Episode 107: Is the Recession Over Yet? with James Coyle

Okay, test the soundboard. Pizza. Trombone. That's right. Okay, Chris, we are rolling on all fronts. Everything is rolling forward. It's like an 18 wheeler of rolling this. Every wheel is rolling forward.

We are rolling. Seriously, how many recorders are we rolling right now? It's insane. That's what we do here on the Profit first podcast, episode 107.

Yes. I need more energy from you. Come on, give it to me. There it is. She's with us.

I like that. Christina gets all into it.

Yay.

And high pitches and shrieking.

Yeah. The first one you were texting, she's.

Like, I wasn't texting.

You were doing something.

Actually working on emails.

You were emailing it. Now she's jacked. Now she's jacked.

Totally. Welcome to the show, everyone. My name is Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author Profit first in a brand new book called Surge.

Surge.

You got to pick it up. It's the perfect compliment to Profit first. It's on Amazon right now. And you, you are listening to the Profit First. Oh, and you, you are joined in the studio with Christianity.

You always forget about me.

Look at Hillaj over there doing push ups. That's how jacked he is.

I know he's ready to go, man.

You are listening to the Profit first podcast, the show where we discuss what's going on here at the office at any time in real time. And it's the show where we discuss all elements of profitability. Were you listening last week? Were you?

Were you?

You know what? We talked about a business that started doing profit first from day one, as the business was starting, they implemented it and they took a profit distribution or owner's pay distribution within two weeks of startup.

Owners get paid.

Yeah, exactly.

Crazy.

I know, I know.

It's insane.

One employee wanted $100,000 to get started their work one day a week, and.

They were like, oh, yeah.

No, no, no, no. We're taking our profit back first. Well, this is the show where we discuss the alpha and omega of profit. The beginning and the end and everything in between. There's a guy out there, Jim Coyle, who says the recession is still going on, really still happening, and you're gonna get some insights on how to deal with it. So that's what's coming your way in a second.

You can hear our show everywhere. Profit First Podcast.com. that's our website. Profit First Podcast.com. you can also hear us on itunes, Google Play, Stitcher Stitcher, tune in radio, anywhere you hear a podcast, you can have us tickling your eardrums and delivering this wonderful content. I hate the word content. Is there a. Can we get a synonym for content, people? Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Why?

Yeah, content is horrible. I mean, what, because content sounds like filler? It sounds like. It doesn't even sound like as juicy as nougat or something, like delicious.

Like an abundance of knowledge.

There you go.

Yeah. But, yeah, let's use nougat.

Tips and tricks of the trade.

This show has been used and abused.

We deliver the nougat of business.

I like that better. Let's do that. Let's start using nougat going forward.

The most important part of business. You know, by the way, if you didn't know, on this show, we have a lot of fun, then we actually interview an expert, then we give our takeaways on what we learned from that expert, and then that's about it. Then.

Yeah, and then we. Then the music fades out really awkwardly.

There you go. So revenue is a lightsaber, but profit is a lifesaver.

That's an easy one. That's an easy one.

That's good. That one to you, it's all about profitability.

So, I mean, Mike, how. What percentage of businesses out there are not profitable and not sustainable?

83%. Really? 83%. Now there's a hundred and 180 million small businesses. Now. I'm talking about small businesses.

Right.

Bigger businesses actually are more profitable, but quite frankly, they had to be profitable to get there, so they kind of mastered the system. Small businesses defined by the SBA and Jim Coyle could probably speak to this better than I can. $25 million in revenue or less. I suspect if you're listening to the show that defines your business, 83% of us defines my business. 83% of us are not profitable. And here's the dealio, dude. It's not that you have a piece of your brain missing. It's not like you can't figure out the profit component. The formula we have used is horribly flawed. Profit does not come last. I mean, it comes like last gets ignored. Profit comes first. If you take your profit first. We talked about all last episode. If you take your profit first, you have to back calculate or reverse engineer your profitability and run a more efficient, more innovative business. It's that simple.

And then you're profitable first. Oh, my God. So we also have some wonderful corporate partners. Really? We do.

Yes. Yes. We're going to thank. We'll get More detail now, but I want to thank Receipt bank, which is a great receipt scanning software. Nextiva is a voice over IP phone system. It's the voice over IP phone system, in my opinion. Fundbox, if you need your invoices, finance, meaning you're not collecting money quickly enough, they'll do it for you. And Fundera, if you need a loan, they hook you up. Chris, before we introduce our guests, I just want to know what you've been up to. My breath.

Hey, you know, I'm about to file to my wife's. My wife and I started this organization doing meetups and retreats, and we're going to file as an official 501c3 nonprofit corporation.

Wow, that's wonderful, my brother.

So, I don't know. I mean, it's a business, right? You have to run it like a business, Mike. Right.

Yes. Here's the biggest irony, dude. Not for profits. Need to be profitable. Now here's the thing. People are like, they can't be. Yes, technically, they can't be profitable. But they need to run the business efficiently and reserve as much money as possible for the cause they're trying to facilitate. That's the profit component. So maybe you can call it cause first instead of profit first. But you have to allocate money towards your cause and, and reduce your administrative costs. It's too bad that so many not for profits, kind of like a business you're running ends up taking in money to further the benevolence you're putting out in the world and then suck it away into the business.

Totally. Yeah. So nonprofit really means, like, it just can't, like, if my wife and I are, you know, if, like, if I'm the executive director of the nonprofit, we can generate profit, but I just can't. It can't leave the business and go into my personal bank account.

Right.

That's all.

That's right. Yeah, that's right.

So you have to be proud. What do you.

I mean, you could do it, and then you get a massive audit that slaps you around. So me, I, I, I don't know if I broke my toe, but I, I severely injured it. Ron even gave me the boo hoo hoo. And I wasn't like, I wasn't like, whining. I'm just saying that's what happened. I was taking my dog for a walk in the yard outside, so I was barefoot, actually. Dogs running around stuff. I come back in the house with Daisy, our dog, and she runs in the house, there's a little ledge Coming into the house, I didn't trip into it. I stepped on it, but not enough. My foot was on the ledge, so it actually slipped back because it was wet. And it went and slapped on the ground, and it snapped on the ground. And I was like, oh, that hurt. And it was kind of like a numb feeling for a few hours. And then last night, I looked at it. I'm like, oh, my God, My thumb is the size of an orange.

Your toe?

Your thumb.

My thumb.

You mean your toe?

No, I looked at my thumb. I'm like, that's how much I was swelling. Whoa. I was swelling so much my whole body. And even my thumb was the size of an arch. So I met my toe. My toe was the size of an orange.

It's been a week of. Of injuries, for sure.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

What, you. You injured yourself?

I fell through a ceiling.

Oh, dude. Christina fell through a ceiling?

Yeah. My dad's re renovating their entire house, and I've been going over there to help, and he cut out a portion of the floor to kind of level it out again. And I was painting, and I forgot it. The hole was there, and I fell through.

She was a foot dangler.

That was a foot dangler for sure.

Like, she went through and got stuck halfway. How did you get out of that? Did.

Oh, I needed help. The guys had to come.

And they pulled you up or.

They pulled me up because thankfully I have bigger hips, so my hips stop me. I got a pretty stellar bruise, but no, the guys had to pull me up.

That's hard.

It was great.

Your story's way better. Wow.

So I have Barry the maintenance guy with me here. Barry, what are Mike and Christina and the other folks at Profit first, including the Hawaiian lumberjack and Obi Wan Kenobi? What are they going to need to not get hurt anymore?

You're going to need a couple of horses, a couple of mules. Right, right.

I like that.

I told Christine. She's like, I'm gonna go painting. I'm like, do you have your horses? Do you have your horses?

If I had a horse under me, my feet would have had something to put pressure on.

Right. See, horses and mules fix everything. His name is Jim Coyle. Jim Coyle is the president of the Gateway Regional Chamber of Commerce. You know, Jim and I met, I think, about three years ago. I was doing a speaking engagement. He invited me over to his office, and I'm talking with him like, holy cow. This guy knows a lot that's going on. You know, he touches. I Would say hundreds, if not thousands of businesses through the Chamber of Commerce every single year.

Wow.

Has his finger on the pulse of business, but there's more to him. He's a publisher and a columnist for a newspaper called Inside Business. He played a major role in Governor Whitman's 1993 election campaign. Do you know who Governor Whitman was? Remember?

No.

His or her first name as Christy Whitman. Christy, yeah. He's the managing director at Coyle and Associates, a firm he's founded. So I just want you get a sense. He's lived in government, he's lived internationally and worked internationally in Singapore. He managed a trading and consulting firm. He spent time in Southeast Asia. He was a U.S. foreign Service officer. He understands government, he understands international commerce, he understands local small business, and he's just an all around good guy. So with that, Jim, welcome to our show.

Well, thank you. It's great to be here with you.

Well, Jim, you know. Yeah. You hear the audience going crazy for you.

Yeah, I do. Wow, what an audience.

Yeah.

I hope they're that enthusiastic when we're finished.

Oh, yeah.

Sometimes we're not here to talk about recession after all.

Well, right, right. And that is what we're going to talk about. So when you and I were talking a few weeks ago, there was a speaking opportunity. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take Jim up on the opportunity. But as Jim is talking, he's like, you know, the recession isn't over. I'm like, the recession's not over. And, Jim, you started going into this almost like soliloquy on how the recession's not over, and it was blowing me away. I'm like, I gotta get you on the podcast, kind of for our audience recount. Why is the recession not over? What's going on?

Well, so when you look at the economy and you look at the word recession, there are official definitions, and then there are a more common definition and feeling that people have. So recession, by definition, is two consecutive quarters of negative growth. And so based on that definition, no, we are not in a recession. And in fact, the recession ended back in 2008, officially. But what I really meant by that is that the business climate still sucks. It is really hard to do business. You know, you just said that 83% of small businesses are not profitable. And part of that sometimes is their own fault. But, you know, this is a really hard climate to start a business and to grow a business.

So. Okay, and I totally buy that, but there was a high time. Maybe it was 2006, maybe 2005. When you couldn't do wrong, why are we not kind of climbing out of this definition of a recession?

Okay, so there are. When we hit the recession in 2008 head on, which almost became a recession, we really reformulated the way that our economy works. And that reformulation has continued throughout the present Obama administration. And basically what you've seen, and I kind of liken it to a patient, you know, someone who's laying on a table and they've got two IVs, one in each arm. So in one arm they're getting all this stimulus. And that's the. That's what the Federal Reserve bank has been doing. You know, interest rates are basically zero and have been zero for years and years. And so you look at that and you say, well, if interest rates are that low, if money is that readily available, why aren't things better? And it's because in the other arm, you're having poison pumped in. So one arm has stimulus, one arm has poison. And it is just a really tough world to do business. So, you know, if you look at small businesses, which is what we're focused on here today, the number of small businesses being created has been decreasing. The number of small businesses that are failing has been increasing. Profitability is something that's very hard to achieve. And there are a lot of reasons for that. You know, there is a, frankly, a general malaise. If people don't feel that the economy is doing good, the economy is not going to do good. And so I liken it. A number of years ago, I got really tired of having to open my garage door when it was raining or snowing. You know, get out of my car, open the garage door, get all wet, pull in. And so I thought, you know, I should really invest in a garage door opener. But at that time, you know, things were pretty shaky. A lot of people were getting laid off. We weren't making as much money here as we had been. And I thought, you know, now is not the time to do that. And so because I didn't do it, the guy who would have done the work on my garage door didn't get the money from me. And so his wife maybe wanted to buy a couch, but because I didn't give him my contract, his wife wasn't able to buy her couch. And so the guy who was going to make the couch didn't get to sell the couch. So you see how these things just kind of filter through the economy. So when people don't feel good about the economy, they hunker down, they don't do things. And we see saving rates are way up even though interest rates are zero. So people are still putting more money in the bank because they're afraid of losing their job, they're afraid of their business going under. So you have that going on. But that's not the poison that is going on. What's really happened is that since the recession, because there was a tremendous amount of really well founded indignation about how out of control things had been gotten, we decided, we, the government, the Congress, the President decided we're going to fix things, we're going to make sure this doesn't happen again. And they have issued regulation after regulation after regulation that has acted as brakes on the economy. You know, that's the poison that's being pumped in. Just regulation after regulation, regulation after regulation.

Well, I want to learn about those regulations. I think one amazing insight there was that one of the poisons is the wife for that couch. Oh, I mean, no, she was demanding it. She was. No, I'm kidding. So first I want to talk about saving. Rates are up, Jim. So the we've all been told that the American consumer in particular is, you know, debt ridden. Spend, spend, spend, ramp up the credit cards. And that's been our Achilles heel. And the American consumer really needs to become savings oriented. And that's been preached probably ever since we became a debtor nation as consumers all the way back to maybe the 50s. It sounds like now we're kind of a little behaving more in alignment with what we should be doing, but now it's having a negative effect.

Well, you know, you want to have a balance, but again, the reason that the economy is slow is not because people are saving, it is because they're scared and with good reason. So, you know, you look at the unemployment rate and you know, the president will get on the television and say, well, things are pretty good, we're at full employment. You know, we no longer have an unemployment problem. But what he forgets to add to that is that workforce participation is at all time lows. So what that means is that you have a whole lot of people who aren't looking for work. Unemployment is the number is based on how many people are going in and filing claims. But once you run out of unemployment insurance, you know, you get knocked off the roll. So you're not counted towards that unemployment number anymore. On the other hand, if you haven't gotten into the workplace, you're not counted either because you're not applying for unemployment. So, you know, you look at how many kids are coming out of college and moving back home because they can't find a job? And this is where I really see it. And I see this a lot in my job because all of these people show up in my office at one point or another. So in the middle, people who are 30s to 50s, they're usually pretty well employed, things are pretty stable in their lives. But then on either end, you have a huge number of people who were very senior in their corporations who were laid off eight years ago and they still don't have jobs. Maybe, you know, they've become a consultant, a coach, maybe they've tried to start their own business. But it's hard to start a business now because of finance, which we can talk a lot more about. But you know, there's still just this tremendous number of people who were senior, who were making a lot of money who still don't have jobs. And as a result, their family finances are in disarray. They haven't done things for years. On the other hand, you have all these kids who are coming out of school with tremendous debt usually, or very often with degrees that nobody wants to hire.

Women's studies wasn't relevant, I guess.

Oh, geez, no.

This is one of our big problems. Nobody wants to sit a kid down when they're 17 and say, you know, the reason you go to college is to get a job, so study something that people want to hire. You know, rather we say this is an experience for you to open your horizons, to experiment, to do a lot of things and to incur $200,000 worth of debt and no job prospects at the end of it. So it's been very problematic. So I told you this was going to be a downer today.

Yeah, exactly. So I'm living it and Christine is living. Christine, you're how old now?

I am about to be 27 actually next month. And it's funny, I'm listening to this and I've seen both end of the spectrum, like when I graduated a couple years ago, obviously, but when I graduated college, I had a degree for $80,000 debt. And it took me a year and a half to find a full time job because I didn't have the experience.

Right.

Whereas my mother had a full time job now, she left. She didn't get fired, she had left to go to Florida, do her own thing, came back and had a hard time finding a job because she was too experienced or too old. And nobody wanted to hire her because they want to hire the young people and get you Know, half the paycheck. Crazy.

Jim, are those excuses that employers use like, oh, you're too experienced, Is that a way just not to hire someone? Why do people say you're too experienced?

Well, you know, it's a lot of things. You're afraid that when somebody's older that they may not be as enthusiastic, they may not be as dead. Obviously, they're not going to be around as long.

They don't tweet as much.

Yes, they don't treat as much, but they do go to the doctor a lot more. So your experience on your health insurance is going to get worse and your costs are going to go up as a result. But also, it's hard to look somebody in the eye who has been making 100 a year and say, you know, this job only pays 30,000.

Right.

And so you tend not to want to insult them. So you just say, you know, sorry, you're not qualified for this.

And do you believe that workforce is now accepting the $150,000 jobs were the dream of the past. It is a $30,000 job now. Do you think they've gotten to that realization and accepting that?

Well, I think a lot of people have had extended benefit programs, and now those older folks who were in their 50s are now in their 60s and qualify for Social Security. And so a lot. You're seeing a lot of retirements. You're seeing a lot of people taking Social Security a lot earlier than they should. You know, the rule of thumb is that if you wait until you're age 70 to actually start collecting your Social Security, that's where you will get the maximum return. But you can start collecting it as early as 62. So if you've been out of work for eight years and you've hit 62, and you say, well, you know, I can get this Social Security income, so I think I'll just go ahead and do that and retire early. Gotcha. It's. It's a pretty sad situation. But, you know, when you get down to it, the real problem is all about money. It's about finance. It's about businesses being able to get access to capital. So I say on one hand, hey, the interest rates are zero, which means there's, like, tons and tons of money out there. But banks are not lending money. Now, every bank is a member of my Chamber of Commerce. And when I ask them about that, they say, oh, yeah, you know, we're out there, we're writing loans, we're doing this, we're doing that. But when you talk to Them in a little bit more detail, you find out that mainly what they're doing is refinances or loans for very, very secure businesses. So if you've got a great idea, if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and you want to go out and start up a company. So let's say, you know, you're young and you want to start a landscaping business and you go to the bank and you say, I want to start this business. I need $20,000 of capital so I can buy a truck, I can buy some equipment and I can go out and start doing this. And they look at you and they see that you're holding, you know, like Christina, $80,000 in student debt. And they say, no, we're not going to lend you the money. And people used to, entrepreneurs used to be able to use their house, used to say, okay, listen, I'll put my house up as collateral for this loan because I'm an untried business and I used the word great. But then when the housing market crashed and a lot of people, because they had done refinances and other reasons, found that their mortgage was underwater, you can't use that for collateral. So, you know, so you hope the housing market will recover. And in a few areas in the country, it has kind of certainly has not around here. So, you know, you're not seeing new people coming into the market because Christina, and I'm sorry I keep using you as an example, is going to have a hard time going out and buying a house because she's already got all of the, this debt. You know, she's not on a, not making $150,000 a year. So you know, all these things are stacked against her. And as a result, there aren't people kind of pushing those prices up and helping the housing market recover. And this is basically where you get into the poison and aspect. So the Federal Reserve has put huge, trillions, trillions of dollars into the banking system. Banks are flush with cash. But the Congress in its infinite wisdom passed a piece of legislation called Dodd Frank, which basically said to banks, you cannot take risk anymore. Well, what is lending? It's not risk. And so the banks have shut down. Banks now have more compliance people than they do than they have bankers. They have to have so many people in the back room making sure that they're adhering to all of the regulations that they can't, they don't have as many bankers and they don't need as many bankers because they're not lending money.

Seems like an over course Correction, Jim, is there anything that the individual business owner that's listening in now, is there anything they can do to best their circumstances in a recession like this?

Well, you know, running your business well is always the key. And I think that's certainly what profit first focuses in on. You know, if you, you don't. And sometimes, you know, we all want to start big, but sometimes it's much better to start small and build slowly, not to accumulate a whole lot of debt, but really be very secure and then expand more gradually. But unless you're running a profitable business, you know you're not going to get a whole lot of help because banks aren't allowed to help you.

And are you finding that with your membership at the Chamber that more businesses.

Are.

Intentionally staying smaller to be more frugal, to be more profitable? Do you see that trend playing out?

Yes, I do. And part of it is through no choice of their own. You know, it's not like they can do anything different, but they have become much, much more efficient. And that's, you know, again, kind of a longer term dilemma is that businesses in general are finding that they can do more with less. And that sounds great, right? They do more with less. And you're going to be more profitable, however, when you start looking at it. So banks, again, are a good example. Banking tellers have for generations been tremendous entry level positions, mainly for women who are not going to college. And, you know, it's just been this constant source of employment. Bankers tell me that in 10 years there aren't going to be any more tellers, that every bank is going to be a collection of ATM machines and a couple advisors sitting at tables in case anybody needs to apply for a loan or, you know, do something a little bit out of the ordinary. In fact, I had a branch manager in about a year ago and he was bragging that at his branch he had no tellers. And from a banking perspective, this is great. They're doing more with less. They're cutting costs. But in cutting those costs, they are also cutting the number of jobs. So people talk about manufacturing jobs and good manufacturing jobs all the time. And you know, I also remind them that nobody sits at the kitchen table with their kids and says, hey, Johnny, you know, my goal for you is I want you to get a good manufacturing job. There are good manufacturing jobs out there. And manufacturing in the United States is growing. It is double what it was in 1990, but it requires fewer and fewer workers every year. We are getting better at doing more with less. And so that Kind of has an impact on the employment. Then you throw into that new regulations that raise the minimum wage. And if we hit $15 an hour, which in New Jersey we likely will when we change governors the next term, that again is going to put more and more people out of business. There's a company in San Francisco that automates fast food production. So you no longer have to have people in the back flipping burgers and you no longer have to have people in the front because you can do a kiosk similar to an ATM machine. You go up and, you know, given how surly many of the staff are in fast food restaurants, I think I'd kind of rather deal with a kiosk. Go in, just type in your order and boom, it comes out on a conveyor belt.

But with that oversized vending, like an oversized vending machine is what I'm hearing. You know, Jim, we are cutting down on time here very quickly. Just wanted to ask you one last question. Is, are you optimistic for the future? Will the recession ultimately go away or is this something that's with us for the foreseeable future?

So short term, depending on what happens in the election in November, we could be in more for more of the same, you know, if we don't have an administration that becomes more pro business or we could turn it around. Now, I am not a long term pessimist. Generally when jobs disappear, new jobs are created. So people who used to make buggy whips in 1900 went to work in automobile factories. You know, there were new jobs. I do think new things are going to come up, but people have to be appropriately trained for them. So, you know, I think in general I am optimistic. I think that, you know, there are insightful people in government. I think there will be a move to improve some of the programs like Social Security and Medicare that are sucking so much money out of the government budget. Those entitlements need to be reformed and I think they will be. May take another 10 years, but I think they will be. So in a long term, yes, I am optimistic.

Good. I wanted to end on a positive note, but these were fasting inside. Jim, if people want to reach out and learn more about you and the Gateway, where should they go?

They can go to gatewaychamber1word.com, that's our website. And they can certainly find out more about my background. They can read the columns that I write for the newspaper inside business and they can find out about the chamber and the things that we can do to help their businesses.

Great, Jim, thank you. So much for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Jim.

So, Chris, Chris, we're going to recap what we learned here. I got some positive stuff to share.

Fire it up.

Oh, Jack. And first, I want to thank our corporate partners, though.

Yes, please.

Can I. So these, can I input something here especially for you, Mike?

Yes. Oh, yes. There's a little energy. It's back. You know, it's a sobering conversation, but it's necessary. It's necessary. But first, I want to thank our corporate partners. These are folks that are fueling the economy, for sure. Fundbox, an active business that's out there employing people. And if you have invoices that aren't being paid on time, particularly in slow times. Right. I bet you have some clients that they're waiting to get money. So someone buys a couch and that couch person, as Jim was sharing that analogy, it kind of goes down. Maybe they can't pay you quickly. Fundbox releases the funds to you. They're. They're one of the businesses out there that get cash flow flowing again. And of course, we have Fund Dara if you need a business loan. You know, Jim's right. A lot of banks are saying, sorry, can't do it. Too much, too many regulations. There are some atypical lenders out there. Not that atypical, you know what I'm saying? But there's some atypical lenders out there. Fundbox, I mean, Fundera will consider all of them. They'll look at the banks, the traditional banks and the non traditional lending sources and, and find you that loan so you can get money. It's not easy anymore, but it is easy to go to one website, Fundera, and they'll find it for you. Nextiva phone system. We got two people on the phones right now. They're constantly cranking.

I just got a voicemail texted to me. Did you through nextiva?

Yeah, it's just really cool. And listen, our Internet went down a month ago. I don't even know if you remember.

A couple weeks.

Yeah, I went, I had a fly out to Walmart. I got a $15 router. Our entire Internet is on that little device over there. It's blinking bloom. Yeah.

Disaster waiting.

We have like six or seven phone calls this morning simultaneously going over that thing. No problem. Yeah, no problem. Thank you, Nextiva.

Thank you.

Thank you. And then the last company is Receipt bank. And Receipt bank is a, it's a, it's not the ultimate, like organization manager. You got paper and you guys can. There's all that stuff. But the, the best part is you scan receipts, it synchronizes it to your accounting system and you know where you're spending money. So receipt bank.

And, and Barry, the maintenance guy, he also loves our sponsors. Right, Barry?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, thanks, Barry. No, we appreciate that. Chris, your big takeaway, doing more with less.

You know, despite what's going on in the economy, in the world, in your town and society, whatever, pretty much the only control that you have as an individual is to run your business properly, do more with less in your business and become more profitable in your business and therefore be more sustainable. And love that. And we, we are seriously, we are so happy that we're part of this show because this show is contributing to so much profit with small businesses around the world, actually.

Yeah, yeah. And one thing we do, one concept of profit first is you reserve your money. Reserve your money. It forces efficiency and frugality. But the, then the profit distribution comes out and we believe save and reserve, that gives you satisfaction for your personal life, but also celebrate.

Yeah.

You know, which actually puts money back in the economy.

Yeah.

Buy that couch. Buy that couch. So, yeah, so my wife, I'm just picking on wives because my wife, My wife took you up. Yeah, she showed. Yeah, she just bought a couch now to her couch and stuff and she's like all jacked up about it and you have to be in the position to do that. So the thing is, don't be a debtor nation. Don't keep on running credit cards to get this stuff, build profitability and then get, you know, reward yourself. What do you have, Christine?

This episode? So it hits me right in the friggin gut because I mean, I am, I, I mean, even though I've been out of college for a couple years, you know, I still have piles and piles of debt. And I witnessed the same experience as other kids, you know, who are looking to enter the workforce. Oh, you have, you know, you don't have enough experience, so we can't pay you that much money. But you know, you, you go to college to get a degree, to get the knowledge to make the money, but you can't make the money to pay your bills. And it's the same thing, I think for the people who are older and get fired and are used to making a certain amount and then go in making a lesser amount and then you go into debt and it's just. Oh, it's just. But I think the solution is profit first because if the business is healthy, if the owners are getting paid and it's operating successfully, then you have the money to appropriately pay your employees. So please do it so people like myself can live.

And my takeaway is kind of this herd mentality. Jim said, you know, the attitude is this malaise, and when. When everyone feels down, they behave that way and think keeps things down. The reason everyone goes to college is because everyone else goes to college. That's what you do, and you do it because everyone else does it. Could you imagine one day someone says, and everyone agrees, we're not going to college anymore. Everyone just stops going to college. I'm just going to start working after I graduate high school. It was no, not a single person would have debt. It would be acceptable because no one else is going to college and everyone be getting jobs. It's just. It's this kind of herd mentality is what I heard from Jim. I heard the herd from Jim. And I think that's interesting. I think if we have the courage to break out of the herd mentality and make decisions that specifically benefit us, the people that surround us, I think you can do very well. Even in a down economy, especially in small businesses. Small business, if you're struggling to get, you know, if you're struggling, you get one or two clients, you're back on top of it. The large companies, they're struggling, they gotta get like one or two thousand clients. So we're working on a much more kind of micro environment.

That's a good takeaway right there. It doesn't for a small business. It doesn't take, you know, a bolt of lightning from God to change your business. It can happen in small ways. For sure.

Exactly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Thanks, Barry.

So there you have it. I. I like the way this show went, flowed, and the way it ended. And by the way, have you ever been to this website? Yeah, thank you. Have you ever been to this website, Profit First, Podcast dot com. Well, that's where all our previous episodes are. Literally all 106 episodes.

I think the seven with this one.

Yeah, right.

Wow.

Oh, that's true.

Well, so your math was totally right. It's 106 episodes plus this one you're listening to right now. You know what else is there, Chris?

Yeah, what else is there?

There's a find button. Oh, find. You know, you'll find what? You'll find profit.

Really?

Yep. That's not a banana in your pocket. That's profit in your pocket. And our people will find it. Here's what you do. You go to profit first, professionals, step one. Step two, you binge listen to 106 episodes until you're nauseous and throwing up. And you know how much that cost you? Nothing. Zero. Now what do you do? You splash some water in your face. You take it out of a public faucet, maybe something like one of the water fountains. You know how much that cost you?

Nothing.

Nothing. So far, you've spent nothing. You're educated and refreshed. Then you click on the find button. A little form pops up that says, tell us about your business and what your needs are. Then we will hook you up with a profit First Professional. This is an accountant or bookkeeper. This is a person that specializes in driving profitability in businesses just like yours. Now, you already have an accountant or bookkeeper working for your business. You own a business, right? So how much more will it cost to replace your current accountant with a new accountant?

Nothing.

Nothing, people. Nothing. But you get the benefit of significantly more profit. This is a. It's a shift to the left, a shift to the right and you are partying forward. You get on a new account, you get on a new bookkeeper, whoever you need. You replace your existing people that aren't driving profit. Now you have people that will drive profit. We've always been waiting for you. We vetted them out. Obi Ron Kenobi spent relentless hours talking to these folks. Hludge over there, Mo, we're training them. And they know proffers inside. They know proffers inside now. So click on the find button. We'll hook you up with someone who will drive properly in your business starting today. Don't wait anymore.

Yeah, because that's the thing. We're all sitting here looking at how the economy is and society is and we're like, how, what are we going to do? How are we going to fix it? You guys created Profit First Professionals just for that reason. This is the answer.

This is the answer. My God.

Anyway, check out our show on itunes. Stitcher Tune in radio and everywhere. Subscribe. Thanks to Mike. Thank you to Christina. Thanks to everyone in the background over there, including the Hawaiian lumberjack. He should be doing that push up challenge, by the way. And also Obi Ron Kenobi and our guest, Jim Coyle. Thanks everybody for listening. May the prophet be with you.

Oh, yes, and also with you.

All right.

See you end up well, he cranked it up. He cut me off.

Sorry. What you want to say?

Well, I just want to say next next week, Marcy Hanhar and Paul Finley will be here on episode 108. You're going to find a business that's implementing profit first in their business right now, but they're struggling a little bit. We're going to coach them through it. That was it. Boom.

Sa.