Episode 141: How Humanitarianism Can Drive Profitability with Denise Blasevick

Okay.

Are you feeling it, Kels?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

This is the first one you're doing with us. I mean, officially.

I love this. I feel like I'm part of the club. The club.

But you were resistant in the beginning. When I'm like, hey, do you want to do this?

You're like, yeah, I'm more like the slow talker.

You're not a slow talker.

No.

You think you're a slow talker?

Yeah.

You know, maybe I'm a slow processor, I should say.

Yeah, you definitely. You think before you speak, and that is not a bad thing. That's not.

Yeah. You're thoughtful of what it boils down. See, you use big words too. I don't even know what that means. Does that mean, like, you have, like, a disease or something? I'm kidding. I know. Means you contemplate. I get it.

Okay. So you are listening to the Profit first podcast.

Get ready to contemplate episode 141. And I'm recording this time.

Yes, you are. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I am Christina Bulduk, the profit master of Profit First.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit. And you know what? You're listening to the Profit first podcast, which I think Christina already said, drive this into your mind. Profit First. Profit First. Profit First. This is a show where we explore all elements of profitability, from the alpha to the omega. And I'll tell you, if you are listening to what we just discussed, you would have been blown away, but I forgot to hit the record button. This time. We're recording. And I'm joined in the studio, by the way, by Kelsey Ayers.

Hello, everyone.

Hey. Hey.

Kelsey's a new voice on our show. She's gonna be here every single time.

Going forward now, and she's gonna be killing it.

You're gonna.

So you can find us on itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, Google Play, anywhere that you listen to a podcast, and of course, profitfirstpodcast.com. that's the zinger that you want to see.

That is the zinger. My father used the word sharp. Usually he's like, you look sharp.

I like that.

I like a sharp car.

We should bring that back.

We should bring sharp back. I don't use sharp that often.

Sharp.

What have you been up to there, chiefy?

Oh, we went to Philly, and it was. It was all right.

I heard this. I heard this one. The one we didn't record.

No, no, no. It was all the Philly cheesesteaks.

We did that's.

All we ate when we were there. But no, it was. It was really a great weekend for us to kind of get back in touch with where we want to be in our relationship and just kind of viewing how different people live in different cities and it really just makes you appreciate everything that you have.

Okay, you know, what have you been up to? Fireball. That's your nickname. You know that? They don't know that.

Not because I'm an alcoholic either.

No, but you do drink Fireball.

I have.

For some reason. When I got to know you, I was like, oh, you probably don't drink. I don't know. Why?

Well, I will say I don't drink a lot. And this is kind of personal. Not personal, like I'm sharing too much. But maybe TMI for you guys. But I have my gallbladder out, so I can't. Like, my body doesn't process alcohol.

You are sans gallbladder?

Yes, San's gallbladder.

What does the gallbladder do?

Nothing, apparently.

Really?

No. What does it do?

No, it's part of the digestive system process. Filters stuff out.

So what can't you eat? Like, can you not eat things?

So sugar for a while. I have more of a tolerance now, but initially sugar, like, would kind of go right through me. I just did not feel well.

That kind of sounds like it's a good thing for you, though, that you have to cut back on the sugar and the alcohol and be healthier.

Yeah. But I don't know if. Sucks about it by getting my gallbladder off. It sucks, but how old were you when you had it removed last week? You missed like 10 minutes of work. I gotta go.

It was maybe like five years ago.

Really? Okay. Yeah, yeah. You can't tell you.

Oh, thank God. Fairly self conscious about it.

What have you been up to, Mike?

So I was gonna say I have this racist thing going on, but you already heard that. It was. It was the whole joke. The whole joke was dry cleaners.

Don't worry, guys, we reprimanded him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do feel. I feel like a little bit of shame now that I'm overbearing. Am I? Like, you got.

Oh, stop it. It's not.

I'm not overbearing.

Don't overthink it.

No, not even a little.

Okay.

Yeah.

I got really self conscious about that in our unrecorded episode. And to be honest, when you said that, my finger just happened to hit the stop recording and the tears inside were coming down.

Oh, no.

Okay, so that's not a coincidence.

Yeah, so we actually do have a community shout out. This goes out to Sarah Jones. She is the founder of Introverted Alpha Bazinga. Bazinga, yeah. No, she's actually also a book reader and she says that profit first changed the trajectory of her life and her business.

Oh, that's beautiful.

She said she was 100% guilty of thinking, you know, having the most the normal entrepreneurial mindset, but she finally, you know, grabbed the bull by the horns and she set up her five accounts and she's starting to roll with profit first and how everything works. And she said she spent 58% on expenses last year and she imagine imagines it'll be about the same this year with the intention to shrink it to 50 because she wants her profit to increase. So keep plugging away. Sarah, you're awesome.

Rock and roll, Steve.

I love that.

Did we share a website? I was focusing on something else.

There's no website, but Introverted Alpha.

Google it.

Introverted Alpha. So Google the. Google.

Google. Good old Google.

That mail worked, you know that?

Yeah, yeah, No, I have a little tracker of how many?

How many?

It's only three people on it.

Three people. So we sent out 150 pieces maybe. Okay, 150 pieces of mail from my mother. I'm doing air quotes from my mother. And one person emailed me back directly and said, you actually kind of look okay in a leisure suit. And you may not know what I'm talking about, but your mother sent me a piece of mail. So they went hook, line and sinker on.

Nice.

Nice.

My mother reprimanded me for doing that.

Marketing campaign for like 20 minutes on Facebook.

No, no, separately for exploiting her. You exploited me, Michael.

I mean, you didn't ask her permission first.

Quasi, kind of. So you know sponsors that make the show a reality?

Yeah.

You know who they are?

I do. They're actually corporate partners, though.

That's why I said so who are corporate partners?

Fundera.

Yes.

Fundbox. Nextiva.

Oh my God.

Receipt Bank.

Bazinga.

Maybe zero.

And maybe zero. Exactly. So maybe zero. We'll tell you a little more about those fine folks in a minute that quite frankly make this show a reality. So we appreciate them tremendously. And at the end, we're also going to share our insights, what we're about to learn from Denise Blazovic. Now, I know you know that name because you were here on the last episode. Denise is a personal friend of mine. Yeah, we met, I want to say, about seven, eight years ago. Denise, I don't know if you remember, we were having sushi at the Sushi House. And we're also bothly. We're bothly members an eo, which is entrepreneurs Organization, which is larger small businesses. And I'm talking with Denise recently and she says, mike, you know, when a business gives back to the community, it grows faster and is more profitable. And the bullshit alarm went off. I'm like, no, that's impossible. And she says, yeah, it's possible. Denise is the co founder of the S3 agency she founded in 2001. It is like a big New York agency, kind of like Saatchi and Saatchi, but with the New Jersey prices, which, let me tell you, is better than New York. And the quality service is mind blowing. She works with all the big brands from BMW to Aston Martin to Tetley, T to 8 o' clock coffee. You know all that coffee we have here. It's one of her clients that.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, they rock and roll.

Cool.

And Denise is also on msnbc, literally all the time. She's on the show. Your business. She's a guest expert. She does the business makeovers. She super. I used to do that. She came in, they're like, she's markedly better and she now does it. And she truly is extraordinary. Denise, welcome to the show.

Well, thank you very much. I would like to just go for the record here and say that there is no better maker over than you.

She's just saying that.

No, no, thank you. All right, so before we kick off the show, I did this to you once and you guessed. I'm going to do it one more time. Maybe you know the answer to this. I'm doing this to all of our guests until they figure out what this sound is.

So painful.

Really?

Yeah, like, hurts my ear.

So for me, it brings back memories. I love that.

So now, is that driving under, like, an overpass?

Ooh, she's good.

You are good.

She's a good guesser.

Like a truck getting stuck under an overpass.

I feel like her answers are closer to the reality than that. What the actual answer is.

Oh, that's funny. It is. You're right. Yeah. But no, it's not. So here's the deal. I'm not gonna tell you what it is. And so it's our big cliffhanger. It's a behavioral mechanism to have our listeners listen to another episode because they're sitting there going, for God's sake, Denise, we all know what it is.

Well, I just hope that the next time I hear that noise, I don't start drooling because I can't have this be the Padlovian effect.

Yeah, we have to set you up for that. That's funny. So Denise, you're saying that small businesses, including yourself, can give to the community and as a result experience faster growth. And I called BS on it. And your answer is no, it's true. Why is that?

It's true because as human beings, we have this kind of human contract that we want to take care of each other and businesses that can facilitate an atmosphere where that is part of what they do. People can feel better about being at work and you can retain people in a way that maybe you wouldn't have before. You can inspire them and they can do better work because they're working somewhere that they feel is a part of a bigger, more important mission. So for me, we've always done things. Today is our 16th anniversary, so sweet 16. So for the last 16 years, we've always found ways to give back. Whether it was the group going over to a homeless organization and packing up clothes or going over to the zoo and making educational toys for the animals. Different things that were fun and felt good, or maybe they weren't fun, but they felt good. But it wasn't really using our skill set as an ad agency. So we thought, well, what can we do that really gives that back in a meaningful way? And it was kind of inspired. What we ultimately came up with really rooted back in what you and I have done with msnbc, your business with the makeovers for small businesses. Like you mentioned, we work larger, very well known clients in helping to elevate their brands and small businesses. Helping small businesses out isn't our business model, it's not what we would be profitable at doing. But doing that on MSNBC or business for some small businesses, we saw what a big difference we could make for small organizations. Remember that Asheville playgrounds we worked on down in North Carolina? I mean they went from they were sleeping like in a trailer outside their business. Now they have a place to live and they have staff and they have better branding and business organizations. It's such a success story that we can feel really good about. And I think those small abilities, not that it's small to who we're helping out, but the ability for us to donate in small patches like that as an organization really brings everyone together here for a common purpose. That kind of transcends what we do on a day to day basis. We love what we do for the BMWs of the world. We love what we do for Tetlee T. But we also want to be able to help out those around us in a way that maybe other people can't. So our solution to it was to create a program, a pro bono program that we call S free. So we're S3 it's S free. And it's specifically designed to donate our services to small businesses and organizations in New Jersey, here in our home state, and organizations that are too small, too nonprofit, or too new to be able to afford our services. So it's been a really exciting adventure so far. We launched it at the end of last year. Each quarter, we're allowing people to submit for the opportunity for us to vote on them as an agency as to who is going to be the recipient of our services. And each quarter we pick someone. So we've had two so far. And the criteria are they have to make either less than a million dollars in terms of what they are raising funds wise, or in terms of revenue. So in order to be able qualify on that monetary basis. But then, you know, it's the whole story of what is it about them that makes them meaningful? Why will we be able to help them? What do they need from us? We put all that together. We vote on it as the agency, so everyone gets to have a say in it. And then we make our big announcement, we start working with them. So far, we've been able to. We finished helping one, and we just started helping another. And we're really, really excited about what it does for the agency. We're happy to help other people. That's what we want to do. We want to make those meaningful organizations even more successful so they can help the economy around us grow in the best way possible and do the right things for people and other creatures that live here. And it's just inspirational for us. People talk about, oh, the millennial generation. They need to have other things that motivate them at work besides the work itself. But we all need that. I don't understand why that's said with kind of like a chip on people's shoulders. We all need that. We all benefit from that. So we have millennials that work here, we have baby boomers who work here and everyone in between. And it's the kind of common thread that we see that makes people go, yeah, I want to work here, I want to stay here, and I want to do the kinds of things that S3 does, not just for their paying clients, but in terms of giving back. I can't get that somewhere else. It's a differentiator and I think that's what makes you more profitable.

Yeah. Okay, so I'm here in retention for your colleagues. I do want to ask you one question first though, in regards to applicants. I mean, this is a free service. This is amazing. Does everyone and their mother apply or is it actually even hard to give away free service?

It's been very easy to give away free services. We have a lot of people apply and, you know, you do have to take time and sit down and write something compelling. So I'm sure that you probably could add, you know, times ten factor the people that have gone to the site and not applied because they have to think about it and they're afraid that if they don't do the right thing, they won't get chosen. But people can reapply each time if they want to. We've seen some people already just in the two application periods apply both times. So no, it has not been a problem. And it's spread in a very word of mouth way. The media has picked it up. People tell people. I hear clients of mine who have referred people. So that's another thing, by the way, which is great about this. It's a wonderful communication point for clients and prospects. From a new business standpoint, it differentiates us. We do this thing. Community is important to you as a client. Well, it's important to us as an agency as well. So again, that differentiator I think is key for helping this to become an aspect of what makes us profitable.

So how many, I understand the engagement of your employees. How many of the employees are excited about this, that they're working for free for others? And do you get any resistance from your employees saying I want to do stuff that makes money because that's how I get paid ultimately.

Oh, they all get paid.

So they get paid no matter what. So they're not giving away their time?

No, they are getting paid. And we have made a conscious decision. My business partner, Adam Schnitzler, who is also in EO with us, he and I decided that we were going to donate a portion of our time that obviously people are getting paid for. It just comes out of our bottom line if you look at it that way. But it gives back much more.

What kind of ratio for time do you have? Is this something you do on a monthly basis like every six months? How much of your employees time do they donate or do they participate in these kind of free aspects?

So it depends on what's chosen. We do this every quarter and the first recipient of our services at the end of last year. Congenital Heart Defect Coalition, wonderful nonprofit. Their main goal is how do they create more targeted, highly elevated materials in order to reach out to potential donors because they need to raise more money to do more good. So in that instance, it was a very specific need and ask that they had. So the team that got assigned to it is different than the team that's getting assigned to our next one, which is Liberty Humane Society, to create a kick ass ad campaign to help this animal welfare organization in Jersey City do the good that they're doing. They're getting over 1,000 pets adopted each year. And they really have a bigger mission. They want to create a society where shelters aren't even necessary because homeless animals aren't a thing, where people are taking care of animals in different ways. So different needs mean different teams will donate the time. So it's not like the whole agency is donating all their time to it. We have, you know, a business model where we go, okay, we know that we can donate, you know, maybe $50,000 worth of services this quarter to this client, or if it's our PR team, they're going to do this portion. So it has to be something that aligns in order for it to be valuable for the people who are applying for our services. It's got to be something that will work with them. And that's not cookie cutter. Since we're a full service agency, we can really look at what their needs are and then apply the appropriate talent towards them.

Has this helped you as far as your view of your employees as well, and seeing which ones shine with which project and being able to put people in the right seats, depending on what you find that they're passionate about with each project or how is that working internally?

It's interesting that you say that we follow a process called traction. I don't know if you're familiar with it in terms of really analyzing right person, right seat. So we're pretty active in that realm. So we know the people that we have are in the right seats and we monitor that pretty constantly. It's more a matter of what has this done for the spirit of the organization. There was immediate buy in when we announced this. We had a full staff meeting and went through kind of what led up to before we announced what it was. People were really, really excited. They continue to be. People come up to me saying, can I work on the next one? And it really depends what the next one is. But everyone wants to be involved, which is why everyone gets to Vote. So no matter what, they're getting to vote. And people are coming up to me and telling me, well, maybe can we do this differently? Can we add this? And they want to give back more and more. That's the danger that you'll run into. People do want to give back more and more to rein that in. But I think we've done a good job with that. It's done within that quarter, then on to the next one. And the goal is not for us to then convert our free clients into paying clients. That's not the goal. Unless they become so successful. And we do want to help them do that. If they become so successful that they now actually need to hire a paying agency. Yes, please. You've already worked with us. We'd love to work with you, but there's no ulterior motive for that. We just want to help the best organizations in our state, the small ones, make it and sometimes they can't because they don't have access to the tools.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do I need to have employees to get this started or do you feel some of our listeners are one person shops? Can they just do it themselves or.

Yeah, no, it depends what it is, right. If someone comes to us and they have a wonderful concept, they are at launch and a wonderful concept and we believe in it, we read about it, they convince us we would definitely consider them.

No, no, no. I don't mean.

Oh, you mean the reverse.

I mean, say I'm the company. The company's called Mike.

The company is called Mike.

The facetiousness coming out of you is vicious. You're vicious. But say it's just me, Denise, Could I start doing this give back or am I too young of a company? You know what I'm saying?

Well, I think that any organization can give back. And I think if possible, to tailor it to what your special abilities are. If you think of Nathan Johnson from the Jerk, Right. His special purpose. If you can decide what your special purpose is as an organization, how that can translate beyond your paying clients to benefit others. I think that's really the goal.

You talked about giving time in your company. That's what you do. You ideate. Ideate, if that's the word around branding and so forth. But what about companies that have supplies? Maybe you're a manufacturer or something. Can businesses donate materials too?

They can donate materials, absolutely. I'll tell you an interesting one. This is a friend of mine who has a company called Exologic. They're in Pennsylvania and they do. They handle the on site and Pre registration for huge events like that. You see, like the huge expos. You definitely know them. I won't drop the names of who they service, but their people, as you can imagine, since where one day they have teams in Vegas and all over the world. So they are always traveling. And what they decided to do, I'm not sure how long ago, but a while ago is whenever their teams travel, they bring back the toiletries from the hotel room, the shampoo conditioner, the kind of stuff that they don't use. Whatever they don't use, they bring it back, they save it up until they have a huge amount of it, and they donate those materials to meaningful organizations who need it in their local area. And it's amazing to get this huge tub of shampoos, conditioners, soaps, and things like that for people who might be homeless or a battered women's shelter who really need those things. And what they're doing is taking an element that's special to them. They're always traveling, always on business travel. And what does it take to take those materials out of the hotel room? It's not a big commitment, but they're part of something bigger each time they do it. Even people who work administratively at his company who may not be the ones doing the business travel, when they travel on their own, they grab some of the shampoos and they bring them back too, and they feel part of it as well. And I think thinking about it creatively, doing something like that, you're not actually taking a dime away from your profitability. You're just finding something special that you can do and getting a little PR coverage when you do it, which doesn't hurt.

The skeptical part of me is kicking in. I gotta just say, like, are people basically stealing from the hotel, though? I mean.

No, no. When you go.

Yeah, rather than use it, they just collect it and then.

Correct.

So like at the homeless shelter I worked at, fellow who traveled on business. Yeah, he would bring them in, like, every month or two. Like, he would just bring us a collection. And it is.

And can you give.

Absolutely.

Can you donate the partially used ones? Like, if I say I use the shampoo once, it's got to be brand new.

I mean, it totally depends.

But here's my flappy seconds.

It's like a liability issue there when you're. You're giving out stuff.

So my soap with, like a. With a hair on it. It's disgusting.

Keep it to yourself.

Keep it to myself. Okay. That's interesting. That's interesting. You said Denise, you said Some of the benefits are the word of mouth is starting to spread on S3s free the client referrals, meaning some of your clients are suggesting people. So you're getting more exposure and you're also getting employee retention. What about the bottom line? I mean, I know you're so new to this. Have you seen a measurable return?

We have not seen in terms of new clients coming on because of able to draw that line yet. It's too new. I would say probably after a full year I'll be able to look at it analytically that way. But what I can say is it has gotten me meetings that I haven't gotten before. So on potential new business meetings where a client has talked to another person within the same organization that we don't work for that part of the organization and said, hey, you should check out this thing from my agency. And it talking point that's actually led to a new business meeting. In our business we have about a year conversion point. So we won't be able to see those metrics yet.

So we're a tiny company here. There's nine of us. Eight of us. Nine of us, actually. Eight of us. Awkward face. So a company of our size, how do we get started with something like this?

Well, what I would recommend is really putting all of those big beautiful brains into one room and going back and thinking, you know, before you start thinking of ideas, what do I want to accomplish? What are we willing to do as an organization? Are we willing to give time? Are we willing to give money? What are we willing to do? What are the kind of things that are important to us so, you know, are animals, animal welfare? Is that important to us? Is helping children important to us? You know, kind of putting those and then seeing where you can draw. And then what's special to you to have that third part? What's special about us? What were the things that we can do that other people can't do? So in your case, you might take on someone that is kind of sinking because they haven't been reading and executing all the prophet first tenets in the way that they should at the temple of prophet first and going out there and being willing to say we are going to do this for free with you and maybe even doing it in exchange for something saying we do this for you, it works. And we want you to refer us to 10 people. You know, you can ask that too, but you don't have to because they will anyway.

Yeah. And I think, I don't know if I would have wanted to do a quid pro quo. I think I just. Let's. Let's do it. To do it. Yeah, but I understand what you're saying. What about the person that leads it at the company? I mean, you're the owner. Denise, you and Adam. Do you have to lead this effort or do you identify someone in your organization that feels called to do this?

I think it depends. So for me, my role here is it's the ideas, right? So I think of ideas for the agency, I think of ideas for clients. That's all I do pretty much. So God help us the day the ideas stop coming. No, that's not true. Other people think here too, but it is all I do. And thinking of something, bringing the team together and spearheading the thought process for this, I think has to come from whoever plays the visionary role in the company. If that's the owner, that's fine. If that's someone who is hired on in that role, that's fine. So I don't think it has to be the owner, but I think the program spearheading has to come from there. It doesn't have to be that person who executes. The operational aspect can be delegated, but I think constantly making sure that it launches with the right spirit and that that spirit is continued throughout and looking for ways to improve it and change it and learn from it. I think that's the role of the visionary.

Do you see more companies moving this way? The more socially responsible, more computer, computer community engaged type of stuff?

I do. So I think that I heard this said. I don't remember who said it, but I thought it was really interesting that culture is the last sustainable competitive edge. So we have to have very unique cultures in our businesses if we want them to be meaningful to our employees. We don't want to be like a commodity job where they just jump from one to the other. Certainly for the business that we're in, we need people to come here, be pumped up and learn our clients and bring creativity and want to stay. That's very important for us. And I think it will be more important for businesses as the world is changing. More smaller businesses, we want to make sure that we don't constantly just retrain people to do the same thing. It's not a big corporation, so I do think it's going to be more important. I know that the current millennial generation, that's the biggest entry of the workforce up and coming, it's super important to them. And I think that they are helping to change the way businesses Operate in a very positive way. It's different. I know that people can be resistant to change, and big corporations oftentimes are. But I think for smaller organizations who either A, are being founded by millennials or B, are just open to change because that's how entrepreneurial spirit works. I think that's where the organizations are that can really benefit from finding ways to give back uniquely. And that unique. Right. Unique is important. We don't want to just do what other people do. Yeah, we do that, too. If someone else could say, oh, yeah, we do that too. We need to find something else to do.

Yeah, I agree.

I don't like to group people per se, but I'm about to group people. So we were mostly a millennial organization. Right. Most of our people. You're a quasi millennial. Quasi, quasi. So we're QMS or quasi millen. Except for me. I'm whatever. Years back. But what I found is the best employees I've ever worked with or other colleagues I've ever had have been millennials. Just there's this driving purpose. There's something greater that's going on. And therefore, it's not the hours put in, it's the quality of the hours produced. And have you experienced the same, Denise, with your team there? The drive is different, but he actually, I find stronger.

I find it very different. And I think that there is a stronger drive to matter, to have what they do at work matter. And I'm not saying that, you know, where's the spiritual mission off, you know, helping to bring things to new land? It's not like that. Because the people to whom that matters are doing that. Right. But they want to know if they can choose different career paths. They're already saddled with crazy loans from college they're trying to dig out, and who knows what kind of financial future is looming in the next few years for them. There's a lot of fear factor and already kind of starting on the wrong side. They still have positive outlooks and smile and they join together in groups and do lots of fun things, and they bring the positivity to work, and they want it to translate into something more than a 9 to 5 job. And I think that's wonderful. Why shouldn't we all want that? It's possible so we see it happening. It should be, I think, the way that businesses operate.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting.

Exactly right.

I agree. It's interesting that her whole business. Well, I'll talk about in the updates, but it sounds like, Denise, your whole business or a Big part of it is about giving back and contribution, but you are recruiting those people that's ingrained in them already. So the, the culture is already there. It sounds like it's inevitable for your business. It sounds like almost the culture is what determined that this is the right path for your business to take. Is that a fair assessment?

Yeah, absolutely. Because I think that regardless of the companies are paying clients that we're working for, regardless of what their cultures are like, for us to do the great work that we need to do to maintain those accounts and to continue to help elevate those class looking brands around the world, we've got to do amazing work. And that doesn't mean trying to hire people that are retiring. The new fresh ideas that are entering the workforce, combined with the more experienced people we have on staff, the senior level staff, to help kind of bring the tenets of business and branding to their wonderful ideas that mesh, that's what's golden. And to me, it's not an exclusive thing. To millennials, the desire to want to do good and to be a good human being is within at least the people that work here. It may not be within everyone, but certainly within the people who work here. And I think that also creates a wonderful bridge between it doesn't matter how old you are when you work here. It's about who you are.

Denise, this is fabulous. Thank you so much for this, Steph. Our guests, where can they go to learn more about you and your organization?

To learn about us and Eve, you can go to thes3agency.com so the T H E S exam3agency.com and to learn more about S3, our free pro bono services, people can go to Ineeds and they can read all about it, see a little video with Adam and me, a few of our wonderful team members, and apply. It's not open right now, but it will be open again in April for applications, but it's still available to read and learn about. Prepare those applications for when it's time to enter.

Awesome. And if you want to see Denise, there's another resource. Just turn on MSNBC any time of the day and she'll be on the show. Denise, thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you, Mike. Thanks to the rest of the crew and I hope to see you guys soon.

All right, we'll see you. Yeah, we're three blocks away, for God's sake. All right, we'll see you later. Three builders.

Bye.

Bye. See ya. So, all right, you know, I don't know if you know this Christina, Kelsey does. You already nodded your head like you hear it.

She's like, I do. Whatever it is I do.

Kelsey does it, like, anytime we need guests, experts. I thought with such an important topic on businesses that give back, that we should get former president Barack Obama.

Oh, of course, of course.

You're the one who made the call. So Denise called Barack and asked. Pardon me.

Denise called Kelsey. Okay.

Kelsey called Denise.

Give her a faction.

Thank you. I'm so into my bit right now. Kelsey called Obama and said, would you like to come on our show? And here's the response. Come on, man. So no, he wasn't willing to come on. That was a long build up for a horrible joke. Right? All right, in a second, we're gonna share what we learned from Denise.

Yeah.

I need to be punched. I need to be punched. So we're gonna learn what we learned from Denise or whatever. We'll talk amongst ourselves. But first, I wanna thank our corporate partners to make the show a reality.

Yes.

So they are. Who are they, Kelly?

They are Fundera.

And you know what Fundera does?

Sure. They lend you loans. So if you just temporarily need a, you know, you want to grow your business, you need a little spot of money, they will lend it and they don't charge you any fees, and they will search out all the loans for you.

There it is.

That's it. If you need a little spot of money, boom, Fundera, boom.

There it is.

You're like, here comes another one. All right, so tell me, tell me about Nextiva. You're always with Nextiva.

Yeah, Nextiva is awesome. We use. Our VoIP phone system is through Nextiva. So it's great at home. I have one on Wednesdays. I work from home typically, except for today. And my line that I have here at the office just rings directly to my line here at home.

Now, have you used it at home, the home phone yet? Because we just set it up at your house.

Yeah, not yet.

Yes, I have.

Not yet, but it's great.

Yes. I love it. Never used it.

It's happening.

Yeah, but use the one here all the time.

Time.

Yeah, it's clear.

It is so easy, crisp and clear.

Use it all the time. You actually now have a headset on it, finally.

I do.

What about Fundbox? There, Fireball. This is. This is a doozy. Do you know what? Like, Jesus, my first show and you're being an a hole. Do you know what Fundbox does?

Fundbox is when your accounts payable aren't paying you.

Right.

So Fundbox will lend you that money until you get them in.

That's exactly right. Wait, do you listen to the show? How do you know this?

Never.

Wow. All right, one more. Are you up for it? Receipt Bank.

Receipt bank is an awesome tracking system, so especially if you travel for business, you can just snap your receipts right away to enter Santana.

Yeah. Wow. You are good.

She's on fire. That's why we call her Fireball.

Yeah. And Barack. Do you use Receipt Bank? Come on, man.

Yeah, I know.

That's what I thought. And we think Zero, they're like the hanging chad of corporate partners.

We don't know.

Did you figure that out?

I should. I should read the contract.

So are they listening to this?

I don't. Hope not. I hope not. No, of course they are. We love them. I call Zero the hero of accounting software. So. All right, I want to know what you all learned from today's podcast. Who wants to go first?

I'll go.

Yeah, go.

Thank you. My pleasure. So I love this. This is my jam. I have a. You know, I'm a big proponent for community on every level. And I think one of my favorite things about working here is the community that we have as an office, the culture that we have as an office. I feel like you guys are family, and I feel you support me in a very individual, unique way and as we do for each other. And I really like, as an office, how we support our profit first professional members as family and how we want to really commit ourselves to a community. Part of my jobs right now is to find ways that we can help the community in a really effective way. And I love how she spoke about the human contract. As humans, we are meant to take care of each other as much as we possibly can. I think, in every moment, how can we use our unique gift to benefit the whole? And I think that's what she does, and I think that's what we all can do.

Yeah, that's beautiful. And you're looking at Habitat for Humanity.

Is one of them. But what I'm really looking at is, like, a youth mentorship program. I think, you know, your skill set, particularly your. You know, your passion, your. Your ability to reach people will translate really well with adolescence. And I think our guides, as well, are so effective, speaking passionately. And if that age group, who is kind of lost in the world, still trying to find their way, that can be hugely impactful.

Wow. That's why I think it's important to pick a leader that's passionate about giving back to the community to lead us through this. So we had the idea collectively, and we said, are you willing to lead it? And you are. And you're taking us down a path that's so much more congruent to me. Habitat for Humanity is easy and obvious, but. It's easy and obvious. It's an amazing organization, but maybe it's not in alignment with the best way we can give, Right?

Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing. We have so much to give. And like she was saying, it's our unique skill set, our unique gift gifts that we should be giving.

Talking about giving. Are you gonna be giving your cash at poker night? Are you coming?

I am coming.

Okay.

Okay, good. Are you coming?

I think so.

Okay. What'd you learn today?

No, just spinning off of what. What Kelsey said. And, you know, we all kind of get wrapped up in wanting to leave our mark and doing work that matters. And I think sometimes, like, what I was talking about before with my trip to Philly is you get caught up in what you need to do for yourself, and, like, oh, I need to make sure I make enough money to pay my bills and to do this. But here you are all entrepreneurs or anybody. You have this job, and you work for this place that has a specific skill set that can help so many people, and you need to utilize that and take advantage of it and put it out there in the world so that you are making your mark and you're bringing people closer together. I think that's so important.

Love it. Love it, Kebi. Love it. To me, it was the implications of doing this. But what was interesting is I don't think it needs to be intentional. The one thing is a little. I don't know if it's at odds. And I think Denise was just saying it when she said, oh, you can mentor someone and ask or do work for someone to ask for 10. Yeah. That I disagree with. And I don't even think she really, truly meant that. I think that's what naturally comes out of it, because the rest of her details were, oh, here's the stuff that we're benefiting from, but without intent.

Yeah.

Word of mouth referrals, clients referring them to other clients, which is kind of a word of mouth retention of employees. More engaged employees. She's like. She's getting meetings left and right.

Yeah.

But it's very obvious from her voice and what she shared. That's not the objective here. They're just trying to help a company.

Yeah.

And that's what's coming out of it.

It's all karma, man. What you put out there is what will come back to you.

Is it karma? Obama? Come on. Yeah, that's what I thought, brother. All right, we gotta wrap things up here, Kebster.

Yeah, you know what? If you like this episode and pretty much everything about our show, please go to itunes and give us a five star rating. We would appreciate it. But you can also to stitcher, any podcaster, podcatcher that you use and profit first podcast.com. we want to hear from you. We want to hear your stories. We want to share them live to everyone else who are going through what you're going through. Let us help you. Let Mike help you.

Yeah, let's not. Yeah, let's help you. Yeah, I hate that.

Feel uncomfortable.

Well, because I got you.

I got you. And also leave us a comment on your blog, on our blog, or on your own blog. That's even better. Leave a comment for us on your blog and we have to seek it out. That will be fun. And also leave one on our blog. And the last thing and arguably the most important step you can take for your own business is to achieve profitability. Because I'll tell you, if you're in the hole and you have no money in your business, there's no cash flowing through it. You don't have oxygen to survive. You then can't give back to the world. You have to bring sustainability to yourself. And we have an obligation to bring sustainability and support to our fellow humans. So here's the deal. Yo, bucko.

Bucko.

Obama, what do you think about bucko? Oh, he won't talk. Come on. There he goes. There he goes. What you have to do is drive profits. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com right now. Go. Go to the about us page, which we got to update in our team page. You got. I forgot. We have.

I'm non existent.

You're not even on there. Have you seen Daisy?

There's really anybody on there?

Daisy, There's a dog on there that's not even in our office anymore. It's my dog. Go to Prop first professional. Check out that page. Then go to the find button. You fill out the find button, fill out the quick form. We will connect you with a profit first professional who will bring profitability to your business. They'll walk you through the profit first method.

That's right.

And drive you to a level of profits that you deserve so you can give back to the community easily. Easily. So do that now.

Thank you.

When should we do it?

Do it.

Jesus. There you go. All right. I'm good. Next week is an amazing episode, but I don't have the show notes, so I have no idea what's about, but.

It'S going to be great.

It's going to be amazing. All right, thanks for joining us, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bruh. Bruh. You guys don't like that broccoli anymore, huh?

No, I do. We just need a cabinet.

I need some more, like, sista more. You want a sista? One, sister, we need that.