Episode 133: Profit First in the Entertainment Industry with Jason Spencer

Chris, I think I'm ready. I want to give a shout out to Dr. Sabrina Starling, though, with your permission, please. Do you know she's a business psychologist, Chris?

I did, Krist.

Is he the new Christ?

You ever get called Krist? That's a tongue twister right there.

Krist. No, I've been called Kristoff because that's all that would fit on my driver's license in New Jersey.

How cute.

You ever get called Topher? I knew Chris that went by Topher.

Yeah, that's the cool Topher dude.

Hey, Topher, man. Do you know, Chris, what a business psychologist is?

I'm sorry, my throat is partial paralysis.

Right now, like our guest. So I'll tell you what a business psychologist is. It is someone who is a true psychologist, meaning they're a doctor of psychology who has gone on to study the implications of psychology for business leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, CFOs, those type of folks. Well, Dr. Sabrina Starling is my business psychologist. It's not like I went German there.

She's mine, no one else.

She's my business psychologist and she's been working with me. I think it's about five years. I think part of her psychology she wiped my mind clean of when I started working with her. And she has made Profit First Professionals a reality. She's made my other organizations a reality by helping me navigate certain challenges but the mindset around them and you know, one of the biggest mindsets is hiring extraordinary people, hiring a players. I didn't realize how threatened I by default was to hire someone that's better than me. And she helped me navigate that, understand that and kind of plug together. I think the most extraordinary team I've ever worked with of colleagues here, Profit First Professionals. Yeah, amazing people. And has taught me the psychology of building a business culture. And I think we have a very strong distinct culture here that is part of the reason people want to come here and stay here. When people apply for even our ads alone, when people apply, they're like, I've never seen an ad like that. I've never experienced a place like this. That's what Christian said. Even I still don't know.

We get, we were getting emails too from people who weren't even interested in the position saying, hey, just wanted to let you know this is the best one I've ever.

This is the coolest company, coolest ad. So that's what a business psychologist does. It works with the mindset of all different aspects of business. Well, Dr. Sabrina Starling is doing something Special. So we wanted to share with you. She's doing a masterclass on how to quickly double your profits with top performing employees. And there's a mindset around that. You have to have the mindset of doubling the profit, profitability and to recruit the best employees. And she's done this in some of the most remote places. She's worked with businesses throughout Wyoming. Where. I don't even know really where Wyoming is. It's somewhere in the United States. There. There's no one lives there. And yet you can, or not many people compared to where we are. And you can recruit top performing employees in Wyoming, in the most rural parts of the country and the most urban parts. But you have to have the right mindset. So Dr. Sabrina Starling is putting on a master class, how to quickly double your profit with top performing employees. She wanted to charge for it. We said, no, no, that's not how this works. So she is doing it for free for our listeners. So if you're listening in right now, you can join this class for free right now by sending a text, the word employees with an S at the end to 44222. The number is 44 222. Send the text employees there and you can sign up for. For a master class with my business psychologist, mine, Dr. Sabrina Starling. All right, that's what I wanted to say, Chris.

Very good. Now we can get the show started. And we're gonna see how Jason Spencer. I'm sorry. We're gonna see how Jason Spencer.

I like the list.

Okay. Okie dokie. Well, anyway, do you think Jason's gonna grunt or bark like a dog or howl or. Anyway, we're going to find out because this is the Profit first podcast and.

You'Re listening to episode 133.

God.

How are you? Don't, don't, don't, don't.

Did he make any noise?

I heard nothing. I heard.

I heard nothing.

I think I heard like one of those nothing.

He is cool. And welcome everybody, to the show. My name is Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording and Pause youe Life and actually podcast engineering school as well.

And I might. I never talked about that. But yeah. Do you want to say more about it right now?

No, no, no, no, no, no. Mike Michalowicz, author of Surge and the newly soon to be released revised edition of Profit First. You know your book is successful when a huge publisher approaches you and says, we want this and we want to give you a lot of money.

Phone rang and I Go. Hello, who is this? They go, it's Penguin Books. I said, yeah. They said, we want to make Prof. And they acquired the rights of the book. So what I had to do is rewrite the book from scratch. I did a full rewrite on it. Tons of interviews, in fact. Christine, I didn't tell you. I just got a call from the Savannah Bananas.

Oh, you did?

They want me to throw the first pitch out for a game.

That's awesome.

Are we taking this trip? That'd be good.

He's gonna throw it in the stands.

He said, am I willing to throw out a roll of toilet paper as the first pitch?

Oh, that would be funny.

Hell yeah.

Wait, Mike, can you cut your hair like the wild thing?

Oh, you mean like that? Like the mullet?

No, with, like the. With the lightning in the back of the head. Like the lightning.

Yes, yes. Maybe I'll cut out, like, with a banana on the side. There you go.

Oh, there you go.

There you go.

Well, you, listener, are wondering what the hell is going on. What did I tune into? You tuned into the most important show in the world. This will change your life. Because it's the profit first podcast. We're gonna discover every episode element of driving profitability in your business. And, well, today's episode is no different. Today you're going to discover how entertainment businesses talk about cutthroat industry. How the entertainment industry, if that's the vocation of your own, you can drive profitably in that industry, too. And if you're not in the entertainment industry, well, you're going to find some insights that will apply to your business, too.

That's right. You can hear our show wherever you listen to a podcast or our website is profitfirstpodcast.com you can see every past episode we've ever done. A lot of our listeners binge listen like crazy people. They love it. And this show is all about profit. We talk about revenue a little, but, you know, revenue might be pleasing, but profit is.

Oh, no. First time I've been stumped. Pleasing. Me. Cheesing. Beezing. Better than a bee sting.

Oh, man, you just completely folded, dude.

Yeah, dude. I'm throwing out the first piece. And that's like when former president George Bush walks up, I think it was a Yankee stadium throughout the first pitch. And he throws it, and it doesn't even get past the pitcher's mound, dude. His. His wife, who I thought was his grandmother, honestly. Oh, this is the first George Bush.

Yes.

Did you. When they did the inauguration. This is no lie. When they did the inauguration for President George Bush, and he came out with his wife. I literally thought it was his. Either. His grandmother's mother. I never saw her before. I feel bad about it, but it's the reality. Even she. Barbara Bush could have thrown a far better pitch than he did. It was horrible.

Wait, let. I want to throw it to Jason. Jason. Revenue is. Revenue might be pleasing, but profit is.

Oh, gosh, Chris. See, I think you got the word backwards. That's a problem. I think pleasing should be with the profit, because revenue.

Okay, all right, here's the thing.

Revenue is teasing Chris. Oh, he's a genius.

That's why I. That's why I did such a bad pitch.

I got it bass ackwards.

All right. I think that's what happened.

Okay, Jason. See? Good thing we have an expert.

I put you in the place on my first sentence into the show.

Yeah, who invited this jerk?

Exactly.

Oh, God. Jason.

Who is this?

Well, Jason, we got a lot. We got. We got a lot coming up for you, but for now, just. Just go back in your hole for a.

Okay, I'll go back.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Back in your hole.

But just know, Jason, we cannot mute you. So.

That'S a good thing for me. Right?

Exactly.

Well, that's. We stage you to insert some stupid stuff, so just say something stupid. All right, Chris. Or insulting. Either one's good. Chris, we've been up to my. Oh, actually, dude, where can people find us before you tell me what you've been up to?

Oh, where can they find us?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, profitfirstpodcast.com. that's the place to be. Just go there. Seriously. The cool thing about profitfirstpodcast.com, it leads to Mike's website. Mike's main website. But you'll see all the episodes. You can comment on all the episodes. It's like blog posts. So seriously, if you have questions, you can comment there.

I love it.

I mean, let that sink in. I'm not teasing. Profit is pleasing. All right, what have you been up to, Mike?

Dude, you heard it here first. Carrie Fisher just passed away.

I know. I just read that. Yeah, I need 2016 to be over.

That's why we need to do this podcast live. Because when people hear this, like, dude, that was old news from, like, three months ago. Yeah. Yeah. You know, first of all, that sucks.

Yeah.

Second of all, favorite movie of all time had a poster of Carrie Fisher, the Princess Leia poster.

Really?

And when she came back in Star wars just for that cameo, I was like, oh, my.

Gosh she was actually supposed to have a much more significant role in the upcoming one, I believe in Rogue One.

Or the one next.

I think the next one, which is now going to change.

Have you seen Rogue One yet?

I haven't. I want to. My dad went, was that really our thing?

Well, that's amazing. I don't think it was her. I think it was cg.

No, I don't think it was her.

No, I mean, it wasn't her her. I mean, she was back to her original age. Oh, there's a CG scene. I won't tell you when. We'll tell you how mind blowing. It's like, holy cow. It was so. To me, it was so incredibly realistic. So rest in peace, Carrie Fisher. Rest in peace. Right?

Rest in peace.

All right, so on that somber note. Yes, any community shout out any positive news.

We have one from Pascal Paqual Nocito Jr. He says, I love your Prof. First book. Thank you so much for giving us a part of your personal life. He was also referring to the piggy bank reference. He said it really drove your points home. I've already implemented the system, or at least I've opened the bank accounts. It's not easy to have conversations with vendors and suppliers, but it is an effective system. So shout out to you, Pasquale, for taking that first step.

Pasquale. And thank you for writing the computer language. Pasquale. Where's Pascal? Did you joke?

I just burned my throat.

She was just taking a swig of, like, hot chocolate.

She spit out hot chocolate on the window.

Everywhere. Everywhere. So I want to thank our corporate partners, the folks that make the show a reality. Christina.

Yeah?

Do you want to just rattle them off for us?

Zero. I thought you were giving. Okay.

No. All of me. You're not even looking. I just wanted the world to know. You're not even looking.

I'm not even looking. I'm not looking. It's zero receipt bank Fundera. Y next diva Fundbox and pause your life.

Oh, I thought you'd forget that one. And pause your life. So at the end of the show, we're going to talk about those wonderful organizations and companies and what they do and how we think they'll impact your life. But for now, I want to bring on our guest.

Please do.

Oh, yeah, I met.

Where? Jason? Where? Where did you and I meet?

Oh, first time we met, you were in San Francisco talking pumpkin plan, actually.

Is that when we offer the beers at that place?

That was the beer on the rooftop, yeah.

Oh, beer and rooftop. Me and Jason. And we fired a couple down. I was actually impressed. Jason really could throw back his beers and hold his senses about him. Unlike me, I drink. I drank one or two beers and I start. I start slurring, even just talking on a podcast, let alone having beers. But Jason, he could throw back his beers, but wasn't. Weren't abusing the beers. Jason just. I just know. I just want, you know, I just noticed you could. You could drink.

So he's not calling you an alcoholic?

No, no, no, no. Not too many people call it to my face.

So, you know, no, not even close. And, dude, when we met, you were already in the wedding and entertainment industry 15 years by that point.

Probably more than that, because that was what, about four or five years ago we met. So this is now 23 years going on for me. So I've been in here just slaving over brides and grooms and corporate parties and everything for two decades now. It's pretty crazy.

So Jason was and still is a highly regarded DJ in the industry. But also he was. He was the one who implemented profit first in the system and said, hey, wait, hold on. The profit first system doesn't only apply to my business. I should try to teach other DJs and other people in the wedding industry to do this. So Jason became a profit first professional, started coaching DJs, well, all different types of people in the entertainment business how to implement profit first. He's had an amazing impact. So I want to learn, Jason, from you, how that works. But before I officially welcome you onto the show, tell us the most crazy wedding story you've ever experienced.

Crazy wedding story. This was technically not a wedding that I was doing. However, it was the day after.

Good disclaimer.

Yeah, disclaimer. You're not liable now because all of the couples I work for are really awesome, cool. And there's never an issue there ever, ever, ever in 20 years, I promise. But I was working at a state park here in California, and the ranger at the park, there were three of them working that day. They all came up to me and they were telling me the story of the night before where the bride and groom got married. And by the end of the night, the bride had hooked up with the best man in her little changing chamber, and they were off in the limo by themselves. At the end of the night, they drove off, left the property. So she got married and went away with his best friend. By the end of the night, oh, my God. And this park is in the middle of nowhere. I mean, this is a. Our drive from civilization. So how you get away from that if you're the groom and you're like, have a straight thought in your head? I have no idea.

Oh, my God. Can you put a bow tie in the story? Like, what, what do you know? It happened a year later, like. Or do you know whatever happened to them?

I do not. Again, wasn't my client, but I can only imagine that he probably saved a lot of money. To be honest, he probably did in the long run. I feel like she'd have left him anyway. So he probably saved a lot of money just knowing from day one that that was over.

Oh, my God.

Scary people's judgment, right? Geez. And I'm sure alcohol had nothing to do with it.

Oh, no, not at all.

She sounds like a real winner. So, Jason.

Yes.

You. You found that profit first applies to the DJ industry, but, you know, that's a really unique industry. How. How does it apply? How. How can someone in the entertainment industry assure profitability in their business?

So there's an interesting aspect of profit first that if you're not familiar with the advanced concepts of profit first, it doesn't always click as to how it works for DJs and, and wedding and event pros. And there's this unique asp. Collect a lot of money in a deposit up front from our clients. And as a dj, for instance, I'm about to go into what's called booking season. It's currently engagement season. That happens between October and February 14, basically. And then between January and early April, we do what's called booking season. That's where we get all of our money, all of our clients for the bulk of the year. And we collect all this money, and many of us like to spend it right away because it's in the bank account, right? I mean, that's what profit first fixes for us. But the advanced concept in there is the drip account, and that is to be able to take that money and say, okay, this event is 12 months down the road, so I'm going to split this into 12 tiny little segments, and I'm going to slowly put it into my income account. And that's where I can make my money and survive, so to speak, over that course of the year. And I have dozens of clients that I do this with, whether they're three months out, six months out, 12 months out, some cases a year and a half, two years out. If it's a corporate event, there is no possible way for you to be able to hang on to money two Years in advance, sometimes until you implement profit first.

So is there ever a big outlay of cash? As a dj, when I book a wedding, do I have to buy stuff specific to that wedding, or is it just the equipment I've had since day one that gets used over and over again?

That'll depend on the model of the business. There are some businesses that they will contract in other individuals. So maybe they provide lighting, maybe they provide decor of some kind, but they don't necessarily own the equipment. So they'll have to either rent the equipment or they subcontract a company to come in and kind of white label it into their business.

So how do I prepare for that? In the profit first aspect, what I heard you to say is I get a deposit. What's a normal deposit, by the way?

Really depends on the business. The guys that are rocking it can be 50% usually is what most of us will take. And so that could be, you know, in my business, most of my weddings are about 2,500, $3,000 total for the course of the event. So I might take in $1,500 as a deposit.

Okay, so say, let's work with that. You get 1500 bucks up front. And what I heard you say is put into a drip account. We actually talked about this last week. We did, yeah, we did. We're very eyes on the drip mentality right now. And so you're saying roll that out over a period of time. You're taking out a percentage, a percentage into your income. But then I'm also hearing now is that I may have to rent lighting equipment or certain things. How do I pay? How do I work with profit first to pay for that? I guess a substantial cost. I don't know what lighting costs. 500 bucks to rent that equipment. How do I prepare for that and also do this trip?

So with that, we'll take it out immediately off the top. So we just kind of. We know what those numbers are over our own experience, and we'll factor most of that in before we even give the client a quote. We'll usually factor in, okay, it's going to cost me X number of dollars to rent this equipment or to hire this contractor to come in and do this. So we just take it off right on the top and we put it in a materials account or subcontractors account, and it sits there and waits until the event or the time in which we actually need to spend that money. So we don't actually run our percentages on that number.

Okay, I gotcha and then when's the other 50% in the entertainment industry? When do you get the next half? When the event, the day of the wedding.

Some businesses do a day of wedding. There are some that are so confident and so secure with themselves, they'll actually allow clients to pay as much as 30 days after the event. In my case, I'm usually one month before the event is when their balance is due. That way, the day of the wedding, we're not talking money, we're just partying. We're having a good time. Nobody's looking for a credit card or a checkbook. But again, that's dependent on your business model. Some guys I know, they actually collect payment in full six months in advance of their weddings. So it's, it's. And it's really, that's about building trust with your clients. Because there are always the horror stories of somebody who took some money, ran off and they never heard from them again.

I presume, but I presume like you work with a bride, you know, once, unless it was that chick that ran off that guy, maybe she's got multiple weddings. But in most cases you work with a bride and groom once. How can you build rapport and have trust for people like that? You never worked with them before.

Well, so the building rapport, it starts before they ever call you. It starts before they ever pick up the phone. They've hit your website, they've seen reviews out on Yelp and all those other, I mean, there are specific ones to weddings as well. Wedding wire, the knot. So other clients of yours are who are building the rapport for you. They're saying the awesome, you know, kick ass things about your business. And you in particular. If you have, if you're the DJ or whoever your DJ is, they're the ones building that rapport for you. That trust starts before they ever pick up the phone and call you. You just have to carry it through from an advisor standpoint. So the businesses I see succeed in the DJ industry. It's not unlike on a different podcast you have. It's not like your accountants and bookkeepers really. You're coaching them to shift to an advisory role as well. Not so much the hourly billables. And that's something that the DJ industry and the event industry in general needs to start moving towards as well, is when I have a bride call me, she's not looking for a five hour dj. Her wedding may be five hours for her guests. But there's so much more that goes into that. There's planning, there's just making sure everything. All the moving pieces behind the scenes are working correctly. And so if I had to really tackle everything that I do for one event, it can be as much as a normal work week for people. It could be 35, 40 hours into one wedding that I do. That, on the surface, looks like five or six hours.

And how meticulous are you with the money that's coming in? And I guess more specifically like a cash tip. Are you. When you get that type of tip, I mean, because in my experience, it'll be anywhere from 50 bucks to $300. Are you putting that into your profit account, or how would you handle that money that comes on the side?

You know, I've never really. Never really considered before. I handle it by usually putting it into my wallet. That's usually where it goes.

Well, that's good.

Okay.

Yeah, that one doesn't always go on the books. Don't tell my accountant that. I would guess if I were to really put it into the system somewhere, though, profit account is where it makes sense. But if I had employees, that tip doesn't necessarily belong to me as the owner of the business. That is their reward for doing a great job. Right. So that's their profit account, so to speak, that it should go into. Not necessarily mine. As a business owner, they rocked that event for their client. They deserve that tip themselves.

What are some things that entertainers can do to improve their profitability?

Work the system. I have a good friend in Canada. His name is Dave Turnier. And I turned him on to Profit first, actually, a year ago. And he just posted a blog this week. I was just reading it before we came on, and he said, I only wish someone had exposed me to this book Profit first, when I first started my business all those years ago. Now, the problem was the book didn't exist when he started his business all those years ago. But he said 2016 was the first year that I had a solid grasp on my numbers, that I understood what my money was doing in my accounts. And that was the same epiphany I had almost four years ago, actually, before the book came out. You introduced me to profit first, just not in the full scope of what it is in the book. And I had that same epiphany. I looked at my bank accounts and I went, pardon my language here. I went, holy shit. I've been doing this wrong the whole time. I can't believe it. No wonder I scrounged for McDonald's money at the end of my events, because I haven't Been putting the money in the right place and I haven't been using it in the right ways. And once I learned how to do that. And that was through you, that was through the book, that was through my own challenges and my own little tweaks and techniques to it. But once I learned to do that, I was no longer scrambling for that money. At the end of the day, it was there and it took time. I'm not going to lie. There's a shift between you're using it all today to I got to save this for 12 months down the road. I mean, you can't just do that overnight because you're going to have that gap between then and that 12 months that it doesn't work right. So there was a slow shift over time of that drip account implementing into my business. But by separating out into the core accounts initially, it just made everything much clearer, much different in how I operated.

How did you cope with the transition of getting used to getting those lump sums and spending them all at once versus really saving? How did you manage that in your mind or mentally?

I first cried in a corner. That was the first thing I did. And then thankfully I have a very supporting wife, so she helped out a little bit in some of those months where I kind of had a, oh my God, what am I going to do? But some of it went into debt. You know, there was some credit here and there. I was already in debt too, which was kind of the bigger kicker. And over the four years of using Profit first, both personally, I'm a solopreneur, so I file as a sole proprietor here in the US and in their eyes, my business and my personal finances pretty much are the same thing. So I was in debt to the tune of, not counting educational loans in my house, almost $40,000. And that was four years ago. And just this year, through profit first and working the system, it's been paid off. I have about $300 on a credit card now that I seriously put on last month. So it's not like it's been congratulations, boom. Meaning all I got now is, is my house and my educational loans. That's it.

That's awesome. You know, I'm actually this, this last profit distribution, I'm radically my last debt. You know, I went to debt eight years ago and I use David Ramsey's technique where you take the small stats and pay them off first.

Yeah, knock them out.

Yeah. I had so many just I continued the lifestyle, this crazy lifestyle I couldn't support, but, you know, just kept on Racking up the debt. So 40,000. Poof. I could do that. One credit card. Jason and I all piled up, and then I will. So people are like, oh, Mike, you must be debt free your entire life. No, I live through this. It's miserable. But I'll tell you, when you eradicate the debt, there's this sense of momentum and pride and confidence. So good job, man.

And now, real quick, Mike, I just want to touch on that. You mentioned Dave Ramsey and his system. Yeah, yeah, that. When I'm speaking to mostly my DJ group, but pretty much any of my event professionals there, many of them are familiar with Dave Ramsey and everything that Dave teaches. So when I can relate that to Profit first, the light bulb just goes off for these guys. They totally get it. They know it works because they're working Dave's system in their personal finances. So when they go, oh, my gosh, I didn't even think to apply this to my business.

Is that funny?

Yeah, yeah.

This is a. Parts of Dave Ramsey's system are in it. Parts of the old envelope system are in it and pay yourself first principle. The richest man in Babylon documented that so well. It's a blend of stuff. But the big difference of Profit first is. I'm just saying apply it to business. It's not just our personal life. But, Jason, I go back to the entertainment space. What are the biggest money wasters? I'm just trying to think, if you can list them all, what are the things that you found when you started doing Profit First? Wow. I'm blowing money on X, Y, and Z. And I really didn't need to do that.

A lot of it has to do with marketing and advertising. A lot of places where. Excuse me, where they're not tracking. And this includes me. So I don't want to say them exclusively, but where business owners in general are not tracking the ROI on that. And when you get into DJs, most of us started as a hobby. We may have started with another DJ somewhere along the way, but we started it because we thought, hey, music is cool. I love music. And now I get to entertain for these people, and everybody's having a good time, and it's just a hobby. So you don't always come in with that business. You know, I don't have an mba. I don't come in with that full business mentality of this is where my dollar's got to go, and I got to return X number of dollars for every dollar I spent. Not all of us understand that. And so that's probably One of the biggest money wasters. The second one is for businesses that have employees. It's payroll costs, most of them, their expenses. If we run through the instant assessment with their business, we find that they're usually double on what their expenses should be. And over half of that, almost 65%, is eaten up strictly in payroll.

Wow. Wow. And. And do. Do guys. And when I say guys, that's New Jersey talk. That's gals too. Do you guys go like crazy on equipment? I mean, when you have the money, you might as well get the highest end stuff.

And yeah, the cool stuff that would probably be the kind of hidden money suck, if you will, is we all get what's called shiny toy syndrome, where we. We have to have the next biggest, greatest thing. And for a long time it was two turntables and a microphone. I mean, Technics 1200s, that was the industry standard for many, many years. And then when everything started to become digital, CD players lasted you about five to seven years. And now today, everything's laptops. And you're getting a new laptop every two years. You're getting a new DJ controller every year because you think that's what you're supposed to do. And it took me a while to realize that. I have a controller that's five years old. It works perfect. I have a laptop. My Macs that I use, I use MacBook Pros. They're 2011 MacBook Pros. They work 100% of the time, flawless. Every single time. I've tweaked them a little bit with some memory and some hard drive space, that's it. Otherwise, it's exactly what you could buy in 2011.

It's funny, it sounds like ego gets in our way.

Oh, yeah.

Like, oh, yeah.

Are you saying DJs have ego, Mike, we have personal ego. Don't, don't, don't.

Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.

Just a little.

Yeah. Only. Only a section. A dazzle of you folks. And when I say a dazzle, that's a group of zebras.

Oh, of course.

But I was referring it.

I have seen some guys that own a Bedazzler. You know that little thing you can put.

Yeah, yeah, that thing was awesome.

Went away pretty quick.

Oh, my God. Did you. Did you ever bedazzle yourself before a big show?

I did. I did not. No.

Okay.

Only in the nightclubs. Only in nightclubs, Mike. Right 70s disco nights.

Glitter.

Yeah.

What are some of the hacks you found out that you can do to. To save money in the entertainment industry? Renting, you know, do DJs share equipment. Do you say, hey, listen, we'll all go together on a turntable. You're only performing every so often. Why don't we all share something? Like, what were the hacks you found?

So those are definitely some of them is get to know your local community. So here in my community, I'm actually vice president of one of our chapters of the American Disc Jockey Association.

You're also the president of the Bedazzler Association.

I am that. I am that too. And so what we do, a DJ for short. What we do there is all our DJs will get together, and we. We have at least one meeting a month. Many of us get together for lunches and dinners and so forth throughout the month. But when we have something coming up, it's like, oh, my gosh, I gotta have all this extra lighting that I don't have, rather than going out and renting it. I know this guy down the street, he's not using it this weekend, so why don't I give him a call, set it aside, he'll earmark it for me, and I scratch his back down the road too. And that's. That is one way to save the money is definitely work with the colleagues in your neighborhood, in your network, and you help them out, they'll help you out.

And where do DJs and the other folks you work with, the entertainment industry, where do they struggle with profit first? I mean, you've helped people get started. I'm sure you've seen some struggle. Where are they getting stuck getting started.

Is the biggest struggle I found. Actually, one of the biggest questions I have is where do I get my bank accounts from? Because many of them are at a big bank. I don't want to name any names, but some of them are the big banks where the accounts might cost them 10, 15, $20 a month. One of the things that I've stepped aside from them is trying to shift their mentality and say, hey, if you have to set up five accounts and they cost you $10 a month, isn't it worth spending that $50 that month to inevitably save yourself all of this hassle down the road and make all this additional profit down the road? So you're spending 50 right now, and I hate to go down that you got to spend money to make money mentality, but most of them are just like I thought the whole point of profit first was for me to stop spending this money. Well, there are options. But if you want to stay with your big bank don't see that as your roadblock, because that's a bad roadblock to start implementing. Because then you're going to look at all of it and say, oh, gosh, I shouldn't spend this money because Jason told me not to. And that's not what I try to teach with Private first, because it's not. Yes, it's about making wise decisions with your money, but it's not about not spending the money.

And what about charging clients more? I know you and I, we hooked up again recently in Arizona. We actually did a video together. And I think I remember you talking, or at least the show concept was a little bit about increasing prices. But a lot of DJs are afraid to raise their prices. They don't think they can dictate it. How do you get through that mental block? Or is it just the reality in prices you gotta be cheap?

I think that's just any business owner is, how do I get my prices up? I'm scared to raise that price. Especially if you work for yourself. It's a little different if you're the Amazon in the world and you can do it in volume or in bulk, but when it's just you, or you have four or five DJs, and you go, I got five mouths I gotta feed. If I take my price from 1700 to 2000, am I going to be able to do that? Can I sustain that? And in most cases, if it's a small incremental shift, you most likely can if you're going from 17 to 18. I guarantee you, if you test that out, you might lose one out of every 20 clients that come through the door. But to double those rates, to triple those rates, sometimes off the surface, it's a very scary thing to do. What you have to do is take a step back and reevaluate. Look at your business and say, this is the system I have in place. This is the process that's in place. Can I make it better? Can I streamline it so I can save some money there? That's gonna, in the back end, put profit back into your pocket. But then on the front end, by raising that rate, what are you delivering? What's the value you're giving to that client? And again, it goes back to the am I just giving you five hours worth of DJ service sitting in a corner pushing play, or am I making a celebration worthy of, of a bride and groom? Or that corporate party? Are we celebrating the great year that we had? Or are we there so that all your employees can Stick it to you and drink all the booze at the bar. Those are the two ends of the spectrum. And if you're at the stick it to the man end of the spectrum. You're a five hour DJ and you're going to be a low ball price. But if you're at the other end and you're creating that experience and you're advising the clients along the way, they'll see that value. And going back to the building rapport, if they go out to Yelp and they see that review of, yeah, you know, Jason, we spent way more money on Jason than we intended to, but it was worth every penny and this is why. And they're going to tell the next person why it was worth it. So when they sit down with me to go through that initial consult and say, I've heard all these great things about you, your reviews on Yelp are great. How much is this worth? What is it going to cost me? And I just dive in. I say, well, let's see what you need and what you want to do.

Hey, one more question before we get going. What. What would be the first step for someone in the entertainment business, or actually, I guess any business, to get started from your experience with profit first?

The first step, I think is create the profit account. Just create that one account, put a minor percent over there. I know, Mike, you've heard me say this over and over. You've said it over and over. Everybody's heard this over and over. But create that one little account, call it profit. Whether you're making profit or not, just put a tiny percentage in there. It can be 1%, it can be 2%. I don't care if it's half a percent of the money that comes through your door. Don't look at it for three months, for six months. Then when you go in there and you see that there's money waiting for you in there, that that's your profit. Now that you can do what you want with that money on your own personal time, that little win is enough to get you going in the right direction. And from there you can expand out and start implementing the full system. But even if it's just that one little account, I think that's enough to get somebody going in the right direction and see that where that big win can be down the road.

I could not agree more, Jason. For anyone listening in, that's in the entertainment industry that wants your help in becoming more profitable. Where can they go? What can they do?

I would recommend going to my website. Profithoodacademy.com. that's where we are, empowering event professionals to basically start with profit first. But we're rolling in business, sales, marketing. All those concepts are going in there as well. You can always find me on LinkedIn, Jason Spencer, or Facebook. Slash, where am I on Facebook these days? Slash, Profithood Academy is where you'll find me on there.

Yep, that's what I see in the show notes. And we will have that all in the show notes too, by the way. Jason, thank you so much for his insights.

Thank you, Mike.

Thanks, Jason.

Chris, Christina. Oh, and Chris, next time. I know we talked off air. I was at the dentist this morning. You don't have to butcher my name like that. I know. I got that part, but come on. I'm just messing with you, Chris.

By the way, Jason, revenue may be pleasing, but profit will stop you from sneezing my brother.

That's right. Yeah.

With the oral surgery you had, you probably want to avoid sneezing right now.

I think Chris was working on that the whole show. He's got a piece of paper there. He's just scribbling words.

If you track my Google activity, it was insane. You're right.

All right, guys, thank you so much.

We'll see you, Jason. So, all right, so here's what we're gonna do.

Yeah.

We're gonna talk about our corporate partners in a second. I could have squeezed in Funbox. I didn't. I should have during our little conversation there. I want to talk about our corporate partners in a second. But then after that, I want to hear what you took away from this, Christina and Chris. What you took away from this. Is that cool?

Yeah.

Yes. Is that cool?

Yeah. Okay, so first I was gonna say Fundbox, because Jason said, oh, sometimes you collect your money right at the end of the event, but sometimes you get screwed. Or you gotta wait for 30 days, and sometimes people take longer. Fundbox will swoop in and save that situation. They release the funds to you on the spot. So if you're having problems collecting funds from a client, call Fundbox or a cash flow accelerator. You get that money right away. Yeah, I'm almost on top of. I sound exasperated and angry that you didn't think about it. I don't know why I'm so pissed off. But Fundera. Oh, Fundera, if you want to buy some equipment, some dj, loan equipment, Fundera can provide you the funds.

Well, they lead you to the people.

Oh, that's a good point. So the Fundera cannot provide you the funds. They can find the people who can find you the funds. Yeah. Just make sure you do it in a profitable way. But they're definitely our recommended source. The receipt bank. You know, as a dj, how many bills you incur, I mean, let alone the McDonald's runs.

You gotta feed your team, you know.

You gotta feed your team those. Those chicken nuggets. They finally are making them out of actual white chicken meat after all these years. No longer is it just beaks and toenails.

Oh, gross.

Supposedly that's what it was. They ground up. Is ground up chicken toenails. And then they would bleach it white so it looked like a meat.

Oh, I'm gonna vomit.

That's supposed.

Wow.

I would vom. If I just. I just swallowed down one. I love. I love Chicken McN.

All right, Chris, here's the deal on the window again.

Oh, God, I have a funny spewing in. I know I was telling a joke similar to you to not my wife. She spit on me once. But my old business partner, he was Barry. He was swinging a cup of coffee, and I made a joke. He started laughing and coughed the same time, and he would. Coffee spewed all across a wall. And for the rest of the two years we were in that space, he never cleaned it up because it was so funny. It was a sustained coffee.

Oh, gross.

Yeah, that was a little Barry. Classic nextiva voice over IP phone system. Oh, with the clarity of this podcast alone, you may be confused. You may think we're on a next TV phone system.

Imagine that.

You know, this microphone's right in your face. I can see.

There you are.

I'm, like, looking over a wire at Christina's face because there's a microphone away. Zero. You know what Zero does, Christina?

Online banking. No, I'm sorry.

It's a cloud accounting system. You use the Xero system for invoicing accounts receivable. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Did I nail everyone? Let's see.

How's your life?

I always save the best for last. I got fundera. I got fund box. Right. We got next to you. Receiving. Okay, now you can say, pause your life.

Pause your life.

Pause your life. Hey, by the way, all of our corporate partners are people that you know, Mike. People that you know. You use. You deal with the people at the companies. These aren't just people who paid us money to hawk their crap. This is not crap. These are really good business services that I think you've used almost every one of them yourself.

We use them. Our members have used them like we've never had taken a loan from Fundbox, but our members have used them. Corey Coates, our audio engineer, has used Fundbox. Hey, Cory, how's that going, by the way? Did you got the money right? You got the money? How quickly that all come through? Like, so you applied for a loan with Fundbox. You got a loan within 24 hours. Like, you actually got the money within 24 hours.

That's crazy.

Wow. And it was. It was. It wasn't like. It was real money too, right? It was thousands. Thousands was money. Money.

Wait, that was fun Dara, right?

That was Fundera. Did I say fund box?

Yeah, Fundera.

Oh, man, it was Fundera.

That's so cool. You're like. It's almost like you have, like, you know, an assistant, like a butler. And you're like, find me alone. And they're gonna go shop it out. That's what fun Darren does.

I would talk to ringing the bell for serving.

I would totally talk to Fundera that way. Find me money, please. And make it hasty this time. On the way back, come back with a scotch on the rocks.

Try to bring it within 20 hours this time.

Exactly. Oh, don't make me wait so long. It truly is exhausting.

So pause your life dot org. By the way, Mike, and I'm literally. I haven't even mentioned this to you off air. This is the first time I'm ever mentioning it to you. We are going to plan a pause your life retreat, which, by the way, pause your life is. You hit the pause button, you stop everything, and you regain your sanity. Yeah, but we're going to have a pause your life retreat for entrepreneurs, and we want to get really cool, some. Some cool speakers. And so it'll be like a workshop, but it'll be a retreat and it'll be serious.

Where's it gonna be?

Well, we don't know. I. I'm. I'm just mentioning it to you now. I mean, look, in the mountains of Colorado is always a great place. I mean. Anyway, pause your life dot org. So we're gonna talk about what we learned. And by the way, you're listening to this. We want to know what you Learned. Go to profitfirstpodcast.com and find this episode. It's like a blog post. You can comment on it, you can ask your questions. Right, Mike? You'll answer questions on there?

Yeah, I think. I dare say you could leave a voice message. Like, you could record it on Audacity or some voice recorder and upload it as a comment.

Interesting.

At least on our. I Think on our site, you can attach files so you can do it in your most ostentatious voice. Here's what I learned today. Oh, Jason Fundera could go a little bit faster. Yeah. So, Chris, what did you learn today?

Well, I like, you know, it kind of was underneath the surface, but he did mention it. Having real values as a business person, having integrity, having a good character. These things build up your reputation over time. And then look what happens. He doesn't have to spend much to advertise anymore because he gets quality referrals. And that's like. It takes. I mean, I know it takes time to build that up, but if you keep your reputation really high and quality with real values, then you get referrals. People don't even ask questions. You don't even have to sell very much. I mean, this is what happens to me with fractal recording when I'm producing podcasts for people. People call me, and they already got referred to me by two other two separate people, and it's like, there's no selling. So I think that's a big. That's. I think that's huge.

Yeah. Reputation is everything. I like that. Would you get.

Jason just kind of reiterated for me that it takes time. When you take this. This first step and really trying to save money and better your business. Profit first is not just the band aid. It's the stitches, it's the surgery. It' recovery to a healthier bank account and wallet and translation to life. You just gotta be patient with it, you know, in the meantime. But then when it gets there, like my dad, he DJ profitcon these past two years, he heard about it. Our first one, he was a little iffy about it, but kind of started saving. This next one, he implemented more bank accounts.

Oh, did he?

And actually, the other day, he handed me a check, and he said, I know you're not here yet, but he goes, I want you to put this aside for your wedding. And he's starting to give me money.

Are you kidding me?

It's not happening yet.

Oh, my.

Yeah, my dad is starting to prep for that. And purely out of his DJ business, because, you know, he started, but it took him a while.

That is awesome.

Yeah.

Good for you. Is your dad Jason Spencer?

Actually, it is. This episode's a big announcement for you.

Surprise.

The other man is your uncle.

Love you, dad.

This is awkward. You ever see that? On Saturday Night Live, there was an episode with Kristen Wiig where she talks like this, and she's always better than everyone else. So someone Say, oh, I'm getting married. She's like, oh, I've been married, too. I've been married, like, 15 times. I married the best person in the world. And your husband was there watching. You never saw that?

No.

Oh, she's so funny. So here's my takeaway that I'm a horrible Kristen Wiig imitator and that we get caught up in the glitz. You know, he was talking about the. He bought the news equipment. It used to be just turntables and so forth. And I think to the consumer, it doesn't matter, like, we buy stuff, that we do it for our own ego, just to have the current equipment so we can brag at the next time we run into other DJs. Oh, you only have the one from 2015. I have the 2017 model. It didn't come out yet. You know, but the consumer doesn't notice the difference. It doesn't benefit them. And our money goes into the glitz and glam, where the consumer is not even affected by it. And that's where profit gets sucked up.

It's hard to resist that temptation.

It's hard.

Especially, like, they have these expos for everything now. I've been to a couple DJ expos, and it's all these, like. Like you said, the glitz and glamour, and you're like, oh, I need that. Yeah, but you don't.

You really don't. You don't.

Get down.

I got a question, though, Mike. For instance, in my business, let's say I have a lot of profit. Can I take some of my profit and buy, like, an expensive microphone that I really want? I mean, it's sort of. It could be for business, but it's more like, I just want it. It's like a toy.

Yeah. So that's a great question. And here's the painful answer. The answer is no. Oh, and the re. This is stupid. But I want it. I want it as a gift for me.

Yeah.

The problem is, it starts unwinding your discipline for finding innovative ways to do it. We want that microphone for you when your business truly can afford it. And that's the difference. So that microphone, you want it. Your business isn't in the position to afford it yet. If you take your profit to buy and say, but that's the gift to me. This is the biggest thing I want. You're basically saying, you know, don't worry. I'll be your surrogate company. I'll find a way to get the stuff you want without you figuring it out. So no can't have that microphone. Business has to buy it. And if it can't buy it means your business isn't there yet. You got to find a way to do it.

Got it.

A profit account is for you to celebrate outside the business. And. And people do get trapped here, like. But I love doing this thing, right? The answer is no. No, no, no.

All right, so there you go. I was shut down.

All right?

Shot down.

So Profit first podcast dot com. That's our website. Look, you can give us a rating or a review wherever you're listening to this. If you're in iTunes, five stars. Stitcher, five stars. Tune in radio, five stars. I mean, if they had six stars. You just want to give six. It's so good. But Jesus. Anyway, profit first podcast dot com. All our previous episodes and of course, as always, we're brought to you by. And I'm pausing for effect here. Brought to you by Profit First Professionals. It's like, you know, when you. When you hire a Profit First Professional, it's like you just want a game show.

Our first guest is you. Could you imagine you have an icon. Chris laughs when he's not near the microphone. He's away from the microphone. Your laugh still pierces through. It's a beautiful thing. Could you imagine you are an entertainment professional, an event professional, and you're sitting there going, I can't be profitable. And my book. And you have a bookkeeper. I know you do. And your bookkeeper's not helping you. Like I made my accountant. Accountant's not helping you. Maybe I'll hire a coach. Coach is not helping you. And you're like, I guess no one can help me become profitable until you find out there's a guy like Jason Spencer out there in every. Not in every industry. In most industries, we now have a certified Profit First Professional, someone who specializes in growing businesses in your space, who understands the finances, and most importantly, can drive profit in your business. Jason knows all the tricks. You're a DJ or an event professional. How to make your business more profitable. I don't care what business you're in, a Profit First Professional can help you. It's so easy. All you do is go to profitfirstprofessionals.com. do not waste a second. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.Com right now. Click on the find button and we will get to work in finding you a profit first professional. It's that simple. Do it now. Go to proffersprofessionals.com, click on find, fill out the form and we will hook you up.

That's right. Profit's the name of the game. You know, if you think of business as a game, how do you win? You earn enough money so you drop the mic and walk away, dude. So please. That's what profit can do. So thanks to our guest, Jason Spencer, thanks to Mike and Christina, and everyone in the background over there at Profit First Professionals, we're happy to be part of your profit adventure. Send us a note, would you? Really? We'd love to hear from you. Until next time.

Bring it. Bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh. Oh, forget it. Oh, Barry.

Barry.