Episode 214: Taking Control of Your Business with Profit First with Brittany Conner

Aren't you fed up with calling a business only to reach a voicemail, phone tree, automated system or worse, someone who sounds busy, bored or actually annoyed you are calling. I can't believe how many businesses we interact with spend money marketing to drive phone calls and then completely fail at handling those calls. A full time assistant costs a lot of money, but at a fraction of the cost. Abbyy Connect provides businesses with a world class personal, professional and courteous team of receptionists specifically trained to take their calls. Based in the 247 city of Las Vegas, Abby Connect has been wowing business callers for over 13 years. No wonder they are the highest rated live receptionist service for our listeners. Abby Connect is offering a no obligation free trial. And after your trial is over, our listeners will also receive $95 off their first bill. But only when you sign up at our special link. Abby connect.com profit first. That's abbyconnect.com profit first. Sign up today to experience the difference. I did have my best night's sleep yesterday.

Really?

Just a solid first night's sleep through the night, total quality. Didn't wake up. Kind of like where am I? Type thing. Yeah. But have you ever noticed, have you ever had there's this thing called sleep paralysis?

No.

Have you ever. You never had that?

I don't think so.

Have you ever had it where you wake up and you jolt or jump like you're almost falling asleep?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so sleep paralysis is the opposite. Sleep paralysis is where you wake up and can't move. So you're conscious. Conscious, but you cannot move anything. So I've never had it before until about two weeks before we moved into our new house. I remember waking up and I'm like, oh. I'm like, I guess I'm up. And I couldn't move anything. I'm like. And it is terrifying.

That's scary.

Yeah. Now I've heard of sleep paralysis before this. So I was like, I think I know what's going on here. But you're conscious enough to have thoughts but you cannot move. And I wonder now actually if it's a dream, like maybe you're just dreaming and it's not really happening, which really messes with your mind.

Can I tell you a crazy dream?

Yeah.

It's not really a dream. So it's part. I thought that it was real.

Yeah.

So I woke up the other day and it was the screaming noise. Like I thought a woman was being murdered.

What?

I swear to God, I thought a woman was being murdered and I was like, oh, my God, do I do? And it was like, repeating, right? But then when I. I was like, okay, do I call the police? And I was listening for it, and it stopped. So I was like, was that in my mind?

Did it make it all up or was she dead?

So then I, like, waited a little bit. And then in the meantime, I'm like, this is why I should have gotten an alarm system. Like, now to me, like, they know I heard. And this is why I was able to afford this place, because there's murders. And I was like, well, if I work more shifts at a bar, then I can afford the alarm system. And then I was like, well, let me check again. Maybe I can see something. So I looked out and I saw a horse in front of my car. And I was like, that's what the noise was. It was a horse in front of my car. I was like, I can't wait to tell people that I thought the horse was a woman being murdered.

Okay.

So then I wake up in the.

Morning, and I'm like, this makes no sense.

There's no way that there was a horse in front of my car. And there's no way that the horse.

Was screaming like a woman.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So then I, like, research what kind of animal noise sounds like.

I know what it is. Can I guess?

Yes.

Fox.

Yes, exactly. That's exactly what it was.

That will. Yeah. So we have fox, where we are pure terror.

Yeah.

They're the most terrifying animals. Cause they're like. And you're like.

And when you're sleeping and you wake up, like, I was like, oh, my God, somebody's being murdered.

So I thought there was a child being murdered.

Yeah.

At our door. And I heard the screaming, and I'm like, God, this kid. This kid won't die.

Well, I thought the same thing. I was like, it's weird that they're screaming. So repetitive.

Right. Right now. That's what was going through my mind. So, like, something's askew. End up being a horse in front of my car. All right, kick us off here, would you?

On that note, welcome, everybody, to the Profit first podcast. I'm Kelly Ayers, your co host.

You gotta wait until I kick it in a little bit, and I gotta say, big show today. Now you can say what you wanna say. Now you can say what you wanna say.

I'm Kelsey Ayers, your co host.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the host of the show. And you're listening to the Prop Verse podcast. This is a show where we talk about all things regarding murders and horses. And profitability. And profitability. And foxes. And we're gonna do today is we're gonna drive profit in your business. Why? Because we have a guest that's coming on who has used profit first in her business. We're gonna learn what's working and what's not. We're gonna use it in your business. Just a little more about me because I'm kind of skipping out of script here. I am the author of Profit First. Also a brand new book that came out August 21, which actually came out about a month ago now, called Clockwork, which is about driving profitability. Listen to me. Which is about driving efficiency in your business while sustaining profitability. There we go. Yeah. It's possible to have your business run itself. That's what Clockwork's all about. It's at your local bookstore right now, including Amazon, because Amazon's local to everyone. All right, Kyle's, now back to you.

You can find us on itunes, Stitcher, Tunein, Radio, Castbox, or any podcaster anywhere.

Oh, you threw out a new one.

Castbox. That's the one I use.

I never heard of that. Yeah, I already did that. Google play first. Podcast, dot com.

That's a good one.

Yeah, that's a good one. Because we have, like, you can comment and stuff up there. And we actually listen to those.

Yeah, and ask us questions. We can ask them on the show.

So, Kal, before we bring in our guest today, I do have a question for you. And. Oh, here it is. So it's kind of a continuation of banter. But have you ever bought anything on Etsy? And assuming you have, what about buying furniture on Etsy? What's your opinion?

So, yes, I've bought a lot of stuff on Etsy. I really like Etsy. I think that buying furniture is a great option.

Yeah. So we went to a store. We went to, like Raymore Flanagan. Then we went to. There's a thing called Ashley or something right around here. Have you heard of it? Yes, we went there. First of all, the cheesy salespeople.

I can't stand it.

Cannot stand it.

So we lurk at the door.

Literally lurk, lurk. So if anyone is a furniture salesperson, first of all, I feel for you.

Yes.

Because we walk in and we. There's almost a sense of desperation. And that's what makes it so uncomfortable. They're just lurking. They grab onto instantly and they're in their mind, there's like, please buy something.

And they stand at the door. So even if you ditch them while you're coming in, when you try to sneak out, they corner you then, too.

Yeah. And they do the stalk walk. You look at furniture and you just look over your shoulder and behind you about 30 yards back is Matthew, you know, sitting there. And so whatever. So we looked at furniture. We had the uncomfortable sales moment. And so what my wife and I say immediately, we walk in and say, listen, we are just browsing. We will not buy anything today. We don't even have our credit cards with us. So we're just looking to get ideas. We recognize that this is your job, but our preference is just to look. And if we have a question, we can seek you out. Is that okay? And it's awkward. You have to start a conversation that way. Because the only type of store, even car sales place, people aren't as bad. Oh, mattresses are. If you buy a mattress, they're pretty much.

Well, it's kind of the same premise.

Yeah. Furniture.

Yeah.

So we went to Ashley. We found this one piece of furniture that was a really cool design. The barn doors are now the in thing, the sliding doors. But it had that in a unique way where it would either cover the TV or cover cabinets. It was. Yeah, whatever. It was cool. Just the quality was. I grabbed like it was that particle board.

Yeah. Veneer on top.

Veneer on top. And you look closely, it looks like it's wallpaper.

Yeah.

So I went on Etsy, and there's people that make this stuff, and it's pretty reasonable.

Yeah.

And it's custom and the reviews are high. Now I'm questioning if I should do it. I don't know. I think maybe not questioning in a negative way. Questioning. Should I go with Etsy?

Yeah. I think it has a different feel when it's handmade.

Handmade.

Kind of a connection to the person who made it.

You know that flag in my office, the US Flag?

Yeah.

That's made from a barn that fell down in Tennessee. And they recovered the wood from the barn and they made like 5,000 flags out of it or whatever. However many flags make out of a barn.

Yeah.

And so you're right. There's a connection. There's a story.

Yeah. Is there like a big price disparity?

Cheaper on Etsy?

Oh, then, yeah. No question.

There's the irony. Or compare. Comparable.

Yeah.

And you can customize it. You can say, here's the dimensions I would like.

Oh, yeah.

Pretty remarkable.

And how do they ship it? Is shipping super expensive?

They. They dismantle it into the main pieces. They Palletize it and then you got a sound bowl. Yeah. Oh, I'll tell you next episode. Remind me, make a note of this. Something I bought for the house from Etsy, that it's just pretty cool furniture. It's like something that I've never seen anywhere else.

Ooh.

Exactly. Okay, that's the cliffhanger for a couple of weeks from now. All right, let's just. I want to thank our corporate partners to make the show a reality. So thanks. To Write Networks, nextiva and Receipt Bank. You know, let me tell you about Right Networks right now. Right. Networks gets your current accounting desktop based system and legacy applications into the cloud so it's easier and more secure. Yes. I'm reading this. To share sensitive documents and data to clients. This new flexibility allows you to cost effectively grow your business and even reach new geographies. Right. Networks knows your reputation's on the line, so go with a solution that is backed by Intuit. Intuit backed it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. To learn more, give them a call. 888-469-5905. That's 888-469-5905. One more time. 888-469-59 05. That's number four right now. Works if you say profit first.

It doesn't say you get 10%. Yeah, I. Not the other one. You get 10% if you say profit first.

Okay. What if you say, I wonder if there's like a 15 percenter out there? If you just start guessing, like whenever you're on the phone, you're like.

I mean, that's kind of infinite though.

Is it clockwork? No, we don't have that code.

It's like guessing a promo code.

Is it Etsy 2? Etsy 1? Yeah. But what have you ever tried to guess?

Yes, all the time.

Whenever you see that coupon line, you go in the search.

Yeah. And it used to be like you could find promo codes pretty easily, but now they've really locked down. Exactly. And they want you to sign up for the email thing and then.

Yeah, yeah, Frustrating. But, you know, it'll actually dissuade me from buying. If I see a coupon link and I can't find the coupon, I'm like, I'll have to wait. Yeah, it works against them. All right, we gotta get to the show hand here.

Yeah.

Let me see if there's anything else. Oh, I gotta tell a little bit more about the format. We're about to interview a guest who's implemented Profit first in her business. At the end of the show. We're gonna recap what we learned, plus, we got some other stuff. Her name is Brittany Connor. She and I met at a conference or small event I was speaking at. I think it was eo. Was it eo?

It was Knoxville.

In Knoxville, yeah. I've been to all the major cities now in Tennessee. Knoxville I had never been to before. Everyone.

Did you get to explore at all or no?

No. Yeah, Chattanooga. I did. Chattanooga blew me away. That city is probably one of my favorite small cities of all time. Now. Nashville's unbelievable, but Chattanooga took me away. In Knoxville, I've yet to experience you fully. Beautiful people. So Brittany Connor found her. Met her husband when. She found her husband when he was 17 and she was 17. He's a former U.S. marine. Thank you for your service, Mr. Connor. And together I like it. It is in this order. They have two dachshunds, Haley and Nina, and they also have two kids, Wyatt and Luke. And Brittany has implemented profit first in her wedding photography business with great success. But there's also been some challenges along the way. We're about to discover it right now. Welcome to our show. Brittany.

Welcome, Brittany.

Hi. Thank you so much.

How are you?

I'm doing great. How about you guys?

Good. So I know you live in Knoxville, but better city. Knoxville, Chattanooga or Nashville?

Oh, Knoxville.

That was a test. Good. If you say anything else. So tell us a little bit about your photography business. What kind of photography business do you have?

So I do wedding photography predominantly. I started off doing portrait sessions, but 10 years ago, I started and I shoot about 20 to 35 weddings a year.

Oh, my gosh. So what constitutes wedding photography? That's more than just showing up at a wedding, Right. Isn't there?

Oh, gosh, yes.

Engagement.

Engagement session, bridal session, but also a lot of back and forth communication because there's a lot of planning that goes along with weddings.

So. So. And why did you leave this studio work and go exclusively with wedding photography?

I love wedding photography because you meet so many people and you really see the chemistry between two people and then the merging of two families. There's lots of candid moments, and weddings are kind of like a story. So it's different than just portraits where you go and take pictures at a, you know, a setting or even in a studio. I get to go a lot of different places and meet so many people, and I get to witness, you know, people on their best days. So I love it.

Along with those candid moments, there's probably some salacious things that happen. Right. Do you have any dirty stuff you can share with us?

Oh, gosh. Well, I notice everything. So I notice when people pick their.

Nose, that's when the clicker starts cranking.

Anything. Any kind of reactions I'm drawn to. So I'll just start clicking away. Kids are the funniest. Kids are unpredictable and they do the funniest things. So I always watch them.

You know, this is nice sanctioned profit first technique, but I already want to lay one method on you if you ever have a collections issue for anyone listening in the photography business.

Yeah, right. Blackmail.

Hey, look at grandpa digging away at his nose there. His nose, his nose, his nasal. You know, that's my wedgie.

Our mom, we get all the money up front. So.

I like your strategy better. So let's go into some of the financial structures because not everyone listening is familiar with your business. I'm actually not too familiar with wedding photography. What's the cost structure? How do you, what do you bill people? How do you. You said you collect up front, but I want to know the structure of wedding your projects.

So I guess the price. Do you want to know the pricing? So I guess I always tell people if you're going to get a good wedding photographer, you're probably going to spend anywhere from 2,500 to $5,000. So it's big chunks of money and lots of different products come with it, such as wedding albums or you can add on a second photographer. You can add on hours on the day, you can add on sessions. So I guess the different packages. My Packages range from 2500 to 4500.

Okay. And this is very helpful. So the. You said the day. So that's the wedding day of itself. But you also mentioned earlier on that there's engagement parties and stuff like that. Additional above and beyond this. 2500 to 4500. Right?

Well, in different packages, like an engagement session comes with the package. However, if you want to order any prints or anything separate from that or even the digital files for the session, then you'll have to. That's above and beyond.

Gotcha. And so you as the photographer taking the pictures, I assume you're editing the pictures and even are you even assembling the photo albums to some degree to give them a sequence of events or how does that work?

So yeah, album design, we actually design it. I design it on my computer and then they get to proof it and make changes. So it is a process.

Okay. And I want to know what was your business like? I know you implemented profit first. I was high Fiving you at the Knoxville event once I heard about your story. But tell me, prior to doing it, what were the financials like?

Oh, gosh, financials. That's a big word whenever you're creative or lack thereof, really. I mean, I didn't really have a system. I just did exactly what you said in the book. I looked at my account and said, oh, yay, $10,000 in there. So I have $10,000. And then tax time, it always felt I was mad about, you know, when I had to pay sales tax because on any of the products that I sell, I have to pay sales tax. So I would be like, oh, gosh, I owe, you know, anywhere from 500 to 1,000 or even 2 or $3,000 in sales tax because that was in my main account. I would get mad about it because it's my money.

So just so our listeners know, when we experience that, when the money for taxes comes out of our account, there's an experience called loss aversion. And loss aversion is once we possess something, we get upset. It triggers us that it's taken away. For example, wave a bit of candy in a kid's face and they'll try to reach for it and they'll scramble for it. But give them the candy and then take it out of their hands and watch out because you're about to get bitten, you know, that's the response. So what I'm hearing, that's exactly how I felt.

I mean, I would feel like, oh gosh, like this is taking money from me. It really wasn't my money. It's I'm just a pass through. But.

Right.

It would make sense.

Yeah. Okay, so that's called being a human being. Okay, so you qualify. That's our first. So, okay, so before. So were you kind of surviving check by check or what was the finances like? Were you taking home any money from the photography business?

Oh, definitely. I try to. So a few years. Well, not a few years back, probably two or three years into it, I started paying myself a set amount and trying to live off that set amount. But of course, I was freely spending on photography gear. Like that was like, oh, well, I have this money and Amazon prime was it, you know, just buying any kind of gear that I wanted, anything photography wise, not realizing that I'm taking out of my own pocket at the same time.

So what happened with the, with the money you're taking? Was it sporadic or what was that like?

So my paychecks were not. My paychecks were always a set Amount every week I would pay myself and that's how I would pay my personal bills. But it wasn't in any kind of like structured accounts or, you know, whenever I needed, when we needed to go on vacation or something like that, like, I would just take it out of my photography account.

Right.

I wasn't, you know, like, that's all my money. That's how I felt.

Yeah. So then you discover profit first. What were the changes you've made in your business and what's been the impact?

Oh, my goodness, it has been huge. Like, when I met you, I was so excited because I think every creative out there who hates all of the financials and back end work, they need to read profit first because it makes you realize that you either A, need to grow your revenue or B, just structure it differently so you have peace of mind. That's the biggest thing for me is the peace of mind. Like when I pay sales tax, I pay sales tax literally on the 1st of every month. And I get excited about it because, yeah, used to, I used to have all these late fees because I would be mad about paying it and put it off until the state of Tennessee was calling me and saying, hey, if you don't pay this, we're gonna like take your house. Which is so funny. But I mean, they don't really. They send you letters like that right away. As soon as you're late, they're like, hey, I'm gonna take your house. Which is crazy. But now I have set aside an account in a specific account. So you told us to do the five accounts, but I also have a sales tax account. Yeah. And so I just. Every time that I book a wedding and I know that I have a specific amount of sales tax, I just put it in there right away. And so for that particular month, I pay it and I'm excited about it. I'm like, yep, check. I can do that. And I have the money and it's not being taken away from me, you know, so.

Great. So let me make sure I understand. So say a wedding gig comes in for $3,000. That'd be within your range. You take a percentage of that and put in sales tax. What is the percentage? How much do you take out of that?

Well, the percentage is 9.75. That's the percentage for my local.

Wow, that's serious.

Yeah. Yeah. So how long have you been in New Jersey? It's off the top number. It's off of the products in the package which you have to invoice separately for tax. Purposes you can't. Like, I can't invoice for a service and a product without sales taxing the entire thing. Yeah, that's actually. It depends on your state. Depends on the law.

Okay, so you take roughly 9.7%. We'll say 10%. So if 3,000 came in, you take $300, roughly put it in your sales tax. What do you do with the remaining $2,700?

So then I split it up into my accounts. Gosh, I have to get. Let me get my notebook out.

Oh, I love it. Now we're getting to the numbers. Bring it.

Yeah. So every. Actually, every time I book a wedding, I, like, list out their name, and then I put my profit, which is. I always do 5%. Let's see, owners draw 50%. Operating expense, 30, and then taxes, 15.

So operating expense is 30% and tax is 15%.

Actually, I take the sales tax off the top before I calculate my percentages.

Yeah, and that's the right way to do it because, you know, you said it early on, Brittany, like, it's our obligation. We are effectively agents for the government. Like, when we collect that money, it was never our money. So when you sell a project, it looks like it's a $3,000 project, but really the government requires you charge $300 above your project. So the project is a $2,700 project with 300 built in. That's pretty convenient to the customer. But your an agent, effectively, so I love that. So you take that out first with the remaining 2700, you run these percentages. And that 15% tax now is for your income tax. Right, Right. Okay.

Right. I'm gonna smile next year whenever I pay that. I started this in January, so it's. I mean, I'm excited.

There's a lot of truth to that. I just. Sadly, I just had to pay quarterlies today. And it feels good, though. It feels good. Like, I reserved the money properly. There's actually a little bit extra left over. It feels really good. And I avoid loss aversion. So, okay, so 5% profit, 50% owner's pay. What are you doing with those accounts? Like, let's start off with profit. Is the money accumulating? Have you used it? How's that working?

Yeah, so I do exactly what you said. I take 50%. The money is accumulating. And I've gone on dates with my husband. And then we're sleeping because we're going to Disney World in October, taking our two babies.

Oh, how exciting.

When we say the two babies, you're not talking about the dachshunds, right?

No, they are old. My dachshunds are old ladies. They're 14 and 13. They were our first babies. But they will be happier on the couch than in Disney.

So you're taking your family to Disney on the business. You've taken your husband out for dates on the business. What's your husband's response to this?

Well, he loves anything where that makes me less stressed. So he's. You know, I've told him about it, and he. I mean, he's not an entrepreneur. He's a police officer now, so he doesn't. He doesn't really, like, risk as far as businesses and stuff. And so he's just happy when I'm happy. So he's.

And let's talk about the stress level. How's the stress level changed from a year ago till this year of doing profit first?

Oh, my gosh. I can't even explain it. Like, I literally want to cry because when you don't know where your money is going or you don't know. Sorry.

Please share. This is so important.

Seriously. The stress of not knowing, you know, can I pay my bills and my sales tax, and then the tax is going to come due the next year. That is serious. That is a lot of reason why people go. Like, a lot of my friends that are in photography for a long time, they end up quitting. And I'm pretty sure it's because they get so far behind on all of their, you know, their bills, their tax bills. I've had friends who, you know, literally had to, you know, take out a loan to pay their tax bill. It's serious. And we're. We're so tiny. And I went to the Tennessee Department of Revenue a few years back when I owed money, and I said, why are you guys going after the small people? Like, we are so small, you know. He said, well, it's easier to go after the small people than it is the big people. And. And I said, great. You know, so that strength literally patted me down to go in there. So obviously, like, people go in there angry and upset and stressed, and I know that feeling. So, like, to have a system that is simple. Oh, my gosh, it sounded a little complicated. I was like, five accounts, like. And even my husband was like, do you have to really Five accounts? And I was like, I'm gonna do it, just like you said. But once you get it going, it's like, I can't wait to allocate the money because I get more money. Like before, I didn't even pay myself this much.

So you're paying yourself more now?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

The stress is. Maybe it's not permanently gone, but it sounds like it's been diminished tremendously. You're paying your taxes on time. Has your income skyrocketed or is it something else?

So my. I am more motivated by numbers. So before, I thought I was killing it when I had, you know, money in the bank, like, lots of money, because we have a seasonal business. So, I mean, some Mays, I would, you know, may in the year I would start getting paid, you know, or my bank account would grow to twenty and thirty thousand dollars from nothing. And that is a lot of responsibility. And when you see that and whenever you've had, like, a dry season, you know, like we have an off season, that's exciting, and then you think, oh, I can spend all this money. But with profit first you just know that it's going to be allocated. And then the money that you do have from profit and owner's draw, you can spend that and it's okay, right? Amazing. And. And then you can also save for the off season, so you are prepared. And then also when you're not, when you're not making it, you making your numbers or like, to me, it's helped me say, okay, I need to grow my revenue. Because even though I have all this money in my account, it's not necessarily mine. This is for operating expense, this is for taxes. This is for all these things. Like, right now, my actual, like, owner's draw, like I said, oh, I need to, like, ramp up some things because I need to be able to pay my bills soon. So. But I have thousands of dollars in my account. You know, whereas before I would go.

Oh, I'm good, right?

I don't need anything because that money wasn't allocated. And now when I look, I know that's the best part is I don't have to guess. I don't have to say, hmm, do I? I'm gonna owe this person an album or I'm gonna. I'm gonna need to pay these taxes. Like, I. I just look at my accounts and it's all allocated already. Like, it's amazing.

One thing I started asking recently, Brittany, and I'm curious, applies to you is the service quality you're providing to your customers. Has that even improved? And the reason and how I'm kind of positioning is this is what I'm hearing is your stress has been vanquished to a great degree. Can you concentrate more on your customers to even provide a higher quality service now that you're taking your profit from it.

Oh, yeah.

Well, you're motivated even more to make more money. And so, I mean, the bottom line is if you have happy clients, they're going to talk about you all day long. So the more you can make your clients happy and the better service you can give them, the more money you're going to make.

So what's the next challenges you're facing in your business?

So I'm actually starting a new business. Yes.

Yes.

I'm so excited. It's virtual assistants for photographers.

Oh, so smart. I remember watching this when we met up down in Tennessee. So freaking smart. Tell us more about this.

I'm so excited. So it's one of the biggest. My dad always said if you can solve a problem, you will never be broke. Like, if you can solve people's problems. And I thought, what is the biggest problem besides financial stuff has been in my business? And it is communication when you're doing a creative work. I think Kelsey has said on previous podcast that you're. You're creative.

Yeah.

So if you're creative, you hate the office work. Right. The mundane, the like, I have to communicate via email and it's constant. And you know all this paperwork, like when you're creative, you just want to focus on the creative work and into that zone. It's so hard to switch. You know, it's different sides of your brain.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so it's called photographer's assistant and photographersassist.com. you can check it out if you want. But it's really. We take care of your email and we book clients for you.

And this business is just in the startup phases. Are you ready to take on clients today?

It's just in the startup phase. We have two clients. I literally just started the website, like this past week.

This is awesome. And you can service businesses anywhere in the US I presume?

Yes. So I'm willing to help any photographers in the US and we already know client management systems for photographers. Yeah, it's just so cool. And it's specifically for photographers because I know what photographers need and I know that we're control freaks.

And are you applying profit first to this new business too?

So this is crazy. I am planning, like, in my goals. Like profit first is in my goals.

Nice.

Yes. And it's helping me feel like, oh, yeah. Well, whenever I'm at $300,000 in revenue, really, Revenue doesn't mean anything.

Oh, my God, I love this.

Right? I mean, you do want to have a lot of revenue, but if it's not allocated properly, then like, how much are you really making?

So you are nailing it. You're nailing it.

Oh, no, you're nailing it.

You know, this has me so excited because, you know, there are photographers listening right now and they will use your services, I think in part because you are profitable. Because you're profitable, you can serve them extremely well. You know, you're not stressing over paying your team. So you have a very dependable team now. Plus you can guide them on profit first.

Yeah.

Oh, well, that's exactly. I was trying to think about, you know, what kind of content that I. What kind of content can I put out there that is like something that's relevant, like something that people would actually use? And I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to write a blog post about profit first. Because you need, you need a system and photographers are terrible at financials and back end and all of that. Because we want to be focused on our clients and our actual work. Like the artistry of it, the photos, the editing. We don't want to be focused on or really stressed about our financials or. I say email. I mean, that's what we're going to be doing. How many people, like out there have like 50,000 text messages and different avenues of communication? So they Facebook message you, they DM you on Instagram, and then they text message you and then you also get emails.

Yeah.

How overwhelming. Like, it's crazy.

Yeah.

Don't you cringe then when you get them sometimes because you're like, oh, yeah, I just want to finish editing this thing.

Right. You're in the middle of a project. Kelsey's a creative too. She does jewelry design. Yeah, yeah, we're actually going to stop.

And, like, stop what you're doing. And I mean, clients are important, so you have to communicate with them. But some people use email, like text messages.

Yes.

Right, yeah.

So, like, they ask you one question and you're like, oh, gosh, can we have a whole. All the questions? And it's kind of hard to deal with. Especially, like, I have a family, so I can really literally be on my email all the time and feel like I've not gotten anything done.

Yeah, yeah. We're at the top of the hour, so we gotta get going. But before we let you go, what's one sage advice? Now you've gone through the profit first experience. I'm sure there's people listening right now that they don't Think they, maybe they're skeptical. Maybe they don't know how to get started. Maybe they think kind of like your husband and you were discussing. It's just too much. Any tip or advice you have to get people started on this?

Yes. Call your bank right now. I literally have talked it up to a bunch of my friends and I asked them when I see them, hey, did you open your accounts yet? And they're like, no. Well, whenever we're out to lunch, I'm like, call your bank right now.

Oh, you're sitting there staring them down with a cappuccino.

Yes. Because if you don't take action then like, we're already in month six. Like, if I wouldn't have taken action in January, I probably wouldn't be taking action now because I'm in the middle, you know, the thick of the season. But if you're in the thick of the season, there's no better time to get started. Just open your accounts right now because it's going to take a couple weeks for you to get your debit cards. That was one of the biggest challenges I had, was waiting for all of that and trying to figure out in the meantime, you know, how to structure my money. But open your accounts right now. Just call your bank. Research online banks, I used ally and they were incredible. I could open five accounts online right.

Away, you know, so I don't know, Brittany, if you know this, maybe you heard it in prior episodes, but Kelsey on the off hours has our spy recorder. She goes, she just travels and follows people that are gonna be guests on the show to catch.

They're part of my job.

Yeah, she's captures a conversation. So we actually have a conversation. I don't know if you knew this. Kelsey was recording you talking with one of your friends at lunch and your friend said, I don't, I don't think I have time to do it. Here's your response. Do it. Just do it. Yeah.

So I couldn't believe how manly you sounded.

Yeah, you get angry, Britney. You get angry. Hey, that.

That was exactly me before.

See, it's proof. Before we let you go, Brittany, we want you to share details on your business. So give us a little info about both your photography business. So anyone's having a photo shoot, need can hire you. And also again, your photography assistant business. Can you give us some more details and links?

Yeah. So I am Brittany Conner. I just go@brittneyconnor.com and it's C O n N E R and I do wedding photography in Knoxville, Tennessee. And I will travel to Nashville, Chattanooga, neighboring cities, and I'm on Instagram @. @ Brit B R I T C O N R. And then also I'm starting photographer's assistant. And it's photographers assist dot com.

Beautiful. So we'll have that in our show. Notes. Listeners, listen up. Go and check out what Brittany's got going on. There's a lot you can learn about her business and her success. Plus you may just want to hire her. She's gonna be amazing for you because she's profitable. All right, Brittany, thanks for joining us today.

Thank you, Brittany.

Thank you guys so much. Thank you, Kelsey. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate you guys.

Appreciate you too. All right, Kelsey, give me a punch quick. There you go. We gotta improve the beginning. We mess up the beginning. I'm playing the music. You're talking. We gotta clean that up.

We should practice.

We should practice. We actually should. Is that probably the only podcast that actually needs to practice? So here's what we're gonna do. We are going to recap what we learned from Brittany. We want to know what you learned too. Kind of. The big takeaway. We have a shout out and listener mail, and we want to thank our corporate partners. So punch me one more time. I want to thank our corporate partners. Right. Networks. You heard about them. Also, nextiva. It's a voiceover IP phone system, the best in the west and the east. It rhymed until it didn't. And then receipt bank.

That's horrible.

They're great. And then receipt bank scan, and all those receipts are piling up. Get them right to your accounting system to sync up and reconcile. Unautomatic. All right, Kels, do we have listener mail or shout out or.

We actually have both.

You got mail pattern baldness.

Okay, so this one's kind of long and convoluted, but it comes from Peter Hart.

I'm sorry. Even how you say it's kind of long, convoluted.

Okay, I don't understand the tax tap. We are in the 0 to 250,000 range in an S corp that pays me a W2 salary. If we had $200,000 in real revenue, the tax should show 30,000 at the end of the year. The owner salary is on target. It should show 100,000. The profit should be 10,000. The total individual tax on 110,000 is 33,000, absent any deductions. And for an individual, but this would have already been withheld from the salary checks, except for the $2,800 for profit portion. So I don't see why we are allocating 15% to tax. Now, if the S Corp only paid IRS profit distributions and no W2amounts, it would make more sense. You would need to put that in about 30,000 in quarterly estimated tax.

Yeah, so that's a tough. It sounds like a very tough question. And I think one of the dangers here, Peter, and anyone listening in that's facing challenges in addressing tax with profit. First we act complexity where it's not necessary. Here's the rule. With an S corp or C Corp, the government will take your tax allotment out of your paycheck and you're mandated as a business owner to take a paycheck. This money that's being reserved is a reimbursement to you, meaning you're going to pay taxes out of your tax check, but at the end of the quarter, the company's going to do a distribution back to you to reimburse you for the taxes. And you'll see that 15% worked out. 15% worked out. The 15% worked out because you had 33,000 you had to pay and there was $30,000 in the tax account. So we may need to adjust the percent a little bit, maybe by 1 or 2% to nail it. But you were pretty spot on. So it's a reimbursement. You still pay taxes out of your paycheck and then the company gives you that money back as a refund. If you will talk with your accountant. Those aren't the exact words you use, but that's how it functions. If you have an llc, llp, hybrid, sole proprietorship, those type companies, the company can just pay your taxes for you. Just make sure you have the right assigned. Okay, do we have a shout out too? I forgot. What is that?

This one comes from Jay Bar Shop. On itunes he says daddy fetbag.

I'm sorry, I don't know why that come up. That was Ruby Tan.

Mike and his guests provide some incredibly actionable and compelling content on how to become a better entrepreneurs and more importantly, a better overall person. Highly recommend listening and subscribing to the Profit first podcast if you want knowledge and mindsets to build an all around healthier relationship with how you operate your business.

J Bar Shop. Bringing it. Thank you.

J Bar Shop. Where was itunes?

I was on itunes. J Bar Shop, you are the man or woman. We don't know because it could be Jeanette Bar Shop, it could be Jim Bar Shop. It could be any. I mean it could be any kind. It starts with a J.

We could go on Forever.

Yeah, exactly. What if. What if Jay Bar Shop. What if that's the last initial, the last letter in their name? Like, what if I went by E. McCallowicz, but it's the E from Mike is the last letter in Mike that I chose.

That'd be kind of stupid.

No, but it's just challenging the norm. Kel, this. I thought I met this woman in my Florida gig last Friday. She loves you. She's like, I love your podcast. I'm like, oh, what's your favorite part? She's like, not. I love your podcast that you're on with Kelsey. Kelsey's my favorite. She was lauding about you.

That is very sweet.

And she loves that you bust my chops so much.

She can bust them with me if she wants.

All right, Kelsey, is there anything else we gotta do?

What were your takeaways?

Yeah, what was your takeaway?

My overall takeaway is, I think the beautiful thing about profit first is it allows people like Brittany to continue to do work that kind of sings to their soul. You can tell how much she loved doing this wedding photography. I mean, you could feel it. She just loved it. It fulfilled her in a way that, you know, probably a job at some corporate setting wouldn't do for her. And so having this system allows her to continue to do that and continue to bring joy. So she doesn't resent the business, she doesn't resent her clients. And now she's taking a step forward and recognizing those pain points that exist for her and trying to help other people in that same position. It's just beautiful.

It's beautiful. You know, she didn't, like, explain the angles of photography she takes, how she's superior at editing and the beautiful presentations. But I want to hire her.

Right?

Right. And I think what that points to is that I think a lot of hiring decisions when it comes to a vendor is simply on a transfer of trust. Very authentic. She loves her craft. I love that she was willing to get emotional, too, and share, like, how tough it is when you. You love what you do, but it is also crushing your soul financially. Here's what really hit home, though. It kind of sickens me, but I also get it when she went in and confronted the tax man and he says, oh, it's easier to get money from small people.

How sick is that?

It's sick. But it's true.

I know.

It is true. So I think. Here's the response to that. I think Britney, if she so chooses, has to become one of the big businesses because she now has the method to get there. And now she can talk to taxman and say, listen, how unfairly you treat small businesses. I'm going to show you how to treat a big business. I think we can complain and fight against as much as we want as little business owners, but we're still the small guy. We don't have the financial strength of these large companies, but I think we have the ability to grow to one of those large companies and bring back kind of ethical and responsible tax and financial componentry as a big business.

Agreed. Plus I think just having ownership of your money, it gives you a different kind of, I don't want to say like stature against them. It gives you a different feeling where you own your money. You are complete control of it. It's not this thing and they're not this thing that controls you, you know?

Yeah. I love that and I love what her father said too, is if you can solve someone else's problem, you'll always make money.

Yeah.

Smart. Anything else? I gotta talk about Kelsey, because I'm all over the place here with my agenda. Kelsey says something that's not funny. Oh, I think that we're good. Let's get out of here.

Yeah. Everybody leave us a comment and ratings on iTunes, Stitcher, profitfirstpodcast.com or any podcaster anywhere. We'd love to hear from you.

Yeah. And listen, we want more success stories. We want more challenging stories. We want to start hearing more and more from people who are implementing Profit First. Actually, you start seeing a shift in our show over time. We're still going to bring in experts. We're going to try to bring them as guest hosts a little bit more and then have people, you know, present what they're doing with Profit first in their own small businesses. So when I get yours on the show. Yeah, we want you. You can email Kelsey. That's K E L S e Y Profit First Professionals. But also kelsey@mikemicalitz.com either one. Either. Good luck. Spelling McCallowicz. I would go with profit first professionals like and just tell her your story. We'll pre interview you, make sure you got the pizzazz for this type of show and then maybe we'll bring you on. Here's the deal. We started an organization, Kelsey now, four years ago called Profit first professionals with one specific mission in place and it just, you can feel it now. It's palatable. Like it is really starting to have a big impact. Profit First Professionals was designed specifically to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. What Brittany was experiencing and perhaps what you may be experiencing your business. Now, how do we do it? We have engaged 270 ish plus profit first professionals on a global level. Some of them specialize in specific niches and they use the profit first method. They more than just help you implement it, they live it in their own business. They roll it out for their clients and they can guide you. So if you want to drive profit profitability in your business, go to profit first professionals dot com, click on find one, we'll hook you up with someone, and let's take your business to the next level. Anything else you want to say, chief?

Nope.

All right, let's get out of here.

Bye, everybody. Thank you.

Go. Put down some flooring, would you?

Is that what it is?

Shut up.