Episode 170: The Roadblocks of Profit First with Dr. Sabrina Starling

She's opened registration for her most in demand masterclass. It's called quickly double your profit with top performing employees we are bringing on. I can't say who it is yet, but someone who's extraordinary and I know our profitability, our business will double because we brought in such great talent. We continually bring in great talent. You two are representative of that. Here's what you need to do, my listening friends. Go to howtohirethebest.com I'll tell you, if you're out for a jog right now, you can't Forget that one. HowToHireTheBest.com Go there, sign up, join the masterclass. And you too will be working with my personal business psychologist, Dr. Sabrina. All right, kick us off.

You are listening to the profit first podcast.

This is the special one, the one you've been waiting for. Let's do it.

Welcome, everyone, to the profit first podcast. I'm your co host, Christina Boldup.

And I am Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first. I hope you have a copy of that by now. I'm the author of other books too. Brand new ones coming out pretty soon. So keep your eyes out for it. And you, my friends, you're listening to the profit first podcast. This is a show where we explore every element of profitability. Today's no different. We're gonna do the exact same thing. Oh, and I'm joined in studio by the co host to the co host, Kelsey Ayers.

Hello, everyone. I'm great.

What was your first pair?

Huh?

What? What was your first car?

It was a Volvo. A blue Volvo. 960 or 940. Actually, my second one was nice.

That's part of the business psychology we're doing on you. We have to test you out to make sure you're sharp and on top of questions.

Oh, no, no. I think that's horrible psychology.

Yep.

Well, you guys can find us on itunes. Stitcher, tunein radio, Google Play, and of course, profitfirstpodcast.com.

So. Yeah, and make sure you do that. Do you know, we've cut over to it. Instead of what you've been up to, stuff which was interesting, we've cut over to icebreaker questions.

Yes.

So here's the quick round.

Okay.

This morning we had our meeting. We always do an icebreaker. I'm gonna do the opposite. Now, this morning was what's the coldest you've ever been? And it was the Thanksgiving parade. It was saving your dog from drowning.

In the lake in January.

That was my story.

What's the hottest you've ever been?

Well, I lived in Ghana and West Africa for almost six months. That's definitely the hottest I've ever been. You just sweat profusely. You always have to have a sweat rag, like, constantly. And there's no. I mean, for the most part, there's no air conditioning anywhere you went. So you had to adjust your whole.

Body had to adjust.

Wow. What about you?

That wins, probably. It's like Disney in August. So hot down there.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say. Actually, you know, we did go go karting in the desert once, and that was. That was pretty crappy as well because we didn't really bring enough water.

But go karting in the desert? Like little go karts. Yeah. Huh. Did they have a track or you were going.

No, no. It was right by my cousin's house when we went to visit in California. And yeah, we just went and we were like, riding the mountains and it was pretty awesome. Yeah. I don't know if it was legal, but we did.

So I.

Well, you just announced it.

So I did the. In Arizona. I went to Vegas with my EO group.

Yeah.

And we one day we rented ATVs, maybe about 30 miles out outside of Vegas, out in the desert. It was wild. But the guy who's hosting is like, I don't want to get one of those, like, trail rides where everyone goes in the lines. Like, I want to get one where you can do whatever you want. There was one company that does it. They're probably out of business now. It was so, like, so Grey Law and we're just racing through. I mean, it was. We were driving legal areas, but just way out there. It was hot and crazy and a blast.

That's awesome.

Yeah. So that qualifies now as the highest I've ever been. I didn't say this past weekend because this past weekend was brutal, but.

Oh, yeah, but you were on water.

I know. On a yacht. I know, I know.

But sometimes, I mean, that attracts the sun.

That's true.

Can be super hot.

Yeah.

There you get the reflection burn.

Yeah.

So a couple of things I want to do. You know, I forgot pull up our shout out hotline. I know. We have some more, don't we? I forgot to bring it up.

We do, but I don't think now.

Kelsey gave me the shout out. Stop talking. So we're not gonna do that because I'm not queued up. But we do have a shout out hotline. We want to hear from you.

Yes.

Have you improved the profitability of Your business. Well, if you have, if you've become permanently profitable, every quarter you're posting a profit, shout it out to the world. Acknowledge it. Like Dr. Sabrina Starling has me stand in front of the mirror every morning acknowledging myself. You can do the same for yourself. Call 844-876-7221. That's the number. It's 844-876-7231. Jot that down. Give us a call. It's the profit first shout out hotline. We want to hear how profitable you are. So she's my doctor. You have something else to say?

No.

Oh, now that I can see you again, I thought you had something to say. Dr. Sabrina Starling, you already got a little sense for her. She is the business psychologist. She is the best business psychologist out there. She's the author of how to Hire the Best. I purchased the book myself and I love it. And she specializes in transforming life and cash sucking rural businesses into profitable and successful companies that are perhaps the greatest places to work. And you know, the one form of resistance you hear over and over is, oh, I'm rural. There's no talent out here. You can't be profitable if you're in East Jabib. The reality is you can if you follow certain principles. But specifically today, we're going to talk about the unique hacks that she's figured out to keep her clients moving forward when they hit their roadblocks and the folks she helps if they can get past the roadblocks. Our listeners have no excuse not to get past their roadblock.

That's true.

So, doc, with that, welcome to the show. Thank you.

What a welcome. And what an intro. I'm excited.

It was pretty amazing.

Yeah.

So what kind of roadblocks do your clientele?

Well, since this is the Profit first podcast, I want to talk about profit roadblocks. And so first off, I want to kind of clear the air here. I have a lot of clients who are in rural businesses, but I also have clients all over the country because hiring challenges happen no matter where you're located. But rural business owners have the biggest because of the low population. So it's very hard to hire. And when you are trying to be profitable, if you're not hiring top performing employees, that's a big roadblock to profitability right there. So we do these profit assessments for our clients day in, day out. And I get the honor of debriefing profit assessments and showing them a six quarter plan to get to their target allocation percentage. So I know you have a Lot of listeners who have read the profit first book and they've done the instant assessment on themselves and they're seeing, oh, my bazinga.

That was a little late. That was the profit first book bazinga, like an hour late.

That's all right. So you've done that instant assessment, you've got the bazinga and you realize, oh my gosh, my operating expenses are way too high. And so I've got to start cutting costs. And so when we're doing a full blown profit assessment and our clients are seeing, wow, my operating expenses are 20% too high or 30% too high, and I've got to cut this over six quarters, it is really overwhelming. And so that's one thing where I've found some hacks and I want to share this with your listeners to help them. So the first thing that I always say to my clients is, okay, we're not going to eat this whole elephant all at once. We're going to do it one bite at a time. And all we need to do this first quarter is find 3 to 5% of operating expenses to cut.

Come on, man.

Yeah, exactly.

I want that response.

I spent time in my coaching sessions. So you said how much inexpensive in the first quarter? Just.

That seems so easy. Like, I could, I could think three to five.

Well, let me tell you, if you have a warm body on your payroll, you just fire them. And that takes care of 3 to 5%, if not 15% right there.

Okay, so when you say warm body, first of all, does that mean, like, I mean, that's not how easy.

No, I know I make it sound.

That being said, Kelsey and Christine are like, oh, if I had to eat a human, I would eat the thigh bone. Like, oh, I think the breast meat's more tasty.

He said that. We brought it up.

Please, it was your idea.

No, but you two are like, oh.

I know what body is.

I'm going to eat the tasty part. Okay.

You two disgust me. So warm body, though, for someone that has a little more couth like, I, I would feel uncomfortable.

Sorry.

I would feel uncomfortable just saying I can let someone go. That seems pretty drastic.

So first off, one of the things to pay attention to is if you're struggling to pay for business consulting services, like, you've done this profit assessment and you realize things are way out of whack and you need some help. And you're saying, but I can't afford to get the help that I need. You have to take a hard look at what's really going on inside your business. So number one, if you have an employee who is consistent, consistently underperforming, who makes repeated mistakes, where there's all kinds of rework going on, they are costing you a bundle. And the pushback that I hear is, but if I keep them around because at least I have somebody doing some work some of the time, and if I let them go, then it's all back on me. Well, we're trying to get your business to being profitable and we have to realize that this warm body is significantly undermining your profitability right there with all those mistakes and rework and all the time and attention that it takes from you. So you're better off to let them go and free up that operating expense. And then that's what I teach. My master class is those skills to hire those top performing employees and how you attract them. And that's a free master class. So there's no excuse to not learn how to attract a top performing employee. And you want to look at building that pipeline of those good employees so that when you have to let those people go, you can so right off the bat look at your payroll and see which employees really are top performing employees and then which ones are eating away at your. They're costing you more than they're making the business. And those are people to consider letting go. Now, there's lots of other places to cut expenses if you're not comfortable right off the bat. Cutting a warm body off the payroll, marketing expenses and advertising is another place that we look. Usually there's expenses there. If you have services that you're utilizing and you're not optimizing them or you're not seeing a return on investment, those are just a couple of off the bat areas where you can quickly find 3 to 5% to cut.

Okay, so yeah, I could easily see that. Let's go through the second two. So I can see the resistance to letting go of an employee. You're saying someone that's really dead wood to some degree. And I think there's this mentality of save the employee. But we don't realize you're saving the employee at the cost of the entire company. So you're actually jeopardizing everyone's job long term.

Well, if your company is not healthy and a healthy company is a profitable company, if your company is not healthy and you're doing everything you can to save that employee's job, really, you're jeopardizing your job and everybody else's job.

Yeah, and I get it. I get it. I want to talk about the marketing. My sense is the resistance because I feel is if I have to cut my marketing, that's my source of income. Do you evaluate the productivity of the marketing? How do I know what marketing to cut or do I just cut it all and see where I stand?

Well, don't cut marketing that you know is working, that you can say, you can point to a solid return on investment. But a lot of times there's like social media services that are being paid for, that are not being fully utilized. And it's not that you're going to cut those forever, it is that you're going to pull back on that. Because what we're looking at is after the first couple of quarters of expense cutting with profit first, it becomes very hard to continue cutting expenses. So if there's more than 10% of expenses that need to be cut, it is hard to just keep doing that for six quarters because at some point you just get to rock bottom and you're like, I can't cut anymore. So, so what we're doing is as we are helping our clients cut those expenses during the first two quarters, we are also implementing a little known process called the Pumpkin Plan.

Oh my God. Little known.

Everyone knows.

Everyone should know.

Everyone knows about the pumpkin plan.

Yeah, it's a good point. It is a fabulous book. It's a must read. It's in your bookstore right now. A more awkward moment together. Okay, keep going.

Okay, so the Pumpkin Plan is all about discovering your business sweet spot. And we help our clients zero in on who are those top clients that are contributing to the majority of the revenue for the business and understanding their profile and who they are. The 8020 principle applies here. So you can expect that about 20% of your clients and customers are responsible for 80% of the revenue for your business. And if you zero in on those top 20%, understand their profile and then ask them some targeted questions to understand what they would most like from you and what you could be delivering to them that you're not, that becomes a way that you can add value, generate more revenue in the business. Because the beauty of the profit first system is it's a percentage system. So if we can't find more expenses to cut after the first two quarters, but we implement revenue growth strategies and hold your expenses the same while we grow the revenue. You will hit your target allocation percentages over the course of six weeks quarters.

You know, there's a. I don't know if it's really an analogy, but someone Told me this once, and I want to hear if it resonates with you and your thoughts around this doctor, is you can cut costs. I mean, theoretically, 100% every cost, every penny you spend, you can cut. I mean, it's going to damage your business at a certain point. But. But theoretically, you can cut every cost. But revenue, you can increase more than 100%, you can increase it 1,000% or 100,000%. So on revenue, there's no upper limit, but on cost, there is a bottom limit. And therefore, the bigger opportunities are with increasing margin, increasing revenue. What's your thoughts around that belief?

That's absolutely true. And the other thing that I learned from you, Mike, is that limits force creativity. So if we say, okay, we have cut all the expenses we can cut and we need to grow the revenue, and now we understand our top clients, how do we serve our top clients better and better without adding more cost in.

So it's funny you said you learned something from me. This is my new affirmation. Finally, I taught something to the doctor every morning.

He's never gonna let you live that day out.

I never will. I'll be. I finally taught the doctor something. I wonder if I become like a sub doctor just by teaching a doctor something.

Yeah, it definitely happens.

That does happen, right?

Instant certification.

So I'm a Dr. Ish.

Yeah, yeah.

Your apprentice.

Apprentice. Hi, Dr. Ish. So just call me Dr. Ish Mike. I'm Dr. Ish Mike. This is Dr. Sabrina. So, doctor. Okay, so what are other roadblocks or resistance you get as you go along? The implementation of profit first with your clients?

Well, let's go back to the advertising and cutting that, because that is a big one. A lot of times people have friends or family doing their social media for them. So it's hard to have an honest conversation with that person and say, hey, see the return on investment from what you're doing for me, I need to cut this for now. And so when we use the pumpkin plan and we come back and they have pumpkin planned their business, and now they have a very targeted profile of what they're going to do with their social media and the type of people that they're going to be targeting on social media, then it becomes a much better investment of their advertising dollars to be doing that.

Okay, so I understand that as you start rolling out profit first with your clients, maybe get into the first. I assume the first month is the easy month. There's excitement about making their business more profitable. It's easy to make those first Cut in costs. But they assume once you start getting into the system, it becomes a little harder. Now you're in the marathon, do you see people kind of slipping back and saying, this is too hard? Or how do you stick with it?

So the cash flow crisis is what derails profit first. So after those first few months, you're doing it, you're setting your profit aside. But maybe it's a seasonal business. So you hit a couple of slow months, and then the temptation is to just stop allocating to the profit accounts because there's very little cash coming into the business. And we always say, well, we'll get back to it when there's more cash coming into the business. But profit first is a habit. Above and beyond anything else, it is a habit. So we have to keep those good habits in place. So one of the things that I encourage clients to do is if they're going through a real cycle slump and the cash is just drying up, then keep your allocations going, but just lower the allocation percentages temporarily.

Okay. And do. Do you. So I understand that. So say, for example, I was allocating 3% of profit, and next quarter the prescriptions go from 3 to 5%. But I'm feeling a crash crunch. You may say, don't, let's not go to five, let's go to four, or.

Pull back to two.

Okay. I was gonna ask you next. Do you ever pull back?

Yeah, it's okay to pull back. It is okay to pull back. I am much more concerned about keeping your habit in place than you stopping the habit. We're very unlikely to resume the habit once we get derailed.

That's so true.

We tell ourselves, oh, that profit first system, it didn't work.

Interesting. So I have a total side story I gotta share because it kind of involves you, Dr. Sabrina. Yeah. So I.

Is this a real story for.

True story.

Real one. Okay.

So you know the five love languages I've talked about?

Yes.

So I'm not physical touch, but I've gotten this discipline when greeting women. Even in the business environment, it's normal to do like, a hug. It's always like to hug. And then like, one woman gave me a kiss on the cheek. I'm like, oh, is it a hug and a kiss? And so I don't know what to do. So I moved to the level of like a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek. And some women are like, it's a. Well, wait a minute. So I asked my wife, I said, what's the right thing? She just goes Just a hug forever. Like, never more than that.

Yeah.

Now I'm trying to unwind it, and sometimes I'm so like, oh, yeah, the kiss on the chicken. I don't want to. I don't even want to hug anyone. Let's, like, kind of wave at each other.

Yeah.

Let's do a fist of five where you kind of do a high five. And it's like. But it's interesting. Once you have a habit in place, even if it's something I don't like to do, it's so hard to stop. And why didn't you guys tell me earlier? You're like, I've never kissed anyone.

Like, why didn't you guys feel the same conundrum? I come from a family where we always kiss on the cheek. And so then when you go out into the real world and you're mingling with other people, I don't know what's appropriate. And I know. I just sort of gauge the other person.

Yeah, you have to read what the other person is saying.

If I can tell they're kind of like, standing, let them initiate.

But the guy. Doc, like, you're Doc. You're not a hugger. I know it.

I'm so relieved. We can do fists to five from now on, Mike.

Oh, I'll do. I'll shake your hand, like, you know, across, like, a steel wall, like, between us. So I don't want you to think I'm creepy. Like, when I see you and hug you, like, lick the side of your cheek. It's not because. No, I'm just saying that's because I was told to do that. I don't like to do that.

Okay.

I'm glad we clarified that will never happen again.

Never happen again. I feel way more comfortable with you.

Okay, Good deal.

Only with you, though.

Only with you. Everyone else having to lick up the side of their pants. So here's the question. Once habits, even bizarre habits like that, are hard to break. Someone's never been allocating money to a profit. The second something goes wrong, like, you know, I'm not be able to pay my bills, it's like, isn't the feeling the whole system is bunk. This doesn't work. I need to do something new.

Right, Exactly. So we throw the baby out with the bathwater and, you know, to think about when we're working out and we're building a habit of going to the gym. The time when we are most vulnerable from losing that good gym habit. Like, if we've been going three times a week, we Take a vacation and we come back and some reason we just never go back to the gym again. And then two months later we're saying, why did I stop that I felt so good when I was going to the gym. And so new habits are very vulnerable to being lost. And this is where we do a lot at tap the potential to help our clients keep their new habits going. We have mastermind groups and accountability, peer accountability. They're checking in, they're sending in their banks statements to me every month. So I can see that they're still making their contribution. And that's something new that we just implemented this year, because last year we had a couple of clients who just stopped doing profit first and felt so much shame about it. They didn't want to tell me. And that hurt my heart because I'm here to help and I can't help if I don't know. So those new habits, we just have to recognize we are human and we need a lot of help and support to implement these things that are good for us.

Even something is perceivably so simple. I mean, it's just. It's quote, unquote, just open accounts, just transfer. It's not so easy. Doc, what about that shame moment? We've had that with people that all of a sudden you just don't hear.

From them again, fall off the grid.

And you think they hate you, but they're embarrassed.

Yeah.

Someone that's coaching them. Because you coach a lot of people like me who's just perpetually embarrassed. How do you know?

Well, when you lick people's face, I.

Know he's told to do it. Yeah. So now I'm embarrassed. Like, I can never talk to you again after the face licking. What do I do? Like, how do I. How do you coach me through this?

That's why I'm here on this Profit first podcast. I'm putting an end to profit shame. So no more profit shaming. It happens to the best of us. And what we have to do is just acknowledge it and we're gonna figure out a plan to get back on track and that's it.

And does it help to know that others are going through it? How do I get rid of that?

Exactly. Exactly. I want you to know I work with tons of business owners. So many of them go through it that are there in that business, that that business owner has had. Have been in place sometimes for years. And now we're trying to replace a new habit. And so if you think about, like, some of us on this call, will Remember the record players and the records that would get grooves in them because they would. We would just play them.

These two won't. I totally know what you're talking about.

I have a record player.

I have a record player. You mean records.

I do. From my dad and my stepdad.

Okay. All right. You're a win.

So's there chicken dinner?

She wins. So tell us about the groove.

So you know, like, Mike, when you played your Grease album over and over and Sandra Dee, and you just listened to that and you're.

The tear would be coming down my John Travolta poster next to me.

Your needle would slip into that groove.

Yep.

That's what's going on. When we have old habits in place, we slip back into those grooves and we need a little help. We have to pick that needle up and put it back on track.

This may be a silly question, but I'm just listening to your verbiage. Is it more appealing for the business owner or the customer to hear habit versus lifestyle change? Does that ever play? Because I feel like in my mind, if I'm overwhelmed and I'm thinking about this, it may be easier to put on or to welcome a new habit versus, like, oh, my God, I have to change my entire life. Do you ever run into that?

Absolutely. A lifestyle change is very overwhelming. But if you just tell me, hey, Sabrina, you need to drink one more glass of water a day, that's doable, I can do that. But if you tell me I have to stop eating gluten and no more sugar and yeah, by the way, you need to be drinking 15 glasses of water a day and whatever and go to the gym. Totally overwhelming. So we're all about small. Small steps taken in a consistent direction lead to big results over time.

You know, one thing I noticed, too, with fitness, I think a lot of physical fitness translates to fiscal fitness is I used to be intimidated by. I. Now I call it kind of a flash in a plant pan. Like, I'd be working out with some consistency, and someone say, oh, I started this new regimen, and I'm. They're doing all this insane stuff. I'm like, oh, I'm so inadequate. But many cases, doc, they were starting maybe two, three weeks ago. So there's that initial exuberance, and then they'd fade away and not do it. But I was being persuaded, saying, oh, my God, I'm not doing enough, even though I was in the routine. Do you see that? You hear these stories of other businesses that, you know, they've implemented their own version of profit first or they've done something and they're hitting it for two or three weeks. And the people that are the stalwarts and kind of sticking with it on a more consistent marathon type basis, do they get intimidated?

Well, yeah, because we do. We have in at tap the potential. We have some big success stories that we share, some massive results that our clients have gotten with Profit first. And that those are. Those are powerful. They come from consistency, consistent implementation. And so, you know, we. The overnight success story. You have to realize that those people who have those big success stories, they've been doing this for a while and they've built up to that.

Yeah.

So it is.

Or they were just lucky.

Persistence with the process.

And I think that they may have done it for a long time. Then you hear their story. Maybe they were just lucky in the beginning, but the question is, where are they going to be two years from now, three years from now? Sometimes I think those early successes, when you have a big win in the beginning works against you because you think.

It'S easy or you expect that you should have continual big successes, like every quarter, you should have a huge windfall out of that profit account. And that's not always the case. But it doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. It just means that you need to stick with it over time.

Okay, so another thing with profit is it's pretty tempting to borrow that money, right? I'm allocating a percentage of money. I'm slowly building into this. Have you ever seen your clients borrow from the profit account when they shouldn't? And if so, what do you do to protect that?

You know, that happens. What's more interesting is clients who say, I'm running short on money and I'm going to go take out a loan while they have money built up in their profit account. And so one thing we tend to forget is that profit reserve is there to help us get through rainy days. But we have to have criteria for when we're going to use it for that purpose and not just say, oh, cash is tight, so let me pull the money out of my profit account. There needs to be.

What would you suggest in some of the criteria that you've seen?

Well, I suggest you think through the criteria before you get into the situation and do it with a neutral party. Coach is great, but somebody who's not involved in your business and somebody who's not a family member. So that's kind of hard to find. But so some criteria to consider are, is this A short term cash flow problem. Are you putting systems in place to prevent it in the future? What are you doing right now to prevent this from happening in the future? If you don't have an answer for that, you probably shouldn't be borrowing from the profit account to cover it.

Why do I want to use a neutral third party?

Family members have investment in you taking money out of that profit account. Employees have investment. People who have a vested interest in whatever way, whether it's emotionally or financially, are not the best to help you make that decision.

Okay. So yeah, I can see the emotional detachment working that someone's not being influenced because they're not feeling the pressure of the money.

Yeah. So an example is a client who had a massive project and there were some delays in payment coming through and that was causing a major cash flow crisis to the business. Borrowing from the profit account happened in that instance with a clear plan that that was work that client would not take on in the future because of what it did to the business. It was outside of their sweet spot. And so a decision was made. Hey, this was a learning moment. We're not going to do this again. And to get through, we're going to use the money from the profit account and then repay it to ourselves like a loan. So rather than taking out a bank loan using the profit account, and that's the other thing, is having a clear plan. Plan for how that money is going to get paid back.

I gotcha. So you've helped so many businesses get profit first implemented in their companies. When's the right time to do it with a business?

Today.

Well played, doctor. Well played.

If you're a startup, do it now. If you've been in business 30 years, do it now. There's no excuse. Just do it.

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. I actually, I have a recording of you. Well, we'll play in a minute. This is when I first called Dr. Sabrina and had a question. I'll play what she said to me. But. But doc, there's a million reasons not to do it now. Like I, I don't, you know, my business is struggling this week or I just heard about it. I don't know everything. I got to read the book through it and I got to hire a professional to do it. I mean, there's a million reasons not to do it. Am I compromising myself by waiting?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Because this is just about starting a habit and it's the small step forward. So maybe that first small step is opening the first bank account that you're Going to call your profit account and make a 1% transfer of the revenue that comes in today. That's a baby step. So if the big steps are overwhelming, just do the baby step. Because six months from now when you don't have profit first in place, you're going to say, wow, I wish I would have done that six months ago. I'd have profit.

Right? How many people look back with regrets saying, I wish I did, I could have done, as opposed to just doing it?

Yeah, we have, we have people on our mailing list because I'm constantly emailing helpful information out and they've been hearing about profit first for two and a half, three years. And they keep saying, yeah, I'm interested. I want to do this someday. And there is no someday. It's like now. If you would have done this two and a half years ago, just imagine where you'd be right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any final thoughts you got for our audience before we got a rock and roll?

Yeah. Listen to Mike.

Oh, my God, you're awesome. Then. Well, okay, we'll leave it at that because I think that's a perfect final thought. Where can people get more information about you?

The best place to go is howtohirethebest.com. that's where you can get access to my masterclass on quickly doubling your profit with top performing employees. If you need to hire now, if you're going to be hiring in the future, the masterclass will be very helpful to you. And if you want to have a profitable business, you need to have employees who are great employees to help you be profitable.

That ain't no lie. And I can attest we have used your process, Dr. Sabrina. It does work. I can't announce who the employee is. We did a reverse recruit. We're in a more populated area. We pulled someone out of a very rural area who is extraordinarily top talent. And we got her on board using Dr. Sabrina's techniques. So it works. We are thrilled. And then we'll give a report back in six months after this individual is working with us for a while. Tell you how well we anticipate it to go. And just so everyone knows. So Dr. Sabrina, I was talking to her and I had a little struggle in my business about hiring someone. I said, you know, I don't know if I should do this. I talked about it for a few days and then here's the call I had with Dr. Sabrina. I said, doc, should I make this higher? Do it. Just do it. Very manly. Yesterday you said, tomorrow so just do it. Make your dreams come true. Nothing is impossible. No. What are you waiting for? Do it. Just do it. Yes, you can. That was my call. Dr. Sabrina, when she gets angry, her voice, the Internet, it just.

Magic gives quite an impression.

That's after my first cup of coffee in the morning. Just.

I know it was a bullet. Let it be known it was a bullet. All right, Doc, thanks again for joining us.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, we got some business take care of in studio here. We're gonna share what we learned today from the Doc herself and some other fun stuff. But first, I do want to thank our corporate partners. Christina, would you punch me right in the face? All right, who's our corporate partners who we forgot to mention at the start?

I know we're out of whack. Today we have Fundera.

I love them. Yeah, Fundbox. Oh, yeah. I should talk about each one. So, yeah, you're like, let's talk, Mike. Fill the air. Fill the air. So Fundera, you know what Fundera does? One stop shop for loans. One stop shop for loans. Now, Dr. Sabrina said you don't need a loan to bridge your business if you have a profit account. But sometimes you can make an investment, a critical investment that will bring in more profitability. That's usually a good opportunity for a loan. What Fundera does is you. You go on their website, F U N D E R A, type in what you need, and they shop the loans for you.

Perfect. What does nextiva do?

Voiceover IP phone system. The best ever. And we're getting a new one again. Another phone. One downside, I'm a robot. Every single call you make, your voice sounds like this. And that's the problem. But they're working on it. Not true at all. No. Their Voice over @ pphone system is amazing.

Yeah, it is amazing.

Yeah. Let's see who else.

Receipt, bank Receipt, bank. They've got $50 million.

That's amazing.

That's a big loan. Through Fundera. Through Fundera.

Supposedly not true.

Yeah, you gotta be my talking. Did I? Aren't you my talking guard? Yeah, don't let me say stuff like that.

I told you I couldn't read your mind yet.

Yeah, well, don't shake your head, just punch me, okay? When I start saying something, just go, okay, you just shake your head because.

That'Ll come out better at the other end.

Yeah, it's true. It won't. It won't. But the fact you just kind of roll your eyes back. No, no, no. I need more Something more visceral, but so receipt. Bank. Thanks. Language. Guard. Did not get a loan through Fundera. That was a misnomer. Something reported the news incorrectly. They did get a loan.

False news.

False news. False news from somewhere. They raised $50 million because their software is that impactful. And they're now scaling it out on a much greater level. What does it do? It scans in those receipts, those box of receipts, scans it and ties it with your accounting system. Cool.

Oh, Fundbox.

Fundbox. Who is going to be at ProfitCon this year?

Yay.

Yeah, Joanna's coming. Okay. They're amazing. They are a cash flow accelerator. There are times where your business needs money. Not tomorrow, but it needs it today. They release the funds to you. If you have any invoices due to you that you're waiting on, they'll give you all the funds today. It's great to bridge any of those situations where you need money. Okay, now you're nodding. Yes, you can say that.

We're all a bunch of bobbleheads right now.

All right, all right. Now I need to.

So what'd you learn today?

You want to go first, Kels?

Yeah, sure. I guess it kind of hit me hard when she said, when you have to cut, you know, first quarter, looking at your expenses, what do you need to cut? And one of the biggest one is payroll and warm bodies. And the idea of it, you know, makes my heart hurt. Or maybe it's just anxiety, but, you know, it's just. It's hard. It's hard, but it's huge. And we've had this discussion in our member forum, you know, as some of our members have let folks go. And it is.

It's.

Do you value that one employee over all of your customers or clients and how it impacts their lives and their businesses?

You know, brutally hard.

It is, but.

And I also argue that sometimes it's in the best interest of an employee to be let go.

Yeah.

Because it's not fit for them.

Absolutely.

So I had to. This was the worst day of my life, professionally. My second company, we just hit the. We were cruising, right? And we set the expectation that every day, as Dr. Spring was alluding to, we thought every day be bigger. We kind of fell into it. And then that month came. It was a two year or a year run of just explosive growth. And then we just hit the wall. We had 30 employees and we couldn't cover payroll. I had to let go of 15 employees. Oh. My partner decided not to show that. So I was on my own. And I remember I just cry. I cried from 8 in the morning till 8 o' clock at night. Just bring a person in, say I. Yeah. And it's not their fault, it's my fault. But here's a miraculous thing. About six months later, I was just so curious on what happened to everyone. Six months later, eight months later, I went person by person. Every person landed a better job. Is fulfilling something in their life they want to do. One woman, when she wanted to always take a sailboat around the world, she did it.

Did it.

She went, everyone landed better. And today I can attest, I think every single employee's person is making more money in their new employment jobs and enjoying life fuller. So I'm not saying it makes it easier with when that day comes, but there is an upside sometimes.

Yeah. Yeah.

What about you? What'd you learn today?

I got two little heart flutters.

It was a heart flutterer today.

Well, no. Well, kind of alluding to what Kelsey was saying, that limits forced creativity. You really, when you have to cut things so much, it forces you to look outside of the box and really reevaluate yourself.

Who came up with that? Where did she learn that from?

I know it was from Mike.

I love it. That was good. Thanks. Language guard. LG yes.

Well, no, she re brought it to our attention, which that got me. And also, you know, cash flow. The cash flow crisis derails profit first. And it's the temptation of stepping away from it. And instead of giving into that temptation, you just gotta just scale it back. But keep the habit in place. And that goes for everything.

Yeah.

Yep. That was my biggest takeaway. The baby with the bathwater. Just cause you hit a road bump, don't throw out the entire system. That's part of the process. The second thing for me was you're not alone. I think so many of us think we're alone.

Yeah.

You know, we've done what, a hundred and a billion episodes by now?

Yeah, close to a billion.

About a billion.

A billion.

But we've had people come on and share their stories like. Like a real struggles. Remember Clay?

Yes.

Who like couldn't get Christmas gifts and stuff for his family for years. I mean, like, we're not alone.

Right.

And so that was the big one to me, that when you go through the process of trying to improve profitability and maybe you're embarrassed or ashamed of your past, don't be like everyone's been there.

One thing.

Yeah.

Profit first, professional.

Oh my God, Christina. Yeah, that's right. So there's two things. First of all, I want you remember to leave us a rating or review on the podcast. Don't forget to do that. Wherever you listen to us. We want to get your honest feedback, help us improve the show. What else do you want to hear? Or. Or if you love the show, which I hope you do, post that too and visit profitfirstprofessionals.com we are 170 members strong and we are real numbers. These are real numbers.

This is the real for real.

But we need more. There's more people demanding profit first than we do. Profit first professionals. That's our issue. Your issue is to hire profit first professional. We've found 170 of the best and we're looking for more. But. But when you have a challenge with profitability, Dr. Sabrina Starling is a profit first professional.

Yeah.

You can engage her through us. There's countless others out there. So here's what you gotta do. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com Step 1. Step 2, click on the find button, fill out the form, what your challenge is with profitability, what business you're in, so we can match you up with the best person. Oh, some people say, hey, can I find someone in, like I'm in Topeka, Kansas, can I find someone in town? No, you don't necessarily have someone that's really good in Topeka. That's the whole issue. If there was someone good, you'd already know them. They'd be your neighbor. We will find someone who specializes in your industry and the specific needs you have. They may be in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or where Dr. Sabrina is, on the bayou in Louisiana. But they are skilled in addressing your needs. They connect virtually, they drive you through, increase your profitability. So do that prophecy. Professionals.com. click on find and we'll do the rest.

Thank you.

All right, now we can get out of here. See you guys later. Bye. It.