Episode 24: Profit First in Germany with Benita Konigbauer

From the studios of Fractal Recording, this.

Is the Profit first podcast, episode 24.

Now we're not just grunting, we're growling.

That's right.

This is awesome. Welcome, everyone. Profit First Podcast.

Howdy, stranger.

Howdy, stranger. Oh, that was terrible.

I stepped on you. It's called stepping.

Yes.

So go again.

Something like that. Welcome to the show Profit First Podcast. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz. And you know what we do in the show, Chris, is we talk about every angle of business that we can talk about, and we drive the bottom line. While we're talking about, how do you get more profitable?

That's right. Because you ain't gonna be in business very long if you're not profitable.

That's right. That's absolutely right.

I wonder what the world record is.

You know who's sitting right there next to you? She's back.

She is back. It's not Barack Obama.

It is Christina. Hello, everybody.

That's a tongue twister right there. Yeah, try to say that.

Try to say that.

Jeez.

So this is awesome. Hey, by the way, we're also available on itunes and Stitcher. Those are the podcast players you can hear the show on. And also our website, profit first, podcast dot com. All kinds of great previous guests, right? We've done 23 previous shows. Tremendous.

Yeah, yeah.

Legendary.

Legendary. No, we've been cranking. We've been having a lot of fun. What have you been up to, bro?

Oh, my God. So when. When my. When our whole bathroom backed up with sewage.

Oh, you tell me about that.

Last week, we went to stay in a hotel, and I told the lady, we want to stay two nights, and we left after the first night.

Why?

No, we just went out during the day. Just went out to go do something. It came back the second night, room was closed. It's all our stuff gone.

That's amazing. So what did you do?

So we went. We're like, where's our stuff? Oh, no, the stuff's in the room. Because we couldn't even get in the room. The key wouldn't work. They said, no, the stuff's still in the room. So they changed our key. We opened the door, nothing there. This woman went going around searching through closets and weird stuff and found a couple things and lost a bunch of stuff. And they said, I'll talk to the manager in the morning. Oh, great. Thank you.

Helpful.

Yeah.

Anyway, your stuff was stolen.

The next morning, they found a few more items but there's a few items that they never found. Nothing. Not laptops or anything really expensive, but just my stuff.

Okay. So there's a hotel not to stay at.

Yeah. Really?

Yeah. So just call me, I'll tell you which one.

Okay.

I don't want to defame the guy, but.

What have you been up to, K?

Just hanging out. I can't wait. Tomorrow I'm going into the city to see a show, which I love doing, so I'm excited.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

She wants to be in Phantom of the Opera one day.

Yes, I will be one day.

Yes.

Can you hit a note for us now?

Okay, go for it.

Hello, cutie pie. Whoa. That was beautiful.

Thank you.

That was powerful.

That was powerful.

I had to be in the room for that.

Isn't that pretty cool that you can just pull like that?

How you been?

Yeah, I've been good. I. My in laws are visiting from Hawaii.

Oh, no way.

Hawaii? Really? Yeah. Yeah. And so here, here's one thing I sprung it on. My wife's birthday is coming up. She's never had a surprise party. So we're going to do a surprise party. And I can say it publicly because she doesn't listen to this freaking podcast. So. Yeah. So we're going to do a little surprise for her.

This will be the one episode she hears.

Yeah.

No.

Could you imagine? She hasn't listened to a single one. If she listens to this, I'm screwed. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. So I said, hey, I know you just came in from Hawaii. Would you mind coming back pretty soon for a little surprise party for her? And they're like, yeah, we'll do it.

Cool.

Pretty cool. So that's what I've been up to. Nice, dude. We got a guest in the studio. In the studio. We have the guest in the studio right there. It's because he's like, you know what we're talking about today?

What's the topic today?

It's international profitability. Last week we're talking to Matthew Perosi in France. There's been so much interest in saying, oh, there's, there's ways to do businesses internationally. Someone actually talked about his clock routine. They made a great suggestion. He. They said, you have all these virtual employees. He's in Bordeaux, France. He's an employee in Buffalo. He said someone in Vegas, he says, pick one time. Maybe it's New Jersey Eastern time or whatever. Pick one time. And everyone runs their clock off that. So when you save a meeting, you say you're meeting at 4 o' clock. And everyone knows it's 4 o' clock in New York time.

Nice.

So. But there's been a lot of interest in international business, so we. We're bringing in an expert accountant from. From Munich, Germany. So we'll be speaking with her in just a second too. Was there. Oh, oh, and I want to say thanks to our corporate partners. And I want to stop calling sponsors, by the way, because sponsor just means we're taking your money. Corporate partners means we take your money with a smile. You know what I'm saying?

Either way, we love them.

Just tell me who the three are before we do our introduction here.

Well, one is written on your. Well, your shirt, which you wore last week.

It all fell apart right there.

We don't record four episodes at a time. No, we don't. We. Well, that's been a rumor, but never. So Fundera is one sponsor where you can get funding for your business. Right. T Sheets is another sponsor which you can do time tracking for your business, which is so important. Hello. We had the CEO of the company on as our guest a few episodes.

He was awesome. I had breakfast with him a couple days ago. Oh, yeah, Matt Russell. Yeah, he's awesome.

Yeah.

Wow, what a great episode. And, and by the way, we'll mention a little bit more about our corporate partners later, but nextiva Phone Systems for.

Your business voice over ip. Hello?

Do you think you might want to talk to somebody about your business and maybe sell something you can use nextiva?

Answer the phone, baby. Answer the phone. We'll talk about later. Christina now can work from home too. I mean, her dream come true. She's like, oh, it's a snow day, can't come in. I'm like, but nextiva can come to you.

I have a phone now.

Yeah, in her apartment. So she's all good. All right, so our guest today, her name is Benita Koenigbauer. Listen to that pronunciation.

Nice.

There you go.

Benita Koenigbauer. And she started a career in banking in Munich, Germany. She grew up in Munich, Germany. I think you may even hear German accent. She decided to become a tax advisor and then soon became a business mediator. She is a profit first professional and literally, literally the first person to bring profit first to Germany. She's having a massive impact out there and she really spends her life. She's devoted to bringing profitability and health to businesses throughout Europe. Benita Konigbauer, with no further ado, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Are you there Benita.

Yeah, I'm here.

Well, good morning. Good morning. And how are you?

Great. How are you?

Good. So a little secret between me and you is that we're both fans of Def Leppard. And I don't know if I told you, I just bought tickets to see them in concert.

Oh, I envy you.

I know you envy me.

Favorite album?

Still waiting for the announcements for Germany.

Oh, really? They better get out there. Chris wants to know.

Favorite album by Def Leppard.

Pyromania and Hysteria.

Oh, well, that's two.

There you go.

Pick ain't. Just give us one.

I can't decide.

That's when you know you love the band.

So here's the big. The big test for Christina. Do you know either of those albums? Have you heard them?

No.

Well, you've heard stuff up.

Well. Yeah. I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah. Which ones, Chris? Which one's your favorite?

Out of those two, I like Pyromania, but I think High and Dry is. Is.

Yeah, dude, you're the man.

Yeah, I love it.

So on through the night, I dare say is even better. And which is their first album, But Pyromania, hands down, I just don't. They went too glam rock for me, you know?

Well, they change, and it's okay.

I mean, yeah, yeah. But I like Pyromania. Bring on the heartbreak Mirror, mirror, let it go. That's on through tonight, so we should see.

We should have prepared clips, you know?

I know.

Audio clips. So, Benita, happy to have you on our show. This is awesome.

Thanks for having me. I'm so thrilled to be here.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you still have the jitters? Are you a little bit nervous?

Yes.

Yeah. That's okay.

Totally.

It's funny. The first time you and I talked, Benita, about six months ago, you. You said my English is really not that good. And then you started teaching me how to speak English, so you should feel comfortable. So why don't we get started like this? Why don't you tell us exactly what you're doing? I was about to say, what you're doing in Germany. Like, why did you move there? I mean, what are you doing in Germany for your clients?

So I'm all about supporting small business owners. I want them to bring their dream to life, and I want them to have the possibility to earn a good living out of this. Because most small business owners in Germany, I think it's the same in US do not even make the statute of a minimum wage.

Really?

Yeah, they do. We have about 1.8 million small businesses which says they have less than 10 employees and 1.1 million go home with less than the statuary minimum.

Oh, my gosh.

Which they do have to pay for their least qualified employee. And that is.

Yeah. So there's this law, and this is, I think, really something interesting for our listeners to know. Tell us about the law of employment. Like when you have an employee, you can't fire them. In Germany.

You can.

You can. Oh, you can. Okay, you can.

But it's not this easy. As you have it in us, you have, as far as I know, in us, you can hire someone for a certain job and if he doesn't make it, you can send him away.

Correct.

So we have a little more bonding in this. If we hire an employee, we have a time from about three to six months. It's a kind of test if he or she fits for the business. And later on, there are very strict rules to get to unemploy someone.

So during those three to six months where you have an employee, we would call that a probationary period. Okay. Can you terminate if that employee is not working out, can you terminate them and not pay any further bills for them?

In most cases, yes, you can. As a small business. Yes.

But. But then six months and one day pass by and you believe this is a good person, and then you realize they're not working out, what happens then?

You have a certain amount of time to wait. If you set him free or her, and you have to tell a good reason. And for example, if someone is very ill very much and doesn't come to work, and so he hasn't any productivity like Christina.

Yeah. I'm just saying. For example. For example, okay.

You cannot fire someone for being ill.

Okay.

Even if you have to pay him or to reserve his place of work. That is the most problem. We have to pay for six weeks. Then our health insurance takes over and pays most of the bills. But you have to take the person back when he recovers. He or she recovers.

Wow.

So you cannot take any other employee while this time.

What if there is a. That's tough. So because you're paying for six weeks, it's a month and a half. You're paying their expenses. And then what. What if you need that role filled, you need that work done, You. You have to hire another person, but keep the spot open for the first person.

Yes.

And then say after a year, the first person comes back from sick leave. Now you have a person you've had with you for a year that filled that role. And you can't fire them either.

Yes. For two times you can say you don't hire someone forever, but for six months, let's say. And you can prolong this again once. Oh, so you at least doesn't fit this time. So you have a problem.

Oh, my gosh. That's just an interesting law. Does that. So you're talking about. You have 1.8 small businesses in Germany and 1 million of them are not making the minimum wage. Can you live on that in Germany? Minimum wage?

I'm always again, astonished. But some can, and especially the business owners. The small business owners have learned to do so.

And so what are you doing to help business owners navigate this? There's strict German law. My mother's German, by the way, and she was strict. And there was strict German law in our house. But there's strict German laws that you must comply. As a small business owner, how are you able to help them get through this stuff to become more profitable?

You can plug mostly with just being on their side and discuss the problems if we can do we discuss them up front. We think hard on such decisions. To hire an employee or not. And if there are problems or if they do not have the minimum wage, I try to help them to. To drive their profitability.

Okay, so you're making or having the hard conversation up front before they make these decisions?

Yes, we try to.

Okay, now tell us a little bit about profit first. You've brought profit first to Germany, literally. Christina and Chris, the first person in the country. In the entire country. Right. 1.8 million small business owners should be calling Benita right now. What's it like to be being the first person to bring a. Perhaps perceived as a radical approach to business like this? Are people thinking you're crazy? Are they applauding you? What's it like?

I hope this doesn't come across. I really love it because there's so much positive feedback.

There's so much positive feedback.

Yeah. Every time I tell somebody about profit first, most of my clients are small business owners and service professionals, especially service professionals. Most people say, wow, that's just what I want. That's just what I need. And this is so positive. And when I'm in the position to help them and to assist them to implement profit first in their business, and they see the first steps going in the right direction, there's so much relief. And this is really great feeling for me to have the possibility to help these people.

So if I can kind of interpret what I'm hearing from you is that it sounds like you're approaching businesses with a new concept, and immediately they're getting at least confidence or at least they have hope in a plan that'll fix their struggles.

Yes, hope and a plan fixes it.

Yeah. Okay. I'm surprised. What I did, honestly think, is that you'd say some people are like, this is crazy. No one does this in Germany. Have you ever got any pushback like that?

Yes. I get this pushback from fellow accountants, fellow tax advisors. They do not get the system. I think it's because they have another thinking as my service professionals and small business owners concerning cash management.

So interesting. So we call them contemporaries. I don't know if you're familiar with that word, but basically it means people that do the same thing that you do play in the same arena. It sounds like your contemporaries are saying, this isn't the way things are done. Now, does that hurt you in your marketing efforts when the people that do the same stuff that you're doing are saying, this doesn't make any sense?

No.

Why not?

So I do my things and I do theirs. The only problem is if a client of mine who does profit first with me has a tax advisor who doesn't understand profit first, Right. So he works against me. And so the client is in a strange position because he doesn't want to upset his tax advisor, but he wants to have profit first. So there comes in the mediator.

So I want to ask you one more question before we go to a little quiz we have for Chris and you. But when it. You know, there's listeners listening right now who are implementing profit first. What these business owners are doing is they set up multiple bank accounts for themselves. As money comes into their business, they immediately take a portion of that percentage of that and put into a profit account. Their accountants, Benita, are saying, I've never seen anything this way. This is crazy. Just follow the traditional accounting rules. How do you help your clients navigate this pushback they're getting with their tax advisor.

Differently? Sometimes I talk to the tax advisor directly and explain it to him and try to get him to the point that he says, okay, we'll try this. My client wants this. We'll try this. And I just don't talk against it. And sometimes I give the client a little advice, what he should tell his tax advisor.

You know, that's the exact same thing experiencing out here. So, dear listener, if you are trying to implement profit first in your business and your accountant or your bookkeeper is giving you pushback, just say, trust me, just Try it. Just dip your toe in the water. It really isn't that big of a deal once you implement it, but until they have the experience with it, they're going to resist it. We go back to what we're familiar with. All right, bonita, we have a little game show for you today. On the game show is Chris Curran, Benita Koenigbauer, and Arnold. Do you want to join us and play? I don't play that game. Okay, so Arnold will not be joining us, but here's how we play the rules. Benita. Chris is not fluent in German, nor is anyone in the studio, quite frankly, but Chris has been given some German phrases. These are all titles of books or popular mediums, we'll say. And so Chris is going to try to read each one to you in German, and we want you, Benita, to translate it. So this is a team game. Every time you get one right, you're gonna hear this buzzer when you both get it right. And when you get it wrong, you're gonna hear. You're gonna hear something from Arnold.

So a clip to be named later.

Yeah, A clip to be found very quickly. So, Benita, does that make sense?

Okay, I'll try.

Okay. Chris, does that make sense?

I'm ready.

All right. And Christina's gonna give you the actual answer after you do it. So, first one.

All right. Should I say it like I'm.

Yeah, you want to say it so Benita understands you give your best effort.

Vaisha, faba hat daim fal shum.

Okay, what did he say?

Can I get this again?

Yeah, one more time, please.

Veisha, faba hat daim fal shum.

Perfectly.

Did I say it right?

I think you did something.

Something with who has your falchion, But I don't know what is falchem in.

Okay, okay. What is the translation?

Christina, what color is my parachute?

Did he get it? Did he get it right? Arnold, what do you think of Chris, you son of a bitch. Okay, sorry, Chris, you did not get it right. Benita, I'm sorry your teammate's not working out so well. We're gonna try one. Another one here. Let's go. Yes.

Yeah.

Fifty Shades of Gray.

Yes. Yes. Trust me. Oh, my God.

Chris.

Arnold, what do you have to say to Chris? Get your mother, please. Okay, that's wonderful, Chris. Benita, you have. There it is. You have one. You have one right, one wrong. All right, let's go to the next one. Chris.

Das toy leten papir unternima.

The toilet paper entrepreneur.

Whoa. That's two in a row. Okay, that was an obvious.

Make a good team.

Yeah, you are a good team. Arnold, any thoughts for Chris? Encourage him. What the hell were you thinking? Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, next one.

Okay. Das ist mein favorit di mil yadare young gen spielzoit.

This is my favorite.

Yes, yes.

And the rest, one more time.

Das is mein favorite D Miladar young genspielzeut.

Come on, Benita, you got partial cardio.

Push yourself. You got half right.

My favorite boys boy toy.

Yes, yes, you're right.

Oh, my. Jeez.

Billionaire's boy toy.

So that was Chris's favorite. The billionaire's boy toy. Good job. All right, three correct, one wrong. This is the last one, right? Is it the last one?

Yes.

One more.

Last one beneath it. Let's see how we do.

Das ist mean underer. Favorite. Der Gervin Erstin podcast.

All right, one more time. We need to get this one.

Das east mean under rare favor Orit der gan Ariston podcast.

Okay, come on.

You can think through it.

This is my favorites on there.

I thought on there on the rare least.

No, no, no, no. Keep going. Just try. Get whatever your best guess is.

Okay, favorite something like a podcast, but Der Girvan Airston.

So what? What is it, Christina?

This is my.

She got it. She got it. She. Game over. Game over. Winner O. That last one was. This is my other favorite, the profit first podcast.

Arnold.

Arnold, what do you think? What do you think, Arnold? Come on, don't bullshit me. Okay. Wow, Benita, that was amazing. You were able to translate 4 out of 5, and Chris does not speak German. You clearly are a miracle worker.

Owned it.

I just murdered the pronunciations, but she got it.

Yeah. What'd you think about that, Bonita? Was that a total waste of time?

No, that was fun.

That was fun. Okay, okay. So back to after. After that, let's go back to profit now. So in Germany, when you. What were the typical clients you're working with? Give me the sense of one of your favorite clients you work with. Like, what do they do? How big is their business?

These mostly are solopreneurs, coaches, project managers, specialists, physiotherapists, therapists. Osteotherapists. Yeah.

So when you go with these clients, how do you get them started on profit? First.

We talk about this. We have a look at their actual numbers. We do a profit assessment, and from there we start with little percentages. Most of them do not have any profit. They have only owners pay because they need to draw everything that is left over in the business now.

So when you meet with a client who has had no profit, I mean, no profit, Benita, up to this point, and now you're telling them they need to take a profit, they must think you're crazy.

Yes.

So how do you navigate that?

I do explain to them that they not only have to get money for the work they do, which they don't actually, but they also have to get money for the entrepreneur. That's a hard word. Entrepreneurial risks they take. Because if they. If there's no profit in their business, they could even go as employees and skip all those risks.

Yep. So I'm writing that down because this is going to be my favorite tip right there. So that's amazing. So you have that discussion with them and what's their response to that?

If you tell them, they see it. They just refuse to see it. They know it. They have known it before I said anything. But they refuse to see that because if they see it, they have to do something about this. And they don't have time and they don't have money and they don't have anything at all to do anything against this.

So then you make them realize, okay, I've taken a risk. I've got to pay myself, not just an employee wage, because I do that, but I took a risk to start this up and I continued the risk. It could fall apart. But then how do you get them actually taking a profit and believing that this works?

We just do profit first as it is thought to do it. We set up the accounts, we set up the percentages, and then we start with profit.

If someone's been taking no profit, what percentage of profit do you typically start your clients on?

I typically start with 1% with those clients who didn't have a profit at all.

And so if a client deposits, I don't know, €100, just picking a random number, they're now putting €1 in their profit account.

Yeah.

And do you get resistance over that, or is it such a small percentage that people aren't afraid? Or what's the response to you're going to start putting a percentage away when you never have in the past?

No, there is no resistance. There's hope. I think there's a lot of trust. I'm very thankful because I think they bring a lot of trust with me. I still, I tell them, trust me, this is good for you. And they do this, and I really appreciate that.

How many clients do you have on profit first now?

Actually, I have on profit first. I Didn't count them. I think it's about eight or ten.

Wow.

Are they the only eight or ten businesses so far in Germany that are doing this, do you think?

I didn't talk about this much. I just started this month to spread the word about Profit first in Germany. So these people that clients of mine now either read the book and then Googled me or came over Profit First Headquarters as a lead or had been clients of me before.

Wow. Wow. So Profit First Headquarters. Is that awesome? So Chris, Christina redirects with Ron, redirects cases out, and we've sent in some through Germany. That's one of the. That's one of the bennies, dude. The Benny's one of the bennies. And so not to stroke Profit first too much, but, you know, now we're on the phone together. Bonita, what. What's been your experience? And I guess I'm asking for a testimonial here, but what's been your experience with Profit First Professionals is, listen, you're a lone wolf out there. You're going solo in a country doing this. How has been the help from your US Brethren?

Okay. This is a great possibility to thank you for all your help. This is really great. I always get really wonderful, warm, caring feedback whenever I share any question or concern. And I always get help and advice. I only can say all the positive about it.

So here's the deal. I kind of knew she would say, oh, you're awesome. And listen, I didn't ask Benita to say that, but I knew she would. We have such a great relationship. Benita, you know I'm coming out to Munich because of you. July 20th, 21st and 22nd, so be ready for me. Prophet first is being translated into German, y' all.

Yeah.

Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We get that in June, I think.

Yeah. I can't wait. And you and I are gonna rock it out out there to Def Leppard.

Benita, how do you say the word awesome in German?

Farfeck Nugent.

Awesome in German.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, there are so many words that is awesome. Wunderbarbelhaft goesartik.

Gosartik. Like that.

Nice.

Wunderbar. You know, I hear around all the time. What's farfik ng? Is that like the pleasure of driving?

Fairfax Nugent, Volkswagen.

Yeah.

Pleasure of driving.

The pleasure of driving.

Really?

They have one word to describe the pleasure of driving? Svarthur Nugent.

Yes.

Yeah, no, I know.

And isn't it true?

I don't say it's special. One car that is Associated with this word in Germany.

It's the Volkswagen, right?

No.

Oh, is the BMW. Which one is it?

No.

Is it Bavarian Mode? Is it the BMW?

Yeah. Am I allowed to say this?

Of course you're allowed to say it.

It's not an endorsement.

You can say Mercedes is lame and BMW rules like there's no. Yeah. Now she's in Bavaria, so that's why she's saying yes. Yeah.

In Munich.

Yeah. In Munich.

BMW.

And home of the Fast House. Right. And the Brewhaus. The Brewhas, the Oompa band.

Yeah. And home of Prophet, first in Germany.

Yeah. All right, Bonita, we gotta get going. So I want to ask you one last question. What do you recommend to your German small business owners out there? They're listening to you right now. What is your favorite tip you want to share with them to help them grow a healthy, profitable business? Anything you want to share.

Take care of yourself.

Because when you. You. You mean mentally and healthily, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Most. Most small business owners built their. Their business around their passion. And they are so passionate about their clients and what they can do for them that they just forget to care for themselves.

Yeah. And that's the death of business, right? When you lose it and your business becomes. You become a slave to your business, it owns you. It's over, Benita. Listen, I could talk with you all day and we could talk about glam bands from the 80s, like until the sun sets, Tesla and all those bands. But I will see you out in Germany in a few months. And thanks for joining us on the show today.

Thanks for having me. It was great.

It was fun. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I'll be the same.

Bye, Benita.

Bye.

Okay, bye.

Dude, I love her. I mean, I literally love her.

She's great.

That's awesome.

She's so nice. And, you know, I. That was kind of jerky of me to put her on the spot and say, what do you think about Prof. First Professionals? Because I know she loves it. And I knew she was gonna say that, but I just wanted to hear her say because it makes me feel good.

It's joke of the ego.

It's a stroke of the ego. I'm gonna play the episode over and over to myself, which I have a funny over and over story I'll tell you later about Johnny Cash.

Okay.

Okay. You know, we got a lot of stuff still to talk about. I wanted to do our top takeaways. I want to do the. The. The best app or tip that Christina has. But first, I want to fully thank our corporate sponsors.

Yeah, yeah. Fundera.

Fundera, right. Fun. It's fun and daring at the same time. It's fun. Dare, right?

So if you need money for your business, you need funding. Go to one place, fill out some forms, I guess it's probably easy. And then Fundera gives you all kinds of options. They go out and hunt down banks and find all the deals, right?

Yep. Ask me what I think about Walt Disney.

Michael?

Yeah.

Does anyone call you Michael? Yeah, some people do. What do you think about?

He's an idiot. You know why? He could have used Fundera. He could have used Fundera. He went and got rejected over and over and over again at all these different banks until he finally got funding. You know, he spent years trying to raise money for Walt Disney, Walt Disney World. If he simply made one call to Fundera, that place could been set up two years earlier.

Two years of profit.

Two years of profit.

We could have had more Mickey Mouse.

All right, who else is sponsoring us?

Well, we have. Let's go with Nextiva.

Oh, God, I love them.

Hello.

I love that.

Do you take the nextiva phone to bed with you at night?

I do, I do.

Your wife's like, what is that you're cradling in your arm?

Why is it ringing?

Why is it ringing?

Are you texting?

Yeah, yeah. No, it is an amazing phone. Christina, you are on with tech support pretty regularly because we're constantly changing the phone.

Always.

I think every morning Christina comes in like, hey, I just got a conference call.

I'm pretty sure I know them all. First name basis at this point.

So, Kristin, you can speak to it. Tell me about their support.

Their support's amazing. I mean, you call in and they're pretty quick to get a technician on the phone. And they're very pleasant right from the get go and they just want to help you. They'll stay on the phone till it's done. They'll walk you through it, they'll test it with you, and they make sure that you're 100% satisfied before they hang up.

Now, Christina, do you have any technical background? Have you programmed computers and phone systems before? Have you punched down GMARK blocks?

No, no.

But you have set up phones to do simul ring rings at our office, her house. She has Ron's house ringing. You have call forwarding, cell ringing on hold music. You set up call recording.

Yeah.

Call archiving. I mean, she's done it all because the system has all these features and it's simple. You pick up the phone, you tell them what you want, or we can configure it ourselves. But it's so many complex things. They do it for us.

And email, too. If you don't have time to pick up the phone, you shoot the support an email, and they'll call you within like, 15 minutes and say, how can I help?

It's pretty badass, dude.

You ever play any tricks on Ron, like ring his phone a little bit or something?

No.

She changed the ringtone. You changed the ring tones. Like bling, bloom bling.

That's exactly what they changed it to.

Yeah, that was the sound of that.

Ron, answer the phone.

Oh, can we do that? All right. You gotta call them, we gotta record.

It, and then I'll send it in.

God damn it. Run. We could totally do the Hoosier thing.

It rang three times.

Seriously, I didn't come here this week to joke around.

And we still have one sponsor to talk about.

Oh, yeah? Who is it? T sheets.

T sheets, you gotta track time. Time is money.

Time is money.

You track your money, don't you?

So, T sheets. So listen, dude, I'm out to lunch with Matt Rissel. I'm breakfast with Matt Rissel in New York City. They're from Idaho. Boise, Idaho. They come out, I sit down with Matt, and I'm like, dude, we love you. We love your product. And quite frankly, it makes sense. You gotta track time for billing purposes, but it doesn't have anything to do with profitability. He goes, no, no, you save about 4 to 5%. I said, why? He goes, employees will overstate time. Not on purpose, but unintentionally, by 4 or 5%, they forget to check in, check out. There's misrecordings they don't attribute to the right clients. He goes, this resolves a lot of those problems. And it's a time savings, so it's a time saver if you're in. I think, Arnold, Christine's like, shit, there goes my 4 or 5%. She's like, damn it. I can't add an extra five minutes a day. I work for Gunther here. Mike's a totally idiot. Jeez, it's Turbo Time. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you, Arnold, for the reminder. Let's get to Turbo Time right now. Christina, I know you had a tip for us or something you read recently. What was that?

Yeah. So there's a story about determination. An engineer in 1883 named John Roebling, I believe he wanted to build a bridge connecting New York to Long Island. And he was constantly told that it couldn't be done that it wasn't practical. And he was like, you know what? Screw you, naysayers. I can do this. So he brought on his son, who was also an engineer, and they started building it. And unfortunately, after a few months, there was a tragic accident. He happened to pass away. His son got some severe brain damage.

Jeez.

Yeah. Put in the hospital and was to the point where he could only move one of his fingers. However, he wanted to keep going. He didn't want to give up on the project. So him and his wife came up with a communication system of him tapping his finger on his wife. And over 13 years they were able to finish the project and get the message out there. And that's also known as the Brooklyn Bridge today, by the way.

Are you kidding me?

Stupid. Is that amazing?

Hold on. He. So he has the engineering plan in his mind.

Yeah.

He can only move his finger and he taps.

Tapped it out on his wife's hand or arm. And it took them 13 years to do it, but he had that much determination to get it done. And now it stands as a tribute for him. And for determination, wouldn't say no.

That's probably one of the most beautiful bridges I've ever seen.

Yeah, that's how he gave like the workers all their directions and instructions. He would tap it out on his wife's arm. It's crazy. 13 years.

How do you tap out what you're trying to say? I don't know.

I don't know.

I came up with a code, I guess.

Yeah, or yeah, maybe, or maybe she asked him questions and he had like a yes, no thing.

Can you imagine? He's a little. He getting a little randy. He like taps Alison. She just turns and slaps him.

A little excited there.

God sake, don't do that. Come on, don't bullshit me.

Yeah, I know.

Laying in a bed, give him a. Throw him something, throw him a bone.

But yeah, no, just a sign of faith and hard work.

You know, kiddos, we gotta get rock and rollin. So, Chris, I want to know where people can find out more about you, bro.

Yes, well, Fractal recording dot com. I'm producing podcasts for businesses. Great way to produce content and leverage content and leverage. All that insane knowledge in your brain that's not out of your brain. Still in your brain. Get it out.

Yeah, no, totally. And I love working with Fractal Studio. It's the best experience ever. We're about to actually convert to remote. We're in physical studio. We're converting to remote. And what Fractal studio. Does they set you up at our offices? We're going to be set up with a remote studio there and connect into Fractal hq. So really cool functionality. And if you want to listen, if you're an accountant or bookkeeper, listen what Bonita is doing. She is getting clients in Germany because she's the first bringing it there. You can be the first in your neighborhood, in your neck of the woods. Bring it to your community. It does attract customers. It makes you stand out radically. It's profitfirstprofessionals.com we are actively looking for great accountants and bookkeepers and business coaches. So look us up on our brand new website. We want to talk with you.

Do it.

It's so in need. Businesses need this, this help. This little, little bit of hand holding, a little bit of systems that work. My God.

Yeah. And listen, this sounds a little bit like, I don't know, it's a little bit touchy feely.

Gonna get emotional.

I am. No, the thing is, we're really on a mission. Christina, myself, our team to change the world. The majority of people and business owners live check by check, are barely surviving financially. Every all employees. There's four employees, myself, Christina, Ron and Aaron at headquarters have experienced financial calamities or disaster or struggle. We know what it's like. It effing sucks and it's terrifying. And to live your life trying to build a business under terror. I mean, it's insane. Financial terror and stress. It's just not worth it. There is a way out. Take your profit first. That is the way out. Do it.

That's right.

That's our mission.

Love it.

Oh, and you can start doing the app music while we're doing it. Dudes. Start putting some more ratings up on itunes and stitchers. We want to hear what you think about. Email us feedback. Email Christina. Christina. Profit First Professionals. Email me Mike at Profit first professionals. We want to hear from you. We want to improve the show and deliver exactly what you need. Don't bullshit me. I'm sorry.

And if you have a question for Mike Michalowitz, send it in. We'll answer it on the air again. Our website, Profit first podcast dot com. We're also on itunes and stitcher. Listen to all our previous episodes for all the fun and the great information. Thanks, Mike Malitz. Thank you, Christina.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for singing.

Yeah. Take your profit first.

All right, bye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.