Episode 149: Maximize Profits with Recurring Revenue with Ryan Lee

I wonder who's the lowest swearer here. You don't swearer.

I don't. Unless I'm pissed.

Yeah, you don't.

Or I, like, screw something up and I'm like, ah, shit.

Do you, Kel, do you swear a lot?

I don't swear a lot. I used to swear a lot, and then I had this landlord who was 81 years old, and she took great offense to swearing. Not because she was conservative, she was super not. But she said, F U C K means fornication under the consent of the king.

What the hell's that mean?

It means that the King could give right for somebody to rape you, essentially.

Is that really what it means?

According to Indigo, that's her truth, Ryan.

Is that. Is that you know a lot about swears? Is that true?

I. Is this the banter?

Is this the official banter, by the way? We're in the official banter phase.

Yes, I. I do. You say yes and truth.

He's like, I speak from experience.

I don't think F U C K stands for that. Really? Fornication under the consent of the king.

Yeah, that's the origination of it.

Hm.

Wow.

Supposedly sounds.

I mean, we're one Google away from it, Mike.

We are one Google away. Do you want to Google that? Christina, are you feeling the thing?

I'm feeling the Google. Okay, keep going.

Give us some more banter, Ryan. We need to keep bantering. I got something for you. Listen, dude, I'm going to give you a sound effect. This is our new thing. We like to do this to our guests. We have a sound effect now. I picked out something special for you.

He already know what it is.

He won't know what it is. This is from a television show, so I know you'll know what it is, but listen to this.

Oh, mash.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Too fast, too fast, bro. The 80s.

Think about the picture.

Oh, I got it already.

I can do my own sound effects too.

I got it. Do I say what it is?

Of course you can.

Oh, is that. Is that from the A team?

No. Oh, no, that would.

It sounds like helicopter. It sounds like helicopter.

Do you want me to give you a sound effect? It is. It is a hel. Here, I gotta get. There's better part. When it goes into silent mode, it. Let's see if we can get to it. Do you hear? All right, this is from the 80s, late 80s, early 90s. You know what it is?

Chips.

No, no, no. We did chips earlier.

Chips was like late 70s. Unless it was like Airwolf. One of those kind of.

Yes, it's Airwolf. It's air.

That's really good.

Was that the best? Did you watch that show, Ryan?

I. You know, a little bit. I maybe saw three or four. I was not a big guy. I was more chips. You know, if we're torn, the chips out there, I was more of a chips guy.

Oh, chips. You would. I wanted to pick something that was so remote, so distant, you know?

You got it.

Yeah. And you still nailed it.

Your brains are really in sync.

Yeah.

You guys are gonna learn by the end of this that Mike and I are. I think we are like identical twins. That would just separate here.

Don't you love when that happens?

No, we think we are. I mean, seriously, really. So Ryan and I, before we kick off the show. So Ryan and I meet on the stud of msnbc and on the. What? What is it? The studio of msnbc. The stud. The studio where we went to msnbc, you know, that show. Your business. It's your business.

Yeah.

So I go there and Ryan is introduced to me through a mutual friend. Chris. Chris Winfield, who's awesome. He said, you gotta meet Ryan. You guys are gonna hit it off, right? Also, this woman, Pia comes, who is wonderful. I've never met her.

She came on the show a couple weeks ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never met her before. I'm like, I gotta meet with her. I hit it off so much with Ryan. I'm like, pia's trying to talk. It was like. It was just like an awkward third.

Wheel to a date. Yeah, Yeah.

I felt so bad.

I felt badly, too. It was almost like. I just want to say, Mike, you want to ditch her, but she was. She was really. I was kidding. No, I'm kidding. She was actually really, really cool. We actually stayed in touch with. Were Facebook friends. No, she was really cool, but Mike and I just had this kind of weird instinct chemistry. We're just like seconds.

We were soul sisters. We walk into the studio and I don't know how the lunge walking started, but we're walking to the studio. It's a professional set. There's people running around. Saturday Night Live is being filmed right above us. I mean, this is the real deal. One of us, Ryan and I start lunge walking and the other guy starts just lunge walking. It was.

Like, how did I end up with these two?

I know. What'd you say, Ryan?

Yeah, yeah. We were just lunge walking. It was just. Because. Why not? Because.

Why not?

Why do you. Yeah. I mean, Get a little quad work.

All right, so the origin, if we want to know, of the F word. Actually, this girl, she writes about it in an article and she says if you look at it as an acronym, that's where that came from. Unless it was permitted explicitly by the king. But the most common is just that it's originally 16th century of Germanic origin. Germanic, sorry, Germanic.

I like Germanic Disease. It's a disease, kind of like an.

Std, but it just means.

Are you Germanic?

I'm not Germanic.

The Indo European root meaning to strike, shared by Latin or fist. I'm fuck you up.

Well, I just wrote one more little random thing out there too. You know, people use the word F bomb. Have you heard that before? Like, oh, doing F bomb. Do you guys know who came up with that one? No, my. No, my favorite baseball player of all time.

Who?

Gary Carter. New York Ben.

Really? Gary Carter?

Look it up.

Look it up now.

Because he was so clean, he never cursed. And like there was an article, interview about it. I'll probably get mad. He said, oh, yes, you know, I want to say an F bomb and boom, there you go. He's kind of one of the guys credited with saying F bomb.

Interesting.

What nationality is he? Was he German?

German, yeah.

He.

He passed away from German.

He passed away? Yeah. Hey, I gotta do a quick read through and I want to not. Because I need to. Yes, it's net payroll. You know, that's our payroll company. You know what's extraordinary about them?

What?

Right now I'm going to run a quick test on all three of you. Christina, name one vendor you've bought something from where they give you their home number or their cell phones to say, oh, if you ever need help, call me here. Like Amazon has that done.

They have not.

Who'd you buy from most recently? Cal, how about you?

Oh, come on. No idea.

What about your, your gold supplies and stuff? Whatever you say.

Rio Grande. Rio Grande, yeah. No, they don't give me their cell phone number.

Rio Grande doesn't say, hey, call the owner when you have a problem. Hey, Ryan, what's the last thing you bought? Well, I bought.

Well I just like five minutes ago, I just bought ointment for my German. Before that. I'm actually. I need glasses now, so I'm hitting up a little Warby Parker and I did not receive the CEOs sell.

Really?

That's rude.

I'm shocked because there's one company that does it. It's net payroll. That's our payroll company. The co founders of the business Give you their cell so you have access to them. And they say cause any time there's a problem. Now Net Payroll is not a two person company. I know what you're thinking. Oh, oh, it's just two people. Of course they give you. So they don't even have, they can't even afford an XD of home system. That's not true. Net Payroll is a large established company company. They have lots of employees. I don't know who we work with specifically because Christina, you manage that. But we have a contact at N Payroll plus. What?

Lauren.

Lauren, right. And then Janice. Right. We can contact anytime. Oh yeah, she's like call me 24 by 7.

Yeah, I had to reach out to Lauren last week and she and Janice emailed me back. She's like, oh, Lauren's on vacation. But I'm happy to help with whatever I can.

They manage big companies, small companies and everything in between. We're kind of an in betweener now. But everyone, everyone in between. If you want a payroll company that cares for you, that goes above and beyond and gives you the number of the co founders of the business, that's Net Payroll. And they are accountable to their clients, to the highest level. They actually have a guarantee, a 60 day money back guarantee, no questions asked. If you're not 100% satisfied, all your money back.

Huh?

NetPayroll.net says again Mike, please emphasize that cause you slur. I do. Thanks for making that comment there. Netpayroll.net all right K Cricket's on. Kick its soft Christina.

See, that's happening.

I was getting there.

Well, I'm sure by now you know that you're listening to the Profit first podcast.

The Ryan lead episode 149. Yes. Yes. Come on, get fired up.

Ryan.

Ryan, you can grunt with him.

Grunt with me.

A very special episode.

Profit first. This is our special episode. This is our special episode.

Super special. Welcome everybody to the Profit first podcast. I am Chris.

Yes, there you go.

I'm Christina Bulduk, your admin over Overlord. Overt Lord here at Overlord. I can't speak today.

Don't worry all you Germanians. Hi, I'm Mike McAllister, the author of Profit First. I'm here with my co guest host. Your co host, your co guest, your co guest, Kelsey Ayers.

A I gotta say it like that.

Kelsey likes to aers.

Well, how do you pronounce it?

Hairs.

You just say the exact same way.

Ryan, did I say the same way?

No, you don't pronounce it Errors. You Pronounce it errors, airs. Okay. Superfluous. Eighth, here you are listening to the Profit first podcast. It's a show where we explore all elements of profitability to horse around a little bit too. And today we're going to talk about how to keep your overhead low and increase your profitability. You know you can do this through recurring revenue. We have the world leading expert, Ryan Lee. Ryan Lee on the show today is going to be talking about that. Oh, yes, sir.

You know where you can find us? Itunes, Stitcher, Tunein, radio, Google Play, and of course, Profit first podcast dot com. Mike, what have you been up to?

Well, I continue my travels. I told you about that last week and nothing new there. I'm in search of a good resting gear, meaning when you need to sleep on an airplane.

Yeah.

I have the, the. The mask. You put your face with the big bubble so it doesn't hit your eyelashes.

I know, I hate that.

I'm looking for a good neck support now.

Yeah. Have you tried a lot?

Yeah, I found one that kind of like it. It's actually. It's not a pillow. It's a rigid support. Like if you've ever broke your neck. Nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like that black kind of thing.

Yeah. It kind of wraps around your broken neck, but it's not broken. But then people think you have a broken neck. It's a whole issue.

Oh, like a brace.

Yeah. So I put it on as testing it and they actually let me board early because of that.

I was gonna say, do you get perks from that?

Yeah, but I mean, you don't want. That is awkward. Well, obviously it needs extra time boarding. And everyone like the whole gangplank looked at me and said, he needs extra time.

So did you feel like you had to keep it on the whole time?

Yes. And then I had a fake boarding. Like, I'm like. And then I like. Do you start like dragging a leg behind you?

No, they carry you in in a stretcher. You know what they probably did to see if you're faking it, you know? You know what? I'm a reference, Mike. They pulled the old Brady Bunch. The Mike Brady where he throws the phone book in the courtroom to see if you turn your head fast, if you were faking it. You remember that episode?

No, I don't.

Carol Brady got in a car accident and the guy faked it in court. Anyway, we digress. Profits first, baby.

No, no, no, no. Tell. Tell us the story. So what happened, Mike?

It was, it was a very. It was a Very intense episode. Carol Brady was in a car accident and the guy, you know, we didn't know if he was faking it or not. So he came into the courtroom with one of those, you know, Mike neck braces.

Yeah. And massive.

Faking it. So they like threw out. I don't remember if it was like a. A phone book or something in the. And the guy turned his head fast to show he was faking. Oh, my book.

Look at that.

I'm pretty sure it was Mike. It was either him or one of those mischievous kids.

But, yeah, there's a few of them.

I think it's Mike Brady. Mike Brady does those more. He was very tactful and strategic. The other ones were just. They would just do crazy things like go surfing.

Yes.

Yeah. All right, well, we gotta race through this stuff. So what else we gotta talk about are. You can find us on itunes and Stitcher Tune and radio, Google Play. I'm doing.

I believe you have a shout out and.

Oh, I do have a shout out. I do want to thank Kristen and Winston Milliken. I want to thank you guys for being listeners to and reading the proffers and the pumpkin plan. You got that pecan business, you know, I'm talking about, and I think you're gonna explode. So everyone listening, here's my new friends, Kristen and Winston Milliken. They were listening to, by the way, the pumpkin plan and profit first in their car driving. I think it was to Winston's birthday or some celebration. So, Winston, happy birthday to you too. But everyone listening, go to Pecan Company. That's P E C A N pecancompany.com and get your pecans there.

I love pecans.

OK. I love pecans. Anything else we gotta do real quick.

Before corporate partner mention.

So thanks to Fundera, Nextiva, Fundbox Receipt bank and Xero. We'll talk about those guys in a minute. Also, American Express. You know, I'm hosting a new show with them called Turning Points.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. So you listener right now, type in turning points on your Google player. You're tuning Catcher. Whatever you got in your hand there, check it out. It's an amazing show exploring the different turning points that businesses go through.

Yeah. Also real, real quick, I just want to shout out another one of our members. This goes to Connie Jacox. She's one of our Mastery members and she sent in a gnarly head bottle of wine. That's a Cabernet. And she said 2016 was my company's best year. Sixteen years in the business and her first full year using profit first. She's also celebrating that this year as she's stepping up to surge. So awesome. Connie, keep kicking butt.

Okay, our guest. Let me give you a little details about him. His company's called Freedom, spelled with a Y, F, R, E, E, D, Y, M. And he helps entrepreneurs create. What was that?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

That's the only way to spell.

Exactly. Yeah. You had the freedom to spell freedom your own way. He helps entrepreneurs create lifestyle businesses. Some of his business achievements, he's created the first world's first sports training membership site. Also, we were talking when we got together, Dave and Buster's. You know, we go classy when we go out on our dates. And we went to Dave and Buster's and he talked about a supplement business he created. He's created four seven figure and one eight figure companies and he did all this stuff while working from home. His name is Ryan Lee. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Welcome, Ryan.

Thank you. And thank you, crew. This is going to be fun. I've been looking forward to this for, like, hours. All right, I can't wait.

I'm going to answer with the first question. Gnarly head. Gnarly head.

Go, gnarly head. How do we turn that to recurring remedy? Is that a. Is that a silent?

Gnarly head is spelled with a silent G. Yeah. So that's the wine we were served here. It was gnarly head wine. I just wonder what your thoughts were about that.

I mean, I've heard it's the greatest wine ever, especially with the word gnarly in it.

It does say out of the top.

Five wines with gnarly, that gnarly head I heard, is ranked number one across every platform. So I'm all about gnarly head.

Talking about gnarly. You started four seven figure businesses. What were the. What's the diverse set of businesses you had?

So one was our sports training membership site. Another one was one of our supplement companies. The other one hit eight figures. One was a software company for the fitness market. And the fourth one was another information marketing, like kind of information marketing coaching seminar business. But they were. So part of my businesses were health and fitness. And now that I've kind of transitioned to teaching other people entrepreneurship, which is what I love. You know, kind of similar to what you've done, Mike, where you've, you know, built businesses in different markets and then now you're teaching other people how to run their business. So that. Yeah, so it's. It's been A fun ride.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And it's. I mean, you're just getting started.

Oh, yeah.

So I gotta ask you something about health and fitness because our last guest said, okay, here, I'm gonna talk to you right now. She said, guys, focus on her vanity muscles. And she looked at me, she goes, all you do is your biceps. You're weak everywhere else. You're a lifter yourself. You run these businesses. Is that true?

You know, we used to call them mirror muscles. So they're the muscles you see when you look back in the mirror. And it was usually like the biceps, the chest, and sometimes like the quads. Yeah, I was a trainer for my. Yeah, so that's what most people did. But my focus was really working with athletes. Sports training, more like performance based stuff. So I was never into like the body lifting. You know, let me just look good and jacked in the mirror. And now, believe it or not, like, I've kind of went through another health retransformation. I haven't even been lifting weights now. Everything I've been doing is body weight. You don't need weights. You really don't. And I haven't been in this, in. This is the best shape I've been in in 20 years. So just body weight stuff.

All right, well how do you like work out? Like your back or something? Like where your arms.

I got a cool exercise for you. You guys ready?

Yeah.

Pull ups.

Pull ups. He's got a pull up bar right in here.

I do it out of my house. I have a pull up bar in my bedroom. So my whole workout is this treadmill. I do it, I don't even run now. I just put on the highest incline, I walk for a couple of minutes, I jump off, I do pull ups, push ups, some kind of core work, and I jump back on the treadmill and I do that for 20 minutes. Nice. I can do that every day.

Every day. Every day, huh?

I'm doing seven days a week. Yeah, because I just, I don't.

How many pull ups do you do?

Whatever you can do.

The answer is three.

Oh, me plus one plus one.

Oh, so you can do two.

Have you noticed that you've lost any kind of muscle mass from switching to heavy weights to just your body weight?

No, no, not at all. Interesting. Not that I was ever going for bulk. I was getting. I was too. I was like 21, 22 pounds overweight. I just wasn't feeling good. So it wasn't even a question of muscle bulk. But no, I feel, I feel even Stronger and better than I ever did.

Now here's the crazy thing.

Yeah.

So we meet at msnbc, and then we meet again at Dave and Buster's because we're classy guys. And you're like, dude, I lost, like, 30 pounds. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, you have lost weight. And that was. This time span was like, five or six weeks.

Ryan, it's really fast.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know what? It's funny because as a trainer, I used to always believe. Because this is what I was taught when I was a young trainer. You know, it's like 90, 10, like, 90% of your results are working out in the gym and split routines of periodization, all this stuff. Right? And 10% nutrition, it's complete opposite. It's like, it's almost all nutrition and all. Because I've. I've always said to my clients, it's very simple. Just eat well. Like, eat good stuff and avoid the bad stuff as much as possible, but don't deprive yourself. So, you know, if you. Like, last night we. I have four kids, so last night we ordered pizza. Normally, what I would do is sit, and the first thing I would do is eat three, four slices of pizza.

Well, pushing your kids out of the way. Shut up.

Exactly. And then. But what I do. Last night, we got a big salad, and I had the whole. I had, like, a lot of salad, and I had, like, half a slice of pizza, and it was fine. You know, I had a little bit.

Oh, half a slice.

People in nutrition who say, oh, you could never have, you know, dairy or never have a slice, then you just feel like you're just living that you like a crackhead. Like, you're like, oh, then you want it even more. But if. You know what? I'll have a little bit. I don't even crave this stuff anymore. I just eat as many fruits and vegetables as I want. That's it. That's basically my nutrition. And I have some good lean protein and good, healthy fats. It's simple. It's not easy, but a trend. How long does it take you? Fitness? Come on, baby.

What was that?

We'll go a little bit longer.

Because, listen, I mean, you got to be healthy to run a business, right? I mean, this is key to you.

You. You can't be at 100 if you're not feeling great.

Yeah. So. But you just eat vegetables and. And fruit. It sounds kind of, like, boring.

Yeah. Like, it's not at all. Well, Mike, you saw, like, when we were at the classy Dave and Busters. And we still didn't get to play any video games.

The whole idea was play video games. I got too tired. But then we. And elbows together.

He was out at like 10 o' clock. Mike's.

Look.

He looked his watch at you. He's like, all right, man, I gotta go.

I hit the wall. When I get tired, I hit the wall.

Yeah.

Oh, you hit the wall hard. But by the way, did you. Mike, you saw what I ate. Did you see the size of that salad?

It was, remember that he ordered? It was called the Lawn. The Lawnmower. What was it called?

Something like that. I don't know.

Oh, gosh.

His salad. It was Christine, where you're sitting, which is like 10ft away from me. It was across the entire table. Oh, and. And, and yeah, dude, you're the first person, Ryan, on the plant, in this entire plant, who's ever rejected a salad. You know, people reject your entree and say, this is under. He said the salad's wrong.

Oh, my God.

Whatever. That crumbled cheese stuff, I don't like that stuff. The waiters crumpled it all over. Like, he's making a pizza. I'm like, could you please. Like, I didn't want. I said, as the only request I had, and I never, ever put food back. And.

Well, let me set the stage. The waiter comes like, this plate is huge, right? Ryan? It is from. If you spread your arms as far as you can, left, right? That's how big the plate is. Ryan. The waiter comes to the plate. He's got the one napkin over his thing. He's like, oh, sir, here's your salad, right? He's holding it in front of Ryan. Ryan goes, I didn't want blue cheese. He hits the plate up, the salad covers the waiter. And I'm like, what the hell's happening? Ryan's like, this is. I don't come to a classy restaurant like Dave and Buster's for this shit.

Oh, my God.

I started. I started swinging. Swinging. And then it was a brawl. I got three bartenders. Mike ran away. He went to Barnes and Noble.

I just punched myself in the groin. Just because I wanted out, I want it out. That's my defense. Everyone has their own defense mechanism. Do you know how hedgehogs will roll up to protect themselves? Yeah, my defense mechanism, Instead of taking a punch, I punch myself and I curl up on the floor and everyone knows I'm taken care of. I've never taken a hit.

Oh, gosh. Let me ask you something. So how do you transition to that more disciplined mindset? Because I know I'm struggling with that. I've put on more weight recently, but I' made the switch to more wholesome, natural ingredients. Like I got rid of the vegetable oil and we're cooking with olive oil and just trying to be more, like I said, wholesome and natural. Yeah, but how do you take that next step of cutting out all that junk that you want all the time?

Well, you know what it is? Well, first you have to reach that point of where you are just done. And it was me. I got back from vacation, I stepped on the scale. I was like 192 pounds. I'm only 5 8. I'm like, I'm way too heavy. And that was, I'm like, I felt so disgusted. And then I'd gotten sick the next day, I wasn't feeling well, went to the doctor, my blood pressure was a little high. I'm like that. You know, I have four kids. I need to be around for a long time for them. So that was it. I had, you have to reach that breaking point. And then the other, here was the biggest mind shift because we've, look, we've all, even as fitness professionals, we've all struggled with this. I don't obsess over the little stuff I used. Like, because you can get, there's so much information and there's so. And one person could say, you know, eat as many fruits as you want. Another person said, well, don't eat that many fruits because it has more, you know, fructose. So it's like, okay, eat fruits but have instead of a banana which has more of this, you know, have an apple. And then you just become paralyzed. I just don't obsess over that little stuff. I just eat as many fruits and vegetables I want. You know, if there's a little bit of oil, if it's, whether it's coconut or extra virgin, that's fine. Like, I, I hope that. I don't know. I don't.

But you don't eat processed foods. Right. I don't see eating any sugar based stuff except for fruit, which is natural sugar. Right.

But even like. So the other night, perfect, perfect example, my wife and I went to the movies. That's my favorite thing. I'm a movie fanatic. So we went to our little movie date night and you know, we had popcorn. Like we shared a small popcorn. And then I, I love chocolate. So but instead of getting the, the movie theater size M and M's, which is like 4,000 I got like a little pack of M M. So I had like some M and M. So I, so I had a little sugar. But some people say never ever have that. Right? Like your paleo, you can never have that. And then you, you sit, you, you think about M&M's the entire movie. So I just had a little bit. But, but you know, I work out, so I feel good and I know that if I'm eating right 99, 95% of the time, then I'm not going to deprive myself. I'm just not going to go overboard.

Right?

But I just, I really, really don't obsess. Like if it, if I'm at a restaurant and I say, you know, and it has a little bit of oil, like, I'm not going to ask what type of oil. All right, that's fine. You know, if it's salmon, I'm not going to say, well, is it in the farm? Is it? Yes. I know it's better to have the wild, you know, grass fed salmon, even though there's no fish there. But you know, you know, like, oh, I can't eat salmon because it's this in the front. Like if you have a piece, you're not gonna die. So I just don't go too much.

But no, no goddamn blue cheese, for God's sake.

But, but I will tell you the biggest, the biggest thing is like just cutting down on dairy. Like I don't, I really don't like dairy anymore. I used to love it like milk and cereal and trying to cut down on, on the gluten. That bothered me so little things like that. But not that to say I'm never ever gonna have it again. But like if my kids get ice cream, I'll have like a little bit of theirs because they're not gonna eat the whole thing anyway. But anyway, yeah, this is I. Profits first, baby.

We're getting there.

Are you trying to push us along? Are we going too slowly for you?

No, no, I. Look, I could be here all day. I feel bad because I want to serve your audience. But if we want to talk health and fitness, do they want this?

They want this stuff? Like, this is good stuff. Let's. No, there's grass fed salmon out there.

I'm going to start selling grass. I guarantee you people buy it. The crazy thing.

Yeah.

So let's grass fed to have salmon diet.

Yeah, let's stage the, let's, let's stage this. Say I want to become an info marketer. You're a big proponent for recurring revenue. My innovation is grass grass fed salmon. How would you go about building that business?

Well, you know, a lot of people that come to me are looking to build recurring revenue in the online space. So they want to do like more digital stuff, especially membership sites. So a lot of my members are people who are health and fitness experts. And they'll have a membership site where you Pay, you know, $10, $20 a month for access to their exclusive content, to their online coaching groups, to their recipes. And then there's the other side. There's taking it offline, which a lot of people don't do and they're crazy not to, is actually getting the grass fed salmon and, you know, freezing them and shipping them out to people every month and saying, okay, it's, you know, $50 a month and you get two salmon fillets or whatever that is. It is free shipping. And, you know, basically we're going to keep sending it to you until you say, I'm out. Like, I don't want anymore. I've had enough grass fed salmon. But I love, I mean, I love, love, love recurring revenue. And I won't build a business unless there's some way to build recurring revenue.

Why is recurring revenue so important?

Well, first of all, if you don't have recurring revenue, what happens is, so let's say you have a really good. All right, so let's, so any of you, so just come up with, come up with a market, come up with a product or something and let's kind of.

All right, let's think of a new product. So it can't be grass Fed Salmon.

We, it can't be.

We push it down.

You've exhausted that.

How about, how about Rubik's cube that converts into a ninja weapon? Like, because you think, you know, the guy's like, oh, I'm nerdy like this. I'm afraid of fights. And you saw me at Dave and Buster's, how I quickly fell to the ground when that brawl broke out.

Fetal position, fetal position.

I punched myself in the groin, dude. But yeah, that's my defense. But now I want people to say, oh, he's a total nerd, because I have my Rubik's Cube. But then I, it turns into like this Chinese star and I can throw it at people. That's my new device.

Smart.

So that's your product. So here. So here. So it's cool. So let's say you have a really good promotion and you have a great month. And in the month of February, you sell a thousand units at, you know, 20 bucks a piece. Right. So you made 20 grand last month. Awesome. February was a great month. March 1st, you're back at zero. Right? You're back at zero.

Yeah, right.

Only as good as your last sale.

That's right.

But if you had a thousand people paying $20 a month for the new, for every month they're going to get a new Rubik's Cube ninja dart thing so they don't curl up in fetal position time a salad's being thrown. Now all of a sudden, you know, the beginning of March 1st, you're billing a thousand people 20 bucks. That's 20,000amonth. Even with churn, which is always going to be drop off, you're still much, much better off than just relying on your last sale. And I'm not saying you shouldn't do one time sales because we do sell one time products and one time books and seminars and workshops. Absolutely. But the more you can build in, the better it's going to be. I mean, look at the biggest businesses in the world. Amazon, I mean, what do they think of One of their biggest, their most profitable revenue streams is actually their web hosting, their Amazon service. That's actually the most profitable. They're also pushing Amazon prime, which is billed yearly, it's not billed monthly, but that's recurring revenue. Apple with their Apple Music and Spotify with their monthly things. Every big company is going towards monthly subscriptions and they should be, are we.

Gonna hit a bubble with monthly subscriptions?

You know what, I think what's happening is people have limited wallet space. So I think it's gonna get, I think it's gonna get more and more competitive to be in there. Like you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to have really good service. Because even now, I'm at the point now where I don't even know how, especially in our business, you know, we look, we're like, oh, okay, we want this special CDN server, it's another 20 bucks a month. But you know, especially everyone who's read the book, Profit first, which they all should, which everyone I tell should read that book. You know those little, no, seriously, you know how much I love it.

I know you do, brother.

Yeah. And, but that starts to add up to $20 here, 30 here, 15 here. I mean, before you know it, you're like 500 a thousand a month and it starts growing. So then every month you start looking at your credit card bill and you say, okay, what, what can I eliminate? What don't I need? So you have to have a really high pain of disconnect. So if you're not a service, if you're not like, you know, a web host or an email service or something that people really, really need, you're just like a good to have. You have to just deliver incredible value or they must really, really like you. Yeah, like they have to just love getting, you know, the Mike daily coaching call or whatever that is, whatever that thing's gonna be. So they don't want to leave. I, I'm a big fan of building communities. So our membership sites always have a big community aspect where I'm in there and, and Mike, you're in the group, you know, every day I'm saying, saying, what are you working on? You know, what's, what's the latest? How can we help you? How can we serve you? It's, it goes back to, you know, basic business just being really, really good. But yeah, you're gonna, it's every, every month it's getting harder and harder to keep people.

It really is. It really is. Yeah. So I want to learn about the community because that is definitely expertise of yours. How do you build a community and, and facilitate that retention by building a community?

Well, first I, it's, it's never about me. Right. And I think that's a mistake. People do, they, they let their egos get involved and they, you know, they think it's just about them. My whole purpose with a community is treating people how I'd want to be treated. Like if I were in there, what's the greatest place? And it's it the thing, here's the funny thing. No matter what the topic is, whether it's health and fitness, nutrition, or if it's, you know, parenting or, you know, having a baby, whatever that main topic that everyone's in that group is about, it's about people still want to talk about other stuff. Like if you go to a business meeting, a business convention, and you're talking to people in the hall, you're not just talking about the business all the time. There's other things you're talking about family, you're talking about, oh, what did you watch on Netflix? Like this, like the stuff we were just bantering on before about the grass fed salmon. Yeah, it is. Exactly. So in our fights, I try to make things not just about, you know, your business and entrepreneurship or when I had the health and fitness community, not just about health and fitness, I try to make it about more than that. And here's a little thing, like highlighting your members Showcasing them, having a member of the day. Hey, welcome. You know, hey, congratulations. You know, hey, look, Mike. Mike Michelle just joined. He's the author of this. Here's his site. Go check him out. It's really hard to leave a community. If they just made you, like, the member of the day, it's very hard to leave them. So I'm just always, always, always listening and always asking, you know, what else can we add? How else can we deliver more value? And then showing them, like, reinforcing that. Oh, by the way, don't forget, we just added this. Why? Because we can and we want to keep giving. You have to keep reminding people that it's not just about the content. Like, you're there to help them, to serve them and fostering those communications and connecting people, even in an online space. So if you're using a Facebook group and someone asks a question about, hey, how do I run Facebook ads? Then I'll tag the two or three good Facebook ads people. If someone's asking about, well, how do I get my company more profitable? I'll tag Mike and say, oh, check out his book. Profits first. So lots and lots of stuff and just fostering that community.

Let's talk about the member of the day concept. I mean, you use Facebook as your primary platform, at least as far as I know, for that community. Is that true? Okay.

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Then how do you get people involved? Not everyone, or maybe everyone is on Facebook, but we have one of these challenges here. We have a lot of members that come on, it seems like a lot who never get on Facebook. Yeah. Do you have that challenge, too? And how do you bridge that?

Well, with our space. So when we did this newest site called Freedom, when we made it a membership site, the first iteration of it, I said, you know what? I don't want to rely on a third party like Facebook to host our community. So we had everything within a. Within a private forum, within a private group, which is how, you know, I built my first membership site. The first paid membership site was back in 2001. There was no Facebook. I think Zuckerberg was eight. So it was. Everything was about a private forum. But things have changed. So we went to the Facebook group because we felt in the online marketing space and people, entrepreneurs who were looking for more online stuff, they have to have a faith, because if you don't have a Facebook page or you're not doing Facebook ad, you're really not serious about your business. Like, you're crazy. So it made sense for our market. If you don't have that. If your market is for whatever reason, let's say you're. You're working with people who are scared of the Internet, you know, or privacy freaks, and they don't want to be in a Facebook group. Yeah, I mean, that is an issue, but we're finding it. It's a small percent of people. And we have had some people who say, ryan, I want to join, but I don't have Facebook. And we'd say to them, just set up an account and just be in our group. And that's all you need it for. And we've had people do that. Yeah. So we've gotten around that. We haven't really had that much of an issue. Every once in a while, there's a few people, but I would tell them ahead of time, I'd say, look, being part of this group, of this community is really, really important to make this work, because that's where we're going to answer all the questions, blah, blah, blah. So you really should be here. And if you don't have a Facebook group, you know, either. You either don't join or if you do, just set up a Facebook account. Now you. There are other platforms. A lot of people I've seen, I don't know how successful it's been so far, are using Slack, like a private Slack group. And you could put things in there and set up different folders. I find, though, that people who are on Facebook, the 1.6 or 1.7 billion or so, they're on it every day, all day. It's on their phone. You know, they don't have to log into something separate. And what happens is every time you tag someone or they reply to their comment, that little red thing shows up and it's like crack. I mean, on your phone and you see a little ding. It says, you know, someone has mentioned Mike Michalowicz in. In the group in this thing. You. I don't care if you were, you know, Kanye west or whoever, you're gonna click and see who just mentioned you.

Yeah, Kanye west is all over me, by the way.

And then you get people in and yeah, so we prefer the Facebook group. But if you have scale, I mean, if you have. So you can always start at the Facebook group and move it over to a private discussion forum. But yeah, there's definitely advantages and disadvantages. I don't love the fact that it's not on my platform, but we already have the members names and credit cards and email. So let's say Facebook said, I Don't like this guy Ryan anymore. He's too good looking. And he shuts down our Facebook group. We could just email them and say, hey, you know, good news, we're gonna move off Facebook. We've got a new Slack group. So, you know the thing with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship and starting a business and having your own business, you got to move fast. Like you have to be agile. Don't fall in love with any one thing or one platform. And if something happens, you just, you have to be resilient. You got to roll with the punches, but you got to move fast. And you have to think in your head, what's the plan B? I know plan B, it would be just set up the, the forum and it would take 24 hours because I already have a program already if we need to do it and turn it on now.

You're saying people have to become more sophisticated. If I, if I want to host a community, I gotta be more sophisticated, more professional because the recurring revenue is coming from all these different outlets for the customer. So they're becoming more selective. But you also, you know, you're a big proponent for low overhead. How do I become more and more capable, deliver more and more great content, yet keep that overhead down so I can be very profitable?

Well, it's about systems, right. It's about trying to as much as possible, keep things lean. Yeah. So I don't have lots and lots of full time employees. I have really one main person who's my integrator, this guy Matt, who's our full time integrator. I have two full and then I have my kind of full time main virtual assistant who's been with me 14 years. And then we have another virtual assistant who kind of assists her. But that's really it for full time. Everything else it's outsourced people, but people that have really good specific skills. So we have two really good graphic people who are just ready when we send them something, they get it back to us and we just pay them per graphic for their time. We have two good tech people that are ready, they're serving other people, but they know now in terms of content and you have to get it system, create a system and create structure. So whatever program you're using in terms of tech, we use a program called Basecamp. So what I would do is just upload the audio file or the video file and have a system say, okay, now we're going to take this video and repurpose it. So we're going to take this video and you have one virtual assistant say, okay, I'm going to take it and I'm going to put on YouTube. Then I'm going to take that video and upload it directly to Facebook. And now I'm going to take that video and transcribe it and make it a blog article, a blog post. And now I'm going to take it and create four or five Instagram or Facebook post. So you could take one piece of content and repurpose and repurpose and repurpose for just about any format. Because if you try to be everywhere, you lose your mind. You just can't. Because then you spend all day, like, you know, winking on Twitter and Snapchatting and I don't even know half this stuff. I know where I need to be or where I want to be, and I just, I do the main piece of content. So for example, this show, I heard at the beginning you're like, follow us on here. And it's on like eight different places, but every place you said it sounded like audio. So I say, okay, where's the video? You know, where's. Even though you're not recording video, you can just do something as simple as having one picture of Mike and I, just one picture, uploading audio behind it. And now you've got a video. At least put that on YouTube. If people are searching for Mike or for Ryan Lee or for return revenue.

No, that's what we're doing right now.

Oh, we are doing it. That's what that is.

We are currently recording this.

So you got video, and then upload that directly to Facebook. Directly to Facebook. Then take this, take a whole bunch of quotes and put that on Instagram. Take some quotes and put that on Facebook. Take the transcriptions and put it on your site.

Whatever you say. Callous and Christina, we're already doing that.

We're just starting.

You should say, oh, you should put on a billboard, you know, or you should fly an airplane over a stadium with this. Oh, we already do that.

Of course, you got. But you guys have a system. What is that right there? You're assistant. But most people. But here's the thing. Most people don't think like that. Most people don't have systems in place. They just try to, like, do a hundred different things at once.

Yeah.

Do you think there's ever such thing as too much content that you're putting out there that could actually potentially turn off some of the people in your membership organization? Because you don't want to overload them either? Right.

I used to think So I used to think that, but in my experience now doing this, like, almost 20 years, the answer is no. No, I, I, I'm, I've kind of turned the corner where there's so much noise, like you just have to be prolific. People have to see you in whatever, whatever place they, they are. You just need to kind of be there and be in the conversation. I mean, I'm still, look, most of my income, most of my profits still come from email. It's, it's, I mean, I still look at social media as a way to funnel people into our email list. I email my list every single day.

Ah, Every day, seven days a week.

No. Oh. If, if we don't email for a day, we get flooded. Where's Ryan's email? I didn't see it today. Did it go into my spam box?

Because he was then it says like he was injured in a fight with a Rubik's cube. Impaled in his head. Yes.

He strained his back picking up his friend who was in fetal position trying to lift him out of Dave and Buster's. But they, they, because it's the, the email isn't pitchy. It's not. Most people email so wrong. I mean, it's like they're either just pitching or it's really fluffy, generic. Hey, here's what's on the site today. Yeah, I look at email very differently. Like, it's, it's, I make believe, like I'm writing to one person. I tell stories, I engage. You know, I talk about what, what's happening today. I give a teaching lesson. Then at the end, I could do a little light pitch. I'll say. Oh. P.S. if you're interested in more, click here to join the membership site. Oh, and if you don't, that's cool too. But every single day we're, we're writing and inspiring and trying to get people just excited and moving forward quick.

So here's the deal. I'm looking at the clock. We have another recording coming up soon. I feel so bad. So here, Ryan, do not do anything. Just stay with us. We got to transition on.

Okay.

And tell you what we learned from you, but we want you to keep, like, telling us more stuff. Yeah, we're going to try a little hybrid thing. Is that cool?

I'm ready.

By the way. I, I don't know if you know this when, when we get together, I tape a recorder to my chest every single time when I go out, you know, and meet with friends and stuff. So the music was kind of Loud in the background. But here's me and. And Ryan at Dave and Busters. That was the music.

Very cute.

Very cute.

You couldn't hear us talking, really?

And let's see. Let's see. Who know. Well, of course I know the song. Ladies, you know the song?

Yeah.

What is it?

I know the words. I don't know the title.

I recognize the voice.

Do you know who sings, Andy? It's. It's Careless Whisper. Do you know. But do you know the band?

It is. Come on. Pleasure.

The lead singer just.

It is Wham, right?

Oh, it is Wham.

It is George Michael.

George Michael, Yes. George Michael with. And what was his. Who was the other guy in Wham? It was George Michael and.

Oh, the other guy. No, he was that flowing hair.

It was. It was Andrew Ridgeley. Okay, I know you gotta rap.

All right, well, let's do a punch first.

There you go.

Start wrapping me, Christina.

So. Well, we usually ask the guests.

Here's the deal. We're gonna talk about what we learned from Ryan.

Yeah.

Oh, Ryan, we have to ask you. What website do you want to send people to to check you out?

They can just go to freedom. F R-E-E-Y-M.com Freedom.

So, freedom. Then here's what we're gonna do.

Do.

Dear listener, we're going to summarize in a minute what we learned from Ryan. Ryan's going to stay on and tell us some other juicy tips on the way. But first, I want to thank our corporate partners.

Yes.

Here's who they are.

Zero.

Why am I listening? Oh, Zero. Zero is cloud. Accounting software is built from the cloud up. Check them out. Founded in New Zealand. Who knew? Who knew? And dominating here in the United States Receipt bank. When you've the one of those, Ryan, you know, I don't know how much money we laid out Dave and Buster, but we're laying out coin. I mean, we're like, bring another salad to this table.

Making it ra.

Two lemonades. Now, that receipt had to be scanned in.

Receipt.

Receipt back. He scanned in the receipt. Nextiva voiceover IP phone system. Ryan, if you got a new phone system, nextiva's one to use. That's what we use here. It's awesome. Fund Box. You ever hear Fundbox, Ryan?

Fun box.

Fund Box. Yeah.

It's like. I think it's a different show, Mike. I have not. Please tell me about Fund Box.

Yeah. Fund Box is a cash flow accelerator. Now, you don't have the situation because you have recurring revenue. Some people send out the Invoice and you're waiting for that client to send a check. If they don't send it, Fund box actually gives you the funds immediately right here, right now. And then when the client pays you at their, you know, with the terms, whatever, you return the funds to Fundbox. They charge you a small service fee. Yeah, but it's a cash flow accelerator. Yeah. Now you're intrigued, right?

No, actually that, that's, that's great. Especially for people you know in the service business. Yeah, that's really interesting. Think.

Yeah. And you're like screw recurring revenue. I'm just going to use Fund box. And the last one is Fundera. And Fundera is a one stop shop. For any loans you need to make. Just go to fundera.com and they'll hook you up with a loan for any type of situation. Oh, and American Express, thank you for supporting us and doing turning points together. So Google that. All right. You want to say something, Ryan?

Yeah. You know, it sounds like I need to start a company that starts with the word fund. Yes, yes, yes. I need funding. I need a fund.

No, that's already done. Fund me.

Go fund me, go fund me.

Fund bag.

Hey, who's that? Who's your buddy over there?

Fun bag?

That's Ryan Lee. He's a fun bag.

You get a bag of cash every month.

Oh, I like that. All right, so what did we learn from Ryan? Kelsey, you're first.

Big takeaway is you can email every day and people don't unsubscribe and we can't over post bazinga.

Who knew that?

Yeah, no, can't do it enough.

Yeah. What about you, Christina?

I mean he, Ryan mentioned something that we're kind of implementing here in profit First Professionals is building that community. I mean we call ourselves a family with our members and, and that's important to kind of add that personal touch to it to get them more involved and to want to know what's going on with each other every day and highlighting certain members and what they're doing and just supporting each other like a community. I think that's huge.

I learned from Ryan, be agile now higher on like a per use basis. Right. So he's got that, the graphic designer and so forth. Keeps his costs down. What blew my mind goes, you know Amazon, they make a huge amount of money on their web hosting. Yeah, that's recurring revenue.

That's the most profitable, most profitable part of their business.

You flew out of the microphone. You were so jacked up on that.

I was so jacked I can't even speak. That's how excited I am.

You were doing pull ups and you came down, you're like, ah, that's a more profitable part. Community, you know, you have retention in the community. It's not about me, he said. And then also just think about the. Just the way Ryan can roll in a conversation. We went from him flipping a salad on a waiter to a brawl breaking out. That was his idea that a brawl broke out. I go down the tangent of punching myself in the groin. He recovers and says, grass fed salmon. And then it turns into a Rubik's cube. That's a Chinese weapon. That's a good conversation.

That's a great conversation.

But that's fluidity, people.

Yeah, we've got the. Yeah, you gotta roll with it. You gotta roll with everything in life. Everything in friggin life. You just got business relationship, money, funds, F U N D. You know, you just gotta, you just gotta roll with it and you have to enjoy it. I mean, you guys, this has been like the most, I would say, out of all the podcast interviews I've done, this is top 50.

Really? Seriously?

We got that high?

Yeah, you're top 50. You just made it.

He's been on 48 episodes, 48 shows so far.

Yeah, but you guys just, it's, it should be fun, it should be entertaining and all your marketing should be fun and entertaining. Don't take yourself so seriously, even in more serious topics like give it a, lighten it up a little bit. But this has been great. By the way. One other thing I forgot to say about Community is a really good strategy is to come up with a name for people to identify themselves. So like in freedom, they call themselves freedom fighters. You know, yours can be, you know, I don't know, profit peeps or whatever. You know it, but something kind of cool and fun where they. And, and the more words and terminologies you can use within your community that's special to, special to your community, even more powerful.

I like that. Profit peeps.

Yeah, yeah, the profit peeps.

The profit.

Profit peeps. Here.

Kelsey gave you a face to say? No, she would never say. I'm just calling her face out. Yeah, you're a very snarky person. I never took you that way. Oh, we gotta start rolling. Roll it out. So a couple things. First of all, Ryan and I are gonna do a show here in our studio. Actually, can you seriously write this? Ryan's gonna come here for a full day. It's gonna be nonsensical. We're I'm thinking we're kind of thinking about calling the show come out swinging.

Oh.

And the show is just gonna be a brawl.

Okay.

Of banter. So watch for that on your podcast. Couple things, Christina. What am I skipping here? Oh, please raise an itunes stitcher. Any podcaster that we're on. Right.

And profit first podcast. Podcast comment. We'll comment back and we'll start our own little banter.

Yeah. Yeah.

Profit peeps.

Well, the profit peeps conversation. And most importantly, after you go to freedom F R E E D Y m. Go to profit first professionals. Private first professionals dot com. We are a gathering a gaggle of profit peeps. We are here. We are here to drive properly in your business. Business. I don't care what business you're in. You have to be profitable. Ryan gave the insights into doing it. We give you the trainer like that. I tie that one in. The trainer who'll keep you in that program. Ryan taught you how to lose weight in 30 days. We'll make you lose weight for the entirety of your business. Oh, you know, does that analogy work? It didn't work. You made a face again. That didn't work. You know, Brian told you how to be profitable. We'll make sure you stick with it. That's what I'm trying to get.

You could cut the fat in your business.

That's good.

Is it?

Yeah. Make sure we add the other part. Okay. I don't want anyone hearing that. All right, so here's what you keep playing. Go to prop first professionals.com. click on the find button, fill out the form. We'll hook you up. We'll score you with a profit peep. We'll take your business to the next level. All right, that's it. We'll see you next week. And you know, until then, wish you about some stuff. Yeah. Brian, thanks for joining us today, brother. Bye.

You got.

I'll be.

I'll be a guest host every single episode.

Goodbye, everybody. See you, brother.

Bye.

Bye.

Sam.