Episode 211: Exploring Why Businesses Fail with Robert Thomas Bethel

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Yeah.

And Jackson goes, oh, so we have a daily huddle. And we go, hey, you know, everyone give your update. And you're like, oh, my sister's having a birthday tomorrow. I'm like, oh, you know, we just bought a new rug for her house. And Jackson's like, oh, someone tried to kill my dad and kept on like circulating.

That was horrible.

And like, what? What?

So his dad did a TED talk.

His dad did a TED TEDx talk on it.

And isn't his name Ted?

That's the great irony. That's the great irony. He was destined to do this. And the crazy thing is like, you don't know. So the he works for a private company. It was a random assault in a home that this company was renting for a retreat at event. And someone presumably on some kind of drugs broke into the house and just randomly assaulted Ted.

I know. And there's eight people in the house. I think that was the craziest part.

And it was eight people and no one else got attacked. And they were sleeping through. It was like 3 o' clock in the morning. But Ted's wife got a call and they said, your husband's severely injured, he's in the hospital. Fly out. They don't say much more than that. And this is a private company. Well, because I think they don't know all the facts yet. And then there's liability. Like do we say there was a murder attempt? Like we don't know if it's a murder attempt. What if like it was one of the colleagues there that was fed up with Ted and said, you know, I'm going to end this, Ted.

But still, did they say he was stabbed. Like, did they.

I think she got. She got information during the travel. They actually put on a private plane and got her out there.

Wow.

Yeah. The military sends a commercial. Yeah. I don't know. I know it's weird banter to start off a presentation, a podcast with, but that's how we roll here, you know?

Yeah. So on that note, welcome everybody, to the Profit first podcast.

This is the Bob Bethel episode. Oh, there's the energy. Nice. There you are. All right, so everyone, that's Kelsey there, Kelsey Ayers. Oh, by the way, hello, everybody. I was at a speaking event for Dave Ramsey's event. Right. I was just telling Bob off here, but I'm down there and someone comes up, goes, how's Kelsey Ayres doing? I'm like, she's good.

I've gotten that so many times.

Have you really?

In email form, people were like, accentuate.

That s. I love it. I love it. Catching on. So you, my friends, this is Mike here and Kelsey Ayres, the co host. And you are listening to Profit First Podcast. This show where we explore all elements of profitability. Today we're bringing in an expert who has been in. In 77 business turnarounds. Guy knows what he's talking about and he's gonna tell you the number one reason businesses fail, AKA the number one thing you should avoid, by the way. Me. In case you don't know who the hell I am, I'm the author of Profit First. Tell me you have a copy of that book. If you don't, what are you doing? Listen to the show without the recipe behind the show. Yeah, I also have a brand new book that's coming out on August 21st.

Where?

Three weeks away from when this goes live. It's called Clockwork. You know who just endorsed the book?

Who?

You know who did it, right?

I know.

I. Say it. Say it.

Simon Sinek.

Oh, my God. Simon Sinek. The ultimate endorsement. That's going to be front and center. Well, back and center. Because on books you put on the back. Yeah, but back, center, top. Simon Snake endorsed the book. It's huge. Gino Wickman's endorsed it. Oh, intervat. Six or seven other people have come up and endorsed it. The. The editor in chief at Entrepreneur magazine just backed the book.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

And can you say what Simon Sinek.

Said about you don't read this garbage? It says. It says whatever you do. Yeah, but he said something. He said something. He said, don't read this garbage. I'm like, oh, my God.

Exist it's all that matters.

I'm just going to put. Endorsed by Simon Sinek, and that's it. I'm not going to say how I'm. I'm going to hold that.

Okay.

And we're going to announce it on the podcast that goes live that week or read it. How's that sound? Yeah, that juicy. Okay. And so we're gonna explore the profit first concept here. We do it on every single episode, every element of profitability. We're gonna actually start bringing on more and more guests that are experiencing profit first now that we've been out there for four or five years. But we're always lucky to sneak in a special expert, and that's what we got today. And why don't you tell us where they can find us before we get rolling?

On itunes, Stitcher, Tunein radio, any podcast, or anywhere. But of course, Profit first podcast dot com. And please subscribe wherever you listen to.

So I'm listening to the Mike Rowe podcast. Yes, you do you listen to that?

No, but you've talked about it before.

And he goes, and it's like, the way I heard it. And he tells these, like, mystery stories that are fascinating. And for the first day, had their 100th episode, and he basically did a debrief of the show. Instead of doing his typical mystery story in eight minutes, he did a debrief the show. And what he did was read listener mail. And maybe this was the 99th episode, but he read listener mail. And it's so funny. It was two emails juxtapositioned against each other. The first one said, dear Mike, not me, Mike Rao. Dear Mike, love your show. And I love the banter in the beginning because he has this banter, and it really gives flavor to the show, and it gets me associated and connected with you. And then you. You read on, and I love it. The next email says, could you stop the blathering? I hate it. All I want is the meat and content. For God's sake, man, just produce a show.

Yeah.

And Mike Rose response was. Was great. He said, I respect everyone's opinion. Of course. He's like, but I just got to be who I am. I like to talk and share my story. And he goes, and I know you. He talked. Now he's talking directly to the person that says, stop blathering. You're even listening to this right now, which is cute. So we get the same feedback. People love the blathering, and others don't like blathering. Do you have any relatives that blather A lot like blather.

My mother, if you get her on the phone, like, she says that she has phone anxiety. She doesn't like to call you.

Yeah.

But then once she's on the phone, she will talk and talk and talk where, like, she gives side stories to side stories that are completely irrelevant. And you cannot get off the phone. Even just the process of getting off the phone takes forever.

My mom, too.

Yeah.

She's like, oh, Mike, real quick. We're in a rush. And I'm like, this is gonna be an hour.

Yeah, exactly.

And she shares, like, story after story, and it's like, ma. I know, but at the same time, it's my mom.

Exactly.

And you know, I respect my mom.

Exactly.

I thought it was fascinating. Last episode with Adrienne Dorsen talking about mother in laws.

Yeah.

Did you get along with your mother in law?

No, I did initially, and then it just soured. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard.

Okay. You know, I thought I was one of the few that had that situation. I like my mother.

I feel like it's very hard to have a good relationship. I have seen it, but I feel like more often than not.

And it's. It's a. It's really this possession of the son. Right. The mother can't give away her son, and the wife is her husband. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's to some degree, it depends on the relationship of the husband to the mom. Like, if they will constantly kind of give the mom the priority. You know what I mean? If they cater to the mom all the time and that it creates that tension.

Yeah. I want to cater both to my mom and my wife. I want, like, pure catering.

Yeah. You can't make everyone happy.

I want everyone to cater to me. Hey, before we bring Bob Bethel on, I want to know, do we have any listener mail today or shout outs, I should say.

Yeah. This one comes from Brennan Lucas. He says he's a huge Profit first fan and he loves the podcast so much, especially the grunting and the banter.

I swear I did not read that first. Thanks, Brennan.

Yeah, he runs Whipped Bake Shop in Philadelphia with his ridiculously talented wife Zoe, and they're working on implementing profit first for their business.

So Brennan and Zoe, if you really want to crank up the sales at Whipped Bake Shop in Philadelphia and everyone else listening, go there right now. Broadcast this constantly. Like, you know, a lot of people have music in the background. How. Boy, how often do you go to a bake shop? Could you stop playing? You know, whatever Music. It is like your journey, Kenny. Oh, Kenny G's even worse. The elevator music. I would do the private first podcast.

Yeah, why not?

It'll get people running.

Tired of our voices.

Well, no, I think they will get tired of it. That's the whole idea. They go in there and you don't want people lingering. You want them to buy the food and get the hell out of there. You have this playing. Be like, geez, what is this?

Or they won't come back. I'm not sure I agree with your method.

That's a good point.

Okay, but can I say he sent a picture and in the background he had the coolest cake with like a geode design on it.

It was that cool. That's cool. Well, we love you guys. Wishing you much profits and everyone else listening. Next time you tour Philadelphia, it's one of the most historic cities in the world. Well, at least in the US. Go to Philadelphia and stop by the whipped bake shop for some whipped up goods. Yeah, I do want to thank our corporate partners. Make the show a reality. I have no idea who they are. I think it's next.

Yes, you do.

I think it's next. Diva and Receipt Bank.

Yes, exactly.

Do you maintain the show outline? Can we delete the other company offer?

I made a new one last week. I think mine got thrown away. So I think somebody threw yours away.

Okay, so next. Even Receipt Bank. You know the routine. We'll share more about those folks in a little bit. I think you should be using them too. And in addition to our great guest interview we're gonna have in just a second, we're gonna share the insights that we learned from our guest.

We also have write network sponsoring this episode.

Yeah, and I have the sheet right here. I gotta do these reads ahead of time. I'll do the read in the middle again.

Yeah, exactly.

But right, networks, you can give them a call. We'll tell you how to call them. Just put that in your pipe and smoke in the meantime. His name is Robert.

You need to know.

Robert Thomas Bethel is the orchestrator of seven Roberts. Did I say Roberts? I said Robert Thomas. Did I say Roberts?

I think so.

Oh, you are such. I bought you chocolate so you wouldn't like, like get down, attack me. How can I sweeten you up? There's nothing I can do. I love it.

I love it.

I love it. Robert Thomas Bethel, who goes by Bob, is the orchestrator of 77 business turnarounds over the past 50 years. Bob owns several companies across the southern United States and has Operated businesses both nationwide and internationally. He currently resides in beautiful Orange beach, Alabama, with his wife, Reese Witherspoon. And I don't know if you know this, he's an eagle scout. Bob, welcome to our show.

Welcome, Bob.

Thanks, Kelsey and Mike. I appreciate you having me on.

Oh, it's a joy. It's a joy. And I really do believe you have the most beautiful beaches in the United States. I've traveled the beaches all over. You think it would be Florida? Alabama and Mississippi actually have gorgeous beaches along the coast.

That's good to know.

They really do.

Do you have any businesses in Orange beach?

We have one operating business in Orange beach which is a management company.

Okay, what's a management company? What do they do?

It operates our apartment complexes across the southeast.

Okay, that's nice.

Do you have a lot of apartment complexes?

We do.

I wish you'd say I only have one. How many apartment complexes do you have?

Well, we have both apartment complexes and commercial office buildings, actually. And all of them were companies that we took over that had failed. And so we have kept them in our portfolio for a number of years and they are profitable.

Nicely done. Now you've saved and turned around 77 businesses. You've done it in 50 years. That means at least what you're averaging a one and a half to two a year. How does a guy do that?

Well, by getting very old and working a lot of hours, Mike. No, actually, I got into this business because when I got out of college, age 21, I started my own business. And of course, at that point in life, I knew everything. I had been raised in my father's business. So it took me about two years to accumulate a pretty decent net worth from start. And then we hit a recession and I found out exactly how stupid I was. And it took me about three years to work out from under the debt. I didn't go bankrupt, but I had to sell everything to get out of the trap. And that actually put me into doing turnaround work because I was fortunate enough that a friend of my parents who was one of the wealthiest men in middle Tennessee came to me. And he had retired but had about 23 businesses and he wasn't satisfied with the performance. And he said, I think you've learned a great deal, and I'm going to give you a third of these businesses if you'll come in and make them profitable. So to coin a phrase, profit first.

But let's talk about first. Were you your own business the first turnaround? You said you were approaching bankruptcy and you Started companies.

Yes. I actually got out from under it by selling everything. And that was very painful. Mentally, it was devastating. But it brought me back down to earth.

What kind of business was that? First business that went automobile dealership. Wow.

What were.

When it came to these 77 businesses that you subsequently turned around? Give us a sense of the types of businesses they were.

26 different industries, Mike, from chain of restaurants in Kansas City, Missouri that we bought from Montgomery Wards that were failing, a number of engineering companies, automobile dealerships, large truck dealerships. I Peterbilt a ton of manufacturing facilities, office parks, apartment complexes. And really, if you break the manufacturing businesses down, that. That pretty well encompasses all of the 26 veterinarian practices. So just a variety of things because I realized. I wish you hadn't written that book. It's such a great title. I realized when my business failed that profit has to be first. Period. Yeah, it doesn't matter the industry. And I think people. People get caught up in a bubble of their industry and think lots of things don't matter and everyone gravitates towards their field of interest. And I've. I've met very few business owners that have a true appreciation of accounting and examining their profit. Engineers would rather be engineers, doctors would. Would rather do doctor things and leave that nasty accounting to someone else.

So I have discovered, Bob, that when I talk to people about profit, first, they say, well, you don't know my business, you don't know my industry. It's different.

Absolutely.

But you, you've been in 26 different industries. I think that represents all industries in the world. I don't know how many there are, but I mean, it's a good scope, right?

No, your. Your statement is. Let me give you a synopsis. Typically, typically, Mike, I get called a bank that's going to lose their rear end. They either haven't paid. Paid attention to that account and it is now underwater and their collateral will not clear the debt. And they're getting ready to lose a ton of money. And so they call me and ask me to go take a look at the business. And basically, when everything is said and done and a question I've never been asked, why on God's green earth do you take over these broke businesses? Because it allows me to put my hands on tens of millions of dollars of assets with nothing down, I do in fact, take over the debt. I'm responsible for that personally. And obviously over the years, I've looked at a lot of businesses that, quite frankly, I didn't think that I help. But the, the fact of the matter is in going in and talking to the owner. Exactly what you said. The first thing, when I start asking questions, the very first thing I hear every single time. But Bob, you don't understand. My business is different.

Right?

The next, the next question I ask, Mike is, is your team aware of the financial situation you're in? Every single time I hear this, oh, God, no. If they knew, they'd all leave. So that's the second thing. They have hidden all of the financial information. And what I realized in my first business failing, and this was a small town dealership 30 miles outside of Nashville that I bought very cheap. It sold a very few cars. Having been raised in Nashville, I was used to high volume, high profit deals. And within the first year, I was one of the top 10 dealers in a four state area. And yet, when things turned bad, I lied to everyone. I lied to the bank. I lied to my employees, my team. I lied to my family. I kept it totally to myself. So after I failed and as I started looking back at what I should have done, I came to realize that I wasn't the only owner. And it's something that most business people fail to realize. And that is if the business fails, okay, my name's on the debt. I'm probably going to lose all of my collateral. The bank's going to go after my house, my cars, any other assets I have. But Mike, I'm not the only loser. The employees are losers. My vendors are losers. Customers are losers. So I quickly realized after that, as. As I started taking businesses over, the first thing that I always do is lock the doors, take the phones off the hook, get everyone together, have them sit down and tell them we're going to go through the good, the bad, the ugly. And I tell them precisely where we are. And more times than not, what I hear from those employees is, we knew it was bad, but honestly, we thought it was a lot worse. It goes back to President Roosevelt. You know, our greatest fear is fear itself. So these people have known that something's wrong. They. They have worried, but information is being hid from them. So when you bring it out into the light, it takes the heat off of them and it gives them something to shoot at when you create a plan. My. My big, biggest business hero. And as a matter of fact, you're.

Talking to him right now. Oh, I'm sorry, He.

Yes, he's. He's been my friend for 40 years. And that's T. Boone Pickens. And when I finished writing the book I wrote, Boone and sent him a draft and said, tell me what you think about the book. And he wrote me back. He said, I like it so much, if you would like, I'd write the foreword for you. Which he did. And Boone has often been quoted as saying that a fool with a plan can beat a genius without a plan. So the second thing that we do when I go into a business is we create a plan. And when I say we, it's not my plan, Mike, it's the team's plan, because they're going to have to be the one to implement it. And. And I think something interesting in all of these turnarounds is I've never brought new money into a deal until I made it profitable, number one.

Really.

Number two, I do not go in with a staff. My son is our chief operating officer of all of the businesses that we have acquired that we continue to hold in our portfolio. Number of these businesses I have sold because we got them to the point that they needed additional capitalization. And three of those businesses I've sold to public companies. So. So business, your business is no different than any other. If you're not making a profit, you're in the same boat with everyone. And I don't give a cuss what your industry is. And as I say, engineers especially don't want to hear that they've created something that's unique. It's maybe valuable in the marketplace, but if they're losing their butt, they're not going to be in business for long. It comes down to how much money they can borrow from banks, from their relatives, or pull out of their own pocket, but ultimately, they've got a glide slope with the earth.

Now, I gotta stop here. I got so many questions written down. I gotta just go through my list here. You said early on, you don't know. People respond to you saying, bob, you don't know my business. How you gonna turn me around? You don't know my business, you don't know my industry. How do you can you convince people that industry is irrelevant? Or how do you get past that barrier of them not listening to you because you don't know their business, as they say?

Well, the answer is, I can't. I have been unable to do that. And the reason is when everything is said and done, and let me. Let me say this. I've taken over some unbelievable technical businesses. I have a business education, business background, but I'm not an engineer. And yet I've taken over some of the highest tech, including an engineering company that went in as A subcontractor of Westinghouse Nuclear and rebuilt nuclear power plants all over the world. Now what on God's green earth do I understand about a nuclear power plant? Very little. But yet we were a prime subcontractor of Westinghouse Nuclear. For eight years, one of my engineering companies worked with the largest Italian oil and gas company, eni and we laid three pipelines from Algeria to Sicily in at that time the deep water record of 1995ft. What do I know about welding 20 inch chrome molle steel pipelines? Not very much, but we became profitable. And the reason that we did and in those, and the reason I mentioned the engineering companies is I desperately needed the owners to stay with the company as an employee. But I tried early on to work with an owner that the bank sent me in to see if I could help this guy. And I found myself spending more time arguing with him, defending his bad previous decisions than I did working on the problems of the business. So I promised myself from that point on, I'll buy the business. Now having bought those engineering companies so that I was in charge and responsible for the ultimate decision, I found that the previous owner was not a help. He was a hindrance because he continued to press his defense against bad decisions. And, and so by taking the team, Mike, and, and empowering them, they know what needs to be done. So my job is to run interference, kick the hurdles out of their way, provide them with the tools that they need to succeed against a plan. And then I think the biggest thing that we do is we measure our performance on a daily basis. And I've had people say, well you can't do that. My business different bull crap. We can measure the performance of any business and, and we can measure our profit because profit comes first. And I pound that. You know, Jack Welch says, if you get your point across, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. So it comes down to my job becoming a teacher and a coach of profit. How we get there, how we make it profitable and, and most of it, Mike, is very common sense.

Well, let me ask you this. So our listeners, they're not going to be a situation where a guy like you can come in and do a turnaround and they can sell their business. A lot of them are in a business that's surviving check by check. It's slowly, you know, chewing away at their personal savings. They have to turn around themselves. Do you have sage advice for them? How can they turn around their business?

It just so happens, Mike, that I have written a book, strengthen your business. It's Available on Amazon. It's a quick read. And I was. I was shamed into writing this book, Kelsey and Mike, by my dear wife, who has told me for years, you really ought to write a book. About a year ago, she walked in and said, I just want to say something. You've made so many dumbass mistakes in your business career that if you drop dead, you're going to allude the answer to how you got out of those problems. So with that, I wrote the book and, and I cover the things. And I think the. The biggest thing in getting to profit, number one, empower your team. Tell them every darn thing there is. Pull the financial statement, hand it to them. Explain what those financial statements represent. Teach them to read it. There aren't any secrets except payroll. We're not going to share who makes what. But then we come up with a plan that tells every single person who is doing what to whom, when, and for how much. Then I ask them, okay, how is the best way to measure our business? If we're a manufacturing facility, is it units produced per day? Is it revenue? Should we be tracking cost on a daily basis? And then we put whiteboards up and we post them every single day. And after 52 years, Mike, I find it the greatest motivator of a team that you've ever seen. Now stop and think about this for a second. If you and Kelsey and I go to a basketball game tonight, we're a few minutes late and we walk into the stadium and we look and the team's already playing and we sat down and there's no scoreboard. So we turn to the people next to us and go, what score? And they say, we're not keeping score. Well, how much time's left? Well, they're not running a clock either.

Oh, my God.

How do we know where we are? We don't.

Right?

And people, people put their employees, their team in that same circumstance. They don't know where we are.

Right?

Are we ahead or behind? We don't know because we don't have a plan. So I call it tail light Accounting. I have an MBA degree. I've got a lot of class hours of accounting, and I enjoy accounting. However, the simple fact of the matter is, if you stand back and think about it, we as business people, if we're going to measure the month of May, what most companies do, either internally or with an external CPA firm, they pull their P and L at the end of the month. Well, okay, the end of the month is the 31st. By the time the bank statements are printed out and it gets to your CPA or accountant. You're 10 to 15 days into June before you can take a look at May, right? That's 30. That's 31 days plus 10 of the period you're measuring. Small businesses can't take that. They need headlight accounts.

Yeah, it's like you go to a basketball game, there's no score, no time. You decide to leave, and then they say, oh, here's the team that won. You know, you hear the score a month later, and they're already playing the next game like it's way too late. Sure, we gotta be super quirky here. I only got five minutes left. Tell me the other steps that people can use to make their business profitable again.

If you start with a plan, include your team, make them help with the plan, and focus first on reducing cost. First cost, everyone again. One of the things all of the owners tell me the day I walk in is all we need is a little more revenue and a little. Little additional capital. Well, guess what? We could take a business today and go out and spend a million dollars on marketing and advertising. We have no guarantee that it's going to generate one additional dollar. What we can do is control our cost. 3. Three of the businesses that we have owned, Mike, have revenue in excess of $300 million a year. They're not mom and pop deals. And yet the team, not me, the team has reduced cost in every single one of the 77 businesses I've taken over by at least 34%. I didn't do any of that. Okay? I did none of that. I will take 5% of the credit of the turnarounds that I've worked on. The rest goes to the team. So that's the value I place on team. A plan, measuring it. Doing headlight accounting by measuring on a daily basis the matrix that make us profitable.

Okay, so cut costs first. Measure the metrics. Is there any steps after that, or does that kind of put you on the permanent path to profitability?

There are a number of steps after that. I go into a lot of detail of making these steps work. But, Mike, you have to buy the book.

I love it. So the final step is always be selling your book. Always be selling.

Exactly.

So, Bob, why don't you tell us before we let you go, tell us about where people can get the book. Well, give us some details on. On the book and I'll tell everyone.

It's.

It is called Where'd I put it? Here. Fine. Where? Oh, here it is.

Strengthen Your business.

Strengthen your business. The subtitle. That's what I was looking at. Fail proof strategies from the man who rescued 77 businesses. So strengthen your business. Where can people find this book?

It's on Amazon, Mike. And let me say this. I look at this book this way and you tell me if this makes sense to you. If I can take the steps and you don't have to buy a system. You don't have to. The only thing you need after you get this book is some whiteboards. That's all you need. So it appears to me if I can take 77 broke businesses in 26 different industries and turn them around using these steps, if your business is not failing, wouldn't it make sense that instituting these steps would actually be failure insurance for your business? And let me read you the last paragraph of Boone Pickens forward. Every country in the world depends on the kind of small and medium sized businesses of. Bob aims to help with strengthen your business. I would advise any business owner, whether times are troubled or prosperous, to study and apply the lessons Bob demonstrates doing so has the power to transform your business into a more efficient and profitable operation. And I think that's high praise coming from Boone.

Yeah, that's super high praise, Bob. And you don't have an audible version. I just, that's what I was trying to look up on the web. Not yet at least. I hope you know, I hope you come out with audible and I hope you read it. I like when the author reads their own books. So just. That's my little plug for you.

I do. And I've read your books.

We haven't listened to them. You got to listen to them.

Yeah, it is funny.

I go crazy. I go, I go, I go on tangentials. It's a Mandarin blabbering blathering.

I will do that.

Yeah, Listen to it and who knows, maybe I. Maybe I make a shout out. All right, Bob, well, thank you for coming on the show. We got a rock and roll. What we're going to do is we're going to summarize what we learned from you. So hang on tight and you can listen to us talk about you. Okay, Very good.

All right, thanks, Bob.

Thanks for joining us today, Bob. All right, Kelsey, that was actually a pretty amazing interview. I hate that the clock goes so fast. I know, but I will tell you, when it clock goes that fast, you know, it's good stuff. So here's what we're going to do. Kelsey, what are we going to do? We're doing what we always do we are going to summarize what we learned. We're going to have it. We have a listener mail that came in, we're answer that and then we're going to say goodbye. But first, I want to thank our corporate partners.

Perfect.

All right, so I want to thank Right Networks that got Bob on our show here. Right Networks helps entrepreneurs like you. And when I'm saying you, I don't mean you, Kelsey, alone. I mean our listeners to securely transition your accounting based desktop applications into the cloud. Now here's the deal. That's because we do the Prop first podcast. They think it's only accounting. A lot of people think it's only accounting software. You can move any desktop software to the cloud regardless of the version you're using as a partner. With Right Networks, you can trust that they will take away the burden of it so you have more time to focus on your business. You don't need a file server anymore. You don't need an IT guy that comes in, charges you like $200 a second and they make your computers not work. Right? Right Networks takes it all away. They move your desktop and all your legacy applications to the cloud so that you can run your business from the web, work from anywhere, anytime. And you also enjoy the added security of being on their platform. If you want to learn more, listen, they don't give you a website to go to because they're like, oh my God, you're on legacy apps. We need to give you a phone number and you can even do a rotary phone.

They know their audience.

I know, I know they know their audience. Like if you have a rotary phone, dial 8-8-8. It takes a long time. It's like 8, 8, 8. So it's 8, 8 8-2100237. That was 8, 8 8-2100 237. Write that down. 8, 8 8-2100, 237. That's right networks. And if you tell them profit first, they will give you 10. Not Mike. Don't say this is from Mike, the big. Who's that guy? Say profit first. They're offering a 10% discount currently for the. I think it's the first month. It doesn't actually specify it. It says 10% off. So I.

It's for life.

I think it's for life. I think it's for life.

Yeah.

So I would say, hey, I heard I get 10% off for life. Profit first.

Yeah, you can try at least. What are they gonna say?

Yeah, and if you wanna go to their website, it's rightnetworks.com. but I would give them a call also. Nextiva.

Yes.

Voice over IP phone system. We use them. Are you getting the new phone for me? My house. Okay.

How do you like that new one?

Love it. The clarity. So they use the Polycom phone system. It's a Polycom phone, but it runs flawlessly over there. The next Tiva network. And so now we purchase our new house. And I have a little office in my new house. I want to sync that office with here. And I brought my old phone over. I plugged in it. Fired right up, by the way, and worked. I just want to get a new phone.

Yeah, yeah. Once you're. You have that nice fancy one.

Yeah. You can't go back.

No.

And then receipt bank. That's a receipt scanning system. So all those receipts you have, you just scan them in. They sync up with your accounting system and all these compliance issues. Nowadays, there's that gdpr, right. You got to comply with tax law. And the government could say, hey, where's your receipts for all these expenses? You just show, hey, I scanned them in receipt bank, baby. You don't have to pull out the old crusty receipts that are folded up in a shoebox.

Yeah. When they start to fade after, like, a week.

Oh, my God, what is up with those receipts?

I really hate that.

I wonder if that's by design. Because I went back to return.

That actually makes sense.

I went to Home Depot. I went to Home Depot to return something, and I go, where's your receipt? I pulled out my. They're like, oh, thanks for the white strip of paper. Thanks for the white strip of paper. Where's the receipt? I mean, I swear to God, this is it. I bought it three hours ago. It faded. The oil. Invisible ink. Yeah. It is invisible ink. And I couldn't return it. That's a good business strategy. Whoever invented that company, good job. All right, so that's our sponsors. Please check them out. I think they could benefit your business. Now, let's talk about what we learned today.

Yes.

You're up first, madam.

So I think my biggest, largest, like, overall takeaway is the reoccurring theme of shame around money. I feel like the overarching theme here is that ultimately we don't like to take ownership of our money. We have this, like, shame. Like he said so many times, people lie to the people around them when they're having these money problems or when their business is going under. Meanwhile, if they took his approach from the beginning, and it seems so obvious, but if you were just honest with. With your team. They probably have the solutions within that group of people. And if nothing else, you have an awareness to create goals to work towards to fix the problem. But if you just, you know, hide under a rock, it just gets worse and worse. And compiles.

Yeah. Isn't it so funny? Human nature is the same.

Yeah.

Both personal finance, we start to hide, and business finance, we start to hide.

Yeah. That's what. When I had my closing, my closing lawyer said because my. The seller had to come up with $5,000 at the very last minute. And he was like, she had to have known that she needed to pay this money. And he was like. But I see it all the time. For whatever reason, people do not like to actually look at the amount of money that they owe. And then they come and they're like, oh, I didn't know.

And they panic.

Yeah.

I learned a lot. First, I want to go to Orange Beach, Alabama.

Yeah.

I haven't heard of Orange beach, but I'm telling you, they are the probably the most beautiful beaches. I've. I've personally visited it. Long rolling beaches into the water. And I'm. I'm praying for our brothers and sisters in Alabama. Never got hit by the recent hurricane. They're getting worse, those hurricanes. And right now we're recording this. It's not even June yet, and the. The hurricane season seems to have started. It usually starts in September.

It's like a new era.

It's a new era. Couple of things I learned. Recessions. So how show how smart you are or stupid you are, as Bob put it. It's interesting. There's a saying. When you owe a bank $10,000, it's your problem. When you owe a bank $10 million, it's their problem.

Yeah.

And so I think that was a big takeaway that a guy like him gets called in when it becomes a real problem. You're not the only owner. There's employees, vendors, and stuff like that. That was a big takeaway. And I had one more thing. I can't turn the page. Oh, he goes. He never. This was the big one. Never borrows money or leverages. People use the word leverage money until he's profitable.

No.

God. That's what gives me. I can't tell you how many events I go to. They say, I just need some money to become profitable.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah. If the system's broke, it's just gonna be. You're gonna lose more money. More money you put into it.

Yep. Cut costs first. Amazing. Amazing. Quippy. Stuff. We also want to know what you learned, my dear friends. Now, before we split, give us that one listener mail we got.

Oh, of course. Let me hit this button.

You've got mail pattern baldness. Now I'm ready.

This comes from Monica Galvis. She says, I'm currently in the process of creating a startup. I'm halfway through the book, so I'm not sure if it's too early for this question, but how can I implement this method before I even have any revenue? How can I determine the percentages? Do you have a simple startup version?

So, Monica, you can do this immediately. Here's the irony. If you haven't started the business, you don't quote, unquote, know better. So you can just go into it. Use the taps, the target allocation percentage we defined for your business starting from day one. And if you need to adjust downward a little bit after you start, that's okay. But start at the taps because you don't know better. And the funny thing is, usually you'll structure the business from the get go properly around the taps. The mistake, I think early businesses start saying, well, I can't use profit first until I'm in business for two, three years. That's wrong. You can use it from day one. Hope that helps, Monica. Oops, there we go. Oops, that's our fade out. Too loud. All right, now we're ready to go. Take us out, Kals.

Well, everybody, please leave us comments and ratings on itunes, stitcher, TuneIn radio, productburstpodcast.com or you can oat. Email me if you have any comments or suggestions or you want. You have a question you want us to answer, you can email me@kelseyichaelkalowitz.com and.

Hey, did you, did you imbibe in your housewarming gifts? We had your family over.

Yes, I did.

All right, we'll talk about that next week, next episode. I want to hear how that went. That was a weird insert. And one more thing I want you to do is go to profit first Professionals, my friends, you know what we are by now, right? We're an organization that coaches profit. Profit first to businesses just like yours. And sometimes it's nice to have a Bob like person out there helping your business. A turnaround specialist, if you will, who specializes in profit first. Just go toProfit First Professionals.com, click on Find One and we'll hook you up. And by all means, for God's sake, get strengthened your business by Bob Bethel. Now he goes by his full name, Robert Thomas Bethel. But strengthen your business. Fault Fail Proof Strategies from the man who had rescued 77 businesses. It's on Amazon right now. All right, that's it. We'll catch you all later.

Bye, everybody.

Bye. Bye. Bazinga. Bazinga.