Episode 101: Joyful, Profitable, Relationships with Kirby Hasseman

Yeah.

Hey, by the way, Mike, this is episode 101. So off the top of your head, what are some laws of profit 101 if this was a college class one? Profit 101.

Yeah. Profit 101. Take your profit first. That's the number one.

That's it.

Yeah. Here's another 101. Revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. That's 101, dude.

Brilliant.

Thank you. Well, that one I borrowed from someone else.

Oh.

AKA stole it, blatantly.

You want to credit them or no?

I. I don't know. Who did I think was Vern Harnish, who I heard it from, but he stole from someone else. So, you know, it kind of goes in a cycle or a circle. So the first person that steals it is a thief. The next one is like a borrower, and the. The third one is an originator. So I consider if I'm the third or fourth guy down the pike, I originated again.

There you go. Well, we're gonna go much deeper than profit 101 in this episod profit first podcast.

Episode 101 one. Go. Bam.

Yeah.

Yabba dabba doo.

That's what I'm talking about. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. Yes, we're having a party. We have a party a couple times a week. You should join us on a regular basis.

I know. Especially we're celebrating Juno de Cinc or Cinco de Juno. It's so backwards.

I believe is Sunday, but we'll have to do it Monday.

You forgot to drink on May 5th, so now you're moving it to June 5th. Great.

And it's not even Juno. It's Junio. Julio.

Yeah. Junio.

Junio. Yeah.

So this is the Profit first podcast. And I am Chris Kern, the founder of Farrekdal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First. And the new book, do you have Surge yet? That's my newest book. It's out there in every bookstore on this planet. Or Amazon, which is every bookstore in the planet. And I'm joined in the studio by Christina Bulbeck.

Hi there.

And you are listening to the Profit first podcast. This is the show where we explore all vantage points of profitability. And today's nothing out of the ordinary. We're going into a very unique investigation around profit. We're going to talk about how to deliver joy and how that turns into money.

There you go. So revenue might be in style, but.

Profit is around for a long while. Boom. Drop the microphone, dude. Cut the show. We're done killing It.

Yeah. This is the Profit first podcast. So if you haven't heard us yet, we interview a great guest and we get into some various topics around. It's all around profit, about making you more profitable, your business more profitable and sustainable. And then afterwards, Mike and Christina and I, we give our takeaways of what we learned. And you can give your takeaways. Here's how. Go to profit first podcast.com and go to the the post for this episode, 101. You can comment on the post and tell us your story. Give us any questions you want to ask the Prince of Prophet some questions. He's right here. Just ask, he'll answer.

Yeah, I like it. I don't know if I like Prince of Profit. It sounds too arrogant. Maybe the pimp of.

No, no, pimp is worse.

Well, think of a p word. What? Pimping ain't easy. According to Obi, he's got like six phones on. He's pimping right now. He's got phones in every ear. He's texting somebody and he's listening to the show.

So you can listen to our show on itunes and Google Play and tune in radio as well, and anywhere you listen.

Stitcher, dude, don't forget Stitcher.

Stitcher, Stitcher. Yeah, yeah, they might be. Well, I don't know. I don't know how they're doing their issues.

Anyway, they could come on the show. We could help them out.

I know. Well, I interviewed Noah Shannock, but since he has since sold Stitcher to Deezer. This was a while ago, like more than a year ago. They're still going. They'll be fine. But you know what? I use Podcast Addict on my Android. And there you go. So you can binge listen to our show whenever you want, dude.

So we've been up to about.

You know, I have been really getting into coffee and tea and I'm not becoming a. I'm not becoming a snob, but I really just. I buy this really good tea from one of. One of my friends in Connecticut. She's Chinese. She imports tea from China and it's like high end. This is like the really awesome tea. And now I just. That's what I. I bought like 200 worth and I'm just drinking it and coffee. I found this local coffee place that roasts their own beans and. And I got a French press. So, dude, I'm just going coffee and tea in high style these days.

So. It's funny, our neighbor is also really into tea and I told her about what you're doing. And I said, would you. Chris spends $200 on tea. Would you do the same? Oh, hell no.

That's what she said.

She's smart. I don't know.

Wheezy lived next door to you.

It does sound like wheezy, doesn't it?

What have you been up to, Mike?

Talking about my neighbor. I went, well, you know, we exercise together regularly. It's good to have an exercise partner. So I was preparing for a five mile run. I went to Spring Lake. And my goal, I don't know if you're a runner listening to this, like if this makes sense, but I was trying to do five miles in under 40 minutes. That's an eight minute mile. That's for me, that's not easy. 47 minutes. Last year I did 42. The year before that, 45 is like, this is the year I break the 40 minute mile. It was so stinking hot. It was like 96 degrees in the morning when we were running. We start running at 8:30, 96 degrees. By 9:30 that morning, it was so hot. I literally stopped three times to walk and get some water. Yeah. So I failed.

Gross.

As my brother used to say when we used to be roofing in that kind of weather, he'd say it is putrid outside.

Putrid. It was putrid. It was putrid. It was putrid.

Word of the day.

Oh, I want to thank our corporate partners first. And I want to introduce our guests. Is that cool?

I love it.

Okay.

Love them.

I want to thank receipt bank. You know why?

Why?

Because they're awesome.

Yeah.

Know who else I want to thank? Fund box. You know why they're awesome?

Why?

Because they're awesome. Because they're awesome. All right, we're gonna hang in this do it all together group. I want to thank nextiva. You know why?

Because they're awesome.

Yes. And you? I want to thank Fundera. You know why? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Awesome.

Yes. We'll give you more details on these awesome companies in a little bit. His name is Kirby Hasseman. You know, we've been. I'm gonna make a total bullshit story.

I just want.

Nick.

You'd be corrected.

Yeah. His name is Kirby Hosiman. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, husband and father. In that order, by the way. I don't know if he started his career in that order, Christina. I'm just saying, you know, I assume husband before father, but I don't know. I don't know. He's the owner of hosamen Marketing and hosts a weekly web show. That's way better than this one called Delivering. Delivering marketing Joy. And we connected around one of his books. And I go, hey, Kirby, I go, how do you. How do you make a business more profitable? And he says, real simple, pal. You deliver joy. And I'm like, no, no, but how do you make it profitable? He's like, because you. You do it by delivering joy. And I was like, okay, you gotta come on the show and tell me how to do this. So, Kirby, welcome to the show.

Oh, man. Thank you so much. What a. What an intro.

Yeah. And you can see how well organized we are by not asking you how to pronounce your name before we get started, but doing it in the middle of the show.

No, that's an awesome intro, man. I really appreciate it. It's almost like I wrote it.

Thank you. Thanks, brother. So here's the big question for you. You say that delivering joy actually increases profitability, and that seems like the antithesis. It's about just burn and churn, make money. How can delivering joy actually improve profitability?

I think it's really. You know, I think any successful business stands out. And Unfortunately, I think 90% of what we see in the world today is negative. And so if you run a joyful business, you know, it really stands out to people. People want to be involved with people that make them smile, make them feel good. And I've found that the best way to build a business that lasts more than six months is to a, stand out in the marketplace, and b, make people feel good about doing business with you. And that's one of those things that's kind of rallied around our deal because, you know, essentially the entire business is built around. Okay, we got to make sure that this part of the process is still fun. And when you do that, when you make it joyful for someone to actually pay their bill, that will help you become profitable.

Okay, well, hold on, hold on. Joyful to pay the bill. That seems like an oxymoron. That's like a jumbo shrimp. How can you make someone joyful in paying their bill?

No, it's fair. That's a fair pushback. And I think what really, it's about creating a process where it's a pleasure to do business with you all the way through. I think a lot of organizations get really good at the sales process, and they make you feel really good on the front end, but at the end of the day, you got to deliver the product. It's actually one of the reasons that we invoice after we've Delivered the product. Because we always feel like if we've done our job right, when you open up, whatever we've delivered to you, it's a little piece of Christmas morning. And once you do that, and if every stage of the process has been fun that far through, then, okay, maybe it's not joyful to pay the bill, but it doesn't make you mad.

Yeah, I got you. Okay, so happy customer, you know, happy client, happy business. I understand that, but how do we start establishing this? I mean, in our example, we have an established business here, and quite frankly, it's murderous to work here. It's not so joyous.

All those whippings.

Yeah, whippings. It's literally. It's a. I think it's 100 degrees, it's grueling, it's gruelingly. It's putrid right now. How do you take a company that maybe is the most joyful company at the moment and make it joyful? I know, I know. I'll tell you this. I know a ping pong table is not the way to do it.

No, no. It's. You know, I think, I guess the first place I would start, honestly, Mike, is I think that we have moved into what I call a give first economy. And one of the ways to be joyful, I think, is to provide value before you're trying to sell something. And so by giving first, by providing value, whether that's through, whether it's through relevant articles, whether it's through sending cards, whether it's through actually calling somebody and thanking them for their business, you create a culture around appreciation, quite frankly, because again, so many times, so many businesses, though profit's important. We can't just be transactional. And I think that when you create a culture around having fun and being joyful, that translates. Maybe it's not the ping pong table, but when your employees are having fun, as you guys so, so much sound like you are, you know, people want to be a part of that. And so when you're like, again, our accounts receivable person in our company is one of the most fun persons to talk to in our organization because she's bubbly, she's laughing, and we work on that. We hire that way. You know, they always say hire on personality and then train the skill. I totally believe in that because. And one of the things I've said is I don't want to build a business that I don't want to come to work to. And, you know, it kind of starts from there. And when you get good people who are having fun at what they do. I think that's the way to do that.

But to be this fun company, does that also push away some prospects? Some people say, listen, these people, it's just they're clowning around. They should go on the profit first podcast with Mike McCalla. Isn't that idiot? I mean, do some companies say we just want serious.

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't want to do. So that works. That works great. Well, I mean really, because I think everybody, if a client is looking at me and they're trying to say, well, this person over here will sell this to me for 79 cents. You want what? You know what I mean? If they're all about the pennies, every single piece of it's about the pennies. It's not about delivering, it's not about the value added, it's not about the things that we provide, well, then they're probably not going to be a great client for us long term anyway. And so there's no way we're going to be able to do what we do profitably. The people who really embrace who we are are the ones who are willing to pay for our services.

So, okay, now where does delivering joy and delivering happiness, where does that start? Is it within your own company? You have to build a team like this or is it procedural? How do you get started on this process?

Yeah, that's actually, that's a really good question, I think. You know, let's put it this way. Let me start by saying I didn't do it purposefully. I think now we do it intentionally and purposefully. But I think when we started I just said, hey, I want to hire people who are fun. And then once we saw that, that resonated with people. Now we did that through content creation, social media, and showing our authentic personality. Then it, now we, now we do it intentionally. So for example, one of the things that we believe in doing is creating fun videos around the office and we are self deprecating, we are silly and now this, does that actually sell us anything? I think you could make the argument it probably does, but it's hard to track. But what I'll say is it resonates with our audience so strongly that people call us, they see us on the street, they, you know, they're like, you know, you guys are just different. And by, but it's, it's who we are. You know what I mean? You have to be authentic with it. Yeah, you have to be authentic because if you're staunchy and try to Do a silly rock video. It comes off as cheesy as it sounds, but if it's who you are, then I think it does work. Can I give you a quick example?

Of course. That's what the whole idea is. Lay it on us.

Yeah. So when we were in an office and we got to a point where, look, we outgrew it. And so we had people who. We hadn't done a fun video in a while, and we had people who wanted to see our facility, who are our clients, who weren't close by. So we did a music video to Walking on Sunshine. And when you. If you ever get a chance to see the video, we literally didn't edit the entire thing. It was one continuous shot all the way. Started walking down the street in my. My hometown, and we. We walked through the front door. We walked, and every single person in our company was on the video, and it walked all the way through the building. So it was like a tour. It was silly. It was fun, and it accomplished a, you know, the goal of trying to get people to see what we were doing, but it also did it in a fun way. And I think, generally speaking, the people who get you and get your culture and. And want to be about something like that, they totally get that and appreciate it.

That's cool. Now, can you overdo it? And let me just. Let me share a story like. Like, we get to all dress up as Bozo the Clown here. Christina's got that big flower on her lapel that when you look at squirt water in your eye and, you know, waka waka. I mean, can we go over the top on joy?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Again, I think part of it's about authenticity. We talked about that earlier, right? If that's not who you are, then that's one of the ways to go over the top. But I think one of the pieces and I started to talk about this earlier is really, it's about giving, right? It's about whether it's relevant information, whether it's about relevant content, or whether it's just about showing appreciation, right? That gets done so little these days that, you know, that's one of the ways you can be joyful. You can be joyful in your appreciation for customers. One of my favorite statistics in business, it's both my favorite and most scary is that studies show 69% of your customers that leave you leave you because of perceived indifference. So they leave you because they don't think you care. And so you want to be joyful, say thank you I always say the first two things that good parents teach you is to say please and thank you.

Right.

You get tired of hearing please, but you never get tired of hearing thank you. And that's true of your customers too.

So joyful doesn't necessarily mean clowning around, but maybe if that's who you are, it just means authentically yourself. And it sounds like caring for the other guy.

Yeah. And creating a frictionless process, being joyful to do business with us. Like you kind of alluded to earlier, nobody wants to write the big check. But if the entire process has been really painless and you've worked so that the entire way through the sales process, nobody felt like they were forcing you. They made it, you know, as we weren't selling you, we were serving you. If, you know, you get through the entire process and at the end, that's when the entire process is joyful because you have made it frictionless and easy. And when you do that for customers again and again, you become profitable.

Yeah. So let's talk about the bottom line. How does this affect the profitability? How does this affect the money side of business?

Well, I think it really helps because customers aren't one time customers. So many times you hear about how much more it costs to gain a new customer than it does to actually resell the customers you already have. Well, the way to sell customers you already have is to show them appreciation and joy. And I mean, that's how it affects our bottom line, our customers. When we start a new year, I don't really feel like we start at zero. We know even though we're not a subscription base, even though we're not, you know, we're not guaranteed anything. But I'm very confident that our customers are coming back because they really enjoy doing business with us.

Hey, Kirby, I wanted to ask you about the. A little more nuts and bolts wise of the business. Like as far as sales and, you know, managing accounts, like, I mean, we know we have to sell a certain amount and there's revenue and that we can figure out profit and all that. But as far as the presentation, how do you do you in the presentation phase, either in sales or account management, how are you presenting things to your prospects or clients that makes the process more joyful?

That's. That's a super good question. So, you know, we are a big piece of our business is product based business. Okay. And so. But we're in an industry where there are a ton, a ton, a ton of people who do what we do. That's the Biggest challenge is that just about anybody can, can get you an imprinted pencil. Right. So we focus. The way we make it joyful, I think, is we focus on not just showing you a catalog, not just showing you what everybody else can show you, but showing you not only samples of said product, but actually going to the effort of designing it, laying it out, doing kind of what we call virtual so you can see what it's going to look like and thinking through the entire process so that you're not. Again, this doesn't matter. Industry. You're going to whoever you know, your customer, your prospect, and trying to solve a problem for them at the end of the day. Right. And so if you can kind of make them look good to their boss by doing some of their homework for them, that's what we try to do. We try to say, look, here's, here's. You've told us what you want to spend, but here is what it actually is, here's what it will look like. And taking all the questions away so that they can feel like they're in control of the process. And I think that's super important, regardless of what industry you're in.

I think, you know, Christine, we experienced that. Here you were, you would get new T shirts, the profit first T shirts.

Yeah.

And you found a company that you love. They happen to be near your home and you love them. Didn't they go above and beyond what the other companies were doing?

Customer service was amazing. And he was, he wasn't hesitant when I asked if there was something that he could do for us as far as price wise. Their quality was excellent too. And he was just, he was so easy to work with.

Yeah. And he also gave samples because I remember you coming in and you're like, hey, check out this T shirt. What do you think?

Yeah.

What about these materials?

What about the colors?

You looked good by working with this guy. I think that's exactly what you're saying, right, Kirby?

That's exactly what I'm saying. And you know the best people, and I'm sure this is what this gentleman did is he kind of lays it out so you can see and touch and feel. You become so much more educated in the process. And again, this is across industries. Right. Anytime that you can arm the person who's either making this decision or helping the person make the decision with information, you're making the process more joyful for them because they get to look good at the end of the day. That's what they want. Right.

But what about the risk Kirby. So I see these T shirts that she made up and I'm like, it's kind of expensive. We should look elsewhere now. We stayed with them, but how do you navigate that? When you do all this upfront work, you deliver. It's a joyful experience. Now they have the end prototype, if you will. They could walk out the door and go somewhere else to a competitor and get.

Oh, absolutely.

So how do you manage that threat?

It's so funny you say that. I actually had a salesperson in my office and at the end of the day it happens, right? It just does. And so what I have found, I always talk about the cost from the customer or from the customer's perspective. The cost of bidding me out, the cost of kind of taking my idea and going someplace else on that particular transaction. It doesn't cost me, it cost me a lot. It costs the customer nothing. But in the terms of long term, what they've done is just shown me who they are as a long term customer. And I don't want to deal with somebody like that. What it's cost them, what it's cost them is that a person who will have the integrity to do all those things won't continually do all those things for you. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you hang somebody out to dry, they're going to stop doing you favors. Like that has happened to me personally, where somebody's like, well, this is a really good idea. I'm going to show. Get three other people to bid you out by a quarter. Okay, it won't happen again. And yeah, it hurts in the moment. But what I've always said is there's plenty of business out there if I keep hustling and the people who do that to me, I don't want to do business long term anyway with.

That's the old, you know, cross me once, shame on you. Cross me twice, shame on me.

Yeah. And I do, I do a lot, but with the handshake and does that burn me sometimes? Yes. But I want to do business with people who are willing to do business on a handshake. That's who I think my style resonates with. And that's the kind of person I want to build a long term relationship with.

Yeah. Interesting. Now, because you're delivering joy, I understand much better now as you're delivering this, it sounds like you can dictate a premium, that after you give away all this value, you can actually charge a premium. Is that true?

To a degree. Right. I think, I think the rule of reciprocity really does exist when you provide value over and over. People do want to do business with you, but at the end of the day, I have to be fair, right? And so, so I have to be in line with the marketplace. What I would say, though is people are willing to pay for additional services, right? So maybe you want to do a T shirt, but you're like, okay, I really want to do that cool T shirt. But I want, I don't want to just throw my logo on there. I want to have a cool design. Well, they might be willing to pay for design work which is an additional service or, you know, long down the road, they may want to do video or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, so there's. And, and I also say, look, if my goal is to create the 20 year customer, I'm gonna make a fair margin on you for 20 years. It's not about the one transaction.

You know, it's interesting. We have a designer here, Liz Debrinsko. We've. I've worked with her now 15 years. And, and in the beginning, she, Kirby, I think she read your books because she was doing. She was doing exactly this. She would go out of her way to help me. But still, in the beginning stage, I was like, well, I really don't know her, but she's really going out of the way. So I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt. And I always approached her first. I did shop it out a little bit in the beginning, and she was competitive, but she wasn't the best price. But she was so helpful. I said, I'm going to go with her after that day. For the next 14 years, I've worked with her exclusively. I don't consider anybody. But I'll tell you one thing she's done. And I hear this in your story too. There's one time she did a project, and it's just recently she says, you know what? That project, I actually overcharged you. It was way more efficient than we expected. It would cost us a lot less on our side, and we're refunding you a good portion of money. And that was the ultimate process. I'm like, oh, my God, Liz. Yeah, I'm faithful.

You will never forget that.

Never. Never. So it sounds like you do the same thing, that delivering joy isn't just a front. It sounds like it's throughout and even at the conclusion of a relationship.

It's so funny that you say that, because one of the things I'm most proud of and we have A video side that we do video work as well. And I tell people we've been doing it for 11 years. I've literally never gone over a quote, not one time. Now, now, you know, have I. In time. Have I an effort. Yeah. But I want to be able to say to new prospects, because here's the thing, everybody always goes over. Not always, but it's like building a house. Right. There's always additional stuff. There's always. But when I can say to the person, look, here's the. Here's the budget. And I usually give a range to at least give myself a little wiggle. But I'm like, I promise you that's as high as it's gonna be in 11 years. I've never gone over. People are like, oh, well, that's kind of nice to know. And again, it. And you know, as to your point, often I'll come in on the lower end or I'll come in under budget. People remember that.

Yeah, yeah. And that that's where you win their trust and well deserved. Absolutely. And it's. It sounds like it's a. You see profit as a long term play. This isn't a quick in and out, but by delivering joy. What I'm hearing is that profit just plays out over a long, extended period of time. Is that accurate?

Yeah, it's totally accurate. I mean, it's just like a relationship. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, people still do buy from people they like, know and trust. Yeah, I want to, you know, and I want to provide them so much value on the front end that, that, you know, maybe I don't make as much as I could on our first transaction, but if I make it so painless for them and it's so easy, just like your designer did, then, you know, 15 years over a period of time, that's a. That's a pretty good customer. And the profit, you know, obviously you have to sell at the right margin. You have to be smart about, you know, your expenses. But if you sell at the right margin and you take care of people for a long period of time, the profit will take care of itself.

Yeah, it does sound like a relationship. Does not sound like my marriage, because my wife, I wined and dined the living hell out of her. I spent every penny I had to get a ring on her finger. The second one's done. I'm like, I'm not taking you out for dinner. We can't afford that. So. Yeah, it didn't work out so well. Hey, Kirby, I want Everyone listening to the show to buy both your books, Delivering Marketing Joy and Fan of Happy, a book that your daughter actually helped you with. Could you share where folks can get those books and find out more about you?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So if you head to kirbyhossseman.com, that's probably the easiest place to find content information about the books speaking and all that sort of thing. But, yeah, I would love it if.

They would check those out so they can go to kirbyhosterman.com, we'll have that in the show notes. Can they pick up your books on Amazon bookstores?

Yes. Yes. Amazon is the best place to find me. And, yeah, that's where you can get it.

All right, everyone, you just heard it. Go get Delivering Marketing Joy and Kirby's latest book, Fan of Happy. They're both available on Amazon or at your favorite bookstore. And of course, Kirby Hasselman is the website to visit. Kirby, thanks so much for joining us for this episode.

So much fun. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We'll see.

Thanks, Kirby. Great job, man.

All right, so you know the routine, Chris. In a minute, we're going to recap what we learned. We're going to do a little fun stuff.

Yes.

And then first, though, we're going to thank our corporate partners.

Yes. And I want to punch you once for episode.

I'll punch you in the face. Oh, God. That was right in my face.

Okay.

He enjoyed that.

I did kind of like that.

Well, you're there. You have a fly swatter. Christina, I'm jealous.

I haven't hit him yet.

Yeah.

Oh. Whoa, whoa. Ow.

Keep it handy, Dice.

I thought, you know, that's what I was just gonna start tapping.

Now I feel like I feel bad.

No. First of all, she starts whacking me, but it looks like she doesn't go to my privates. My hand was in the right spot. I put my hand up. She whacks me nice. And then she felt bad. And then she starts, like, tapping me like a boy.

Yeah, yeah, Sorry.

The splat. The splat thing. That totally threw me off. Oh, our partner. Our corporate partners.

Yes.

Do you know what Fundera does, Christina?

They loan money.

They loan money. They don't loan personal funds. Like, if you say, ah.

Well, they help you find the people.

To me and Alex, want to go out for a dinner? You know, Fundera throws 500 bucks. Now they won't. Actually, you should try that.

I should try Meredith.

Oh, geez.

You hit Meredith up. Hey, Alex, want to go on this great date? No, but they do. They loan money for small businesses. And if you have a small business that needs money, maybe you're buying some of the promotional price from Kirby Hasselman, and you're like, this guy delivered so much joy. I'm sticking with him for 20 years. Meredith at Fundera will find you the funds to buy those T shirts and mugs or whatever the products are. By the way, mugs are very effective. That's one of our T shirts and mugs are the two. And fly swatters.

Really?

All right, there's also Fundbox.

What do they do if I have a client that isn't paying me right away and I need it?

That's not Joyful.

I know. They release the funds to me, which is joyful.

Yes.

And then when my client pays me back, I just give it back to them with a small little service.

Yeah, that's what fun. That's what Fundbox does. Fundbox is the definition of joy. You snap your fingers and they deliver money to you. That's the definition of joy. And then, Chris, nextiva. Oh, my.

Nextiva is a voiceover IP phone system. That's right. All the features of the biggest and best business phone systems, but it's all voiceover ip. It's so many features, we can't even talk about them. There's so many. And the customer service of nextiva has been just great. You've been with them for how many years?

I think. I think at least eight years now. Listen, last episode, I think it's five. I think it's two.

You're like, it's 13.

At a certain point, it's like, my marriage. My wife says, how long have I been married? I'm like, somewhere between 20 years and four. Like, somewhere between. It's hard to remember because it's all been so good. It's a bar, and you can step. Any ringtone. Chris, do you want to hear my ringtone?

Yeah, let's hear it.

Oh, that's hard for me. Any ringtone you want.

Oh, my goodness.

Gets you right in the mood.

Yeah. That's only when Ron calls me up. Like, you can actually do car id. So when Ron calls it that one, because I know he's going to bitch and moan me out. So I want to enter in a good mood. Yeah, he's a tough guy.

All right.

And the last company, but certainly not least is. Who the hell is it?

Receipt bank.

Oh, receipt bank. Receipt Bank. You know, let me talk about Receipt bank. Yeah, they're on my iPhone. Someone here has an Android. They have A receipt bank. I think Ron also has an iPhone. And when you go and you have a expense, any type, a business expense, personal expense, you scan it in like, I don't care if you have a receipt. You just scan it. It then syncs it up and says, oh, that was a business expense. And it ties into the actual transaction at your bank. And when it finds that there's no transactions, it gives you a red flag that matches to it. It's a great way of categorizing your receipts, keeping them permanently recorded. God forbid you ever have an audit or you got to produce it for clients. Sometimes they need receipts. It's all recorded in. And it identifies when there is something out of sync, that a transaction happens, happens. And there is no receipt.

And it helps us for a budget, especially for events. We want to know exactly how much we spent on certain things, like giveaways. We're like, how much did we spend last year? Oh, wait, I know, I know.

It's a receipt. Yeah. And Christine's like, hold on, hold on, hold on. You had to go to lunch three times to make this decision. Mike gets all pissed at me. Then she hits me at the fly spotter.

I do. I'm pretty hard on him.

You are pretty top. I like that. You know, that's your job, by the way. All right, Chris, what'd you learn, bro?

We got to take. See, this part of the show always feels like a game show to me. Okay, now it's time to think.

Sorry, wrong answer. Zap him.

What did we learn today? Yeah, well, I have a lot written down here. You know, one of the words that struck me the hardest was frictionless. You know, when you can make. Make these processes of business frictionless for your customer or for your prospect, People love that. People don't want friction. People have enough friction in their lives already from every fricking angle that you can think of. If you can make things frictionless for a prospect or your customer, for your account management, people love that. That's joy. That's when they stand back and say, you know what? This has been a pleasure working with you. And they really mean it, right?

Yeah. You supersede. That's great, man. I think that might be the best tip of the day already. What was your takeaway when he said.

That 69% of customers leaves because they think that you don' Care. And there's a reason why we call our whole organization and all of our members, we call it us a family.

Right.

Because they feel. They truly feel the love that not Only we have in the office the love that we have for them and that how much we want them to succeed. There's a reason why at our events, we go bowling, we do special things because we want everyone to feel as important as they are.

Yeah. Damn. Now that's my favorite tip. So mine's gonna suck. Mine's gonna suck. I wrote down when Kirby said profit equals retention. And what delivering joy does, it attracts new clients too, but it absolutely keeps your existing clients. And that's where the profit's at. Too many people are going for the quick strike. Oh, I need to land the big deal today. I need to launch something huge. I need to make money now. And it's always this now mentality. And it's how much can you take now? And he said, no, no, no. That's actually the opposite. It's how much trust can you earn? How well can you cater to your client now and retain them? And profit comes over time consistently. Yeah, that was pretty fun.

Love that.

In fact, that deserves what?

That deserves one of these.

God. Right in the face, dude. I'm just picturing our bowling event. I love that.

That was great.

And I'll tell you one thing. You can have activities that are fun and inexpensive. You know that bowling, we had 15, 20 people there.

Yeah. We got like, four lanes. We got pizza and soda and $192. Yeah.

And I included the stinky Renta shoes. Oh, I mean, what a deal. It's so funny. Like, I think the greatest joy is in experiential stuff.

Absolutely.

We could have spent $1,000 or $2,000 providing gifts or going to a nice dinner, which is a nice experience. But this event had so much interactivity and it didn't cost much, and people were highlighting that bowling event.

Yeah. Creating memories.

I think joy can be created in so many ways that we just need to have the courage to explore what's. What's not typical.

Yeah.

And then do something like that.

There you go. So I know you've enjoyed this episode, Mr. Or Mrs. Listener. So you can go to that. You did profit first podcast dot com. You can actually comment on the post for this episode. Share with us some of the joy in your business. Maybe a client that was happy or different ways that you provide joy for your clients or do, you know, do work for them and all that. Definitely leave it in the post for this episode on profit first podcast.com and we'll be back very soon with another episode. And actually, we just want to really highlight Profit First Professionals on the way out as we normally do. You know, the last word seems to always go to Profit first Professionals for a reason.

I was trying to think of a rhyme for a reason. I couldn't think of it in the season.

Every season.

Every season there's a reason. You know, Chris, I found out from our listeners that the vast majority. That means you listening right now are doing something else than just listening. Like you're either going for a run right now. Go for it.

Or driving.

Or driving. Or mowing the lawn or garden. We had a binge gardener.

Oh, you.

No. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I listen to our own episodes. Oh, wait. So my wife is like, what are you doing listening to your own episodes? Like, are you really that self infatuated? And I'm like, no, I want to make sure we're doing good stuff.

Not even that. There's so much wonderful, like information and guests that you want to just absorb it all again and you learn yet.

You learn a lot more listening. Oh, and. But I also do critique myself. My God, I'm a totally just sound. Did I say that?

My voice.

Oh, my God.

I know. But there's. I found out from the people that email us and call us and stuff and say I binge Profit first podcast or I listen to it when I'm doing something. So here's my request. Whatever you're doing right now, you've two options. Either shout at the top of your lungs. I mean, as loud as you can. I love the Profit first podcast. Or just stop what you're doing and take your mobile phone out and go to this website. So you have two options here. You don't have to do either, but you have to do one. Stop running, stop driving, pull over, go on your phone and go to Profit first professionals dot com. I suggest that's the better choice. You go Profit first professionals dot com. We formed an organization of members throughout the globe. These are accountants, bookkeepers and business experts who have been trained by me, by our team to drive. You're shaking your head like she's getting into it. To drive profitability in your business. They know the Profit first method. Fill out the form. Click on the find button on that website, profitfirstprofessionals.com. click on the find button, fill out the form. We want to know some details about you. We will introduce you to a product profit advisor, someone who will drive profitably in your business permanently, starting with your next deposit. By the way, these are people you already engage. You already hire an accountant or bookkeeper or business coach. Why not hire someone that first and foremost is a profit advisor and just also happens to be exceptional at accounting and bookkeeping or business coaching. So come to our site, we'll hook you up and do it now or scream at the top of your lungs. Your choice. Yeah.

So there you go. Profit first, professionals dot com. And by the way, when you were just speaking, there's something you said twice. Drive profitability to your business. And I mean, how relevant is that to your business and life? The more profit your business has, the more you can live the lifestyle you want to live, the more sustainable your business is. You can grow. You don't need a huge business. You just need a profitable business. And this is. These are the experts and resources that Mike and Ron have assembled for all of us to use. It's a tremendous resource. So thank you to our guests. Kirby Hasseman, thanks. Mike and Christina, thanks. In the background to the lumberjack and obi, Ron Kenobi, as usual. And we'll see you next time.

We'll see you next time. 102 and. Holy crap, Christina. I see on the board I owe 25. I owe 50 push ups.

Get two of.

But who gave me another 25 push ups?

Ron, cuz he didn't know what your big one meant.

I owe 50 push ups. I got to go.

All right, make sure you video that, Christine, and put it on the website.

Okay.

All right, see y' all. Bye.

Bye.

Sam.