourself above and beyond the profit, right?

Yeah, we've, we've, we've integrated my salary into the regular payroll. So that's not calculated in the profits at all.

Gotcha. Okay. So you're taking a salary and then does the business reserve your taxes for you?

Yes, they do.

Hot dog. So the business pays your taxes. You have a normalized salary that you come take out of payroll and you have a 23% profit that you can choose what to do with that cash.

Yes. Uh, we use some of it for growth. I use some of it for owner's distributions, uh, bonuses, parties.

Okay.

Fun stuff.

So discretionary use. Now with all that, which sounds like prior to Profit First, it sounds like you were taking a 0% profit. You were barely scratching by. But you said you may have to lay off employees and stuff. What happened to your team? Did you have to get rid of employees? How did you support that?

Well, part of it was we made a transition from a 1099 contractor model to a W-2 employment model.

Interesting.

It allowed me to have more control over job duties and responsibilities and to better allocate the funds. Hold onto the employees of my company in the same way. I mean, I still am responsible to them, but I got to lay out the expectations and make sure that there were things that were healthy for the company financially. Um, but in making that decision and making us more healthy, we've been able to increase the benefits exponentially. My company pays 100% of the medical health insurance for all of our employees, which nobody does. Um, and that's something we've only been able to do since last April, but it's a reflection of the health and wellness of our financial situation.

Situation. So both Kelsey and Jeremy's eyes went wide open when you said you pay 100% health benefits. They're like, we're out of here. We're going to call these places. That is, that actually is substantial because I know for us, what actually, Kelsey, you know better. What are our insurance costs? Just for right now, it's just me and you on the plan. Jeremy's going to be joining. What's the cost?

Yeah. So it's about $500 a month for me. And so I pay $125.

Okay.

So $500, but what's me? Like $2,000?

Yeah.

So $2,500 and that's just 2 employees. You probably have a little more cost than that, Colleen.

Uh, a little more cost than what? I'm sorry.

Oh, than $2,500 a month for health insurance.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Full-time employees get 100% coverage. Part-time employees obviously aren't eligible for the same amount of benefits. Um, but with PTO—

You're talking thousands and thousands of dollars every month.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Or tens of thousands. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

So that's massive. That's massive. So you were able to— so one thing is you went from 1099 to W-2. But if you had no profit before, just doing that won't take you from zero profit to 23% like you're doing now. Did you cut costs elsewhere? Did you increase margin? Are you charging more for what you do? How did you make up those numbers?

It was really a combination of things. We did cut a lot of costs. We kind of went through them with a fine-tooth comb and pulled out all the things that were unnecessary. We were running pretty lean prior to that. So there wasn't a lot, but one of the things that I took out of Profit First, which maybe I should or shouldn't have, was that myself, I think about, I'm like, I wonder if that was the intended meaning, meaning that my efforts and the services that we provide as a company are valuable. So we have to charge for those services. There is a mindset in the mental health industry that we should martyr ourselves for our clients and we should do everything pro bono and we should always give everybody a pass. And I went, you know what, if we're gonna make money and if we're gonna be able to continue to provide good mental health services, we actually have to charge for our services.

Amen. Amen.

Right, so we started charging. I started renegotiating everything as you suggested, even so far as to renegotiate with the health insurance companies around our reimbursement rates for providers and saying, What?

You can do that?

You can do that. So no, no, it's negotiable now. I mean, somebody quotes me a price for something and I'm like, okay, do better.

No wonder you're the first guest we ever had to pay to come on this show. You must negotiate that, right?

That's funny. But yeah, so we really, we really pulled apart every aspect of the finances and tried to see where we can get more money out of it.

—So tell me about this, because I bet you if there's any professionals listening to our show right now that are in the medical practices or wellness practices that get reimbursed by insurance providers, I just presume they assume that is a non-negotiable. How did you even know that's negotiable? How do you even go about that?

—Honestly, I just started asking. As a medical provider, we have network reps, and I just started calling and saying, hey, you're not paying enough money. It's really expensive in Seattle. What are you gonna what are you gonna do about it? And honestly, some of them told me to go pound sand. And some of them went, ooh, we understand, like, what do you want? Which was kind of crazy. I was like, oh shit, what do I want? I want a new car. I was like, well, like, how crazy can I get? So I just started asking. I figured the worst they were gonna say is no, and then I was in the same position I was already in. So as we continue to grow, one of the other things we're doing is actually severing relationships with health insurance companies who won't negotiate with us. Partially because of the reimbursement rates for providers, but also partially around patient care, that they're really dictating, uh, to some extent the treatment plans for our clients, which doesn't align with our values. So, uh, but again, that comes from financial stability. I can decide who I do and don't want to do business with.

Yeah. So in the beginning stages of implementing Profit First, I— assuming here that it must have been more difficult because the confidence isn't there yet. So tell me if that's true. Tell me, once you implemented Profit First, what was the first month or two like? And then I want to hear what it's like today.

Um, honestly, I was just giddy the first couple of months. Okay. A small profit. Um, I remember taking my family and my accountant's family out to dinner and just being like, oh my God, we paid for this. Uh, I'm just so excited. Now I'm equally as excited. It's funny, before this meeting my accountant was over and we were going through the numbers from last month and looking at our year over year, and we've already crested $1 million this year, which last year we didn't even hit half of that. So it's just, it's so exciting to see the growth, and we're talking about where do we want to go in 2020 and beyond, and those are things that I couldn't have even fathomed a couple of years ago.

So congratulations on such growth. And the million-dollar mark is not easy for any business. Would you say profit first or taking a profit facilitates more growth? And let me just add to that, that I believe most entrepreneurs feel if you take profit, you're actually curtailing growth. What's your reality?

No, the reality is, is that it enables growth and it creates stability where the entrepreneur can tap into their creative side and feel like they have a little bit more space. And that part of you that was willing to take the risk in the first place is suddenly able to take small and calculated risks again. You get out of this kind of panic mode and self-protection mode and you go, "Maybe I could do this." And you're willing to step outside your comfort zone again. Financial instability, not making money, I think takes away all the wonderful attributes of being an entrepreneur and it makes us pull back and hide from new opportunities. Whereas now, God bless my husband, he's my number one support, but he thinks I'm absolutely out of my mind because I come home on a weekly basis and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I had this great idea for X." Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just like, "When do you like turn off?" I'm like, "I don't." It's because we have a profit. It's because I know the money is there and that it will be there in the future that I can get excited about new ideas and opportunities that I see in the community.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. For our listeners, there's so many people that listen to this show and they're, they're dipping the toe in the water of profit first and they pull it out and they run away and they think another year, they can wait another year. Um, and many of them sadly have to wait until that trauma happens, that $7,000 savings is depleted and they're done. Is there anything you can share with our listeners to inspire them or encourage them to get started? Do you have a shortcut or something that you can share?

Honestly, for me, it was just jump in. The bank accounts was huge. Once we gave ourselves a date and we said 30 days out we were going to start doing this, we just held ourselves accountable. That was huge. Again, that entrepreneurial spirit that causes you to jump out and start your business in the first place, tap into that and go, you know what, if I'm gonna take one more risk, this is gonna be it.

Nice, Colleen, well done. Hey Colleen, where can our listeners find out more about you and your organization Acuity Counseling?

Yeah, so our website is acuitycounseling.net. You can also follow us on social media, on Instagram at @acuitycounseling and Facebook Acuity Counseling. We're all over the place. We'd love to have people come and check us out. We're expanding services for 2020, doing a lot of online counseling as well as some education and connecting with other employers to bring mental health into the workspace. So I would love to connect with other people who have ideas.

Colleen, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. All right, Kelsey and Jacob, we're gonna recap what we learned. I will tell you this, that I I'll tell you, that counseling firm is one I would prefer to go to than if I went to a counseling firm where they're on the brink of going under and there's constant stress for the therapist. You know, this is— this among all industries is so specific, and you need to be so tentative to your customers and your clientele and patients that it's almost— I don't know if unethical is a little bit too much, but to be under that duress and to try to render care is— it sounds like That's impossible. It's in total conflict. I think mental healthcare firms have a responsibility to be fiscally sound because you can just hear the change it makes. Yeah. Well, we're going to recap what we learned in a minute. KALCE, in case you didn't know. And JBlown, do you have a game for us or are we gameless? I have one I can guess by today. I have riddles. Okay, good. So you have some riddles. And first I want to thank our corporate partner, which is Nextiva. Hmm. I wanted to hit the second one. You know they have NextCon going on today? Oh no, I didn't know that. Yeah, it's Monday, Tuesday. So as of this recording, when this broadcasts, it'll be like 6 months past. But NextCon, so they call me and they say, hey Mike, we have one slot that opened up, right? So I'm like, ah, yeah, I'm so flattered. And he's like, I'm like, when is it? He's like, um, I wasn't thinking of you. Oh, he's like, we're looking for a speaker. Do you know anyone? That's hilarious. Do you know anyone? I'm like, oh, okay. So I found him a speaker. They also do voice over IP phone systems. They're remarkable. Make a call to anyone anywhere in the world. And you can call from a Nextiva phone to another phone. It doesn't need to be a Nextiva phone. Isn't that miraculous? Yeah. And they have a new CRM coming. Is that like the most inauthentic laugh? No. They also have a brand new CRM coming out that's called NextOS. Integrates into your phone. Pretty powerful stuff. All right, Kelsey, I want to learn from you what you learned from her.

Okay. Um, I think my favorite thing is that the health of her company allowed her to negotiate with the insurance companies, which allowed her to be more integral with her values. So it's, it, it just gave her this foundation, this ability to be truer and to represent herself in a way that she wanted to. And that, that's like a side benefit that you don't even think of, but I think that's really amazing.

I had no idea you could negotiate with those vendors, but why not? Yeah. And kudos to her. Yeah, that's cool. Increasing— and that's, you know, the greatest way to profitability is to increase margin. You can cut costs, but at a certain point it starts hurting you. You can always seek ways to increase margin. That's what she did. Yeah, it's amazing.

Jacob Lowe. Uh, I like the, the fact she said that when she moved her employees from 1099 to W-2, that had a big impact because I think— I like that too. A lot of people, 1099 people, when they should.

Yeah, and that's what you're doing with us, bro.

I'm not 1099. You were— how are we paying?

As an employee? As a part-time employee?

Oh no, as a full-time employee.

Now he's gonna be full-time.

Yeah, but he was always—

I think, I think you're a contractor.

I think you used to, used to 1099 me, and then they changed the tax law.

I, um, I don't know what I did, what we did. I don't know what we did, but Jay Bone's coming on full-time now, which is exciting. Yeah. My takeaway was that the panic was gone and the self-preservation mode was gone. That was the big thing. The self-preservation triggers panic. I also like the definition of the before, after, and during emotions. She said, "Before, I felt like a failure. During, I felt hopeful. After, I felt free." I just thought that was an interesting kind of arc to it, and you can just hear it in her voice. Even as she told the story, you could hear kind of the pre-profit first was there was kind of a, this concern in her voice you can still hear. And then once she started talking about the after and where she is today, you could just hear this confidence like, holy cannoli, she's got it going on. Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Okay, well, we also wanna know what you learned, our dear friends. So post your rating and review, whatever podcast you're listening to. Make sure you subscribe and just tell us your feedback in the reviews 'cause we actually kind of read those. I feel my energy's a little off. Don't tell me. Is it? Is my energy off? It's a Monday afternoon, I mean.

Okay, so it is.

So in other words, yes it is. Yes it is. All right, J-Blown, we, uh, you got a little game for us there. Yeah, a couple riddles. All right, is it me versus Kelsey?

Yeah, yeah, sure, why not?

When you have the answer, you gotta buzz in. You have to be like, buzz! Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, just the first. Yeah, that's it. We have a buzzer. We have a Kelsey laugh our way in. So if you have the answer, whoever has it first Okay, okay, okay. All right, but how will you know if I'm not just laughing? Oh no, that means you've automatically buzzed. It's like someone hits the buzzer and immediately— same thing.

Okay, okay. So you can see me in the water, but you can't touch me.

Your reflection. You got it. All right, so 1 point Mike, 0 point—

that's not my name, that's the buzzer.

Good point. You're, you're Kari.

Kari, uh, what belongs to you but others use it more than you do? Your name.

Yeah, we had this one already. Oh, I remember that one too, Mike. Zero.

All right, I'll give you, I'll give you a harder one. This one's a little, this one's longer. A woman is sitting in her hotel room when there's a knock at the door. She opens the door to see a man she's never seen before. He says, oh, I'm sorry, I've made a mistake. I thought this was my room. He then goes down the corridor and into the elevator. The woman went back into her room and phoned security. What made the woman suspicious of the man?

Oh, well, the obvious thing is he looked like a creep and had a knife in his hand, but he knocked on her room and then where'd he go? Did you finish that last part?

Uh, he went down the corridor to the elevator. I don't know, Kyles.

Listen, this is a take-all question. If you get this, you win the game.

And so he knocked on the door and she opened it?

Yes. And he said, I'm sorry, I thought this was my room.

The funny thing is I've done that. Yeah, me too.

Yeah, I mean, they all look the same.

I know.

And you just get off at the wrong floor.

I don't realize it. Oh, I know why, because he knocked. Yes, he wouldn't knock on his own bed. Knock on your own door.

Yeah, look at you batting a thousand.

You're so happy about it. This is the first time ever.

You want to do one more to see if it's for redemption?

Uh, one more for redemption, then we gotta go.

What 4-letter word can be written forward, backward, or upside down and still be read from left to right?

What 4-letter word? Yes.

Can be read forward, backward, upside down, and still read from left to right?

Boob. B-O-O-B. Am I right? Because the bees don't switch. And then it's poop. Poop. Poop. You guys are getting close. It's gonna be an O-O in the middle. Yeah. Did you start— There's an O-O in the middle. It's gotta be an O-O in the middle. So it's not boob. It's not poop. It's— it's— it's gotta be like the first letter and the last letter has to be the same, Kelsey. Noon? Noon! Boom! Kelsey wins it! It's like, you know what this felt like? So you win the game because on the last bonus question there. This felt like Family Feud, not Family Feud, when you spin the big wheel and you have to guess the words.

Wheel of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune. Yeah.

I was watching Wheel of Fortune.

What's that one where you spin the wheel for fortune? Oh, it's the Wheel of Fortune.

You spin it, this woman answered, and the question was like, sprinkles on my cupcake was the answer. She said, oh, it's sprinkles in my cupcake. And she goes, oh no. And they're like, sorry. And the next guy's like, was it sprinkles on my cupcake? And he won the entire game. Yeah, I know, it's— Not be done that way.

Yeah, that's awful.

That's how I thought you just won. I'm like, oh, it's gotta have an O-O in the middle. Is it new? Is it— thank you, sir. Oh, it's noon. Thanks for all the answers, Mike. All right, Kels, um, I think that's it for today, right? Oh, do we— yeah, that's it. I'm answering questions, by the way, with the Ask Mike. How do people get that?

Just, uh, yeah, sorry, just send it, uh, any questions you have to, uh, askmike@mikemakalowicz.com, and we'll answer them on the YouTube channel.

And yes, yeah, so definitely check it out. There's some fun stuff we're doing there, right? Oh, all right, let's get the hell out of here, cows. Bye!

Thank you for listening to us. Don't forget to subscribe.

I know, try it again. Bye! Bye! Thanks for listening. Like that. I don't want to subscribe now just hearing you. Hey guys, one thing you should do though is, uh, not listen to Kelsey, but go to mikemotorbike.com. You know how to spell that. Mike Motorbike, it's rhyming, is my nickname in high school. I got all my books there, not just the free chapters, but the chapters that will have impact on your business. Go to mikemotorbike.com. There we go. Click on Get the Tools. Don't you? And you'll get the tools. All right. See you later. Bye.