Episode 10: Profit and Sales Management with Sharon Marrell

From the studios of Fractal Recording, this is the Profit first podcast. Episode number 10.

It's not 9 Nick. 9 Nick. 10. Woo.

Oh my goodness.

Dude, when I yell 10, a piece of Eminem like launched up and got stuck.

Right? We're gonna talk about M and Ms. In a second. But welcome everyone to the Profit first podcast. Hi, I'm Chris Curran, the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, author of Profit first. And on this show we talk about profit. We interview all different types of business owners, business coaches, accountants, bookkeepers, because we want to get to the bottom line. We want to talk about what makes a business healthy. And it's the bottom line, the profit.

Yep. And we're available as a podcast in itunes and Stitcher and at our website.

Profitfirstpodcast.Com and you guys see the comments piling up there. We've actually turned two positive comments. The first one's like, what the hell is going on?

We started on a great note. It was tremendous. So what have you been up to, man?

So I've been traveling a lot. I finished up 2014 very strongly with lots of speaking engagements. And in 2015, actually probably a week or two after this actually broadcast, I'm doing a media tour on the news. I'm going to make appearances on somewhere between 35 and 45 news networks. On a Friday morning, which is not the best time of the day. At 6:30 it starts like CNN headline news and so forth, talking about profit first and sponsored by a company called Xero, Xero makes accounting software. Now, little do they know, knock on what? All goes well, I'll say. You know, we have a podcast you should be sponsoring too.

That's cool.

Yeah, yeah. How have you been up to, brother?

Yeah, we've been good. My wife and I found this little bookstore in a local town near here. And it's like all these used books and it's like adult bookstore. No, just a regular bookstore.

Yeah. What kind of books?

No, everything. A lot of self help and spirituality and everything. No, but me and my wife, like, you can get a whole shoprite bag full of books for five bucks.

Oh my God.

So we're like, we spent two and a half hours there looking around. It was pretty cool.

So, yeah, they're all, they're all toilet paper. Entrepreneur books, right? Oh, hey, do you know my buddies here? He's back.

I know he just spoke, but I had his mic muted.

Yeah, Harry, there he is.

Ron.

Hey guys, there he is. Ron Saharian. Ron Saharian is my business partner in Profit first Professionals.

Thank you.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. All right, put him on mute again. That was enough. So we're gonna talk about our sponsors a little later on, but I want to tell you who they are, just to refresh your memory.

Yeah.

Nextiva is our primary sponsor. They manufacture voice over IP system systems. They're, they're growing leaps and bounds. An amazing company. So if you need VoIP, definitely check out Nextiva. I personally use them, using for years now. Love them T sheets, which is they make time tracking software. And Fundera, it's an online funding source. All remarkable companies. I know the owners and executives of each company, by the way. They're all cool. Yeah.

So we, we have a secret word for each episode. Are we going to do the secret word now?

Do we have our guests on mute?

Not yet. Oh, I could, I could put her on mute right now.

I mean, it's kind of tradition to.

Do a big build up to introduce.

And then, and then say, oh, yeah, but we're on top of our game today. So let's do secret word. Put her on mute.

Okay.

All right. And then.

All right, she's on mute.

What is the word?

So the word for today is going to be Eminem shots, Eminem shots or Eminem shot.

And whatever is least appropriate.

You have to use it as a verb. And here's the thing, just for the listeners to know, each episode, we have a word that we try to fit into the conversation at the most inappropriate inapplicable time ever. Right. Just to stick out and also has to be used as a verb. And then at the end, we ask our guests if they knew what it was.

Yeah, and one caveat. If it's a verb, it has to be used as a noun. Right. So like you're going to the store. Like the going has to become a noun.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, I remember going to the going.

Nice. Okay, so I'll bring it back. Let's give her the big introduction.

So you know who we have today is Sharon Merrill. And Sharon is the founder of Merrill Instrument Repair. She's based out of the Cleveland, Ohio area, specifically Lakewood. Has been in this business for a long time. She actually has been so successful in this business, by the way, she coaches other people how to start and build instrument repair shops. Big customers are school concert bands and stuff like that, private bands and so forth. She sells and repairs everything from guitars to ukuleles to jumba drums.

J and horns and everything too. And everything. Right?

Yep.

Yeah, we'll find out.

Yeah. So I think it's be really cool. I think there's going to be some. I. I even have an idea. Is she back on mute again? Yeah, don't worry about it.

No, she's not on mute.

I think what we should do. Ron, this is your job. Find some instrument sounds. Because I really want to see how tuned she is. We'll play some instrument sounds and see if she can tell us what instrument that is.

We'll try to stump Sharon.

Yeah, stump Sharon. Yeah. And if anyone wants to call in live, you can call us and then. Jesus Christ. Let's do the introduction quickly. All right. Open up the line, which. For God's sake.

She's open. Yeah.

Hey, Sharon, how are you?

Sharon?

Hey. Hey, guys. How are you?

Good. Was that a horrible introduction?

Oh, my God, you're scary.

It's scary.

Memorable.

Memorable. Yeah.

I'm up to the challenge, though.

Okay, good. So there's quite a few challenges. Yeah. Obviously there's something we're gonna do that you already asked us. Like, you're like, what's the secret word?

She already knows there's a word.

Yeah, yeah. So there's a word and I have it written down and someone here is going to say it. There's also Ron is quickly going through his different sound effects on his iPhone and we're going to see what instruments you can identify. Okay.

All right.

Okay. What the hell is that? He's okay. So tell us a little bit about your business, Sharon.

Well, I, of course, own Merrill Instrument Repair, and we are a full service music store. We offer lessons, we offer repairs on all the band orchestra instruments, Instruments and guitars, and we rent instruments and sell accessories. So I actually started it 10 years ago full time and worked out of my home for the first five years doing lessons and repairs. Then five years ago, we opened a storefront because the community here was not seeing me, and so I needed that storefront in order to bring in more business.

So is a storefront really more of a marketing piece than a business function? You know, I'm saying, does it give you the visibility and that's the primary benefit of a space?

Yeah, it gives me more visibility. It also makes me more legitimate. Coming to the house. I mean, that was okay, but certainly more people are coming now to the store. I still have that visibility problem, though, because we have the competitor here in town, has been around for 40, 50 years. So everybody's on autopilot and it's tough to break that scenario.

When you moved to the retail space, what Changed in your customer base? Did you move to get bigger customers because now they saw you as credible? Did you get more volume? How did it change?

Yeah, definitely more volume. When I went into it because I had owned a music store before about 18 years ago, which failed miserably, I wanted to give the store away retail wise and ended up going into bankruptcy because of it. And coming back out of that. I had decided when I went and did my home based business that I was just doing that, not going to do any retail. When I opened the store, I said just minimal retail. It's just icing on the cake. It's all about lessons and, and repairs. But what has happened over the years is the retail has actually gone above my repairs now. And a lot of it too is how I've really taken an interest in business and just taught myself a lot of different things and it's made it much, much better. And I also said I was not going to do any guitars. I didn't want to do guitars, but people kept bringing them to me and wanted to sell them and I could buy them for like, you know, 20 bucks and sell them for four times that much. So. So now my store is filled with guitars. So.

Wow.

That's it? Yeah. I assume that's the most popular instrument. Is that true?

Yeah, it is. Really? Yeah.

And, and so you make. Do you make more profit on reselling goods or on the repair? I know you said you wanted to do more repair, but where do you make more profit?

I probably make more profit right now with selling the used guitars.

Used guitars?

Used guitars.

Is that consignment?

No, that's the ones. Like I said, I buy them from people who want quick cash and then I just fix them up and put them out on the floor. And like I said, I can get three, four times as much.

Isn't that risky? I mean, now you're accumulating inventory, you got stuff, guitars piling up in your shop. That's money that's kind of locked on your shelves until it sells. Isn't that risky?

Guitars sell pretty quickly though. That's the thing. The used ones, they seem to fly off the shelves. It's the new ones that will sit longer because I'm creating good deals where they're cheaper than what they could get anywhere else. But yet I'm still making a great profit on it.

I have a question for you, Sharon. You said that you were working out of your house for a while, operating your business out of your home, and then you moved into the retail space to get more exposure. You've been there for about five years. You said once you moved the retail space, you did get more clients because you got more visibility. Did you track the difference in profit from when you were at home to when you were in the retail space?

Oh, well, yeah. I mean, when I look at the top line, definitely it grew and grew and grew each year in my industry, and being small as I am, the numbers are small. But for me to go over 100,000 was pretty huge. And so I wasn't doing that at home. And so that's a whole different thing. So it's way better having the storefront. That made a huge difference. And we added. See, the lessons I had, I had about probably 20 kids, and I divvied them out among other teachers. I hired teachers in. And then right now we're at about 100 students who come through each week for lessons.

So what's the breakout in. If we can do revenue, we don't need your exact numbers, but percentage wise, how much do you make from lessons versus repairs versus selling reselling products?

I'd say probably lessons, because I take in room rent for that. That would. I think that's about probably 20% or so. And then I have rental income, too, from renting musical instruments. So, I mean, I can say I'll give you numbers because it's easier for me. So I say about 20,000 for lesson rental, 20,000 or so for rentals, and then the rest is divided between the sales and repairs. And like I said, sales is a little bit above. They're close, but sales is a little bit more.

Do you have any secrets to. Because sales are so significant for you in laying out your space? We have a lot of people listening in that have retail space of some sort, physical space. Maybe it's not an instrument facility. Any recommendations for optimizing the layout to make it more profitable?

Well, all I have is I have wall space and the hangers for the instruments and everything. I have a very small space. So, you know, I minimally have, like, a few things out because I know how it sells, so I don't go overboard in purchasing. That's where I'm real careful about having retail items in, because I don't want to make the mistake I made 18 years ago.

And what was that mistake?

That was I got all this stuff that wouldn't sell because I thought it would, because I liked it. I wasn't buying. I was buying for what the customer would like. Now buying for the customer, it's like, I know what they want. So that's what I have in stock. You get people who come in and say, hey, do you have this? And, like, no, sorry, I don't. But I'm not going to stock up for just that one person who comes in twice a year.

The biggest mistake retailers make, and they hear this over and over again. Startup retailers, if they buy what they want and it's stagnant inventory because no one else wants it, by getting less space, Sharon, does that force you to buy less items? The more profitable items?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm limiting what I can put on my walls. I don't need all that extra stuff because I know it's just going to sit there. Some of it is sitting here now. And that's why we do fun little sales trying to get things out the door. Right now we've got anything red in the store is 30 off. And that's even the tag that hangs on it. If it has red in it, it's out of there at 30 off.

You. Eminem shot it right out. I get it. Like, you ditched that stuff. Okay, first of all, we have our first sound effect ready queued up for you. Ron has it. So this is our first little interlude. Are you ready, Ron? All right, Name this instrument. No, keep it. Keep it there. Keep it there, Ron. Wait, stop. Did she get the first one right in Obo. Damn, she was right.

All right, give it a second, Ron. In the front of the mic. Like this?

No, no, like. Like to put the nose in. The nose in? No, other side. There you go.

Violin.

Okay. Violin. Name it. Trumpet. Yes.

Oh, you got your symbols.

Symbols. Yeah. It was easy. Zildjian. Symbols was the answer.

Right.

What's that? You.

It sounds harpsichordish.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

This one.

Blue.

Yep. That's right. Guitar.

Yep.

Okay, name this one.

Xylophone.

Xylophone. Okay, and then one more. We. Where the hell's the button? What. What instrument's that?

That's that little thing you shake back and forth that makes that.

No. Oh, my God. You were so good. You nailed all those instruments. The last instrument was a Pac Man. The pac. That was the Pac man instrument. So, yeah, you're good. Very good.

Pac man, which is not an instrument.

Technically, it's not an instrument. Okay. Wow. Wow, that was impressive. There was a couple, like the. The oboe or whatever that thing was. First. Harpsichord. No. What's the very first instrument?

Oboe. Exactly.

I don't even know what oboe is. I thought that's like when you injure yourself playing tennis. You get Tennis oboe.

Right. You know, or. I know what a hobo is.

Yeah. That was impressive, Sharon. All right, so back to. Back to business here.

Yes.

You also advise or coach businesses even. Even in the music industry themselves, right?

Yeah, yeah.

What is the most common problems you see when it comes to the money management at other instrument repair shops?

Well, I think the big thing is having too much inventory, really, and having too much sit on the shelves for a long period of time. So that's something where, you know, just advising them on how to make that stuff move and how to, you know, create ways of sales and that type of thing to get that out of there so they can get more, you know, new inventory, and that's going to sell.

So if someone has stagnant inventory, are you telling them, we got to just get this out of here. It's taking up space.

Yeah. Get it out. Do whether you do, you know, buy one, get one free, however you want to do it, take. If it's a loss, take the loss, but get it out of there. And in our industry, how we buy, we get quite a good discount on things. So you could still make a little bit even if you would, you know, buy one, throw one out the door for it. So, you know.

But now I sense that as you start reducing the price just to clear out inventory, that you get resistance from folks saying, I don't want to take a loss, I don't want to take a loss. Is that true?

Yeah, you're going to. Yes, there is that. That resistance.

How do you navigate it? How do you deal with that?

Well, all you can say is it sits here and you have nothing. I mean, you're getting nothing from it. So you've got to do something. If you want more inventory in that is going to sell, it's got to go. You've got to have that money from those items to be able to purchase the next set of items. Because if you're just buying from what's in that operating expense account now, you're going to dwindle that down to nothing, and then you're not gonna have anything for, you know, if you got your bills, everything else, you're kind of screwing yourself then.

Have you ever seen the show the Profit by any chance?

No. Huh.

Oh. So have you seen it, Chris?

No.

Profit. Ron, you've seen it, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's a great show. And so this guy, Marcus Leomis, I think is the last name, and he goes into businesses, and when it comes to inventory, he looks just as Sharon suggesting, looks for Stagnant inventory and forces the liquidation of it. And what. What's interesting, I think, in the show is the owners of the business are fearful of getting rid of it. They say this is worth hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Well, maybe you paid for. But now it's 20 years old. No one wants it. It's taking up space. You gotta get rid of it. I mean, that's what you're saying, right, Sharon?

Exactly. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's gotta go. Whether you even put it on ebay. Get something and replenish and be new.

Keep talking. I have questions.

You just break. You just brought up a good point though. Ebay, you know, you talked that there's basically four different parts of your business. Lessons, rentals, sales and repairs. And how much. How much do you do online now at all?

I. I don't do a whole lot unless I get some, you know, big bulk quantity of something. Like at one time I had, you know, a hundred different brass mouthpieces, and there were a lot of them I knew that were worth quite a bit. And I put those all on ebay and did that. So it's kind of a. It's a quick way of getting some income in.

And this is pure coincidence. Chris is wearing his brass mouthpiece right now.

I was gonna say. Is that the coat? Is that the secret word for the next episode?

Oh, I think it is. Absolutely. Brass mouthpiece, right? Yeah. I'm writing this down and I'm.

Oh, yeah. Although if our guests. No, okay, sorry. I was thinking our next guest might hear that before we do it, but it's okay.

Oh, it's true. But how we record these.

Yeah, we're good, we're good.

No one's listening anyway. Thanks, Ron. Thanks for the support. Appreciate it.

What a jack wad sitting there playing with Pac Man.

I know he sits there. He's. Yeah. All right, I'm updating Facebook. Come on. So, okay, Sharon, as you look back at your business and you shared. Looking back 18 years ago, you wouldn't bought so much inventory. Any other lessons you have for yourself, as you look back.

A lot of it is about really educating yourself on a business, on marketing, you know, not just going into it saying, oh, I'm going to buy all this stuff and I'm going to sell it. It doesn't work that way. It's like I had to learn how to do great customer service. I used this one person, Bob Nagin, with Whiz Bang training. He has a great resource. It's the mastery system for Retail Mastery System. And the one thing they have is a way of training your employees on sales. And the thing he always says is that, you know, your customers, they come first. It's like fall out of love with your goods and services and fall in love with your customer.

Yeah, that's smart.

Put that out there and you can. You've got to build the relationships. I mean, that's. I'm all about creating community when it comes to people in the store. You know, out in my community in Lakewood, I'm part of the chamber. And I think that's huge too, is to be a member of your chamber, your local chamber.

Okay. And please tell Bob he's welcome to become a sponsor of our show. So band directors, that is a target of yours. I know you and I spoke offline around that. How much revenue do you. Does a business like yours pull in from local schools?

I personally don't pull in all that much revenue from the schools because of just the habits they're in with my competitor. I tend to be able to get into the Catholic schools. They're smaller and they're willing to come to me. And I do a lot of instrument repair for the different Catholic schools in the area. So those are my main target schools or the Catholic schools.

You know, you have an interesting dilemma. You have an incumbent provider, another instrument company out there, which ironically is owned by Bob Nagin. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that name. So. So you have this other company that's the incumbent out in your market. You came in as the new business. What are strategies you have to taking on the established company?

Well, that was definitely working with the high schools. And one thing I did is I created. They have a marching band festival every year. I created the last two years an after party for them and brought in DJs and gave out prizes and just had a big dance party. So it had the parents and everyone and the kids recognize me more so me. It's about getting out in the community and getting in front of them and being willing to help them and doing it in a way that isn't trying to sell them something.

But it also sounds like you went to the schools that were not being served in the first place. Like the Catholic schools. We're not getting as much attention from this big established provider. You come in, you give them better attention that they could get and you win. But I'm also hearing that you didn't go to where that incumbent instrument person was already dominating. You didn't go after the public schools. Is that right?

Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. And the thing that I offered, too, was, hey, I'm going to be able to do faster repair service for you. That's, you know, what I'm going after is the repairs, of course, and where I know that at our competitor, it takes about two weeks for them to get an instrument back. So I'm offering faster service with quality.

Gotcha, gotcha. How's profitability this year compared to years before? Is that continually improving for you?

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I can't wait to see this year what that bottom line looks like. That is going to so improve by so much. I'm excited about that.

And what do you attribute, what actions have you taken that you attribute that to?

Well, creating those small plates of.

I totally set her up to plug me. Small plates. Oh, God, I suck. Every guest plugs me. And you were the only one that wasn't. So I set you up to do it.

So. So, yeah, I mean, it's knowing. And I'll tell you, having the different sets of accounts, I know exactly where everything is and what's happening with it. And I don't overspend now. I don't spend the employees money that I was supposed to set aside for them on inventory. You know, it's just like. And I'm getting a profit now. I get to take some money home.

I.

So cool.

I love it. And Sharon, there's folks listening in right now that have to learn from you. Business owners that just want to learn these strategies, but also instrument repair shops. I mean, that's a perfect, perfect match. Where can people learn more about you, Sharon?

I have. My site is Merrill Instrumentrepair.net and as far as the business side coaching and everything, I have profit first. Coaching.com.

Yeah. Beautiful. Wow, is that smart. So we got to know each other over the years. We got together and she's like, you know, Mike, you have profit first. Could I just get the profit first Coaching domain? I'm, like, freaking out. You're a genius. I didn't think of that. So she grabbed it up and. Yeah. So thank you for that. Sharon, the last thing I'd ask you, I'm gonna give you five different letters in sequence. You have to name at least one instrument that begins with this letter. First letter is A.

Oh, geez.

You can swear.

Yeah, Sugar.

No, no, I gave her a letter.

She was swearing.

Oh, okay.

Alto sax.

Yes. Okay. That was the right answer. Next letter is D. Drums. Yeah, that's correct. That Was an easy one. Next letters are.

I have blanked.

Yeah, I don't know anything with an R either. Does anyone here know R?

Without the Internet, that's tough.

Yeah, I know. Okay, two more letters. D. Oh, he said D already.

B. Bassoon.

Yep. Easily. And then I'll give you one easy one. Z.

Uneasy one.

Yeah. Laughing.

Yeah, right.

X. I'll give you that. I'll give you that.

Symbols.

But those are symbols. That wins. Yes.

That's a taste she got you, man.

You tried to smoke her smoker. Yeah. Sharon, absolutely impressive you on our test score here. You get an 89%, which is a B plus. You got all the instruments. You didn't know Pac man, and you didn't get the letter R. I know, but you get.

You get eight bonus points because you're a listener of the show.

Yay. Oh, that's true. A plus. Sharon, honored to have you on.

Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you.

All right, I will catch you later.

See you next time.

So, dude, we got some tips to go over. Yeah. And Ron made a good point. He just. He looks over like. Dude, word of the day, we didn't ask her what the word of the day was.

Oh, Sharon, are you still there?

Yeah.

Oh, good. Word of the day. We forgot to ask you. What was it?

Eminem.

Damn. All right, now you get an A plus plus. Holy God, you are the best.

Can't touch Sharon.

You cannot touch Sharon.

That's impressive.

Damn.

Thank you, Sharon.

Thank you. Go do some paradiddles or something.

Work for me.

Brass mouthpiece.

Oh, yeah, yeah. The word for you is brass mouth. Oh, did you do a word on us?

No, no, no. I was gonna give you something for somebody else.

Oh, yeah? Do you want to give us. To give it to us, please.

Yeah. This is gonna be bizarre. Okay, so it's gonna be Bertha Butt, one of the butt sisters.

Bertha.

Bertha Butt. And she's. She's an actress or something.

No, you know, it was a song or something when we were kids. Or else we just. Something we kept saying.

Okay, Bertha butt it is.

There you go.

And Bertha Butt, one of the Butt sisters.

Okay. Bertha Butt, one of the Butt sisters. Okay. Wow. I love that.

Use that as a verb. That's gonna be hard.

No, no, that's an easy one. And Ron's gonna take it.

Ron's taking it. Okay.

Bertha Butt, one of the Butt sisters. Sharon, thank you. All right, we'll see you.

See ya. So before we give our feedback the.

Round, I got some amazing feedback on this one.

Yeah, let's do it. But we should talk about our sponsors real quick.

Yeah. So nextiva is our voiceover IP phone provider. They stepped up as our premier sponsor, which simply means we mentioned their name first. That's like the only benefit they get. But they do voiceover IP for small businesses. So if you've under 25 employees or if you're a solo practitioner, you can use our system. One of the benefits I like because I use your phone system is simul ring, which means I can sit here at the studio, have my cell phone ring, my office ring, and any other phones I want all simultaneously pick it up anywhere. They provide that feature and millions of advanced features and are cheaper than everyone else. Nextiva, nextiva, Next one. Fundera. It's an online funding site. So if you need funds, some investment capital, go to Fundera, they source it for you and they don't charge a fee. They get it. They do get a percentage. I guess they make their money that way. They get a percentage from the lender. But that's a normal practice. You as an entrepreneur don't pay a premium like you would if you used a broker to find money for you. And the last thing is T Sheets. Love this company.

T Sheets.

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It tracks time.

Tracks time. It's a time tracking system. Great for hourly employees, projects, assignments, your own time assigning stuff to different projects. TSheets. Check them out. TSheets.com.

Cool.

What'd you learn, bro?

I learned a lot. I think one of the couple things hit me. I know you got a lot of good feedback, but she said if it's, if you have inventory on hand, that's a loss. She said, just get rid of it. Find a way to get rid of it. Either sell it or give it away. Do anything just to get rid of it. I think that sort of energetically helps too, in terms of cleaning out and lightening your load.

Yeah. Because it weigh, it weighs on your mind. It weighs on your mind. Right. So you, you see stuff sitting there and every day like, I can't sell it, I can't sell it. But the irony is the longer it sits, the longer we feel compelled to keep it. And it becomes this weight. You got to clear out that inventory. It's the only way to get profit coming in.

She also snuck in at the end, said that she doesn't overspend. Now, I mean, that's a big one.

Yeah. So she uses a small plates principle. This is something I talk about in profit first. But basically this is the idea. Instead of having one Checking account, which most businesses do. We put all our money in there and bills and stuff get paid out of that. Set up at least five accounts. So we. When money comes in, that's your one account. Transfer the money in allotments. A portion goes to profit immediately. A portion goes to certain expenses. Another portion goes to buying inventory. Another portion goes to pay yourself. If you apportion this money out now, you have a very clear picture of what that one deposit really is. It's not 5,000 bucks in your bank account. It's 100 bucks in profit. It's $200 in inventory. Blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what she's doing. Small plates. One thing I learned, dude, she was talking about a thing that Eli Goldratt, he wrote this book called the Goal. It's really about manufacturing. But I don't care what business you're in, you've got to read the Goal. What it talks about is inventory, what she was suggesting. But as a business moves along the different business processes, at certain points, inventory materials pile up. That is the area you need to fix. So if you manufacture something as it moves along and there's inventory piling up in the manufacturing area, that's the area to fix. In a service based business, wherever you get stuck for time, AKA time, piles up, that's the area you need to fix. And the beauty is when you fix that one little small piece of your business, you're fixing the weakest link. The entire business speeds up and improves.

Oh, that's cool.

Hot.

That's a big one.

Yeah, that's big.

Big one. We should rewind. Listen to that again.

Dude, all I know is Bertha Butt, one of the Butt sisters is what we have to say next.

Didn't you know her from high school?

I did, I did. I dated her. I know I did. I did. Dude, I'm not kidding.

Right?

I was offended. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, I dated at Bertha, but okay.

That'S, you know, it doesn't make you a bad man.

All right, we don't. This is getting awkward. Can we go to music quickly?

All right, so we lost our last.

Three listeners are now lost. Damn it.

Well, thank you for listening, Mike Michalowicz. You're the author of Profit First.

Yeah, and I'm a co owner with Ron and Profit First Professionals. If you want to get certified in Profit first first, if you're an accountant, bookkeeper, coach, call me, call Ron. And call us a Bertha Butt sister.

There you go. And I'm about you, friend. Tell us about Fractal Yeah. Founder of Fractal Recording. Recording podcast shows for businesses all over the world. So fractal recording.com get your show on.

This freaking station, man.

Serious. So listen to our podcast on itunes. And Stitcher again, the profit first podcast. Thanks everybody, for listening. See you next time.

Right to the rhythm, Sam.