Episode 126: Navigate the Storms with Constance Moonzwe

People may have heard. You may have heard of this show, the Profit first podcast, but have you heard of the Profit first game show? Oh, that's right.

He loves that studio full of prizes. Oh, and Constance, as we do, this is a little tip. Don't show. We think you were shuffling papers and stuff there. Just. Okay, yeah, you gotta stand like a statue. Like, like, don't move.

Free.

Do you know that new thing that's going around? Christine, the model?

Like, yeah, the mannequin.

Oh, yeah, the mannequin.

Yeah.

Constance, you. You gotta be a mannequin.

Mannequin. Challenge. I got it. Okay.

Yeah, that's right. And don't forget to also grunt when we start kicking.

Oh, yeah, when we start up. Join us, Chewbacca. Anything is welcome.

Here we go. This is the Profit first podcast.

You know what episode you're listening to? It's episode 126. Yes. Yes. Nice. Yeah. Bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh.

That nice, I tell you.

Welcome everyone, to the show.

This is the Profit first podcast. My name is Chris Kern. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording and Pause youe Life.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First. Tell me you're reading that. And Serge. Mm, mm. And the pumpkin plan and the toilet brown short. And the Profit first is being re released. I'm joining the studio. You know who that grunter is. Hello, it's Christina Buld. And you. You're listening to the Profit first podcast where you learn all the elements of profitability and what if. What if that day comes where your business gets twisted in a way you never expected, that your whole business changes on a dime.

What if?

Can you survive it? Can you actually thrive in that circumstance? Well, our guest today is going to tell you about a very difficult challenge, to say the least, that her business and she faced. And where they stand today. It's nothing short of a profitability miracle. And you're going to learn how to navigate it too.

Totally psyched for this. You can find our show wherever you listen to podcasts. Go ahead and subscribe. You can also rate and review us anywhere. Itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, and of course the website profitfirstpodcast.com. have you gone there lately and just typed in gibberish comments addressing Mike Michalowicz? You should, because he'll have to answer it. It's his site, so. Profit first podcast.com and. Right, Mike. This show is all about profit. It's not about revenue, because revenue might be a Comfortable couch, but profit is no slouch.

Was that bad, do you think, Constance?

No, no, no, no, no.

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Take note of that. Take note of that. Chris, what have you been up to, bro?

Oh, man. You know, while I'm visiting New Jersey, and just this morning, you and I were configuring your new studio space.

Yeah, we're in the new studio. You may hear a slight echo in the background because we haven't put up the foam yet. Yes, but we have a dedicated room. Christina is so far away.

I know. Like, I can't even reach you anymore.

Constance, I don't know if you ever do this. Like, when you're with a loved one or a family member or friend, and you sit at a long dining room table and the one person's at one side, it's the most awkward meal.

Like, I feel like I need to get something to throw it you.

It really is.

I mean, how is she supposed to hit you with the fly swatter now?

She can't.

That was my first argument, Chris.

I know, I know. It's very funny.

You have to launch stuff at him from there.

That's why I said I have to get, like, a little slingshot.

Yeah, so. So Chris helped us set up the new studio. We're in the space, it's in our actual offices, so we don't have to race over to my house anymore. And we bought some new equipment. So we're gonna be able to actually have our guests physically come here.

Yeah.

On their own.

Dilemma.

Yeah, maybe the.

What have you been up to, Mike?

Me? I went to watch a football game. Now, when this broadcast, the college football season will be over. Maybe the. The playoffs and stuff will be happening. But went to see a college football game at my dad's house. My dad. Listen, my dad's 88. He's about to turn 89. He's kind of a homebody. He's physically able to get out, but it's just kind of a homebody. So I went over there to watch a football game, and it was cute. He had the whole spread. I called him up, I'm like, hey, dad, you wanna watch football? He's like, only at our house.

Cute.

I get there, he's got a little basket of chips, a couple pepperonis and slices, and some pretzels and a couple beers.

That's adorable.

That's adorable.

Yeah.

So it was fun. That's what I've been up to. Hey, Christina. I heard our community has had some beautiful shout outs for us.

Yes, we got A short but sweet email from Holly Peterson and she just sent you a quick note and she said hey Mike, I just you to know that I'm on vacation and because of profit first I'm anxiety free. The buckets really work. Thank you. That's awesome.

That is awesome. It's awesome. And then I understand we have a little shout outs. That's our members.

Yeah, yeah, no, we wanted to start shouting out some of our new members. So our latest newest member. Latest newest, Congratulations. His name is Tom Jones. He is an accountant in Minnesota. He owns a CPA firm and he offers tax returns for personal and business purposes. He does bookkeeping and accounting for small businesses. So if you're in the Minnesota area and you're looking for a kickass profit first professional.

Wow.

Reach out to us so we can put you in touch with Tom.

Yeah. We have approximately 160 members and we just thought it'd be nice to start welcoming some new members on this show. We'll tell you more about profit first professional at the end of the show today. Just as a reminder, we're going to be talking about sometimes business gets thrust into in our lives get thrust into a massive change and how we navigate that is extraordinarily important for how we move forward. And our guest today is Constance Mansway who'll be talking about that. Before we bring you on Constance, I do want to thank our sponsors who make this. Did you just push the microphone down with your nose? Dude, I just looked up and she's using her nose to push.

I didn't want to make any noise like I didn't want to creak it or anything so I just tapped in.

That was a sick. She used her schnoz to move the microphone. I want to thank our corporate partners. These are the folks who make the show possible. Do we supposed to be giving Sabrina Starling a shout out or is that not yet.

Soon to come though.

Soon to come. New sponsor Sabrina Starling. That's a bonus shout out for you. I want to thank fundera next tiva.

Oh my goodness.

0Oh that was a good one. Fundbox and receipt bank.

Yeah.

Oh nice.

Barry.

Those are our stalwart supporters who make the show possible and we'll give you some more insights on what they do after at the end of the show after we share some details on what we learned today. Her name is Constance Mansway and she is the president and CEO of ITH Staffing, a premier healthcare and information technology staffing company serving organizations throughout our country. And Constance's entrepreneurship has built a multimillion dollar staffing company within only a few years. You're going to learn how she did it in just a second. Constance, welcome to the show.

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

I'm excited that you joined us and I want to start off on a difficult note, but it's very important. Your business is about two years ago was thrust. You yourself were thrust into such an unexpected need and change. Could you tell our audience what happened?

Right, so it was actually Super Bowl Sunday 2014, where two cars pulled up to the front of my house and it was about 9 o' clock in the morning. It was the corner car and the sheriff's department letting me know that my husband was killed in a car accident. And I had just spoken to him just a few minutes before that and he was on his way home at that time. You know, our daughter was, our youngest daughter was seven months old and so life sort of just stopped. He was the brain of our company. Then we did healthcare training. So we helped healthcare providers stay up to date with their like, credentials and the ACLs and BLS and all of that. And he was basically the brains of the organization. I ran all the operations and so I was faced with a really difficult challenge. We were blended family. So together we had five kids and so I needed to figure it out really quickly.

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

I mean, I'm so sorry that you had to go through that.

Yeah, it was horrible.

I. We can. I could never imagine. And what happens from the business side? I mean, does the business just go on hold while you navigate this, while you mourn, or does the business keep going the next day? Like what?

Well, actually, there really wasn't time to mourn. This happened on a Sunday, Monday. We had to process payroll. And so literally that day I brought the team home, my employees came to the house and we making payroll the next week. The business did have to go on hold because again, he was the clinical brains of the organization. I had to restructure the company really quickly within a couple of weeks. Thankfully for me, I knew that I had to go into the staffing direction because that was my experience and my background. And because we already had the clinical foundation, I needed to just redirect my clients in a certain direction and literally just start to hit the ground, like literally within a couple of weeks trying to get some contracts so we can begin the staffing process. So that's kind of how it worked. So I started ith staffing in October of 2014. He passed away in February of 2014. So the six months in between was basically literally starting a new company from scratch. As I was grieving, as I was raising our kids, and as life continued to happen. Because unfortunately, life does not stop and you still have to be able to be in a position that you can provide for your family. And so, yeah.

Well, this is what I want to ask you about, because I think some people say, clearly you are so strong, and there's no question you are, but I mean, to run the business the next day, I can't even fathom doing that. I understand it has to happen because it always comes dependent on it. Is it shock that gets you through? How do you navigate that?

You know, I think that, you know, individuals had different coping mechanisms. Mine happened to be work. I just. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. So I just worked, you know, because my. The silence was daunting, you know, and that was a very scary place for me, was sleep actually was a scary place for me. I was reading, you know, I had nightmares, and it was just really a horrific time. So I just took all that energy and I put it into work. But I did start to meditate very aggressively. I did. I started that from the beginning. And I really think that practice of meditation helped me significantly during this period of time.

Okay, and then the company was a payroll business, and you decided to become a staffing company. What triggered that idea for the shift?

So basically, years ago, my very first company was a staffing company, and we provided per diem services to different healthcare organizations. So I knew instinctively I had to go back to what I knew best, which was staffing. And so basically, basically it was about going back into my old networks. And this is where burning your bridges becomes really important, not to burn your bridges. So I literally made some calls to some really good friends who could give me access to contracts. The very first contract we got was with the California State Department to be able to do basically all their healthcare staffing throughout the organization. That was our first big break. And with that opportunity to basically is what propelled it. Eight staffing to start to generate revenue. And we grew very quickly after that first contract.

And did you. The payroll companies, I mean, did you start phasing out payroll? Did you run two businesses in parallel? What was the intention with the payroll business?

Actually, yeah. And it actually was a healthcare training business, Mike. But basically, yes, I ran both of the companies in tandem at the same time for maybe about a six month Overlap. So basically I had a couple of instructors that I could rely on who could do one or two classes a week. So I maintained that. But I had to phase it out because it was not generating enough income. So as I was phasing it out, I was actually starting a new company at the same time in the same location. So I was doing both at the same time.

Okay, and what was it doing? Let's, let's start talking some of the numbers. I mean, there was a certain. How did you know wasn't generating enough money? Was the base upon how much you were taking home personally, what was the determinant there?

Well, yeah, I mean, at this point, after my husband passed away, there wasn't such a thing as take home. Yeah, everything was going back into just literally paying the electricity and the payroll, you know, for that period of time. Thankfully, I had a great family who literally had to help me out, pay some of my expenses and my, you know, my, my house and my car and all of that. My family really chipped in that very first, you know, couple of months until I could really figure it out. So it was literally not making any money at that point. And so it's. We had to go into shutdown. But the good thing is, when we started the healthcare staffing company, I partnered up with a great funding company. And the good thing about funding companies, they purchase your invoices in advance. And so we partnered up with a great factoring company out of Cleveland. And so the minute I started to do business within the staffing company, they were able to purchase, I was able to purchase 85% of the face value of my invoice. And that's what ran our operations until our clients started to pay.

Gotcha. Okay, so you, you landed a big client in the staffing, and then you start experiencing this rapid growth. What triggered, what facilitated that growth? People start talking about you. How did you grow so fast?

It was crazy. So it started in October of 2014, January of 2015. We had done maybe a little bit over like maybe 300,000, but then going into 2016, we hit 3.5 million in revenue. So it was just rapid growth. And what sort of propelled that is word of mouth. I had a great team you had to hire. Right. And so I brought in some really dynamic recruiters who knew what they were doing, and we just hit the phones. I mean, it was just really 100 calls a day and just massive submissions and thankful. Thankfully for us, this particular client had sort of unlimited demand. And so as much as we could feel It. They would take it, you know, and so we're literally just submitted at very aggressive speeds, which just our revenue, we went from 10,000 a week to 20,000 a week to 50,000 a week. It just happened very, very quickly.

But. All right, so that sounds like a dream. I don't know if you can see me, but I'm salivating right now. I mean, Constance, that's the dream come true. This extraordinary growth. You start a business not even two years later, you're approaching 3.5 million in revenue. It sounds like that's the perfect business. How great was it?

Well, I mean, it was so the first year where we hit $3 million, I realized that I needed to do a client assessment really quickly. And thankfully for Pumpkin Plan at this point, because what I did is I made the classic mistake of was I had a great client. I said, you know what? I want more business. And so I took my eye off of this really good client that was generating about, you know, 40,000 a week in revenue. And I decided that I was going to go chase and get more clients. Well, that $30,000 a week revenue client, within literally four weeks became a $10,000 a week client. I mean, we saw like, a major dip in our business in the first quarter because I, you know, I wasn't doing my client assessment. I was going after the wrong clients. I, you know, it's kind of like one of those things. It's like I just wanted more and more, and it's about what's better and not what's, you know, going after more. And so I had to literally stop and say, okay, who are my VIP clients? And really narrow it down. And once I narrowed it down to about four, five clients, we put all our energy, all our energy and effort and care and love into those five clients. Those five clients brought us $6 million worth of revenue this year by just really focusing. Yeah. And so we were able to double from 3 million in 2015 to over 6 million in 2016, because I did the client assessment specifically. And we had to get rid of about 10 clients in this process. We weren't. We got rid of the clients who weren't nice to us. We got rid of the clients who didn't align with our core values. We got rid of the clients who are driving us, like, running us ratchet and, you know, stressing out my folks. We got rid of all of those, and we just stuck to the ones who actually liked us, and we liked them, and together we've done a lot of good business.

So Christina, the client assessment's from the pumpkin plant.

Yeah, yeah.

And actually, you connected us, Constance and I. She reached out, was interested, and you scheduled time for us to talk. We talked on the phone. I was like, oh, my God, you gotta tell me this story on the air. But one question I have for you, Constance, is you said you took your eye off the ball with that great client of yours that was making 30,000 a week. But what does that mean, to take your eye off the ball? It sounds like they're just handing you business. What did you not do that caused them to drop to 10,000 a week?

You know, because I was doing the weekly calls to them, I would check in on their key team every week. How's it going? I was personally involved in the relationship before, and so when I took my eye off, I gave. Literally gave the account to somebody else who was not ready to sort of manage such a big account. And I was just basically on the road going after more business and not really paying attention to what the needs are, not being responsive to the concerns. They were accustomed to us to, like, really being responsive. They had a concern. We addressed it, we fixed it. Our response time started to get longer. We were not, you know, taking the calls as frequently. And clients are. They can feel that when a client, if the customer service changes with a specific client, they can feel that. And because I was not in tune to what the clients need, we were not submitted at the pace that we needed to do when we were not on the vendor course, for example. So we're missing out on very key, crucial information about what was changing within their organization. Basically, that's what. What happened. And the revenue just started to dip. And also the healthcare providers that were placing within the organization started to leave and were not, you know, we were not replacing at the pace that we needed to. So it just started to uncrumble very, very quickly. And so before I realized that, I had a major crisis on my hands and I had to figure out how to fix it and not only have to fix it, how to beg for mercy and forgiveness and, you know, pray that they give me another chance at this point. And thank God they did.

So what if. If someone listening here loses a major client or loses a lot of opportunities with a major client, just like you did, how do you beg for mercy and forgiveness with a client?

Well, it starts by buying $80 worth of Starbucks and going into their office.

I like that.

I literally begged for an appointment with the CEO of the organization because at this point, our contract was at risk. They literally were so dissatisfied with our performance. They literally said that if you guys can't turn this around, we're going to have to literally end this contract, which obviously we couldn't afford to do. So I did, you know, went down to their city with my recruiting manager. We did buy $80 worth of Frappuccinos and Americanos and everything else. And we sat in their boardroom for about two hours. And I literally had a plan of correction done, which outlined every single thing that we would do to change moving forward and what we would do differently if they gave us the opportunity. I did apolog, you know, profusely. I was very humble. You know, I didn't assess blame or anything like that, but I was very clear as to what we would do to remedy the relationship and what they would expect from us moving forward.

And was the client participating in the solution? Were they giving suggestions and saying, here's what you can improve, or was it you just presenting, we messed up and here's what we're going to do to fix it?

Well, going into, going into the meeting, they told us our areas of deficiency, you know, and just basically, this is what we don't like. This is what we don't like. And so we built a plan of correction around that, around their concerns. And we presented it to them, or I presented it to them. And basically they gave us about 30 days to turn things around, which we did successfully.

And did. Did they outline that if you don't fix in 30 days, we're gone? I mean, was there, I don't want to say a threat, but did you also see the consequence on the other side that you had 30 days to fix this or they're out?

Yes, they actually gave us a 30 day official notice to change it to turn things around. And so it's a really scary time for us. But it was the. A tough lesson to learn about, you know, growing too quickly and, you know, just taking your eye off of your key clients and. But, you know, thankfully they were aligned with our, you know, core values from the beginning. And so we were able to just rally around that and rally around the friendship that we had at the beginning and really just work very diligently through the process. And it was a tough 30 days. It was a very dark 30 days. But that's kind of where, you know, the pumpkin plan just literally changed everything. Because it was after I read that book, I could identify key areas of where we had, like, seriously, like, messed up. And together with all of that, we just put together this Beautiful plan of like correction plan which we now use with every single client where we're making sure that we're communicating verbally through email, we do follow ups, we do surveys, we're in constant communication with our clients, constant communication with our providers. So it just literally made I think our organization a lot stronger.

Constance, also looking back on that experience that you went through of growing so fast and almost losing this client and then being able to reel them back in. Looking back on it, is there any advice that you can give to someone who, who may be in that position that you were in back then of thinking, oh, we need to grow more, but they already have these successful clients. Are there little things that you could have noticed to prevent you from jumping in to that or do you have any words of wisdom?

Do you know, I really think that I'm going to sound like a broken record, but organizations really have to do a thorough client assessment, which is not just revenue based, where you're looking at every single area of what the client does, whether it's the revenue, the immutable laws. You're looking at every single point and then you're rating them and you're ranking them based on what your assessment says and what's important to you as an organization. That's the first step. And I think that that has to be done. Every business has to do that, regardless of the size, is always re evaluating that client assessment, doing the client assessment and also screening your clients appropriately from the beginning. Not all business is good business, you know, and sometimes it's important to turn away business that's not going to be aligned with the core values of your organization because that's really what it comes down to. Because they may bring you the revenue, but if you don't have proper alignment, it's at the end of the day it's just going to be, it's going to end up being a disaster and it will bring your organization a lot more grief and pain than it should.

Constance, when we were talking on the phone, you were referring, as you are now, to the client assessment. That's part of the pumpkin plan, by the way, Christina, and it's an evaluation for clients, it sorts them out. And what we discovered is not always the top revenue client is your best client. Sometimes it is. But Constance, did you find some of the clients were not fit for you and did you decide to get rid of them or how did you manage the ones that were not fit for you?

I mean, there was a really good, and this happened actually this year where there was a client that would bring our organization close to a million dollars in revenue, which is pretty significant. One client, we literally had to sever ties with that client because of their treatment of the people we placed there. So it had nothing to do with the revenue coming in, but the people that we place within this organization were just treated so badly that at some point we had to literally servitize and make the conscious decision of how are we going to want to replace that potential revenue that would have been coming in. But going back to our core values, which is basically the respect and treatment of our providers, it's so important to us that we just couldn't break that. And so we had to sit together as a team and say, okay, this revenue is going to go away and how are we going to replace it? You know, but that's the big, I.

Mean, a million dollars, Constance. Oh my gosh, what's the consequence? And let me say this kind of like a robot, an emotionless, humanless robot, who cares about those people? You place them, they got a job. Why do you care about them?

Right. Again, when you said, when you're clear on your why. And for me, having gone through loss and pain, one of the joys about running a healthcare organization is that I feel that at the end of the day, we save lives. I may not be the nurse in that hospital room, but the nurse that I've hired and placed is in the business of saving lives. And if that nurse is unhappy because the environment is stressful, guess what? We could lose life. We could potentially lose a life because the nurse is dissatisfied and she won't be able to render the level of care that is necessary. And so whenever we're making decisions like this, we put ourselves in the minds of the patients, the end patients and those families. And you know, having experienced loss myself, I know how that can be so debilitating into you as an individual and a family. So whenever I think about our nurses, I think about the patients that they take care of. And so at the end of the day, I cannot in good conscience have a nurse go to work who's dissatisfied because that's going to impact the level of care that they're going to provide to that patient. And so ultimately we kind of almost didn't have a choice. Yes, the money was good, but if we put, if we want to be a patient centered organization, we have to put the patient first. And so that ultimately that's, you know, we chose the patient, I guess, over the revenue.

Right, but, and what was probably the Consequence, have you replaced that revenue with someone else?

So we, we phased it out strategically so we didn't do it. We didn't just wake up and just like stop doing business. We actually put, we put together like almost a 90 day plan where we increased revenue within our other clients and decreased revenue to this particular client. So it was like a 90 day increase of revenue to our remaining clients and a decrease. And so within 90 days we were able to completely phase out of this client.

Gotcha. What were you saying, Chris?

No, she said patient first, but it's profit first. But then what just comes first, patient or profit? And I know what the answer is.

But it sounds like, Constance, you put the patient first and actually that translates into profit first.

Yeah, it does. I mean, because the revenue that we increased in the other clients was actually better revenue, better bill rate to better terms. And so we actually had a better gross margin book of business by actually focusing on those other VIP clients and just getting rid of this one client. So it actually became a patient first, profit first story.

My last question for you is there is someone right now listening to the show out there who's experienced the same thing you have, where you wake up one morning and you've lost part of your soul, someone from your life, a loved one, and now you're thrust into running a business, you support your family. What do you tell that person who's listening right now? How do you do what you did?

I mean, I think it's first you have to get clear on your why are you doing what you're doing? You have to be really clear on that. I had to go back to what my vision, mission and purpose statements were and really sit in that. And that why is what prepares you to all the different levels and also get impact. Only do business with people you like to do business with. Because you're already going through so many different emotions right now that dealing with really tough clients becomes very, very challenging in this space. So my first advice would be, you know, get clear on your why. Make sure that you spend enough time figuring out why you start the business in the first place and is it the right business for you in the season that you're in right now? Because it's always okay to rebrand, it's always okay to redirect if it's not, if your values are no longer in, you know, proper alignment, always look at your client assessment, make the right hiring decisions. I think oftentimes when you have the wrong team, it actually, you lose a lot of revenue by not having the right team and then figure out your cash flow. And that's where profit first comes in. Because what we did is that we grew rapidly, but we're not watching our money. And then we found ourselves earlier in this year in another sort of pickle. And so really always sort of focusing on those four things. I think for anybody who's starting a business, anybody who has to find themselves in a business, you have to go back to the basics.

That's wonderful. Thank you, Constance. People will want to learn more about ith staffing. And also I know you have a donation kind of center. Could you tell us where they can find out more about you and also the donation that you're facilitating? Right.

And one of the most important things that I've recognized is giving back and giving back to good causes. And so a big part of our revenue goes to different charities that we support in Africa and globally. So ith charities is the name of our organization. And it's a 501C3 where we support programs on glaucoma blindness. We are rebuilding schools. We're doing all kinds of good stuff through that organization.

Great. And we'll have the links on our website. That's ith charities.org definitely check it out. And Constance's website is ith staffing. Constance Bonsway, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your story.

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Great job.

Thank you.

So in a second, we're going to recap what we learned. Yeah. Christina and I are sitting here with our mouths kind of gaping wide open.

The what we learn portion of this show is just awesome. And it's so cool because you listening right now. We want to know what you learned too. You can actually comment on this post on the website.

Exactly. So we'll talk about that in a second. Our big takeaways, plus a few other details. First, I want to thank our corporate partners again. That's the folks who make the show possible. And so thank you to Xero. That's the accounting system that we use here. Maybe you should be considering too. Receipt bank scan in your receipts and never have that shoebox again. Ironically, I scan my receipts and I'm such so in the habit I continue to put it in my shoebox. But you don't need to. Nextiva is the voice over IP phone system of choice. We just completed the Nexon conference. We were out there, 1500 people in the main stage room where I spoke and all of them nextiva phone owners. Why don't you own a Nextiva phone, too? And then Fundera One stop loan shopping. That's F u n D E R A I dara you to get a fund from.

That was kind of stupid.

That was kind of horrible. And then fund box. That's invoice financing. Or they call themselves a CFA cash flow accelerator. You got the invoice and know that your client's not paying. Fundbox will release those funds to you today. So definitely check out our corporate partners. They're the folks who make this show possible. And there's applications and offerings are pretty darn cool.

That's right. Call up our. Call up our corporate partners and ask for, you know, discounts and free stuff.

Yeah. And reference the show. That's our whole thing. Like, call them and say, I want 25 off my phones next to you. And they'll say, why? You'll say, well, I heard about you on Profit first podcast.

Yeah. And they're. Yeah, but why 25%? Well, because I want it.

What? Oh, but why not ask? They don't offer that through us. Just so we're clear here, but why not ask? It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. All right, Chrissy, I want you. Yeah.

And I also want to mention the Pause your. Pause your Life. One thing that is cool that if you're listening to this, what you can sign up for is you can sign up for the midweek pause emails. It's an email that we send out every Wednesday with some really nice material, inspirational, powerful, that you can just pause and, you know, it puts a nice break in the middle of your week. And again, pause youe Life is an organization my wife and I started. We do retreats and meetups to refresh and energize people. And pause your life.org is the website. But the midweek pause emails are awesome to get, so you can find that at the website.

So, you know, and one thing that Chris, you and I were talking about today when you were helping us move the studio here was pause your life. And I said, you know, a guy like me, I'm like, Mr. Hyper. Like, I could never do this.

Oh, you're the Energizer buddy.

I'm the Energizer bunny. And like, literally, I tell him, I get up at 5 in the morning and I start moving around. My wife is sitting there drinking coffee, and I'm like, hyper. And he goes, no, no. He goes, that's. Chris said that's how his wife is too. And it doesn't matter what your personality or Habits are. Everyone can use that pause. And it was just interesting. Like, you don't have to be a chill person to chill. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. You just balance it out. And then we were talking about being in the shower, too, Mike, remember?

Sake, Chris. There's certain moments are meant to be proud. You did. You did. Do you want to finish that before it gets any more awkward?

Yeah. Yeah. So when you're in the shower, you know how, like, you get creative ideas, you think of solutions to problems. Why? Because you're just relaxed. And that's what happens when you pause, too. That's when you get all the really good, creative solutions to the problems in your life is when you're just. When you're not working, when you're just really chilling, then all of a sudden, it'll hit you what to do.

So, yeah, the shower moments. All right, Christina, you go first. What did you learn?

I have two takeaways. Can I give both?

Please?

Okay. So my first one, Constance pointed out, do not burn your bridges. And that hit home with me. You never know what's going to happen in your life and how quickly things will change. And networking is so important, and being able to reach out to the people who have been in your past, I think is a huge deal. And then the second one is the get clear on why you're doing what you're doing. If it doesn't make you happy, why are you doing it? I think we all have habits of just getting into a routine and being comfortable that you don't stop and think, wait a minute. Is this really what I want? Yeah, that's a biggie.

Yeah, I like that. My. I have pages of notes here. I am blown away by how strong Constance is. I can't even fathom. I can't even fathom what she's experiencing. Thank you. My takeaway was, dump that million dollar client. Like, that is so contrary to what we've been told, what we observe. Grow, grow, grow. Million dollar client. That's a game changer. And she said, it's not for my patients. And as she said that, you know, her number one customer really is the endpatient. That's who's being served here. She says, I've been through this. I've been there myself. When an entrepreneur can connect with that visceral of a level, of an experiential level, it becomes an unwavering, what I call immutable law. Just a value that's just wired into her. And I think it gave her the courage to Drop that million dollar client. And as a result, patients are being better served because she's working only with the clients who understand the importance of the staff that she provides. I thought that was extraordinarily powerful. Chris, you're up, bro.

Yeah. Constance mentioned that after the tragedy, she said the silence was daunting and she started meditation. So.

Hello.

There's a pausing right there. Does good in so many ways. The other thing is, she was astute enough to realize that she had to redirect the entire company into her area. Think about that. Think about that. Probably most people would just freak out and be like, oh, my God, how am I gonna do it? And just whatever. But she was like, you know what? We can steer this ship. And she did it. That's awesome.

It's amazing. Yeah, that, that Constance, that you found that clarity in such a tough time in your life, that that really takes a special person to do, I feel.

Yeah, yeah. No, yeah. Thank you. I mean, this meditation, though, I have to go back to that because the answers come in the silence sometimes.

Yeah. Oh, I like that.

I like, write that one down. That's going. All right, we gotta start wrapping things up here, Chris. We got a few more things to say, though, on the way out.

We do. You know, you can rate and review this podcast. Did you ever think of that? You can actually put a value on Mike McAllen if you want. Five stars is always good. And you can do that in itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Again, our website, Profit first podcast dot com. There is a post for every episode. So here's the thing. Go to this post. It's episode 126. We want to know what you learned from this interview and if you have any follow up questions for Constance or Mike or Christina or me. Well, don't. Don't ask me anything. Just ask Mike. He's the guy with the four books, including sir. Anyway, Profit First Podcast. And seriously, go there. There's funny pictures of Mike on the website too. I don't know.

Oh, and I'm doing a whole redesign. I don't even think you know that. A whole.

I don't think you know, you know.

That the whole site's being redesigned. I think, well, in the new year it's gonna be released.

Yeah, that's cool.

And of course, our whole show is really backed and supported and just fortified by a wonderful organization that is literally changing the financial world. It's called Profit First Professionals. You know, accountants and bookkeepers. They're out there, they're adding up numbers and all that. But there's a lot more to it these days. There's the consulting, the businesses on being profitable. Hello. Kind of important.

I don't know.

Yeah, listen. To sustain a business, to sustain your business, you need profitability. I spoke. Spoke. And Christina lined this up. I spoke at the Office Depot Foundation.

Yeah, you did.

Now here's the deal. I thought there'd be like 20, 20 or 30 people in the room. There was 600 not for profits in there.

That's amazing.

I spoke about profit first and that is probably the most accolades and thank you to God after every person there came up and said that's what we needed to hear. Because profitability is sustainability. This is not, hey, get rich and screw the world. This is how you sustain the. The purpose you have in this world. Profit First Professionals is an organization that I co founded with Ron Saharian. There's now eight of us. We just hired a new colleague who's joined us. Roland. Roland. No, Brandon.

Brandon. Brandon.

Brandon starts next week. Yeah, that was embarrassing. So go.

Hey.

Brandon will be joining us. And here's what we do. We have 160 or so profit first professionals. These are accountants, bookkeepers, and coaches who can drive profitably in your business. Business. They've been taught the Profit first method by our people. Plus, Roland does a lot of teaching and Roland even teaches people on this. Here's what you need to do. Go to Profit first professionals dot com. Click on the find buttons right there at the top. Once you fill out the form there, we will introduce you to a Profit first professional. This is an accountant, bookkeeper, coach. You need those people anyway. But they've been trained on profit first. They will drive profitability in your business. Business. And they will bring your business to levels of profitability that you've always deserved to have. The next move is yours. Go toProfit First Professionals.com and click on find right now.

Right. This could be the thing that changes everything for you. Do it. Profit first professionals.com. thank you to Constance. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, Christina.

Thanks to the.

Hello, B. Ron, everybody. Wow, this has been a great episode. We'll see you next episode, everybody. Thanks for listening.

Keep rolling too. At the end here. I want to share one little last tip.

He's out.

Roland, as you start fading out, I want to hear there's one last tip I want to share. See, hear the dough.

Now watch this.

I got to do it right now.