Episode 2: Selling Profitability with Michael Port

From the studios of fractal Recording, this is the profit first podcast, episode two of two.

Yes. Yes. No.

Oh, my God. Welcome, everyone, to the profit first podcast. We're happy to be here. I'm Chris Curran, the founder of fractal recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, author of profit and your voice. Yes. Yes. Yes.

No.

And this show is the profit first podcast. We talk about the bottom line, about the money. The alpha and omega of business is profit.

That's right. Revenue's fine, but profit's better.

Oh, I thought you're gonna do a rhyme there. Like, revenue is fine, but profit. It's time.

Wow. There you go. So we're available as a podcast on itunes and stitcher. And of course, go toProfit first podcast dot com. That's where you can find a lot more information.

And how you doing, man? We're on our 100% success record. We're at two podcasts.

I know. We're on our second episode. It's awesome. It's going very well.

I don't know if you heard what I got. I got this T shirt from the studio, the fractal studio. And I know our viewers can't see it. It's about the size of a planet. And what's funny is you're like, oh, dude, here's a shirt for you. And I'm like, thanks. And I look at it. It's a 2XL. And I'm like. And you said, it's a 90, and then you walked away.

Oh, you know, I was just happy to give you something, and I didn't realize that it was a 2XL.

It's awesome.

And then they're like, it's awesome. I'm like, oh, maybe your wife can use it.

I don't know. My size is somewhere between small and anorexic is what I wear, by the way.

Are these. This all the spiderwebs around the studio bothering you at all?

No, I love it.

Okay.

You know, the viewers. The viewers, the viewers, the listeners couldn't have viewed what I did when I came in. I ripped down all the spiderwebs and made a Santa Claus beard that I subsequently couldn't get out of my actual beard hair. So that was pretty bad.

Very cool.

So you know who's sponsoring us today?

I have a good idea.

Who is it? Who is it? Oh, you don't even have no idea. It's nextiva.

It's nextiva.

Yeah.

They've sponsored to hear you say it.

Oh, they've sponsored multiple episodes for us now. They came back, they heard our first episode. They said, well, okay, genius. They actually. They came back and said, can we cancel the contract? And I said, I'm sorry, you're in for multiple. So thanks. Nextiva. They are a voiceover IP phone system. Do you know what that is?

Right, like you use a phone. It's like a phone, but it goes through the Internet.

Exactly. It goes over the Internet and sometimes through the Google.

The Google, okay. Yeah, there you go.

Which is the Internet, which is on the Google.

So why would someone use nextiva?

Because it's cheaper, it's less expensive, and the quality is good. So when I found out about nextiva, I got the phone system for myself. I have five phones now for our office. I have one at my home office, too. You can call my office. It rings at both places simultaneously, which people are listening, saying, who cares about that, dude? When I'm internationally traveling, you can call it anywhere I go. You can get hold of me in the studio right now. I have two nextivas in my pocket.

Okay, you're double fisting.

I'm double fisting. Nextiva, folks. So, yeah, check them out@nextiva.com Nextiva.

Calm. Awesome. So we're gonna introduce our guest, but first we have to.

We have to put on my mute.

Yeah, hold on, let me mute. Okay, I got it.

So it's last. Last episode. So everyone knows this keyword was skid mark. It was assigned to Chris. Then our guests said, we can use the word chauffeur. And it's like that got nixed by you, our community. You said you want a better word, and what's the word?

So I'm gonna give you a word. And the idea is that you have.

To use it in the interview or as a. Yeah, I have to use in some capacity where it's of significance in this interview.

Right.

But he can't find out.

And our guest doesn't know.

Yeah, he doesn't know.

Yeah. So the word is. You're gonna kill me. 72% cocoa chocolate.

This is a good one.

You like that one?

Oh, my God.

Good luck, my friend.

Yep.

All right, can we unmute our guest?

Yes.

All right, let's introduce him.

If you don't know this man, I don't even know who. Listen, if you don't know who Michael Port is, here's the deal. You are living somewhere in the country where they should send the Ebola patients because you're clearly so disconnected from this planet. Michael Port wrote book yourself. Solid beyond book Solid. The contrarian effect. The Think Big Manifesto. He has a new book coming out. He does heroic public speaking. He was on this thing called Creative Live.

Huh?

Biggest thing ever. He was doing his presentation on speaking. His live audience was, I think like 30 or 40 people. The biggest live audience they ever had as a studio was three. So he did 10 times that. His viewing audience, which creativelives like services, like 30,000 people just in comparison. I was on there. My mother didn't even come. It's not easy. This guy is it. And he knows everything about selling. Michael Port.

Yes. Hi, Michael.

Hey guys, what's up? How are ya?

Good, how are you?

Welcome to the Profit first podcast, episode two of two of two.

Oh, great, so I'm a guinea pig. No, no, no, happy to be.

Where are you calling in from today?

I'm calling from New Hope, Pennsylvania.

Oh, beautiful.

Nice.

But listen, guys, I got something for you. Yeah, you ready for this? Uh, oh, revenues are fine, but I want all profit all the time.

Son of a bitch. He's awesome.

He just smoked you.

He smoked me in his corn cob pipe. I love that.

That was awesome. All right, that's good. So my friend David Deutsch, he's my co host on another show, he lives near New Hope and he said growing up they used to call it no Hope.

Really? Why is that?

I don't know why.

It's a nice town.

I know it's a nice town.

I've never heard that. I don't know what he's referring to, but I know I've got a lot of hope. I'm not so sure I have a lot of hope about this particular interview at this point, but I'm still. I have a lot of faith. So I'm gonna hang in there and see if we can step it little bit.

And Chris, do you know this Michael Port is a TV star or a former TV actor?

An actor that's like a carriageway with star thing.

You were in Sex and the City. Yeah. You were in Law and Order. You were in Third Watch. You were that. That commercial where you were the. The guy at the phone booth. I can't remember.

Budweiser.

Budweiser. Budweiser.

How you doing?

How you doing?

How you doing? Well, you know, actually I used to do a lot of voiceovers. That, that was my bread and butter in between acting jobs. And. And I did voiceovers for like @&t. Coors beer. Let's see. MTV Brawn.

So we were just saying we want sound clips for this show.

Yeah, so I was. Yeah, so we Love to stay on topic. What can you give us some of the, some of the voices right now? Just screw the problem. This is like way better.

Listen, at Pizza Hut we've got so many pizzas, you can do something different every day. So many pizzas. One great deal. I remember this stuff. I mean this is, we're talking like 1996.

Wow, that's amazing.

I was on, I listened, I was on no matter. I could write a gazillion best selling business books, right? And, and people would still be more interested in the one episode I did on Sex and the city in 1997. I was on a plane last week and the flight attendant comes up to me, goes, were you the cheese shop guy on Sex and the City? I'm bald now. I don't even have hair. That was 1997.

Wow.

So anyhow, I'll take that any day.

And your character name was Michael on that episode, if I recall.

Exactly.

I watched that.

I look, I know you've got it on, you know, you just watch it over and over. I know, we'll talk about that afterwards.

It's on. It's actually just so Chris knows because Michael, you know this, it's poster size. The picture of Michael on above my bed, pinned to the ceiling. I tore down my Farrah Fawcett and put him up there. So Michael, tell us what you got going on so we can chit chat about this cool stuff.

Well, right now I am putting a big focus on teaching heroic public speaking. I want to help people stop giving speeches and start performing because how many? I don't. I'll say it. How many boring, just wrist slitting talks have you been through, you know, over the years? You know, you sit there and you go, oh my God, I can't, I can't wait to get out of here. This is crazy. And even though the person on stage cares, they've got a good heart, they've got a lot of integrity and they know their stuff. But the bar has just gotten lower and lower and lower over the years, I think. And we don't expect a lot from our speakers because we think of them as speakers as opposed to performers. And I think each one of us has more of a performer inside of us than we realize. We just need to find what that style is for each person so you can be an individual performer. I wouldn't want anyone to perform like you. My. Or ask anybody to perform like me or Chris. You know, each person should have their own style, their own way of being, but it can be Amplified, you know, take all these incredible parts of your personality and amplify them so that they are compelling to the audience.

How do you find your own style?

Well, one of the things that people talk a lot about is self expression. This idea that you should be, you know, fully self expressed. And if you're expressed, you know, on the stage, then, you know, then you'll be good. And that makes sense to me. I think I would also consider self understanding. If you understand yourself, if you really have a good sense of what your natural talents are, what your skills are, the sweet spot of where you feel comfortable from a communications perspective, then you can start to amplify that because you can give a great performance on stage being actually quite quiet. You don't even have to move that much. But the connection that you make to the audience is the key. And so look, if the bottom line of this show is profit, first think about performance from this perspective. Every single negotiation is a performance. Every job interview is a performance. When you go in and ask for a raise, that's a performance.

That's the key performance.

It's the key performance. So look, if you're in a negotiation with somebody or you make a sales offer or somebody says, well, what does it cost to hire you? And you say this number and you start squirming in your chair and you can't, you have a little trouble controlling your, you know, your breathing starts to get a little bit faster and your hands get a little bit tingly. Clearly the person knows they don't have to pay you that number.

Right?

They just know, oh, he just threw this out there. He's not comfortable with it. But we need to be comfortable quoting our fees. We need to be comfortable saying high prices. And part of that is being able to perform through that.

So give me a tip. I want to sell more at a higher price. What do I do?

Okay. One of the things you can work on is your breathing is being able to control the way that you breathe because you're.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Michael. Just as you said that, both Chris and I took like a massive deep breath and stuck our chest out. I'm sorry to interrupt.

No, man, because, no, but you're right. I mean, you know, oftentimes what happens when we get nervous is we breathe very shallowly. We don't breathe deeply. So what happens when you, when you, when you only use the top part of your lungs to breathe, you're just not getting a lot of oxygen. And you know, the worst is you get lightheaded and pass out. But it's not likely that's going to happen. But what probably will happen is because you don't have a lot of oxygen, you'll start to feel a little bit panicky, and then you start to breathe a little bit faster, but the breaths are still very short. So now it gets worse. And then you start to get tingly fingers in your tingly feelings in your fingers and start to fidget in your chair. But what we want to do is make sure we focus on the exhale more than the inhale. It's the opposite of what you might think, because if you focus on the exhale, you're naturally going to take a big inhale. You can't not take a big inhale when you focus on the exhale. I could ask you to do it with me, but that might make you guys giggle too much.

No, no, no. Well, we are gigglers.

Yes, you are gigglers. But just breathe. Exhale forward. Like, breathe all the way out for a second. Breathe all the way out and then breathe in naturally. So you have to take in more air.

You do.

You have to.

Yeah.

And so what people do when they get a little bit nervous or panicky is they focus on the inhale. And then that makes it worse because you end up getting sometimes even too much oxygen, which can be a problem. So you either have not enough, you know, too much carbon dioxide or too much oxygen either way. So you're trying to find the balance. The point is, it's one thing you can do when you sit there in a negotiation and you keep your body relaxed. You don't move around you. You look the other person in the eye and you slide the piece of paper across the desk and says, here's my number. And then you just sit and you wait.

That's when the shallow breathing starts.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly my point. And what happens is you can now start to hear your breathing. That makes you more nervous because you're thinking, oh, my God, everybody else in the room can hear my breathing.

Right?

Yeah.

Right. So. So you're talking about negotiations and breathing to feel comfortable. And this show is all about profit, obviously. I'm going to try to just tie it back to one thing and ask you. Sort of being profitable in your business or as a person, as an entity is, you know, it's almost. You have to negotiate with yourself. You just said before that you have to know your strengths, right?

Yeah. Right.

And so. So is calming down, you know, is probably breathing would work to calm yourself down. So you could contemplate your business and what's profitable, what's not. Right?

Yeah. Well, look, the most successful people I've met have a lot of grit, meaning they can handle uncomfortable situations. And for many people, financial discussions are uncomfortable. And, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs don't even want to look at their P and L and their balance sheets and all that kind of stuff because it's just not always the. You know, you're not always thrilled with what you see.

Right.

So sometimes it's easier just to ignore it and abdicate and say, tell the bookkeeper, hey, you go do the thing. And, you know, just let me know if I'm going to go totally broke. I know, but otherwise, just don't bother me. And then, of course, you have no idea what's going on in the business. So early in my development, I went out on my own about 13 years ago. I did not like to look at those things. It made me uncomfortable. I forced myself to see. You asked about knowing yourself. I know that I'm a spender. I'm an impulsive spender type. And I also know that I don't like to feel constrained. And I also know that I'm impatient. I recognize all my weaknesses.

You sound like an expensive date.

I really am. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what. Look, honestly, when we went on our first date, I think the reason you didn't give me the second call is because of that, you know.

Well, just so you know, our first date was on a boat. Me, you, and all these other authors.

My expensive boat.

Well, yeah, very expensive boat, Chris. We're on this boat, which is massive, just to give you a sense. There's 15 of us on a boat and there's more room. And we can't find Michael because he's in the bedroom. And then he's like, I can't hang out with you guys now. I'm considering a bigger boat because this isn't big enough. So just to call you out, I was.

I did not buy that boat, just for the record.

Oh, you didn't?

I didn't.

Well, your boat's incredibly gorgeous, and thank you for hosting us.

But here's the thing, so. That's exactly right. So I know that I need constraints around me. So when I hire a bookkeeper and when I hire accountants and when I hire anybody that handles financial aspects of my business, part of their requirement is to force me to sit down and work on them, not to send it to me every two weeks, because that doesn't mean I'm going to look at it. But to come to my office, to sit down, force me to look at it. Force me to go through every line item to know exactly what's going on at all times.

I mean, do they have control? I mean, more than just making focus, do they have control? For example, like, say you're. You want a hot cup of cocoa. You say, like, I want 72% chocolate cocoa. I mean, like, how much control?

No, you know what? I. Because I don't eat. I don't eat dark chocolate. So that's just not going to happen.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. But quickly move to a new topic. They don't have that kind of control. They don't have that kind of control. I still can do whatever I want to do, but I have more eyes on it. And I also keep my books open so that everybody in the senior positions in the company can see them.

All right, you got to tell us about that. That sounds risky.

Well, what's risky about it?

Well, they know how much you're making. They know.

Yeah, sure.

Hot diggity dog.

Absolutely. And then it, of course, again, keeps me more accountable to them.

Let me ask you this. If your colleagues, Michael, know how much money you're making, are they, when they find out, when they join your. Are they surprised that it's so much or so little or what's the reaction? Or they don't care or do they feel envious?

Yeah. So when they first come in, they don't get access to the books. So the people that have access to the books are the people who I have trust in, faith in.

Gotcha.

And when I hire somebody, I extend trust. Naturally, I'm a very trusting person until, of course, it's taken away. But I always extend it first. But trust is built over time, and trust is built by making commitments and fulfilling them. You do, you say you're going to do, you know, again and again and again and again, people will trust you. So once I know that, you know, that we are more like family, then they start to have access, you know, to all that information. And it makes a big difference. And I don't think. Look, I've heard people have asked about that. Well, are they going to be nervous that you make more money? Well, of course I make more money than them. I own the company.

Yeah, you took the risk. You started it.

Yeah, and now they come in and they're taking risks with me, too. And I'm doing everything in my power to compensate them incredibly well. But I think that they, they, they like the fact that I do well and I think they want me to do really well so they can do really well. At the end of the day, that all depends on how they feel treated, you know, and how, how much autonomy they feel they have. And there's a whole bunch of things that go into that. But no, I think they want to see me enjoying my life and not throwing money around stupidly. But they know that inside the organization I can be pretty cheap.

No, I like that. Now, with this awareness, are you also giving them the control over it? Do they control spends and make decisions without you?

In some areas they do, in others they don't.

What's your suggestion or tips here?

Yeah, so it depends who it is. On the very front line, the people who do sort of the basic like initial customer service, help desk kind of stuff, they have up to $250 leeway for making refunds or for spending. If they think they need to spend on something to make a situation better, they can do it up to $250 without asking. They just have to write, just report it afterwards, how it worked, what was for, etc. And then we just evaluate and make sure that choices are good. And if we think maybe you could have made a better, you know, we talk about it and we advise accordingly. And then my ops team, my ops director essentially has much more leeway with respect to spending in certain areas. And then my, and then Matthew, who directs all of our marketing, has a higher leeway or higher number that he can spend without checking into me on Facebook, advertising, pay per click, you know, that kind of stuff because we've discussed it. Here's, here's, here's the budget. Here's what I to do. As long as everything is tracked, as long as I know exactly what we're producing from the dollar spent, you know, go do with it. You know, imagine it's your money. One of the things I often ask people in interview process is I ask questions to try to figure out if they are like me or if they are savers. Because I want to, I want a whole group of people around me who are really stingy, who are savers.

Will people try to say what you, they think you want to hear?

They always do.

How do you navigate that?

I just try not to make it that obvious. You know, I try not to make this. I ask them about their own purchases, the things they have, you know, how they'd like to spend their time. You know, would you ever do, would you do this or would you want to do this, you know, try to get those questions out and then, you know, maybe, you know, they can see around me. But ultimately you can with that kind of thing. I can, I can tell.

Yeah.

You know, yeah.

No, that is great.

Quick question. The people on your team, do they give you feedback that help the profitability of the company? Do they ever give you.

Yeah, yeah. I'm really lucky because my director of operations was a, was a financial accountant for 17 years. So I'm really, really lucky there. She does, she's not my finance director, but she's my director of operations. And so she interfaces with my bookkeeper all the time. And it makes a really, really big difference. I'm able to get a better picture of what's going on and how the books actually relate to what's, what's happening on a day to day basis.

Well, you have so many different streams of income for the type of business you're in. How do you determine where you're making money and where you're not?

That's one of the things that I've had to work on over the last number of years to get better at, to improve our systems of reporting so that we are very, very good at categorizing all the dollars in and all the dollars out. So I know what's being spent to earn what income. And because initially it was like a pool, like here's a pool of income and here's what we spent. But I'm like, I don't know where we should put our focus. Is it on that program or that product or the other program or the other product? And so we just worked, we just worked harder on getting better at categorizing so that we could in effect really truly understand what was profitable and what wasn't. Because, man, I'll tell you what, when you were somebody who really likes to do a great job, who really, really wants to be of service, who, you know, who likes approval, then sometimes you will make decisions in your business that are not driven by profit, but rather by what people think of you. And what I try to ask myself is that what's more important here? Results or approval? Results or approval? Now please don't assume or think that that doesn't mean that I don't bust my ass every day to do everything that we possibly can to have the happiest, happiest clients in the world. We do. But the difference is, am I doing that to get approval or am I doing that to build a remarkable business on my end and help them get remarkable Results on their end.

It sounds like a little bit of an. It's ego versus money, Chris.

Yeah.

You're looking at me.

Yeah. No, it's. It's approval. I actually into that category.

You're pursuing approval at the compromise of money.

Well, I'm a guy who likes to do a good job and please people and just do a good job.

Yeah, yeah. And then you. And yet, Michael, is this your experience? If you're just taking care of that approval phase, the money starts fading away and you compromise yourself?

I think so. It does. You know, I had a mentor. I sort of. I chose him as a mentor. He was the husband of a friend of mine. He's a little bit older than me, and he had made about $50 million by the time he was 30.

Hot diggity.

Yeah, it's not bad. And I asked him. Now, of course, he was in finance, you know, I asked him. He didn't write fricking books.

I know. Can we find one wealthy Author that's not J.K. rowling?

Yeah, right. So, I mean, I guess it's all relative if, you know, if we're making seven figures, you know, that's, you know. Yeah, yeah. By most standards as well.

There's always someone that's doing better than you.

I just did it. I just did a promotional video for this heroic public speaking course that I'm run.

Running.

And in it, I said, look, I don't like to talk numbers because as.

Your boat goes, someone thinks your captain comes off your boat. He says he does like to talk caviar.

No, I said, because in every single one of these videos, you see, it's like, I've been blessed to have this and I've been blessed to have that. Like, dude, I get it. You're doing well. That's great. Let's get to what's really going on here, you know?

Yeah.

So I said, but, look, I understand if you haven't met me before and someone sent you here. You need to know that I've done what you want to do and that I know what you need to know. So I said, yes, I make seven figures, not eight. Seven. I'm sorry. You know, there's always somebody who makes more money than you. Yeah. This guy. This guy had made, you know, this 50 million bucks by the time he was 30. And I said, what. What do you think? What's like. What's your secret? What's your secret? He said, yeah, I'll tell you, Michael. I just. There's all this money out there. Somebody's gonna pick it up. Might as well be me.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

And I thought, well, geez, you know, that sounds pretty stupid. Do you know? I mean, it was just so obvious. Of course. Because a lot of it is this mental game of, you know, do I deserve it? Do I not deserve it? You know, when we say, no, no, I don't care about the money. Don't worry about the money. I say that all the time. I gotta say, michael, stop saying you don't care about the money. You have to care about the money.

Well, let me ask you our final question as time's running out here about the money. We ask every guest of this and you be the second guest is legit. Now, how important is profit to you in the grand scheme of things?

Profit has become more important over time. The older I get, the more important it becomes because I'm looking at things like legacy. I'm looking at providing for my son and my son's family. I'm trying to look down the road, and that means a lot to me. And also, so I'm getting older, so I'm going to need to retire at some point. So that's where these things matter. When I was younger, there's approval more now. I would say it is one of the primary driving forces in the business.

Which I can say Chris ironically gives Michael even more approval. He has a fandom that follows him. And the more he focuses on success and sharing how to be successful, more people are following him. Michael, where can they learn? The folks listening in, where can we all learn more about you?

Yeah. Michaelport.com. that's michaelport p o r t.com and there you can get free chapters from all my books. You can learn about mentoring in the book yourself Solid program about our school of coach training. If you want to become a book Yourself Solid certified coach, you can also get to our HeroicPublicSpeaking.com page. And at HeroicPublicSpeaking.com you can get 50 tips that I guarantee 100% guarantee will make you a better speaker immediately and everything. And half of them you probably never even heard of.

Good.

Yeah.

Meaning they're unique. Not that good.

Exactly.

Everyone and then click on the show notes here. That's. That was Michael Port.

Yes. Thanks, Michael.

Thank you, brother.

Yeah, you're welcome. I'm gonna go have some cocoa. Chocolate.

72%.

Thanks, guys.

Nice. Oh, my goodness.

I think he just tipped off that he figured out that was the code word. He.

He caught it.

We didn't tell him Though we didn't tell him. See, that's how savvy our guests are. Because I presume he didn't listen to episode one yet, because we haven't broadcast it yet while recording episode two.

Oh, he's still on. Oh, he's hearing.

So he's hearing. He's hearing.

So is he still there? Michael?

Yeah, I'm here.

He didn't want to tell you.

I didn't listen to one, of course, because, you know, it hasn't broadcast yet. Yeah, but I just think I just figured, who. Who the heck is going to say 70% cocoa chocolate in an interview? I figured that had to be your code wor.

So in every episode or two, we have a code word. Chris's. He ironically, coincidentally, was assigned the first word. It was skid mark. With a friend of yours, Dory Clark. And he.

I'm so. Did you apologize to Dory?

He did. I mean, come on, Listen, he can use it any way he wants. He could say, like, you know, a truck was skidding out and left a skid mark. He says, no, there's a skid mark in this guy's underwear. Like, you didn't have to do that. So.

All right, all I can say in closing is, oy vey, oy vey.

Hey, well, here's an opportunity. Since you heard, now you know our secret. Our next guest. Who's our next guest? John Jans.

Next time or Barry Moltz.

Barry Moltz. Do you have a code word for us, Michael?

I do. I do.

What is it?

I do. It is Cherry chapstick.

That's a good one.

That's my word. Now it's my turn.

Yep, it goes back to Chris. All right, so Chris is cherry chapstick dude.

Thanks, Michael.

Michael Nyder. Take care, brother.

You're welcome. Bye now.

All right, see you.

So what do you think, dude? I think that Michael's one of my favorite people. And I'm not just saying that this guy has gone out of his way to support me. Unknown author Mike Michalowicz calls very well known author Michael Port. And he's like, I'll do whatever I can to help you in this business. He's one of the guys that gets that. Success is through collaboration. Success is through supporting your quote unquote competition. So I love that. And so I'm not surprised he had open books. Yeah.

Yeah. And it reminded me of this one really popular podcaster these days, John Dumas. He. He's real successful with his podcast. He's making money, and he Actually posts on his website, his monthly financials every month.

Are you kidding?

Everything.

Even his personal, like, income?

No. Well, it's the. It's the business, I guess. It's his show and his. And. And the. The business, so.

Yeah, so. So give me one of your favorite takeaways from Michael Port.

Yeah, so I like the fact that his. He. He relies on his people to help him. To help him understand how his company can be more profitable. And I think even a solopreneur out there, like, look, you can. You can, you know, talk to people and. And lean on different people. They don't have to be in your business, but you can talk to people about how to be more profitable, right?

Yeah.

How to get these expenses down and how to just track everything. And tracking was a big thing too, Right. I liked when you asked him that. How do you know what product or book is being is profitable and which products are not? It's just more tracking.

Yeah. And that was my takeaway. He says he's tracking things. It's about measuring the dollar in and the dollar out. So I got our final quote for the day.

Nice.

This is from Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged.

Yeah. I thought it was Ayn Rand. A Y, N. I know. I don't know if it's Ann or Ayn Ein. Is she German? Ein.

Ayn Rand. Ich bin Ayn Rand. Now I don't know.

Yeah.

Okay, so want to say both?

We'll edit out the wrong one.

Okay, so it's either Ayn Rand or Ayn Rand.

Yes.

So this is from Ayn Rand. Okay, here's the second. Next one. This one's from Ayn Rand. You don't have to mark that down. You just. Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. Stick that one in your plastic cob pipe and smoke it.

Wow, I thought you were dropping something else there. I know. So this is awesome. Great job, Mike.

Yeah, great job. Next episode, Barry Molt. Pure energy, this guy, Barry Molt.

This is awesome. Barry Moltz. I don't want to mispronounce Ayn Rand. Ein. So this is great. Thank you for listening to the Profit first podcast. Episode 2.

Send us your words. What do you want us to say?

Yeah, send us your words. You can find us on itunes and stitcher and of course, profit first podcast dot com. Chris Curran, Mike Michalowicz. Thanks for listening, everybody. See ya.

So, Chris, if people want to learn more about you and see what you look like, what should they do?

Oh, yeah, they can't see us. Right? Good thing. So they can go to fractalrecording.com that's fractal F, R a C, T, a L. Fractalrecording.com yeah.

And check out what this cool studio is all about.

Yeah, we do a lot of shows here. We help local people host their own shows. That's awesome.

And you can do it remotely, too.

You could do remotely. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of stuff there. We have a cool product called the Blog Generator.

Yes, definitely. Check that out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And how about you?

Yeah. So you want to learn more about what I got going on, you can go to my site, mikemicalicz.com but if you really want to learn about profit, the place I encourage everyone to check out is Profit First Professionals. These are folks that are helping small businesses become profitable. It's accountants and bookkeepers and coaches. And if you're an accountant, bookkeeper, or coach and want to help others do profit first, it's the same thing. Go to profitfirstprofessional.com profitfirstprofessionals. Com.

Awesome. Thanks.

Thank you.