Episode 193: Freedom Through Profit First with Shane and Jocelyn Sams

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So what was I going to ask you guys? I had something really funny to talk about.

Are you sure?

You're so aggressive. So tell me what's happened to you? You used to be like the most gentle, kind person. Now you're like, she's been working with.

You to get warmed up.

Now you're warmed up.

She's been working with you.

Now you're comfortable.

You have to create that like net of safety. So I know I'll be okay.

I know the net of safety. Some people there's instant comfort. Like Ryan, I met that guy Ryan Lee. I told you within seconds, like busting his chops. Busting my chops. Other people. It takes years to feel safe. I still don't feel safe with my parents.

Yeah, no.

Well, I think that there are some relationships that there is established roles that you can't really go past.

Who? True.

I had to shave my father.

Oh yeah?

Yeah. So he was so weak after his. I don't even want to call it episode that he was. He's just laying in bed. So I shaved my father and that was a very weird transition. Like I don't know. I never shaved. First of all, I don't even know how to shave myself to then that explains my father. But my father is really is uncomfortable.

What did you come out of that experience with?

Even when. Here's a couple things that came out. Even when he was in a state of almost a near comatose, he could still twist his face like this so that I get to the nooks and crannies of shaving. Like he was still doing the facial shifts so I could shave him. Secondly, it wasn't as at first. It was weird the first like. And it's like, oh, it's my dad.

Like for him.

Yeah.

At the end it actually it woke him up. He's like, he was a little more like he just felt like refreshed. You take a shower and stuff.

Positive experience.

Yeah. End up being a very positive experience.

Yeah. I think I. When I'm in that role, I have to pretend like I'm not their family member. I'm like a healthcare professional.

Yeah, you do make that mind shift.

Yeah. I had to take care of my grandfather when he had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's when I was 9. And I used to come home from school and I used to. Yeah. And we didn't have money to put him in any type of rehab or anything, so I'd come home and he'd be in the living room and I'd have to move him to the bathroom and clean him up at 9 and. But I think that helped form me to be as matriarchal as I am.

Yeah, you've. That may be it. We're learning your story. Like two weeks ago we were talking about how you sacrifices you. Yeah, interesting. Very formal.

Digging deep, guys.

Digging deep with old man shaving and cleaning.

I know, it's horrible.

The visual is horrible.

Oh, man.

All right, let's do this.

You are listening to the Profit first podcast, episode 194. That's right, 190 foe.

What's this foe? It's the. I don't know where to go with that.

Welcome everyone to the Profit first podcast. I'm your co host, Christina Bow Duck.

And I'm your host, Mike Mallow. It's, you know, the author of, you know, the little book called Pre first and you know, brand new book Clockwork Clock Work available at. Presumably because we're recording this early, but presumably it's on Amazon for pre order right now. And it's. It's a cool book, I think. Yeah, you know, it's pretty cool. You know, it's pretty cool. And I'm joined in studio with Kelsey A.

Hey, everybody.

And you, my friends, you're listening to the Prop first podcast. This is a show of where, you know, where we explore, you know, profitability. And guess what, our guests today have made millions. And part of their plan in getting there was using Profit First. These folks are so successful with their business, they bought a house just to have another house to record podcasts at.

Awesome.

That's awesome.

And made it get away from, well.

I'm sure other marketing stuff too, to.

Get the hell out of the other house.

That's right. So you are listening to us on itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, Google Play, and of course profitfirstpodcast.com. that's where we have all of our goodies and pictures and fun things. What else is going on? Do we have an icebreaker?

Yeah, I got icebreakers.

Oh, yeah. You got written down.

Of course.

Yank, one out.

Okay, ready? Hold on.

Jeez. I mean, slowest yank I've ever yanked one out.

Okay, okay. Ready?

Ready, Ready.

Awkward.

Puz, how do you like to spend a rainy day?

Oh, I know.

Go ahead.

I don't. I was just saying. I'm just trying to fill some time here. Here's what I like to do on a rainy day.

Yes.

I like to sit on my porch. It has to be warm weather. And the sound is mesmerizing.

Yeah.

And I think it's actually very beautiful to watch the leaves kind of bend down and pour water out, and it kind of go back up and more water collects.

Yeah, I totally agree.

It's. I love it. But a warm, rainy day.

Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

I like to write in my journal.

Oh, nice.

And I've started doing that more and more. And I actually. Now I don't even wait for the rain. I actually use my Amazon Echo and I say play open thunderstorms, so. Because I just. I love that. But when it's actually raining, like, I like to look outside. Sometimes I sit on the deck, too. But it's nice.

There's probably someone out there that uses their Amazon to play thunder sounds and rain sounds during a rainstorm.

Like, they need that much amplify.

It's not enough. It's not enough.

Turn it up.

I need more. I did it. I did that during Christmas. I. You know, we have a fireplace in our den area. And so everyone's sitting in there, but some people are walking to the kitchen. So I use the Amazon Echo to play fire crackling sounds in the kitchen. Oh, yeah, it didn't work. Someone's like, there's a fire.

What's going on?

What about you, Kels?

Yeah, kind of the same thing, but typically, like, I'll go to my room and turn the lights off and sort of like a premeditative practice. So just listen to this.

It's great. Yeah, I love rain, but I. I like when it doesn't rain, too.

I love rain.

I love rain.

I love rain.

I like sun. I like cold. I like warm. I like when it. It rains only occasionally. Like, I don't like multiple days of rain.

Want to live in Seattle?

No.

No one wants live in Seattle.

There's a whole bunch of people out there.

I know my wife loves that. She was out there. She's like, that's the most amazing city ever.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

It's cute.

I just think perpetual rain gets you a little drain.

Yeah, I agree. Range, rain, drain, all balance.

You know, you need balance.

Need one to appreciate the other.

Exactly. Yes. Do we have any community feedback or shout outs?

We do. From Braden Keith from Romega Digital. He says, I read profit first in September. Opex was 85% year to date for 121k business. And the business paid me. Nothing.

Squat.

All the squat. Hola, November. November is down to 52% and I'm expecting my first paid profit check of a thousand dollars at the end of the month. And he's setting himself up on payroll for January 1st. So. Dude. And he says, thank you for helping a young new entrepreneur. So keep killing it, Brayden.

Good job, Braden.

You got this boom.

Thousand dollar check in a month as a profit. See, a lot of people go, oh, you only getting paid $1,000 a month. Like, that's lower than minimum wage. Minimum wage is more than $12,000 a year. That's a profit check, meaning that's above and beyond extra because of compensation and taxes when you do the profit first system already paid too. So there's. That's the net net cash to him.

The net net.

I'm proud of you, bro.

I miss our shout outs. I want to hear voices.

I know.

Can you call me? Call me right now. 844-876-7221. I want to hear your voice. I'm sure you're tired of hearing mine.

Yeah, right.

Read your stories.

Yeah, leave your message there and broadcast that on. On the air and you can promote your business and all that stuff. Talk about promoting businesses. Nextiva is a big supporter of us Receipt bank is and Fundbox.

That's right.

Even though there's total confusion with Fundbox, we love them.

Anyway, I know there's been back and.

Forth and she like, the thing is, we didn't write a contract properly, so it, it's. There's a line in there about sponsoring the show, but they think they already paid for it through ProfitCon. Oh, and it says on there it's additional, but it's just so poorly worded. AKA I didn't use a lawyer. I wrote it myself. So I don't know what the hell we offered them, but they've been sponsoring us for years and ahead of time. I said, well, can't you see from your behavior? Like, like, yeah, but the agreement shows something new. I'm like, God, am I a poor.

I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know how to write contracts, so. But whatever, we will. We love Funbox. They are an amazing company, regardless of how moronic I am when it comes to agreements. And we'll talk more about them in a little bit. You like moronic and.

Yes.

No.

You like squadola?

Squadola. You don't like squadola?

Not as much as you. I mean, I. I would never.

You prefer.

I would never say that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting. It really feels. You know what? You're interested. Okay, let me talk about our guests.

Yes, please.

Shane and Jocelyn Sams are a dynamic duo behind flipped lifestyle. And they, as we just will find out a little bit, just purchase a house to do podcasting out of specifically. And some other stuff. I'll tell you why. They're former teachers and they built a business that allowed them to quit their day jobs, spend more time with their family, unless they are in this other house where they're avoiding their family and earn passive income online. I think everyone listening to the show wants that. Now, a couple things I want you to know. They made millions online with an M. Okay. So you can do the same. They've helped thousands of other folks like you start their own business online, and they are 50, 50 partners, not just in life, but in their business. Jocelyn and Shane, welcome to our show.

Welcome, guys.

Thank you so much for having us. We're really excited to be here.

Hey, y' all. How you doing? Glad to be here, man. Super excited. Super excited.

Yeah.

So before, like, offline, you said you. You just moved into a new house, and I was like, oh, that's. Congratulations. Like, then you said, oh, for our podcast. Give it. Set the scenario here. You bought a house specifically to do video and podcasting?

We sure did. We. Well, I tell you, it kind of goes back to when we were about to quit our jobs. We. When, you know, we were living what we call the quote, unquote, the American dream that was served up to us and was totally wrong. Right. You know, we had the. We were up to our, you know, eyeballs in mortgage and debt, and we were, you know, had this house in this nice neighborhood, 2.2 vans, 2.2 kids, 2.2 whatevers, you know, and when we started our online business, we were. We. We were. We started becoming more and more successful, and we started thinking, hey, could we quit our jobs and how could we do it faster? So one of the things that we did early on, guys, was we sold that American dream house with the mortgage up to your eyeballs. Right. And we downsized into a house with half the mortgage to free up more money to invest in our business. And we called that our freedom house. Well, recently, because our business has become so successful, we actually sold one of our original companies for a seven figure sale last year. So we decided, oh, congratulations. Yeah, it was really exciting. But we, we decided, hey, we've lived in this freedom house long enough. Let's go buy our forever home. Well, we bought. So, so, so we had this property that we were shown in our, in our area and it's got like a 10 acre private lake and it's got like 30 acres around it. And it's just everything we ever wanted in a home. And we, we bought this home and we have people that work here to help us clean the home because it's so big. So what we found was it was becoming harder and harder and harder to work in our house.

So because we got people asking us like, do you want me to throw this away? What should I do with these clothes?

Yeah. Or like somebody will come over to mow or to get the hay or to do. Just do whatever. Yeah, right.

Y. It's like, it's like the biggest first world problem ever. Right?

Ever. Right.

Like, oh my God.

Hey, and I don't know if you guys ever considered on a serious note, adoption, but I do know a 46.

Year old man, come on over, maybe we'll take care of you. You know what I mean? Come on. But thanks, dad. So my kids also this year, you know, we decided it's time for them to start their entrepreneurial journey. They're 9 and 7, so they started a YouTube channel. They do YouTube videos. Well, all of a sudden our entire living room was overwhelmed with green screens and lighting. Lighting, all this stuff. Our core business is our flipped lifestyle podcast. That's where we, you know, generate, you know, leads and audience and members and fans and all that. So we said, hey, let's go pick up a house somewhere in town a little bit closer to the kids school so we don't have to drive out here every day after we drop them off of school. And we found this nice little house that had been completely remodeled and it's becoming our podcast. SL. YouTube. SL Sanctuary. So good stuff.

That's cool. So the kids actually drove you out of the house?

They did, yeah.

In a matter of speaking.

In a matter of speaking, sort of, yeah.

Yeah, I guess so. But.

But listen, if they can get a million subscribers on YouTube, I don't care. It's worth it. You know what I mean, so.

Oh my God, I hear you. So I think there's two things we really want to explore is our listeners want to generate an online business and. And I. Or generate income via an online business. I want to get a little sense of that. But also you are pretty religious about profit first, and I want to know how you implemented it and what you learned about your business and so forth. So that being kind of the foundation of what we want to explore here, I do want to ask you about an online business.

Okay.

I hear from some people it's a fad. And you know, online business was. Was hot when you were doing videos off your kitchen table, but now it's become a little more sophisticated. So the. It's hard to get into. So either it's a fad or it's too late to get in or that it's. It's going to bubble. And since everyone's going online that, you know, within the next year, it's gone. You're very successful at. So I presume you have a different perspective. But have you heard those perspectives and what's your reality?

Yeah, we don't buy that at all because I think what happens is the entrepreneurial space kind of gets insulated in its own little world and they don't realize how many one. How many people are out there and how many things you can sell. Like, we have people that teach guitar lessons. We've had people that show people, you know, like bonsai trees, how you cut them and keep them small. Well, we had a guy one time come through our community and he was doing that with Venus Flytraps, and he created a website for Venus flytrap enthusiasts, and the dude launched and made $20,000. So. And he only did that with a couple hundred people because one of the things we really harp on is creating a membership model where you get recurring reven revenue. You create community and content, and people come to you and they join for, you know, 50 bucks a month, and they stay a member every month, you know, going forward. So if you get the right niche, you only need a hundred people to give you 50 bucks a month to make $60,000 a year. So it's not like you have to go out and have a hundred thousand people following you. It's not like you have to go out and do exactly what everyone else is doing. Everyone has something they can teach to somebody else, and you don't need a lot of people to make a living at it. So we totally disagree with that. And by the way, I cut a Facebook live on my kitchen couch or my kitchen table yesterday and sold a thousand dollars in memberships. So whoever's telling you that they got some information.

And I think that honestly, like, this is really in its infancy. There are so many people that we talk to every single day who does.

Who.

They don't even know this world exists.

Yeah.

So you know people, Jocelyn, are those.

The consumers that don't know it exists?

Oh, just people.

Consumers.

I think there's people in general. Like, you know, we do live in a really small town, so I know a lot of people where we live don't know about, but I think that there are a lot of people in general who don't really understand that this type of world is out there. I mean, maybe they purchased on Amazon or they bought something on a website, but I don't think that they know this whole other, like, online business culture is out there. I think it's easy for us to say when we're looking at what we do and say, oh, there's so many people in this now.

Yeah.

But I think in general, in the world, there's a lot of people who still don't even know this exists.

Yeah. And if you're trying to be like cop Carbon Copy, like somebody else. I mean, if you're just trying to be. Everybody's a life coach, well, of course that's oversaturated. Right. But we've got, we have members of our communities right now. They wanted to be like financial experts. Right. Like kind of. Kind of a Dave Ramsey thing, kind of like a live on a budget and things like that. But they were also restaurant owners, so they formed a business helping restaurant owners to manage their finances. So they didn't go out of business and they had a good life. Right. So that's a niche. They only need 100 restaurant owners to pay them $50 a month to make 5,000amonth, 60,000 a year. That's a living, you know, you make. You can let you. You can say one round fed on that. You know what I mean?

So, you know, that's better income that than many people make in an entrepreneurial business that's selling two or three hundred thousand dollars of stuff at the, you know, the net effect is they have always cost.

Yep.

And they don't have that kind of money.

That's right.

But, you know, so I get it. The niches, the Venus fly trap guy, I get it. But I also think, you know, the, the big opportunities, I think are with bigger markets. You know, why not sell to all people that are into. Was it botany? Is that the word?

Right, right.

As opposed to, I finally got a word right. All botanists. As opposed to just a Venus flytrap. How do you know something is not too narrow or something's not too broad? How do you find the sweet spot?

You know, what we usually say is we have, like, we take people through a process that shows them how to create, find their customer, figure out what they're expert enough at to teach, and then create a product around it. But the only way you're really going to know, you can look at the market, you can make some really good guesses, but the only way you're really going to know is to start and create content and try to build an audience and then try to sell something. The market will tell you with their wallet very fast if there is a market there or if you went too small, if you get two people in three months, you might have went a little too small. So you want to broaden out a little bit, you know, but the. The. The people we see that fail the hardest and the fastest are the people who go too broad. Like, I'm going to serve everyone who raises any kind of plant ever. You know, that's not the guy that wins. That's not the girl that wins. It's the people that figure out a sweet spot and they go for it. That was what we found out when we started our online business. We found our sweet spot in bigger, you know, spaces, and that's how we were able to create a lot of money really fast.

Hey, Jocelyn, how do you. Or why is it that people that go the broadest fail the fastest?

You know, I think that it is because they don't know who they are. They don't know who they're marketing to exactly. They're trying to. We always say if you try to market to everyone, you market to no one, because it's just a bunch of white noise in such a large market. But if you can really kind of niche that down, it helps a lot. Like, for instance, when I started out in online business, I started a website for elementary librarians because that's what I was like. Who thinks to make a website for elementary librarians? At the most, there are probably, I estimate there to be about 100,000 of them in the United States.

Yeah.

And, you know, people thought I was crazy.

A thousand websites for elementary library. I know, I know, I know, I know.

So, yeah, but there was.

I assume there's not a single website for elementary library at the time.

There was not and the thing is.

It'S like we could have said, let's create stuff for all teachers. Nobody cares. Teachers have specific problems in specific areas on a specific day, and you've got to go meet that specific need or you're going to just generally do nothing. So.

Yeah, but what elementary librarians like, what problem they have? Someone stuck gum in a book.

That's a huge problem we got. Yeah, that wasn't.

Oh, it is. It is pretty big.

I know you had a blog post about how to get the gum out of the book, and it went quite. No, I'm just kidding.

But, like, what. What happens? Like, I can't imagine they have enough demand or need to even have a website. But I could be totally ignorant.

Yeah. So because I was an old, mature librarian, I knew that they did have issues. So one thing that elementary librarians have to do in most schools is teach classes. A lot of people don't realize that. So. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, I would write about things like that, challenges that I was facing, and I would write lesson plans and say, okay, you know, I know you don't have a lot of time to do this because you have a lot of other things to do. So I'm going to create some lessons for you that are what I use in my classroom, and I will sell them to you. And people bought them.

Yeah, so like, teach. All teachers have a problem. We also have a website, like, for history teachers, because, you know, lesson people don't realize that a teacher, when they create a lesson plan, it takes about three hours to create a lesson plan that you teach for 30 minutes. Okay, well, the problem is planning periods in schools are only about 30 minutes. So if. So if you're going to create a lesson plan, you're doing it at home, you're doing it at night, when you could be with your kids, when you could be with your spouse, when you could be watching the game or whatever. So Jocelyn figured out if she sells them these lesson plans, she saves them time, and that solves a problem. So they have to give us money, basically.

This reminds me, someone once said that no one wants to know how to do things as much as they just want the little blue pill that gives them the result. And the little blue pill, by the way, is Viagra. The guy says, listen, men aren't even willing to work for that anymore. They just want a solution. And I wonder if what I'm hearing is these done for you things like, you wrote the lesson plan for people. It takes so much responsibility and time off their not responsibilities. So much time off their plate that they see the value in that.

Yep.

It lets them do. It lets them do what they're supposed to be doing. Focus on teaching. We will provide the tools, and you don't have to worry about going and getting the tools or, you know, it's just like on podcasts, we show up and maybe the stuff's hooked up for us. Maybe someone else had a prep sheet or someone else planned an interview that's all done for us so that we can come on and have these conversations. It's the same thing in any space almost. You can. If you can give people back time, you can usually make money online with that thing.

And what we realize in this industry, and just in general, that time is infinitely more valuable than money. And so, yeah, it's just the same thing. You know, people. People value time over money. And so they are willing to pay us for what we create.

And we go back to the market size. Like, you gotta remember, like, if we're sell. Like we sell these. These lesson plans are basically about $500 a year. That's why they pay for. Right. So if you go find a thousand people to buy Those, that's only 1% of the market. You only have to win 1% of the time to make 500 grand. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's not like you have to go out and find millions of people to do this to make it work. One of our other products that we sold in the beginning was a football playbook. I coached a very specific kind of defense in high school football when I was a teacher and I was a football coach, I was a history teacher and I coach football. And I was like, man, are there even enough high schools that would run this defense to buy this from me, who had never. I'd never won a state championship or anything. Right. But what we found was people just want their problem solved. They don't care where it comes from. They don't care who gives it to them.

They want to push that easy button.

They want to push the easy button and get the result they want. If you're a 2 and 8 football coach and this defense has proven to take people from 2 and 8 to 6 and 4, and it'll save your job next year. You don't care where it comes from. You're just going to do it right? So. So we created that. We cast the net. We got coaches, and you made thousands of dollars off of it, too. So this works over and over again in different Spaces now, because I'm.

I love football. I'm just super curious. Did you write plays just for defense? Was it very specific or was it like 100,000 best plays?

Well, I was. No, I was a head football coach for a while, and then I was at the end of my career. I was a. Before we quit and did this, I was a defensive coordinator. So I was at a school where we had really, really small, weak players. We were really, really getting. Listen, this. This program had, like, had one winning season in 20 years, and they were terrible. Right. So.

Right.

And we had no linemen. So one of the. But I actually was a graduate assistant for a while in college, and I coached at West Virginia University when Rich Rodriguez was there. And. And.

And.

And we. And they ran. They had the same problem. They couldn't recruit. Recruit big linemen because they were going against the SEC schools and the ACC schools. So a guy named Jeff Castill had this thing called the 33 defense. He only needed three linemen. And they were fast guys, they could be quick. And I took what I learned there and adapted it to high school, and we created a defense that allowed us to turn the program around. And the last year we were there, we were eight and two. So, like, I. Wow. I took this. This defense and I was like, hey, do you not have any strong kids? And you're weak and you're getting tumbled. You're getting. Like I actually said this. You know, like, we actually said. Like I said. I was like, what's their real problem?

My great marketing.

My kids are weak and they won't go to the room, and it's terrible. Right? And we marketed this defense and we sold it that way, and people were like, that is exactly my problem. And we solved it. And they.

Do your players look like scarecrows?

Yeah. Well, this is so funny. Like, the offense that I ran to this one school, we. Like the first year I took over, we went from JV to varsity at my first head coaching job, and we got pummeled every year and we. We didn't score. We scored like three touchdowns in a year. And I was like, okay, let me look at. So I said, let me look at my resources for year two. And I said, okay, everyone on my team is really, really heavy and slow. That was what we were. So I had to get this offense that was for big, fat, slow kids. And it was like, we did that, and we scored like 21 points a game the second year. But it's like, you've got to talk to people about what the actual problem is and solve it, and they will give you money for it, which, you.

Know, basically a good transition. You. It doesn't matter. You as an entrepreneur, what your makeup is, what your skill set is. It's the fact that you channel what you have to the best outcome. That's what I'm hearing.

That's right.

Okay.

You take what you're doing and go.

So I want to hear the story of the two of you. You leave the teaching career and you found super early on success. I believe that's what my notes say.

Well, let me, let me, let me, let me back up a step. We, we. We were both school teachers. I was a football coach, also was a librarian. And we were kind of like.

Is that where you two met, by the way? In school?

Say that again.

Is that where you two met?

Oh, no, we met at the University of Kentucky in 1998.

That's right. Yeah, we met. We met a long time ago, man. I'm about to. I turned. I turned 40 in March.

That football coach is awfully interested in books with gum in them.

No, no, this is a. This is this Christian program over here in Flip Lifestyle University. We. We met in college and we actually jostle. Used to be in corporate and I was chasing the football coaching dream and we were never seeing each other. So we decided to be teachers in theory so that we could spend more time together. Okay. Well, it turned out that football coaching is year round and 70 hours a week, and it just wasn't for that. But what really drove us out of that was we found out, you know, just like normal people, everybody across the country who has jobs, we use daycares.

And we actually kids were 3 and 18 months.

3 and 18 months at the time. And we found out that our daycare was basically abusing one of our children. They were, they were, they were. It was like. It was really psychological abuse. They were punishing him for having potty accidents by locking him in a dark bathroom. And.

Are you kidding me?

No.

Oh, my God, no.

And like, so here I am one morning and we do. We find everything comes to a head and we discover this. So I'm having all these emotions going through my brain, like, guilty that I'm working so much and leaving him in daycare and all these things. And, you know, I actually went on to work that day. I took Isaac to another place and I said, I'll be back. Let me go tell I was a good employee. And I said, I'm gonna go tell my boss that I need help. And I need somebody to cover my class. Well, I went into class and the school that day, and I said, this is what's happened. I need to leave. Could you get a sub for me? And my boss took off her glasses, and she looked at me and said, nope. Is your son in immediate danger right now? And I'm like, no, but we just had an emotionally traumatic experience. And she's like, well, you can't leave. I don't have time to watch your class, and I don't have anyone to. To. To watch your class. I know you're. And she said, I know your son needs you, but your job needs you too. And so at that moment, I said, one, I'm out of here. You know what I mean? Fire me if you want. But on the way home, I told myself I will never be in a position again. I don't know when it'll happen. It's not tonight. I can't quit today. But I will never be in a position today where someone can tell me that my child is less important than anything else. And so that kind of sent us down the path to try to find something that we could do besides work for other people. And that's what eventually led us to online business. Now, the amount of success we had in the beginning was not very much. Okay, so, like, so. So when I went home, we dealt with the situation, and I became, would you say obsessed?

I'd say obsessed is like, a major understatement.

Yeah. I became obsessed with finding another way to support our family. So I was listening to a podcast one day, and I discovered online business, and I started trying this stuff, and I started throwing all the mud on the wall. I had these spammy websites, and with.

Like, all these Google Ads and all this stuff, it was like the big heyday of SEO, you know?

And, like, nothing was. Yeah, yeah, right. So then one night after I was about to give up, and I literally, like, said a prayer, I was like, God, please, is this real that these people are talking about on all these shows? And some. When I. When I went and checked my analytics that night, somebody had clicked an ad, and we made 11 cents, like, a dime and a penny. And. But I. I, in the. In my obsessive state of madness, jumped up like I'd won the super bowl and started celebrating. And I. And I. And I. And Jocelyn, of course, this whole time is like, what are you doing here?

Right?

This is a big scam. Like, this is never gonna happen.

But. But I. But I told her, yeah, I said, no, this is It. We just have to figure out what we can do. Okay. And I tell that story because that's when one. That's when Jocelyn got on board. Right. But that's when we really started researching and doing this together. And when we were researching what we. We wanted to do something next level, like create a digital product. Right. But we didn't. We had all these ideas, and we didn't know what to do. And I actually stumbled across your first book, the Pumpkin Plan, at the library.

That was one of the first books that we read.

It was one of the first books I would ever read. Like. And I figured out that the reason that we were failing was because we were not focused on one pumpkin. We were not trying to grow a pumpkin. We were trying to grow every flower in the garden. And that's what led us to say, well, wait a minute. What can we do? I'm a football coach. She's a librarian. She starts selling lesson plans. I start selling playbooks. And then about 13 months later, we walked in and quit our jobs. So that's kind of. That's part of the process for that.

Yeah.

After one year.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The two. Kelsey and Christine are both like, oh, my God. Christine's like, I can sing. I can sing. I can sing.

I'm like, I got nothing.

Jewelry. You got jewelry and sarcasm. So. But how did you get those first clients? I mean, now that you know there's an opportunity with elementary librarians, there's an opportunity with football coaches. I assume you know a few through your social network, but you don't know the. The thousands that you could potentially sell to. How did you get that going?

Well, there's only. There's only two ways to build a business. You open your wallet, or you roll up your sleeves. And we had nothing in our wallet, so we had to roll up our sleeves, and we started creating massive amounts of content. We spent every waking hour working on the business. We started doing crazy gorilla things to find followers. Like, football coaches love Twitter. They don't use anything else because they don't know how interesting. And so what I did was I would sit from 9 to 12 every night, seven nights a week for months, and I would type in coach in the Twitter feed, and I would scroll, looking for anyone that was on a sideline in their picture, and I would send them a message. And I started slowly but surely. I would. I'd be like, hey, have you seen my website? It's about coaches. Bam. And I would just sit and do that over and over again for hours. And hours. And Jocelyn started doing all kinds of.

Crazy for the librarians. I would get on these things called wikis. So it's sort of like Wikipedia, but they're like, for schools. So I would find ones for libraries and I would just add my links on there. I would find message boards for librarians and I would, you know, I would provide value for them. But I would say in my signature, oh, by the way, I have this website, check it out.

You know, and like, for that year, like, I can't stress enough. Like, a lot of people are, like, a lot of people want to dabble in online business or they want to dabble in this new opportunity to pursuit. You can't be a dabbler and succeed, especially as fast as we did. Like, we would. We went to a Mexican restaurant one night and we drew 168 squares on the back of a piece of paper because there's 168 hours in the week. And we wrote down first all the non negotiables, like sleep, go to jobs and feed kids. Feed kids, keep them alive.

Eat Mexican food.

Mexican food. Eat chips, don't spill salsa.

Definitely not negotiable.

For God's sake, this paper is important. And oh my God. And what we did was we, we started canceling our cable. We started doing anything we could to free up extra 10 minutes here and there to, to work, to do this guerrilla stuff until we started making. We got some traction, we got a couple hundred emails, we launched our product. And then once we got money, it got easier because we could start buying some, like, ads and things like that. So. But yeah, we went just straight hardcore hard work for like about six to eight months before we started making enough money to start, you know, really thinking about, hey, let's invest, let's quit, let's do this stuff.

And Jocelyn, it sounds like you're the, you're the second one to the table. Shane's all in on this. You're skeptical about it, but then it sounds like you went all in on it. What was the tipping point for you?

Yeah, so once I realized that, okay, this can work and we can do this, then I decided, okay, I will do something. But you know, Shane's. He started like five or six websites and he's like, all over the map because that's just who he is.

And so I had not read the pumpkin plan yet.

What do you expect?

But for me, like, now he's cured. I'm a very, I'm a very practical person. So I'm like, okay, well, here's what I'll do. I'm like, okay, I'll start a website, but I'm going to start it about something I'm already doing. So that way if it doesn't work out, I'll at least have something, you know, I'll have something to show for it.

Oh, so that's these plans you were developing, they were for me yourself too.

Yes, that's right.

That was the back.

Yeah, yeah.

Smart.

Yeah. And it was crazy. Was, you know, we. So we went a couple months hard, working hard to find emails. Right. And just totally organically, from hard work and going out there and connecting with people, Jocelyn's email list had grown to about 250. Okay. Which a lot of people think, well, that doesn't sound like a lot. You know what I mean? So. But we were like, okay, we've got to launch a month of these plans. So, you know, I'm just going to give you some round numbers here. So we were like, what if we, you know, sold the plans for 75 bucks? You know what I mean? Like, what if we did this for a month or 50 bucks? Right. So she puts it out there to this small list of like 250 people, and we made $2,700 on the first sale. Now I want to, I want to stress how little that teachers make in Kentucky. That was like a whole salary for a month for one, for one of us. Okay. And at that point we looked at each other and we were like, what if this happened every month? Okay. And so we started. So we started doubling down, working harder, doubling down, working harder. And then in 2013, in July, we made $15,000. In August, we made $36,000. And on September 27, 2013, we said goodbye, we're going for ourselves. So that's kind of. That Progression started from 250 people on an email list.

I don't know if you're comfortable sharing this, and if not, I don't want that because I hate when people say, mike, how much money you have? How much are you worth? So I won't ask that question, but I will ask, how much money do you have? And how much are you worth now? Okay, what's your income like now? What's your income like now?

It's. We are taxed at the highest tax bracket. I'll leave it at that. Okay. And like, yeah, no, that's amazing.

And when you were a teacher, I presume you're at the lowest tax bracket.

Well, one of the lowest, probably one.

Of the lowest yeah, we comfortably, no.

One'S at the lowest.

We make more money. It is possible for us to make more money in a month than we ever made teaching.

Easily like in a year.

Any. Yeah, like easily like our salary are replaced like monthly what we made annually.

So okay, wow. So 12 times improvement. So it almost seems unbelievable or impossible. That's my fears that people are listening to get skeptical. They say, well they're one in a million or they're making it up or are something else. Do you get that resistance that people can't believe that that kind of change.

Is possible every day?

Every day. That's the main thing about society.

Like if we can get people to believe that it's possible, then that is the big barrier for us as marketers. Because you know, people, people have self doubt. Like we still have self doubt at.

Times, you know, like what's the next level? You know, can you get there? Is that possible?

And if you can get people past that self doubt. We've had so many people in our community, we've had so many success stories. We have people, we have, we have.

A success forum and we have over 4000 success story posts in there about people launching their products, about people, you know, quitting their jobs, about whatever it.

Is, starting their website, even like getting started.

But we've had first money online.

We've had a lot of people quit their jobs who are in our community. I mean it's not just us. So if it were just us, I can see where people might be like, oh yeah, they're scammers, but it's not just us. Like we have a dozen people I can name off right now that have done the same thing.

And it's like the hard part is society teaches us, look at school, go to school, go to school for eight hours. You can only pee when the bell rings. You get to eat lunch when I tell you to. Like, and people, and people come out and what are we told? Go to college, get a job and let someone else pay you until you retire and die. Like that's pretty much it. So when you tell someone, oh no, no, no, you can control every minute of the 20 of your 24 hours that you get to live every day. Oh no, no, you can make more money than they're telling you that you have to go make in this hourly rate, whatever. Like it, it's hard to break through, you know, 25, 30 years of conditioning.

Yeah, it seems unbelievable.

Yeah.

And what does your quality of life look like? I mean, do you have a lot more time yeah, we, like, I know you guys work super hard in the beginning.

Sure.

As it. Even now a little bit more now, or do you still work crazy?

Well, that's actually why we call it the flipped lifestyle, because we looked at the world and we said, you know, the world's got it kind of upside down, so we're going to flip that upside down back. Back where it needs to be. And, like, we have a cap on ourselves. Like, we. We are not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week, period. It's not. Not allowed to do that.

That's each of us.

That's each of us, you know, but, like, we're not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week, three to four hours a day. We usually work between 10 and two each day while the kids are at school. Our quality of life is incredible because we. We always look at that 168 hours still, and we say, okay, what goes first? Well, time with each other goes first. Time with our kids goes second. Time with the business goes third. And then everything else. Right? So we get up every morning. One of the things that's like a family. I don't know if it's called a tradition, but, like, we take our kids to school. That's just together. All four of us go to school every day together.

Are you the only mom and dad bringing kids to school?

Yes. I always say when Jocelyn usually drives to school in the morning because, like, I read Bible stories to the kids while we're driving, and like. Or like, we talk or whatever. And like, Jocelyn's usually driving. And I'm always like, you think these people think I'm like, a drunk? And, like, I lost my license. Why's that man here every morning? You know what I mean?

Like, you know, they're thinking, he's reading that Bible to fix it.

That's what he's doing.

And then every now and then, like, he'll take the kids on his own. And I'm always like, they're probably thinking, yeah, she finally left him.

She finally left that man she got right.

You know what I mean?

But. But, like, yeah, we are. And like, what's funny is we volunteer a school a lot. And this. This is. This is my favorite story to tell about this. So we volunteer at school a lot. And there's. I'm the only dad ever. And like, ETO meetings or whatever. One day we were making tacos for Taco Tuesday, and it was like, the.

Letter was really into the Mexican food.

I know, right? Like, I heard tacos. I went to school.

We don't have a lot of ethnic.

A lot of diversity here in the southeast Kentucky, man. We got to get what we can get. But. But I was. I was making tacos, and this teacher walked in, and, like, she starts patting me on the back as I'm putting meat and shells, and she's like, oh, you ladies are doing such a good job. You. I'm so glad. She's like, I'm so glad we got a good group of moms. And she looked up and goes, well, you're a man. That's what she said. I was like, but that shows you, like, how different. Like, you really say no. What's more important? Flip lifestyle, baby. This is what we're going to do. So, yeah, our quality of life is. Is pretty good. So, yeah, tell us a little bit.

How you implemented Profit first and use that.

Okay. Profit first was really, really important to us because another. Okay, so the reason that Profit first was so important to us is because when you're growing up, no one teaches you how to run a business by yourself, right? We're always talk, you know, go get a job. Right? So one. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of experience managing money, especially as much money as we were making, like, the first month. We made as much money in a month as we made in a year. Like, I didn't. We didn't know what to do. So we were like, one of those, like, lottery winners that was like, I guess we just go spend it all right? And like, like, like, like. So we. We really didn't have, like, food baby tacos for life, you know, and we can fly to Mexico and get real tacos. Baby, let's go.

Yeah, right.

A good one. So basically what happened was the one thing with Jocelyn and I have always been, though, is responsible. We've been pretty responsible. And we, like. One time I went to get a loan for a house, and we were like, 25 and 23, and the guy's like, yeah, I'll give you $400,000. And I'm like, dude, I'm broken. You're crazy. I'll go buy one for about 89. So we just have this intuition that we need help. We got to figure something out. So I started looking for management systems. Like, how does a business run? How did the thing. And first, I don't even know how it happened, but I got a copy of Profit First. Somehow, I think I ordered it off.

Well, our accountants are Profit first accountants.

That's right. We had just hired them.

Who are they?

The bottom. The bottom line. DOT accountants. And they're out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Marilyn and Jessica. And they are amazing. So we. Hi. And I. I actually went. I was on a webinar that John Lee Dumas. John and Kate are friends of ours. And we were listening in on one of their webinars while we were driving to Atlanta, and I met them in the chat room somehow, and then they became our accountants, and then they told us about profit first. So I got a copy of the book. Okay. And. And blew my mind so much because it just made so much sense, and it was so simple. And I was like, jocelyn, this is how we've got to do our finances. Because, you know, you take that portion, that profit portion insures. You got your owner's pay, you got your taxes, and it. And it sets that limit that you really need to guide your business and your operating expenses. And once. The first month we implemented it, you know, we looked over at the profit part, and it was like, there's like $10,000 in there. You know what I mean? And we were like, whoa, that's amazing. And, like, can we go just spend that? Or like, oh, no, wait till the quarter's over. But still, it was, like, sitting there waiting for us, you know? Well played, good sir. And so when we. The minute we implemented this, we used to see our money grow, and we thought all we had to do was make more money.

But I was always scared because I was always like, well, you know, should we spend this? Do we need it for taxes? Do we need it for whatever? Like, I was just always worried. In the back of my mind, I'm just always thinking, well, I don't know how much we can spend before we. Before we implement.

First, the framework gave us the freedom that we needed to know exactly how to spend our money. And then we discovered, like, crazy things. Like when we were about to buy this dream house, right? We were like, okay, well, how do we do this and how do we have enough money and what about this and what about that? And I was like, you know what would be interesting? What if you just, like, moved the owner's pay down and moved the profit up for, like, three or four months? Like, would that. Would that be a way to plan ahead to buy huge purchases? And so I started, like, using, you know, kind of going outside the framework of the formula, but still within the, you know, profit taxes, whatever. And we were able to say, wow, we need to save more money for a while to do something huge. Bam. It was so easy. I only had to Move one little sliding scale, and all of a sudden the profit got bigger. As long as the taxes stay the same. Because that's your get out of jail free money. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's the most important part of the whole thing. You got to pay your taxes or you don't get to pay taxes because you're in jail. So we always leave that one the same.

When you implemented profit first, did it give you insights into your business? Financial insights into your business?

Yeah, Like, I think it forced us to, like, when we first did it. And I was like, okay, well, X dollars came in last month, so what if we apply these percentages like it says in the book? And I was like, huh, that's interesting. Because what I noticed was we weren't spending enough on our business to grow it, because what it was telling us to spend in operating expenses, we were spending way below that, like an unhealthy amount. Because we were always scared to spend more money on the business.

Know how much we could afford, you.

Know what I'm saying? Like, we didn't know. Like, it was like closed fisted. Like, keep all the money here just in case. Right. And once we opened that up, it was like, well, wait a minute, maybe we can hire a customer service person. Maybe we can hire a podcast team. Maybe we can hire a chief of staff, Maybe we can hire a community manager, you know, like, it gave us permission, almost like a freedom to be able to go spend that money and not be like, we're going to run out of money next week. You know, like, we didn't hold it so tight because no matter how much we got, it was almost like more and more and more. There was never enough to keep you feel secure. But as soon as we had rules to follow and a framework to follow, it just became easy to be like, spend that on Disney World, let's go. Spend that on hiring someone new, let's go.

It's specifically for that.

Yep.

So how did you guys transition from, you know, starting to run all these successful online businesses to more of the podcast setting and stepping away from that to help others?

Okay, what happened was, you know, when you live in a small rural town in southeast Kentucky and you quit your job, not lose your job when you quit your job, people really freak out. Okay. My mom actually cornered me in her kitchen one day and, like, grabbed me by the front collar of my shirt and, like, pointed in my face and said, stop eating Mexican food. I know, right? Stop with the tacos. But she really did. She said, when I Told them we were going to quit our jobs. She pointed at me and said, shane Edward Sams, you've got a life that people would love. You've got babies, and you need to take care of them. And she said, you flipped out. You've lost your mind. So that's actually why we call it Flip Lifestyle. Part of that story. Oh, that's fine, my mama. But, like, what happened? But the other thing that happened was once you people see that it's okay and it's successful, eventually they stop asking you why and they start asking you how. So one time. So one day, one of Jocelyn's friends came up to her. Her name was Lindsay. And she said, I would like to stay home from work and be with my children. Could you help me make some money online and maybe I could do that? And Jocelyn said, sure. So we told her the process. We helped her create some digital products, and the first month that she rolled those out, she was able to make $1,000. Later, about. About a month or two later, her husband came up to me after church one day, and we were in the back hall, kind of just like heading to the nursery to get our kids, and he said, hey, man, I just wanted to say something to you. And he kind of got choked up, and a little tear got in his eye, and he said, that money that you helped Lindsay make changed our life. It let us take a vacation. I never thought we could afford it. Let her stay. It let her stay home with our children. And I just wanted you to know that I'm investing that now in my education. I'm gonna go back and get my PhD. And he actually just finished his PhD, right? So. So when. When. When. When that happened, I got in the car after church, and as we were driving home, I looked over at Jocelyn and I said, you know, what we have figured out could change people's lives. It could change family trees for generations into the future. And if we can help them, then we can help other people. And we really need to do this and go help other people. So we decided at that point to launch the Flip Lifestyle podcast. We started going out and telling our story to inspire people and get them fired up and get them motivated. And it just. We can't even believe sometimes how much it's grown and it's kind of lost control. So, yeah, it's pretty awesome.

Going back to profit first. You know, I always love to hear stories about banks reactions, especially in a small town. Small town, Kentucky. You know, the banks rarely say, hey, this is a great idea. They Usually think, who are you? You really have lost your mind. They're worse than your mama. What was the reaction of your bank?

So our bank, we have one lady that we work with a lot because she knows we always come in there with some kind of crazy something. I mean, she's just used to.

I think they look at you most of the time. They're like, most people don't even count their money. And you want to do what with your money? What.

So, yeah, we. Like, I had already been in there. Like, I needed a dba, like, doing business as before we started our LLC and all that. So, like, you know, she already knows us. So every time we come in there, she's like, oh, gosh, what do you guys have this time? So then we come in here with this list of accounts. Okay, we need this account and this account.

And I stepped in and I said, okay, so we're going to get this account, and I'm going to call it the profit account. And we're going to get this account, and I'm going to call it the Flip Lifestyle account. And this one's going to be called the elementary librarian account. Then this one's going to be called the owner's account, and this one's going to be called the. And like, so basically, we set up, like a literal bank account for every single thing. Like, I even have another bank account that I set up called cash in and all deposits I move there before I do profit first. Just because we have different profit centers, like, revenue coming. And so I think we have 14 bank accounts at this bank. And, like, because now we have a real estate company and we have to have profit first for it separate. And like. And, like, while we were doing this, we were probably there for, like six hours one day. And every. Every five minutes, she'd be like, I'm gonna go get the vice president. And he would come in and listen for a minute. It was. It was.

She would have to make phone calls to, like, people.

I think it probably took us, like, six months to get all of this actually where we wanted it because. Not because we didn't know what we wanted. It was just because the bank was so confused and they didn't understand why we wanted different accounts. But, like, I actually attribute a lot of that to our success because I think a lot of people just try to do profit first or anything on paper or, like, in an Excel spreadsheet, and that's fine.

But we go all in.

But we go all in and we're like. And, like, when you move the money when you physically have six boxes and you put all of it in one box and then you move it to the other boxes. You feel it and you know it. And every single week I do that. Every single Thursday. Every Thursday morning I have on my calendar, it's profit first day. Nobody's allowed to schedule anything else because I do money on Thursday and I go in and I touch my money, I feel my money. And I always have such a grasp on where we are financially and it's because profit first forces me to do that every single week.

We are running so tight on time. But I want to just. If you can share some tips with our listeners who want to achieve a lifestyle like yours. They want the freedom to be with their children. They don't want to work these ridiculous hours. They don't want to have to decide work over family. They want profitability. Do you have a few tips, maybe even summarizing what we just learned from you? But do you have a few tips to get people at least started on that path?

Yeah. The first thing that you have to do, like Jocelyn said earlier, is get over those limiting beliefs because it is possible. There are hundreds of thousands of people doing this. You just have to start and then you just have to, you have to break down who you're going to help, what you're going to do to help them. And then you just make sure that you can present yourself as being expert enough, because you are expert enough.

Solve their problem. That's very important. You have to solve a problem. And I would say, if I were answering this question, I would say just take consistent action. So many people don't do that. They take action for a week and say, oh, this isn't working. No, we took action for months before something worked.

Yep.

I love it. I love it. Where Jocelyn and Shane, can our listeners learn more about your organization, what you're doing?

You can head over to our podcast on itunes. It's the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. We help a member of our community every single week, every Tuesday, take their business to the next level. Live on air, kind of like a call in show. And, and also you can go if you want to. Your listeners can go to fliplifestyle.com profit and I will actually make available three training courses that are only available in our membership that will help people figure out their customer, figure out their profit or their, their product and figure out how to get started with that process. Totally free. We'll make them. Yeah, we'll. I want to. We're gonna. We're gonna pay it back for all the profit. First is done for us, man. So good stuff.

Thank you. And I'm telling you, this is the real deal. My listing friends go there now. So it's flipped lifestyle.com forward slash profit. And just like we said a couple weeks ago, if there's. If you're driving the car right now, pull over into the emergency breakdown lane. When the police officer says, what are you doing? Are you okay? Say, yeah, I'm going to fliplifestyle.com profit.

Of course I'm okay.

Yeah. Ask him if he wants to flip.

His job like you do, Officer.

What you do, he needs to do at this. Like, this is what we do. Whenever I get into an Uber, my mission in life. Listen, my mission in life, I always sit in the front seat with him or her and I. And my mission in life is to turn their phone onto the Flip lifestyle podcast before I get out of the car. And I am. I am 100% in success rate on that mission as well. So tell the cop when he gets back in his car, check this podcast out while you're on patrol, but don't.

Text while you're driving.

Right.

Jocelyn and Shane, thank you so much. It's just a joy talking with you guys.

Yeah, thank you guys.

That was really fun. Thank you so much for having us today.

We appreciate it. It is. It is a pleasure to talk to you. I'm so glad we got and thanks.

For Profit first and pumpkin plan.

Oh, you're very welcome. You're very welcome. All right, take care, y' all. All right, my friends, here's what we're going to do. I you didn't see it coming.

Both of you today up.

I woke both of you up. Here's what we're going to do. Everything. The same thing we're do every single time. We're summarize what we learned. You should know this by now. Why are you asking me?

Because sometimes you like to throw in little spots.

I do, I do. I do.

Well, what did you learn, Mr. Smarty Pants?

Well, I want to first thank our corporate partners.

All right.

But I was thinking maybe. What's the worst thing you've ever said to a police officer? Like the dumbest thing you've ever said when you've been pulled over. So think about that every time. Yeah, I can't wait to hear you.

They're not funny. I'm just stupid.

Oh, me too. My mom's got a line. She'll next time you see her, she'll share what her Police officer line is. And it's kind of funny, but when you hear the story for the hundredth time, it's not funny anymore. But let's thank our core partners, Nextiva VoiceOver IP phone system. It's a really communication system. The price for pennies compared to what you get. It is the most sophisticated phone system I think in the world. And it's backed by just a wonderful organization. Do you know, I don't know if either, you know, in February or March, I'm going that retreat with my business group through Entrepreneurs Organization. We're going to nextiva's offices and touring.

Oh, cool. Yeah.

And you're going to give all the behind the scenes stuff. They're just great people. I called him up and said, hey, can we. He's like, can you Whatever, you're on your way.

Come on.

Yeah, I didn't even ask. I was like, can I, you know.

Borrow some more tennis?

I wanted to borrow a million dollars and play tennis with you. I've never beaten him in tennis, so.

I can lose again.

He kicks my ass. Receipt Bank.

But it's the shoes fault, right?

Oh, man.

You know, I was wearing vibrant five finger shoes. I want to see you wear those and take me on in tennis.

She's sassy.

Why did you wear them?

Because I didn't have other shoes. All I had. But then I also had something to blame. I was kicked my ass. I'm like, this is man. And now I have a foot injury. Receipt bank is a receipt scanning system. It connects with QBO and which is QuickBooks Online and Xero and all the platforms out there. You need it to track your receipts for tax purposes. This makes it so efficient. And it even makes it kind of fun. Every time I sit there and scan something in someone's like, what are you doing? You taking a picture? I'm like, no, I'm receipt. I'm banking it. It's ready my accounting system. And then fund a box. It's a cash flow accelerator and this is the deal. You have an invoice due to you. You probably know it by now. Fundbox will give you the money upfront and then you get it from your clients. And there's no. Like, this is. You know, you don't. They don't call your clients and break.

Legs or it's not collection.

Not collections. You. Yeah, I will break. I know. I have a friend. You don't want my friend here. Crowbar.

And don't forget about Abby Connect the leading live receptionist service. It just makes sense if Potential customers can't reach someone, they're going to call the next company on their list. You invest in websites and advertising. Shouldn't you invest in converting those calls into customers? And don't forget, Abby Connect is offering the no obligation free trial for our listeners. And after your trial is over, our listeners will also receive a $95 off their first bill, but only when you sign up at our special link abbyconnect.com profit first. Thanks, Abby. Connect.

Okay, what'd you learn? I wanna know.

I love when Shane said that there are two ways to start a business. You either open your wallet or you roll up your sleeves and you get to work.

That was the line of the century. Yep. What was your takeaway?

My takeaway? I loved that they said if you can't give people back or if you can give people back time, then they'll pay for it. I never thought of it that way. I never conceptualized it that way, but I think that's so true. It's exactly what people are looking for.

There's. Yeah, so it's fine. I wrote, there's. I put double stars. Nothing more valuable than time. Time's worth everything.

More than money. And that's so true.

Yep. Way more. Yeah. So I thought that was extraordinary. Jocelyn dropped the bomb at the end. She said, consistent action. Yeah, consistent action. See, people give up way too soon. They say, see, it wasn't working. It's like going to the gym and lifting once and saying, see, it's not working.

You know, you need that instant gratification.

Yeah.

But especially with online businesses, you're never going to get that. I mean, maybe you'll be the anomaly, but for the most part, you've got to build that platform.

Yeah.

It's competitive like any other market. It's just when you get through the. The dip, the challenges you're going to face, the upside is tremendous.

Right.

Get over your limiting beliefs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You could do an online singing thing. You really could.

Oh, yeah.

Couldn't you?

There's a limiting belief right there.

I do have a limiting belief about it because I feel like as. As much as I know, I feel like I still don't know enough or I won't be conceived as experienced enough for people to take me seriously.

Yeah. You know, so she says she won't be conceived of. You don't slam her. You don't say, oh, it's perceived, not conceived. If I said that. Are you having a baby, Michael?

You know, in a vulnerable moment, I was.

Come on.

I'm vulnerable.

You're a toughie.

Because she loves me.

I hope you do it.

Yeah.

Because you have more knowledge than you should. I want to learn how to sing. I think I've told you, right?

Yes.

I want to learn how to sing. I would take your class day in, day out because I am clueless and that I'm the customer.

Perhaps I never would have thought to do that online.

But you don't want me to teach.

You, for God's sake.

Oh, my God.

We didn't do it. We got to do a quiz class.

We'll do a co class. But no, A lot of. At least the ways that I've learned, it's been all, like, physical like you. Because you have to be able to show with your body what to do.

But you can do it online, too.

Videos.

Ah, okay.

I. I'll film for you.

Okay. We'll do a little test around.

Film it.

Yeah.

Okay.

You want to sing together?

Yeah.

You guys are cute.

The sky's so blue today.

Can we at least pick a song? We're just gonna wing it.

That'd be better if we sang it.

Light up my life.

There you go, you baby. Pick one that you know.

We're good. I think we were in harmony, though.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's amazing when two beautiful voices kind of meld together, it makes.

That is what you call perfection of throat singing right there.

Yeah, I'm a threat singer. Yeah, me too.

Okay.

So here's my takeaway.

Yeah.

Was. Oh, I already said it was a consistent action.

Yeah, you did. So we have a listener mail. Do we have time for that real quick?

Yeah, we do.

Okay.

Yeah, I guess.

Screwed it up.

Oh, my God.

Okay, so on a serious note, this comes from Danielle Campbell, and she wants to know if we are eradicating debt and trying to use 99 of the profit. Do we use that 99 each month towards that debt or wait until the quarterly distribution of the half profit account balance and then take the 99 of that to apply toward debt, which I think we touched on this in our interview a little bit today.

We did. We did. So this is a great question, and I just want to set the stage here with profit, first, you accumulate profit and you distribute profit on a quarterly basis. If you have debt, we use up to 99%, no less than 95%. I suggest 99% of that money that comes out as profit to eradicate debt. There's nothing more important than eradicating debt. We still want 1% to celebrate. It's always important to also reward ourselves so while we're whacking out debt, we're rewarding ourselves. But, Danielle, you do it still on a quarterly basis. Why? Because we got to get into this habit or routine of doing it quarterly so that when the profit comes out, when. So that debt's eradicated, that all that money comes to you. Now, you do it on a quarterly basis because it builds up anticipation and excitement. We actually have our company quarterly profit distribution tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Right.

You're dissipating it.

Everyone's getting cashola tomorrow, and it's our best distribution ever. That's a little hint. Did you just vomit?

Gus is like, yeah, right.

She gives me a bullshit. Mike. Best distribution ever. Yeah, right.

So excited.

People anticipate it if you do.

Was that your response?

What?

Did you just vomit?

It sounds like he did.

You're like, what is wrong with you?

Jesus. Profit. But here's the deal. If we did it monthly, it would become expected. There's no anticipation. We do a quarterly. It's like, oh, it's a little ways off, right? And then it's like, oh, my God, it's already coming. And so we get excited about it. That's why we do this quarterly rhythm. It builds anticipation and excitement, and then you get the reward, and it builds excitement. If you do it monthly or weekly, it becomes an expectation. So it's like income. That's why with debt, you want to still do it on a quarterly basis. I know it's not optimal from a financial standpoint, but when you do on a quarterly basis, you're building up that anticipation to eradicating debt. And then ultimately, when the debt's eradicated, you're building anticipation for a profit distribution.

Boom.

Okay, I think that's it, right?

That's it.

Yeah.

Start winding me out here.

Okay, so naturally, you've heard what we think. Now we want to hear what you think, what you've learned. So hop over to itunes, stitcher, Google play, any podcaster you freaking use, and of course, proffers podcast.com, and then you can schmoji on over to Profit first. Com.

Yeah, schmozy, schmozy. So we want your. And you'll get squatolo. Now, listen, Profit First Professionals, we are a membership organization of accountants, bookkeepers, and coaches. We call them the ABCs of people who've become certified in the Profit first methodology to drive profit in your business. Ah. So listen, that was. That was. Yeah, didn't. That was supposed to be that.

That wasn't weird at all.

That was kind of weird, man. Yeah, it was kind of weird. I didn't mean to weird you out like that. So here, listen. Now you got two options. You can continue to stay listen to this podcast and be weirded out or you can go to profitfirstprofessionals.com and be not weirded out by me anymore. Go to privatefirstprofessionals.com, click on the find button. We'll hook you up with an abc, an accountant, bookkeeper or coach who will drive profitability in your business. I mean, I just. Yeah, it was the wrong. I'm a little red faced. I'm a little blushing right now. So go to prop first professionals dot com. Why wait any longer? We're gonna drive profitably in your business. It's that simple. All right, guys, I think that's it for today. For God's sake, I hope right?

Bye everybody.

See you.

Bye, guys.

Kelsey's gonna go bombing. That's right. There we go.