Episode 190: Profit and Membership Organizations with Michelle Villalobos

Starting any company is not all sunshine and roses and puppy dogs. Sugar. Trying to think else of some other beautiful things. But you know what I'm talking about. It's not all easy. Well, Michelle Villalobos explains how to launch a membership organization. And sure enough, her experience was not all sunshine and puppy dogs and sugar and all those things, but she will tell you how to make it better, how to improve things, how to have your best launch, how to be a rock star. In this best of episode, we talk with my best friend, Michelle Villalobos, and how you can have a rock star launch for your business. And if your business already exists, how you can improve things pretty radically, pretty fast. Enjoy. Let's dial into our show from 1990. Oh, I think we have a good connection.

My favorite part.

Yeah, that's my favorite part of the cause. You know you're on. All right. I think we got a good connection, everybody. Yep. Definitely sounds like a good connection.

Keeping it modern. You are listening to the profit first podcast.

You've tuned not to 1997, but you tuned in to episode 75.

75.

Gosh.

Welcome.

Welcome to the Andrew Dice Clay show. Oh, wait.

Oh. Oh, boy blue. He needed the money.

Welcome, everyone. Profit first podcast. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first. I'm joined in studio by my colleague, my friend, who's in love, Christina Paul.

Hi.

With the show. She loves the show.

That's my note. Christina, can you do as good.

Do you want to. You want to give us a note? All right here. She's that great. It's beautiful.

I tell you, I liked yours better.

Your voice is incredible.

Thank you.

Absolutely beautiful. Well, you podcast listener, you're not listening to some zany show. Well, maybe you are. You're listening to the profit first podcast, the only show where we exploit all aspects of profitability. And today's show will be no different.

That's right. Business is awesome. Revenue's awesome. Making sales is awesome. But at the end of the day, week or month or day or year or life, it's the profit that matters.

I was gonna use.

Where is this rhyme?

I thought. Yeah, I thought the rhyme word was weak, and I just didn't go. If you make profit, you aren't meek.

Ah, next time, I gotta keep you.

People on your toes here. Come on. All right, so you can find our show on itunes and stitcher and tunein radio, and guess what? The website you've probably been there Profit First Podcast dot com. You've probably browsed the manifold episodes of the Profit first podcast. The Gaggle. The what is in. In Three Amigos? The plethora.

The plethora. What's this word? Plethora. Plethora. What's plathra? Nothing. El guapo.

El wapo something.

Elapo. Well, guess what we're talking about today, Chris? We are talking about. Sorry, no. Today's episode we're talking with Michelle Villalobos and we're going to be talking about her implementation of Profit first into a membership organization. So if you have a membership organization or if you have any organization that has clients, I think this is going to be very interesting to you. But Chris First, I got to know, man, what you've been up to.

My breath, you know, I'm going to. Or I guess by the time this airs, I will have gone to PodFest in Tampa, Florida. It's like a little mini podcast convention and I'm actually going to be speaking there and I'm going to have a booth there as well. So that'll be fun. Or it was fun.

Right? Right. I heard it was excellent. I heard your. Your presentation rocked. You know, and one thing we were talking about off the air, we should, Chris, get. Really, we should do an episode around you. You know, we started doing the Profit first podcast 75 episodes ago. Chris's business is exploding, I mean literally exploding, since the implementation of Profit first and applying some other things that we've been discussing off air. So I think, Chris, if you're up for it, we should discuss kind of what's going on in your life in more zoom.

Spotlight.

Yeah, there you go. Hot seat.

Dude, you know, you know, I've been up to.

What have you been up to?

Dude, I got slammed.

Fired up.

Yeah, I got slammed. I got a review on Profit first that is the most aggressive. This person is just purely disappointed in my own existence.

Really?

Yeah. If you want, cue the music, I'll read it. Read part of it to you. Yikes. Probably illegal. That's the name of this. Of this review. Okay. The author clearly does not understand the laws of capitalism or legality in general, I'm afraid. And his half witted idea could land someone in prison if they're not careful. His idea with this book, Profit first, is that no matter how poorly the job is performing, no matter how much the costs are overrunning the estimated, you still take your profit first. Except until profit is generated, there is no profit to take. Taking dollars out of a business that are pledged for producing your product or service. Taking for personal use is called conversion, and under many circumstances is an absolute felony, perhaps even of the first degree. This is akin to the remodeling contractor selling a couple of kitchen replacements, but then using people's down payments to buy a new shiny bass boat, then being unable to pay the lumber yard for your cabinets. It's a big no, no. That's the way it's presented by this guy. Michalo Shmielewitz is one very. He is on very thin ice and taking you along for the plunge. So spend your money more prudently, perhaps on micro econ 101 instead of this or horrid book. Thank you. And that's my reading of the disdain this person has for me. My one comment and response is, clearly, he's not read the book. My next book is called. It's called stealing 101 and it's, you know, destroying your clients bank accounts while making yourself rich. I co authored it with Bernie Sanders.

Oh, and Bernie Madoff, you mean.

Yeah, me and Bernie Sanders. No, Bernie Madoff. I meant I pictured Bernie Madoff in my mind, but I still said Bernie Sanders. Oh, that's horrible. Maybe this guy's right. I am. It's a just a traveling. You're a noodle, noodle. I'm just a cluster mess. So that's funny. I think it's funny to read the disdain some people have.

It's interesting. Yeah, people have their own. You see, he didn't read the book. Or she.

No, he definitely didn't read the book. Yeah, he definitely didn't read the book. The concept is actually what's called. It's a behavioral principle called Parkinson's law. And the concept is that when you allocate money and the words allocate. It's not the words he chose. When you allocate money toward profit, first, it forces you to reverse engineer your profitability to deliver to your clients exceptionally well on a reduced amount of expenses, therefore building a consistent profitability plan. So didn't I assume. Didn't read the book? If he did, maybe he read it like, backwards, kind of. Ever play like an album backwards? Like I played Queens and they're one bites of dust backwards. It says always like crazy things. Yeah, always crazy things. Maybe he read the book backwards.

Barry, did you read Mike's book?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It gives him the giggles. All right, well, we want to welcome our guests for the day in a second. First, I want to thank our sponsors who make this show possible. The. The disdain from that. That one individual is. He's not a sponsor, by the way, but I thought he was initially. I want to thank tsheets, which is time tracking software. I want to thank nextiva, which is a voiceover IP phone system. Fundbox, which is invoice financing, and Fundera, which is one stop loan shopping, for making the show and all of our shows possible. We are honored and privileged to have you as our sponsors. Yep.

Thank you, guys.

And at the end of the show, we're going to share a few more insights on them. Now, with no further ado, I want to welcome our guest. You know, in this day and age, few skills are more important than strategically and artfully positioning ourselves in a way that gets us noticed by the right people and for the right reasons. And that's why Michelle Villalobos is with us. That's what her organization does. So. And she has quite a few other things, too. But with no further ado, it's my privilege to invite my friend and consummate entrepreneur, Michelle Villalobos to the show. Welcome.

Hey, Mike. Thanks for having me.

How are you?

I'm awesome, thank you.

So, you know, we just prior to this recording, we ran into each other yesterday in Fort Lauderdale. And Michelle was. I see Michelle, we walk up to each other, we kind of bump into each other. She goes, hey, Mike. I go, hey, back up. And she's like, what are you doing? I said, no, no, really? Back up. And through a crowd, a sea of people. I made her and I do a slow motion run toward each other, embracing, hug and spin. And people were like, what the hell's going?

Like dirty dancing. When he lifts baby up and does the. Except he didn't.

I was spinning Michelle around. It was hysterical. It was great to see you.

Yeah, it was fun. I enjoy it. Always seeing you.

So, Michelle, just so our folks that aren't familiar with your organization, just give us some details, exactly what you do.

All right, so I have a mentoring practice. What I do is I work with women entrepreneurs, particularly the ones who want to do what I've done. So who want to create a coaching practice or a speaking business that will allow them to share their expertise and their value with the world, spread a message. Something that's purpose driven and impact driven. And so I have about 38 clients, annual clients. And then I also do two big events a year, and that's how I fill my practice. And then I also do small retreats and things like that for people who are thinking about working with me but not really ready for the full Year commitment.

And what I want to do is go over your history, because I think a lot of folks listening to this show are turned onto this concept of building a mastermind around their area of expertise. Doing events like this. I know it hasn't always been easy, so maybe we can dig in. Kind of the dirty mess of a start and some of the challenges you faced. How did you get into this, and how did the journey start?

Okay, so about almost nine years ago, I was working as the executive publisher of a fashion magazine based here in Miami called Ocean Drive Espanol. I had worked my way up, or rather clawed my way up to the top of that organization. I had started out as the, you know, the lowest person on the totem pole there. And seven years later, I was at the top. I was making a lot of money, and I was miserable. I was, you know, sick. I was tired. I was working long weeks. It's a very cutthroat business. And I had sort of a midlife crisis. And at the time I had gotten it, I had an mba, I had a really good education, and I was very kind of cocky and full of myself. And so I did what anybody would do in my shoes. I quit. And I said, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I started my business with zero clients. I thought that clients were going to come to me, that people would find out that I was available and that they could hire me as a consultant, and that people would just kind of knock down my door. And, of course, that didn't happen. And that was 2007, early 2007, which, as you can imagine, the timing on that wasn't great because then we had the, you know, the recession. And so I spent the first several years of my business just really struggling to figure out what I did, who I did it for, and how much, how to charge for it. So that took, you know, several years. It was in that journey that you and I first started, met Mike, and you became somewhat of a mentor to me back then. And it started to become clear to me that I wanted to work with women. And as I was starting to get some traction, what I realized was that what I loved to do was educate. I loved teaching. I loved training. I loved doing speaking and workshops. So I started to. I got certified in Myers Briggs in personality typing and testing and started doing these fun workshops on personality. And I started to generate some business. And as I did start to get traction, I also started to teach other women what I was doing to get business. And so, you know, that's where I kind of fell in love with speaking and training and coaching and mentoring. And then at one point, about two, three years ago, I kind of hit my stride. I was doing okay. I was making enough money to get by, and I was doing it consistently every year. Although there was a very. It wasn't very consistent month to month. So I might have a zero month and I might have a 20 or $30,000 month. So that was kind of stressful. And the reason was that I didn't really have a monthly retainer model or anything that was sort of monthly recurring revenue. So I realized that that was a problem. And that's when I decided to create this mastermind kind of concept and go from a one on, one to one off coaching model or consulting model into this more. What's the word? Consistent monthly recurring revenue model and changing to a group model as opposed to one on one coaching. And so that's what happened about two years ago.

Let's go over kind of the lessons learned in becoming more profitable. So when you got started, Michelle, it sounded like you left a company where you have very specific expertise and you decide to go on your own because it's so stressful. Did you decide, and maybe I heard this, but did you decide to do exactly the same thing you were doing for that corporation but now do it on a consultative level?

That would have been a really smart thing to do, probably. But no, you know, I resisted. So I could have, and I should have, probably. I was known in the market at the time for. I was kind of an expert in the field of the Hispanic market. I had built the last seven years I'd been building this magazine and the last three and a half of them. I was the publisher of it then. I had worked and created a name for myself as someone who knew a lot about the US Hispanic market, how to reach them, how to target them, you know, all that in an up. And specifically the upscale US Hispanic market. And that would have been a great niche, but I did not want to do it. I didn't want to be pigeonholed, and I didn't. I resisted that. And instead of embracing the niche that was naturally available to me, for better or for worse, I didn't.

Okay, so now you start the business. You're not getting clients. How long can you sustain? You got no income coming in. What do you do next? What did you do?

I basically blew through my savings and then luckily I did land a retainer with an Hispanic marketing agency. So I ultimately ended up taking it. Like, I went back that route. And I ended up. It was great because I ended up working on Frito Lay at a very high level. I worked with Grey Goose, Walt Disney World Resort. So I did some really cool work at that level. I mean, I worked with Al Carey. I think his name is Al Carey, CEO of Frito Lay. So, because that agency brought me in, thank goodness, right during that recession and all that stuff, that kind of kept me going and sustained me for a little while. And it was in that project that I got to stand up in front of the CEO of Frito Lay and all these kind of high power people and show what I knew about the Hispanic market strategy. And I realized that what I loved doing was educating people and having them have aha. Moments about something new. And that's where I kind of shifted into, I want to be a trainer, a speaker. That's when I kind of fell in love with it. But it took me a really long time to really go all out just to embrace it and call myself that and say, this is what I want, because I thought I wasn't good enough.

I'm hearing almost like there's two lessons here. One's obvious, one's kind of tucked away. The one lesson I'm hearing is, as you do the work, observe yourself almost from the outside to see. See what's working, what's not working, and what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy. Is that right?

Well, yeah. And the thing is that people. People can sometimes see your blind spots. Because the people that hired me told me, you know, you're so good at this. Because I did these workshops internally for their team. I did the workshops for Frito Lay. Like, I didn't get that. That was my gift. I thought that I was an analyzer. I thought I was a thinker. I thought I was a. And I am a strategist. But I didn't realize that. That I could perform, you know, that I. That I was a performer above all. Really?

Okay. But, yeah. So you discover that you're a performer. Some of that should be on. On the stage and can influence groups, which, by the way, I've seen her. Amazing. But the other thing. Here's the hidden potential lesson. And tell me this is a lesson you said, when I was out of money, that's when things turned. I burned through all my savings. I hear that over and over again.

Me too.

I personally lived that, too. It seems like when there's no money left is when things start working. In hindsight, what could or should you've done or what suggestions do you have for folks listening in so they don't get to that dire moment of no money?

Man, that's a great question, Mike. I don't know, because I know that what happens with me and probably most people is that we let things slide until they become a must. Unless you can maybe make something, make it a must before you run out of money. Like how, you know. Actually, you know what? I do know the answer because I do this with my clients. I show them, you know, I hold up the mirror and I show them what they're doing, that they're continuing to slide and that, you know, and you just ask, like, how long are you going to allow this to go on? What does this look like in a month, in three months, in 12 months, in five years? Like, how long are you going to allow this to happen? Who's suffering? Usually they're not the only ones suffering. You know, there's family, there's friends, colleagues. So, you know, that kind of inactivity or procrastination or resistance or whatever it is, blind spot, you know, if we can hold up a mirror to people. And that's why I'm such a believer in the work that we do. You know, I'm a mentor, and I believe that's the role of a great mentor, is to hold up that mirror and force a quicker, you know, like a quicker realization, a quicker outcome, you know, than one would have on our own. On his own. For example, with me, it took me, what, seven years to get where I started to where I was finally kind of sort of okay or doing well. That could have been speeded up dramatically had I had a mentor like me to hold up the mirror and to. And to, you know, to crack the whip.

Yeah, no, I agree that cross accountability is huge. You know, I have another feeling. I think so many people and Michelle, tell me if you feel the same way, confuse the Runway with the parachute. I think most of us take our money and we look at it and say, I want to start my own thing. I'm going all in. And we use that money fully for the Runway. We go all the way, burn through that money. But really, I think we should distinguish it. A Runway is the amount of space you give yourself to get the new venture going. And the parachute is when a calamity hits, disease or something that. That can stop you in the dime, and everything falls apart. And my thought and suggestion for people that are doing this are listening in now, say, you got 10,000 bucks to your name or something. Determine what portions of Runway, maybe 2 or 3,000. And the other one is parachute. And you have no access to that. You give it to a friend. Well, you don't give it to a friend. That's a bad. You put it into an account where you have to get dual signatures, you and a friend, to get the money out, and that's your parachute for calamity. And now you have a shorter Runway. What about something like that, Michelle?

Well, you know, I absolutely agree with that. And the part that's missing, I think, is the plane. People forget that they need something to put them in the air. And that's what I resisted for so long, and that's what so many of my clients resist, is sales. They don't want to sell. They don't want to make calls. They don't want to network. They don't. They just. People don't want to sell. And it's the number one most important thing that your business needs to take off.

Exactly is that core concept. Now you start. You start finding it, you start discovering it. You like to be on stage. And how did you now make this transition to putting yourself as a thought leader, an influencer, someone speaking from the stage?

Well, I basically, you know, I was waiting to be discovered. My fantasy was, like, when I was a little kid, I used to watch Star search with Ed McMahon, you know, that show?

I love that show. I'd love that show.

And I would fantasize that that was me, you know, and I was going to get discovered. And I waited and waited, and Ed McMahon never showed up. And so I finally.

Well, he's dead. Just so you know, so.

Oh, I didn't know.

Jeez.

Yeah, he passed away.

No wonder he didn't come. I. I decided to discover myself. You know, I decided if people weren't going to put me on stage, you know, enough. I went and I just created my own stage. So I created the Women's Success Summit. And what's really interesting about that, Mike, you met me at my fourth Women's Success Summit, or my fifth, actually, was my fifth. But the first two summits I created, I didn't even speak at my own event because I didn't think I had anything to say.

How did. So now, the most recent one that I attended, you are this the speaker? You. I mean, you have other guests come up, but you open and close. You are so dynamic. You're so captivating. How do you make that transition from. From not having that confidence in yourself to someone that exudes confidence?

There's a lot of stuff that went down there. I mean, number one, I started to surround myself with people who saw me for who I really was and who encouraged me and lifted me up and pushed me. Jessica Gizzoric was one of those people who, you know, in the past, I had let myself sort of be the person that other. That certain people maybe saw me as. And I love my parents, for example, but my parents saw me as a little girl who, you know, wanted to play the flute and then quit the flute and then wanted to play soccer and then quit soccer. Like, they didn't see me as this, as the person that I. That I could be. They saw me as a little girl they knew. Right. And so I had used to run to my parents with all my ideas and my. What I wanted to do, and that was stupid. They're not the people that were going to pull me forward into this grander, greater version of myself. I mean, they're wonderful people, but that's just not who they are. And so I started surrounding myself with people who did see me as much bigger and who did see my. Like you, Mike, you're one of those people. And so, you know, surrounding yourself with people like that sort of has this ability to call you forward. I also started to do a lot more personal development. You know, I started doing. I did landmark education. I did, you know, all sorts, whatever I could do, get my hands on. I read it, I did it, you know, and I started to just see a much bigger possibility for myself and really started to operate from a place of vision rather than a place of circumstance. So, meaning what do I really want for myself? What do I. What can I create? How committed am I to creating that versus here's where I am today. This is what my bank account says. This is what is possible. Right? So living from a new place, future oriented place, you know, called me forth as well. And then also just, you know, getting practice, like getting up in smaller groups and then wanting bigger groups and delivering value and getting feedback from people and making changes and being open to suggestions, all of that. It was a lot of work.

I love that term future self. I've actually never heard that before that you were living a future self, you know, and one thing you did too, and I remember you saying this on stage. You invited me down to present. I present on profit first, which was. It was an off day for me. That was just a bad day in general.

You were amazing. What are you talking about?

I just wanted you to say that. No, no, no. But at the end, I'll never forget this, you came up and you said, everyone, what Mike just shared with you is remarkable, and I know it because I'm living it. And you implemented profit first in your business. I know that's only one little piece of the massive growth you're experiencing now, but what has that played and how has profit first worked or failed you?

Well, it's more than a little piece. It is a piece. It's not the only piece, but it's more than a little piece because in the past there have been times where I've had growth and I've made money and I had nothing to show for it at the end of the day. And this could have very well been the same kind of thing. Basically, you know, we've. We grew about almost four times in one year. 400%. Right. So normally in the old Michelle, you know, I would have just blown through that money like I always have, like, oh, I've got money, let me go spend it all. And I tried, but because I was implementing profit first, some of that money was protected. You know, it was in these other accounts. And so we actually had money to pay. We have money to pay our taxes at the end of the year, which is amazing. And at the end of the day from the profit accounts, I had enough money in one year to put a down payment on a new house, Superstar retreat center in Colorado. So I just closed on that January 15th. I've never had enough money to do anything like that. And I've made money, but I've never held on to any of it.

Yeah, you were sharing, and maybe it's not perfect for the show, but when we were talking yesterday down in Florida, you were sharing some of the numbers. The, the, the volume of sales in a single day that you have now is mind boggling. Mind boggling. But I can see also along with these spikes of massive sales and then these valleys where you wait for the next kind of massive sales event, there must be peaks and valleys emotionally too.

Yes, very much so. True. I mean, yeah, I remember we did Superstar Speaking Academy last year and we brought in a bunch of new clients in this one three day event. And I was on a massive high. I felt like I was, I mean, on top of the world, euphoric. And then literally two days later, it was like this crash of like, how the hell am I going to handle all this? And then the six months, eight months after that of trying of, you know, of executing and operationally gearing up and stabilizing in order to handle that massive growth was one of the Biggest challenges I've ever faced in my business. And also one of the most wonderful. At the end of the day, one of the things that has caused me to grow the most, like what I've learned and maybe, you know, I think most people in our industry or anywhere who experience success and failure, you know that the failure is the slingshot. Right? It's the thing that you go down like in a roller coaster, and then it's the thing that gives you the momentum to get back up. And so I'm so glad we went through it because it's been massive learning for me and for my team and for the women that I serve. So one of the things I do is I'm really transparent. Transparent about where I am and my wins and losses. So, you know, I bring them along the journey, I share with them what we're doing. Usually once I have some perspective on it. Right. To share it. But so that's been really great because I've been able to transmit a lot of that learning to them to help them make the transformation a lot faster than I did.

I find, you know, those deep dives, those dark struggles, ultimately are the slingshot. But in the moment, man, they're so painful. You just, you don't want. You're grateful for them after the fact, but when it happens, like, what the hell? Why will God leave me alone? Michelle, believe it or not, we just blew through the. I know, I know. We blew through the clock here. Yeah. I swear to God, I thought we.

Were like five minutes in.

I know. I could talk to you for hours. And I was going, I tried to talk to you for hours yesterday, but you had a bolt out for a project. She landed yet another project. While we're there, Michelle, for the folks listening in who want to learn more about you and your wonderful organization, where can they go? What can they do?

Thank you. Well, I've got. We're just about to open up registrations for Superstar Speaking Academy for people who want to build a career, a business around speaking and mentoring people who want to position themselves as a. As a thought leader, as an expert. That's a three day event in June. That's what we're focusing on right now. You could also go to superstarspeakingacademy.com or you could just Google me, Michelle Villalobos. If you're a gringo, that's Michelle Villalobos. And you can Google me. And Google will know what you're looking for even if you misspell my name. But you can just register on my Website to get up to. And we do that. We do the women's success summit, and we do these superstar three day retreats where we help people come up with their superstar business model and business plan as well.

And I can't endorse Michelle any more than any gringo on this planet could.

Hey, Michelle, you know how Gary Vaynerchuk, he's now Gary V. You could be.

Michelle V. Yeah, I just love my name so much. I gotta tell you. I'm in. I'm embracing the Latina thing, you know, that was another thing I resisted for a long time.

No, totally embrace it. I embrace Michalowitz, the. I embrace the Polish or Ukrainian or whatever, But I think. Yeah, live with it. I know.

Makes you unique. Don't change it.

No, your name's beautiful. I would not. I would not do what Chris suggested, but.

I think Gary V. May have copied me back in the day because he. He sounds out his name phonetically. Or maybe I copied him. I don't know.

We do.

I think Mike Michalowicz does that.

I stole it from both of you too.

We all do it in the office.

Folks. Listening in. I can't endorse Michelle more. I think the speaking event should be called Speaking from the Heart. Speaking Authentically. I've never seen a speaker as effective as Michelle because she just puts it out there, honestly. And I think that's the world's best speakers do that. So definitely attend her event. Check out what she's got going on. Michelle, thanks for joining us today.

My. Thank you. Thank you all. I really enjoyed it, and it did go by so fast. Thank you.

Thanks, Michelle. Hope I didn't offend you with the Michelle V. Things.

No, not at all. It's hard to offend me. Thank you.

That's her code word for being offended. It's hard to offend.

You mean she could be the first guest to willfully block me on Twitter?

Oh, yeah, we got stories.

I brought it up again. She's gonna kill me. All right.

She's gonna kill you. She's Gabrielle Fontaine. Oh, did I say, oh, he's gonna kill you? I know, I know. She blocked.

We had, like, 10 emails back and forth with Gabrielle.

I.

She made me feel so bad, dude.

Well, because what happened was, it went from. It was an honest mistake. She blocked Chris. Chris goes, hey, are you blocking me? There's a little joke in there. She doesn't understand. There's a joke, there's an apology. There's an apology. Then it becomes like this. Like, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to offend. Like, everyone's so sorry. And I email them both. I'm like, you, Effers. You're both joking here. Can't you tell you're joking people. And then they. They reconciled and then it happened again. They went for a second loop around.

So you too, and you. Sensitive feeling.

The two most adorable people on the planet, like, fell into this. This vortex of. I'm sorry. All right, well, we got a lot of takeaways from the. Thank our corporate partners. Why don't you share their names? I'll share their details.

Nextiva.

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What about T sheets?

T sheets, Time tracking software. But you know what's cool, and I've mentioned some other ones, is it also has a GPS element, so you can dispatch a technician if you're in that kind of industry, to go on site. The second they arrive at a client site, it automatically triggers their arrival. When they depart, it shuts them off and you can see how long they're spending on site. So you can start doing job costing and then texting.

I use it like a text.

Yeah. Yeah, right. You can text in your time. You can correct stuff. Yeah, Christine, there's like text all the time. Fundbox and Fundbox. Fundbox is invoice financing. If you've invoices due to you and you're not getting the money as quickly as you need it, Fundbox will release the entire funds of the invoice to you. Then when you finally collect the funds from your client, you can just return to Fundbox. The nice thing is Fundbox doesn't start doing collection calls against your client. You collect the money like you normally do. It's perfect. Uh oh.

Uh oh.

You still there, Kris? Yeah. Okay, so fun box. I can't think.

Sorry.

Fun box. I can't say anything more about them. I love them. All right, let's talk about what we. Let's talk about what we learned today. Christina, why don't you go first?

I just got a big, giant pep talk from Michelle the whole time. Honestly, she Just emphasizes that it's important to get clarity in what you do in your business, why you do it and who you do it for, how much you should be charging for yourself, and to really monitor how you're doing everything. If you're. If you notice you're on a decline with your finances, nip it in the bud before it gets too bad. And if you're at the bottom, that's okay. But use it to light the fire under your ass to get back up there.

Yeah, I agree. You know, she is so smart, this woman, and she still fell victim to, I got a little money left. Maybe I can make it tomorrow. I got a little. Until she hit rock bottom. It's a common, common denominator. What I liked was the concept of future self. She started defining herself by what she was becoming and defined for herself and started living. To me, that's different than a fake it till you make it. I think that's inauthentic. I think she's defined who she was becoming. And then she took the step of surrounding herself with people that were already living that. That we're seeing that in her. And she started to believe it more and more for herself. Let's see, there's one other note I have here, too. Oh, make your own stage. This was my biggest highlight. She said she wanted to get on stage with, you know, the go to, say, Solid Gold. That's a different show altogether with Ed McMahon there. She want to be discovered, and she really realized she had to discover herself. And she did. And she made her own stage. And look at her now. Chris, what did you take away?

Yeah, and one of the biggest things she discovered about herself is that these two big events she does per year, that's her. That's her firepower. That's her rocket fuel. Right. And she sort of had to grow. I like how she grew in confidence over time. Like she said at her first events, she didn't even speak at them because she didn't think she had anything to offer. And I think just slowly, over time, she grew in confidence and. And also learned what her strengths were. Right. She said she's a performer. Right. She thought she was like a thinker and a strategist, which she kind of is. But performing and selling is. Is what she's great at. So I don't know. Like, I think a lot of businesses or entrepreneurs might think, oh, I could never do two events a year and do it really well. But it like, that might not even enter their mind. But you know what? Maybe that's a reality that could be real for a lot of businesses. Right, Mike?

Well, and she also said to listen to the people around you because they'll tell you what you're good at. If you're struggling to really figure out what. What it is that you're great at, they will tell you. Just listen.

That's true. That is true. You know, and you could hear in her voice, she is. And I know it personally, she's grown in confidence, but she hasn't grown in ego. And a lot of people that take the stage, my perception is they've grown in ego but not in confidence, and so their ego becomes bigger. But you hear about these, the most famous of famous people when they. They mingle with the common folk like us. They're really good people. And I think the most successful people don't grow in ego. They grow in confidence. And that's what Michelle's done, too. Chris, what else we got, bro?

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, just. I think that's it. We're ready to wrap up. I mean, you can find our show in itunes and stitcher and tunein radio and our website. This is the place to be. Profitfirstpodcast.com just go browse everything you can binge listen to our episodes like a maniac if that's your thing. And by the way, if you have any questions about podcasting, just ask me. Go to fractalrecording.com yeah, and if you.

Want to learn about Profit First Professionals, like, listen, Michelle's implemented profit first in her business. Why haven't you? And I would bet if we asked Michelle here, and I'm not trying to put words in her mouth, but if we rewound in time, I bet you she wish she implemented Profit first earlier because it. It puts that money aside and you don't touch it until it comes back out to you as a profit distribution, not as a saving desperation. Well, if you want to be profitable like you've never been before, it's one simple click, go to Profit first professionals dot com. I guess you got push enter and then click. Then click once on the find button and we will hook you up with an expert in your. In your vertical. They'll be an expert in your industry that will help guide you to the highest degrees of profit you've ever experienced.

It's so funny. Every business needs an accountant, right? And it's like Profit First Professionals is teaching and training accountants how to be like a profit advisor to entrepreneurs and business owners.

Right? Accountants and bookkeepers. I Hate to say they're a dime a dozen. There's so many out there, and there's some good ones and there's some bad ones, but most of them are good. But there's. There's another higher level, different level. It's called a profit advisor. Someone that can drive profitability in your business. Someone has expertise in that. And yeah, of course, they're great accountants and bookkeepers, but that's what you should expect. There's so much more. They're so different.

You don't realize how much money you are not earning until you implement.

Yeah, it's true.

I'm not even kidding.

It's true. Every story comes in. Personally, we have a wall dedicated to this now because we get so many. Another one this morning. I got announced it at the morning huddle tomorrow. You don't know how much money is waiting for you in your own business. So grab it now. Go to first professionals dot com. Click on find. We'll hook you up.

There you go. Be profitable. Everybody.

Peace out. Peace out. First we got next episode. Episode 76 is coming up. Guess is Jodi Podar. And we're going to be talking about. We're gonna be talking about the advice that CPAs are giving to their. Their entrepreneurial clientele on addressing taxes. It's that time of year right now. So she's going to give you all the insights that you should be hearing from your cpa. If they're a good one.

There you go. And we got to fade out the music before we go into that nasty death spiral of chords.

Yeah, let's get out of here.

All right. See you guys.

By.

Sam.