Kenny Chapman (the "Blue Collar Coach") presents a short Freedom Friday talk warning against "top-line intoxication" — the tendency to obsess over revenue growth rather than profitability. He urges listeners to examine the "why" behind business decisions, cites the plumber/roofer archetype from The Millionaire Next Door, highlights a debt-free financial coach (Coach Kelly) as a model, and suggests practical goals such as adding four percentage points to the bottom line instead of only increasing revenue. The piece is informal, anecdote-driven, and focused on financial mindset for small-to-medium businesses.
Chapters
Death of insanity killing. Top line intoxication. Kenny Chapman here, the blue collar coach. Happy Freedom Friday. I want you to focus on perhaps a blind spot. I want you to focus on the why behind we do certain things. I want you to think about your own level of intoxication, not how many beers you had last night. I'm talking about why do we fall in love with the top number so much. Where is the focus of. Let's look at an income statement and let's look at a bottom. Let's go to an industry show, go to a trade show and let's talk about reality. See, what I want you to think about is when we see flash and dash and you can build $20 million companies and 30 and $50 million companies, whatever those look like. And yet we're watching. Remember the book A millionaire Next door it was called, right, the millionaire next Door. It's talking about just that plumbing contractor, the roofer that drives an old Cadillac and slowly but surely gets incredibly wealthy over the course of time. See, what I want you to think about. We've got a financial coach on staff here, Coach Kelly. We talk about this back and forth and he's completely debt free. I might not be there quite yet in my life but here's what I want you to think about when we go to this thing about top line. See, Kelly has built an incredible wealth and an incredible opportunity in his life for many, many people. Here's what I want you to think about. He ran an average sized business, not a huge business by any means. He ran an average size business. Let me reinforce that he didn't run an average business. Our challenge is I've got to be big in order to not be average. What if you're the same size you are but you added four points. I had a discovery call recently with a, with a potential client that I said if we were to meet a year from now, what would be the ultimate experience for you? Like how would we completely know that we crushed it for you and we won. And he said simple, four points. I said, what do you mean? I want to make four more points on the bottom line, has it clear, knows what that looks like. Guess what? He didn't say I want to grow by 250,000 or two and a half million. He said I want to add four points to the bottom. That's what I want you to think about. Freedom Friday Financial focus. How about that? Easy for me to say. I'm Kenny Chatham, the blue collar coach. Until we talk, make it a better than fantastic weekend, and we'll see you real soon. Cheers.
