Episode 246: Back From Bottoming Out by Implementing Profit First with Brian Chaney

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Hello. For Shane. I'm great. How are you?

Good. Are you talking into the microphone? Why is your, I don't know, dead?

Can you hear me?

No, I actually can't hear you. That's kind of weird. Well, welcome to the show, everyone. My name is Mike Michalowicz. I am an author on a mission. A mission to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty. You know what I'm talking about. That the perception the world has of you that you're this wildly successful, wildly rich person, that you're sitting on the beach throwing back Mai tais all the time. The reality is the struggle. But we'll fix that on this show and every show of Entrepreneurship Elevated. I timed with the music. Kel.

Good job. That was perfect.

So what do you got for me, Kel?

Well, you can find us on itunes. Stitcher, Spotify, TuneIn radio, entrepreneurshipelevated.com or Alexa. You can just ask Alexa to play us.

Is it entrepreneurship elevated.com or is it podcast? Yeah, we made the domain so long that it's. It's inaccessible. So, Kels, we. We're trying like a couple new things. I used to. Used to ask you what's going on and quite frankly, I was kind of getting bored with it. Not with what you were saying, just the concept of that, you know, I'm saying, so I want to do something new.

What are you going to do?

It's. I'm going to do the doo doo doo doo doo. So I'm going to do. We prepared for this in advance. So I don't know what your songs are. You know, my songs are. But I'm going to try to say it, but sing it, but only in do do do.

Yeah, so it's like name that tune but an artist. Do do do's. Yeah.

Okay, so I got one or two prepared for you, and I don't know if you've any prepared.

I do.

Okay. Do you want me go first? Yeah, here it is. I'm nervous and it's not necessarily in the beginning of the song.

And can we just make a caveat, though? Like, it has to be well known songs. Oh, you can't be obscure.

Yeah, no. It has to be a song that at least 99% of the listeners have have heard in the past. Right.

Good.

Okay, so I have to do a whole new list. I was like, that's a song I wrote myself when I was in high school. All right, here it is. You ready?

Are you going like really slow? Are you doing Susie and Vega? But really slow?

Do.

Come on. It's a famous song. What is it, Jerry? J Bone. What's your guess?

That was the most painful thing I've ever witnessed.

What was it, though?

I have no idea.

You know what it is?

I really have no idea.

The Stairway to Heaven, you asses. No, that was Stairway to Heaven by let's.

Now that you say it.

Do do do do do.

No, you made it worse.

You told me your smoke was cough. Nonsense. What was your. Give me one of yours.

Okay, let's.

So you get zero points. Zero. Zero for J Bone.

Oh, Oh, I hope you know this one.

Brain's the microphone.

Ready?

Yeah. Oh, I know that song.

And yeah, see, she put inflection in her dudes.

That's. I think that's his problem.

It's a little bit more modernized. Is it more modern of a song? It's. It's. It's 90s to something pop.

Yep.

I can. Is an African American singer.

No, there is a. An African American singer in the group.

In the group.

And it's all girls.

Oh, oh, wait, wait. You know what it is, J Bone. Yeah, I. I can see the band right now. It's not salt and Peppa.

No.

No. But it's not the Bangles.

No.

What is it?

I can't think of the band, but I know there's Baby Spice. The Spice Girls.

The Spice Girls, yeah. What's the song?

Wannabe Wanna be my lover. Yeah. You have got to give. You've got to give.

Okay, every listener of ours is gone. Are you ready? I got another one.

Okay.

I don't even know how to sing it, so I'm. Skip that one. I was gonna do Mary Had a Little Lamb, but that's gone now. It's, like, too easy, and I can't do it. It's too hard.

And who sings that?

That's the question. Right. Supposedly, there was some country that this song was founded in, and that's there. It's a very small country. So this is their claim to fame. Seriously. So we gotta look it up, which is kind of a lame claim to fame. All right, here it is. Ready? Done. What's that?

Led Zeppelin.

No. What is it? Cal.

I know.

Hey, Brian.

Acdc.

Acdc. Which song? Yeah, say I'm into the microphone.

Yeah, I know.

I can't.

I'm trying. I'm thinking.

Everyone listening right now is like. For God's sake. It's about. Dude.

See, that's the thing.

Your.

Your doos are bad. You have bad dooos.

That's what my proctologist said. Yeah. You got one more calc, and then we're done with this.

Okay, let's try.

I don't know that one. Huh? It's funny because, like, I start. You know what I don't like about this? When you start doing the doo doo doo, you're doing so quietly, I had to push the headset into my ears.

You're literally.

And then you start laughing, and it blows my ears out. So now I'm deaf.

I know the song. I don't know the singer.

What is it? What is it, Jaymon?

What is it?

No, I don't. I don't know. I know the song.

Yeah, what's the song?

What's the name song?

I don't know the. No, I Know the song. But I was saying, I don't know the singer.

I don't know the name of the song. You know the song. You just can't identify something.

There we go.

It is. You've Lost that Loving Feeling by the Righteous Brothers.

That lovely feeling.

Loving.

Oh, is it loving? I didn't even know that. Okay, here's what I want to know. Cal.

Yeah.

Do we have any listener shout outs?

We do. This comes from Zach Cox. Oh.

What? What's so funny? I don't even know. I think it's so funny. You guys, into the microphone.

I know.

Say it now. Okay, but what's so funny? I can't do that. Why can't I do it?

So he writes a podcast review. He wrote. I just subscribed a few days ago. Zach.

All right, go. I'm sorry. I'll be this.

Oh, man. People aren't gonna listen to us anymore. So he writes, I just subscribed to this podcast a few days ago. I've been listening to it every day on the way home, on the train. Great value for this podcast and very personable people, too.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Zach.

Zach, we are the lamest. How can you listen to this show? Zach, I'm sorry. No, thank you. That was fun.

Yeah.

Thanks, Zach. We appreciate you, brother. More coming your way. Okay. And before we get started, I do want to thank. Before we get started, before we invite our guests on, I do want to thank our corporate sponsors, nextiva Receipt bank, eight o' clock Coffee. I know they're not with us now. We did that one full segment with them. The agency took me out to dinner. It turned into like.

Yeah.

They're like, hey, that was so amazing what you did. We never heard someone be able to stretch out a conversation about coffee for like an hour. They're like, that's unbelievable. So thanks for the eight o' clock coffee, for your support and our stalwarts, nextiva and Receipt Pack. Let's get to the business at hand here.

Yeah.

Brian Cheney and his wife, Leslie Chaney started a company called Crash Creative Website Design, Digital Marketing. Three years ago, they started this agency, but it began to fail. And when with it came massive tax and business debt, they implemented profit first at a time when they were paying some bills. Check to check. Over time, it has rewired how they think about their business and how they manage money. We're about to learn their story. In fact, it was also business partners. In a marriage, when you have no money flowing in, it can be a little bit of a Thorn on the side. We're about to discover all that. Brian Leslie, welcome to our show.

Welcome, guys.

Yes. Thank you.

Hi.

So were you able to guess any of the songs as we were doing the do stuff?

Nope. We got the Spice Girls, but that was it.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Surprised you stayed on for this long. So let's get right into it. Thought you dropped. So let's get right into with your business. Pre profit first. It sounds like you were facing some dire times.

Yeah. So we've actually been in business for about eight years. And we started out, it was just me, solopreneur, building websites, and about three years ago, started hiring people. And I was really good at what I did and wanted to grow that and grew our offerings, started doing marketing websites, email, all this different stuff. Right. And really realized that we were just doing way, way too much. But I thought that's how we were going to grow. Thought that's how business was growing. And we got to a point where there was just. There was no money. We had a couple of our big clients, they started paying us on 60 day instead of 30 day. Yeah. And there's nothing we could do about it. It was big businesses and we had some people drop. And like, during that time, you know, I built up. There were 16 of us, and I, you know, it was my pride, but also I just. I cared for the people I worked with so much that I didn't want to fire anybody. So we got to a point where, I mean, we were literally like checking the mail to see if we could make payroll. And I cared about people. This is 2016. I cared about for people so much that December, I remember, and it was so stupid looking back, I remember I gave everybody a bonus. Okay. But I had to wait for a check to come in so I could give everybody a bonus because there's just no money.

How do you do that, Brian? Do you tell people, hey, guys, there's a bonus coming, but we gotta wait till we get paid? I mean, or. How do you do that?

Yeah, I think at the time, I just didn't. I was basically running the business based on how much money was in the account. And so I had no clue how much money I actually had. And so I didn't have money to give bonuses out, but I wanted to because I cared for the people so much. So, yeah, at the time, so that all of this kind of all went down. 2015, 2016, I was working 80, 90, 100 hours a week easily. And my wife basically. I mean, it was. It was a Huge strain on our marriage. I was working so much.

It was terrible.

Well, Leslie, lay it on me. I mean, are you also in the business, Leslie?

I am. Funny you should ask about this time. We decided that it was either the marriage or the business that we could be partners in.

Okay.

And so I took a step back and focused on our two boys, and he went headfirst into the business. And if. I think if we had not done that, neither one of our prospects would have made it.

Wow. How does that. What was the trigger behind that, though? Why was it the business or the marriage? Leslie?

I just had a baby, so I wasn't in the best mental state at the time. All of my decisions were emotion based. And Brian is very logical. So we just kind of grated on each other every time we tried to make a decision. And.

I think ultimately, like, I'm wired for this. And we wanted to partner with it and kind of run things together, but in the end, it just. I'm wired for it. She is not.

I'm not.

Okay. So, Brian, baby, how did you feel? I mean, it sounds. I'm not saying there's an ultimatum that you both set, but how'd you feel about this?

I guess so. During this time, you know, we were making nothing. We were making so little money. And really, it was. Even though she kind of stepped away, it was still a huge grade on us, on our marriage, because, I mean, at the time, Leslie was really in a place where she. If I had quit the business and went back to work somewhere, she would have been extremely happy just because everything we were doing was not working. And I was too stubborn to admit that. And again, also, I just loved the people I worked with, and I felt like if I let them go, that that was the end of their story. Right. So, yeah, about the end of 2016, I actually picked up Pumpkin Plan because it was a recommendation. I saw somebody talk about it in entree leadership, and I thought, okay, yeah, you know, we're doing way too much as a. As a company. I'll check this out. Right. And so I read that, and that that changed everything. We cut back our services, which meant letting some people go, and we cut back. It just really focused on doing our marketing and not all these other things. Right. And in that, I really liked it. I loved. I listened to the audio and just really loved the way you communicated. And so I picked up profit first. And what's really funny is my wife, several years ago, she was. She would take money and that would come in and set it aside for taxes. And I thought that was so dumb. I was like, no, no, we need to have all the money in this big pile. Why would we set any money aside?

So dumb.

And then you. And then you say it. And I go to her and I say, okay, baby, I'm going to profit first. And this guy says to split up your money. And she's just like, okay. I'm like, it's so smart.

Sounds really familiar.

And I was like. I was like, yes, that's a great idea.

You know, in the back of the book, I don't know if you saw it. I credit it to Leslie Chaney in the back. Thank you for the.

I appreciate it.

But no, it was a really interesting time. And I listened to the podcast a lot, and I know you get these questions a lot where people are like, okay, this sounds like a good system, but, you know, my business is so different. How would you work it into my business?

Right?

And it's like. Like, we hear it, and we're like, okay, that could work for other people, but not for me. And at the. At the time, you know, we were literally. We had zero money in the bank. I mean, nothing.

It was kind of negative at that point.

Oh, it was.

You guys ran up, like, $100,000 of debt, if I recall.

Yeah, we. So, um, one really intelligent decision I made was to stop paying taxes.

Yeah. Yeah, dude, I've been there. So I get in retrospect how dumb it is. But, dude, I've done the same thing. I don't know why I call you dude now. Brian.

Call me dude.

I've done the same thing.

And I got a credit line. I had an IRA that I cashed in. And we stopped paying our bills personally.

And.

And. And just all this stuff. And I was like, man, you know, if we could just get over the hump, it'll be fine. And so we're like. I mean, we have nothing, right?

Yeah.

And I have all these people looking to me for paychecks and all that. And so when you start. When I run, when I read Profit first and you talk about splitting the money up, I mean, there was no money. Yeah, yeah. But what we did is I was like, okay, I believe in this. I think this. This makes a lot of sense. So every check that came in, we opened up. I think we have six accounts. Every check that comes in, we started putting 1% to profit. And then we just split up the money into, like, our tax account, payroll account. We have ads that we do and immediately would have to put it all Back together to write checks, to send out. But it was like that. That muscle, right?

Yeah.

So all the money that came in, we split up. And that was the first time where I realized, like, man, I've got to let people go.

Yes.

I mean, I've got to cut costs.

Hooray.

Yeah. I didn't mean. It's funny, like, the way I said yes is like, yeah, that's it. But it's horrible.

Let me go.

No, it's horrible. But I think so many of us are trying to save our people while letting the entire business collapse, which actually compromises all our people.

Yeah. And there was people that I talked to. So this is the beginning of 2017. And I mean, and I'll tell you, like, I realized I needed to fire people because of profit first. So those people. Thank you. But I was going to bed at like 3, 4 in the morning, right?

Yeah.

Every night.

Every night.

Yeah.

And one night when I was, I was just, I was like facing the reality. I went to bed at like 2 in the morning and just like lost it. Crying.

Yeah.

And. And like, Leslie knows, like, I am not emotional.

He doesn't cry. Like three times I've seen him cry.

So my children were born. I was just like, cool.

Was it the straw who broke the camel's back? Like, you just couldn't take any more kind of breakdown?

Well, it was, it was. It felt like failure. Like. Yeah, I needed to let people go. I couldn't make it work.

Yeah.

And yeah, just felt like failure.

I wonder if that's the best day of your life in retrospect, you know, that finally, honestly, something's not working.

It's the best day of mine.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Leslie, it was interesting. You said to your husband, you got to get a job. And I've experienced that for you. Was the emotion like, we need security. And first, Brian, at the same time, was your emotion. We need opportunity. Like, was that the disconnect?

That was definitely my. My emotion. We had a new baby, we had a three year old, and we were eating spaghetti three times a week because it was cheap.

Yep, yep.

And. And yeah. And had this business had again, 16 employees. And it's like you said in the intro from the outside, it's like, wow, you're a business owner. That's awesome. And I loved that feeling. But then I also, I kind of lied to myself too. And this is one of the things that profit first really helped me with is I lied to myself for six years that I was investing in the business by not Taking any money. And. And really what I was doing is I was just masking that I didn't have any money.

Yeah, yeah. Congratulations on your candor with yourself. So tell us now, coming out of this. So you've implemented prop first. You got your six accounts set up. You're starting to build the muscle. Where are you now? What's been the result and how far into.

Yeah, so, yeah, we've been doing it for two years now. And, um, it. It is. It's. It's crazy. Um, so 2016, again, I wrote a check for literally, like $200 to each. Each employee for the bonus that once a check came in because I just didn't have any money. So.

Yep. Yep.

This last Christmas, we basically gave everybody an extra paycheck. And. And it was all. It was all saved. Like, it was all set aside. Wow. You know, we've got. We're not exactly where I want to be, but we've got, like, I remember the 2017. January, February, March, we made $600, me and my wife together.

Total.

Total $600. That's it.

Wow.

And now, again, setting the money aside, you know, we live very comfortably. And it's weird because we spent six years of just not having any money, not being able to do anything.

Has the business changed? Meaning did you have to get a thousand more clients? That's obviously a grand number, but did you get more clients? Like, what did. What happened to the business? Or did it just. Is it kind of magic?

Well, honestly. So when we had 16 employees.

At.

That time, we were kind of going through the pumpkin plan, breaking down what we were doing, specializing, and we got down to nine and basically making the same revenue that we were previously making with 16. And so the focus was huge. And what's crazy is the people that I talked to to let go, they are in good jobs now.

They're happy.

They're alive still, I think. But it's just like, it was so hard to have those conversations, but they're all happier.

So what would you tell our listeners to this show? I suspect many people are very skeptical. They have a unique business from your experience. Not should they do or should they not? But if they do decide to go about it, what's your suggestion in actually pulling this off successfully?

Yeah, I think so. Funny story. I have some photographer friends of mine, and I started talking to them about this system, and they were like, man, we're a photography business. There's no way this can work for us. And then that next week, you guys had a podcast come out where you interviewed a photographer, that it changed her business. And I think, like, it's just funny because, again, we had no money. So when I'm talking to my office manager and I'm saying, okay, we're gonna split up all the money, she's looking at me like, I have a third head. Yeah, a second one and a second head. Second head. Yeah, many heads. But, like, it was so one. You know, when I. When you go to pay taxes, when you go to pay these things, you're doing profit first, but you're doing it the system. But you're doing it at the end of the month versus the beginning because you have to move that. You know, you have to take that money out so you feel the loss. Right now we write our IRS checks. Checks. And they. I mean, it's just. We don't even feel it. Yeah, it's set aside. It doesn't exist. And we've paid back what we owed like we were cash. Cash flow positive. And just all this stuff that I just did not think was possible. But again, we just, you know, treating that money like it doesn't exist was just magical.

Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe that's the big tip for listeners. Even if you don't have any money there, just start splitting it. Even though it feels like nothing. We gotta start wrapping up. But, Leslie, before we go, I'm curious about your perception of your marriage. Now, has this somehow affected your marriage in a positive, maybe negative way? But has it affected your marriage and your perception?

Absolutely positive. Yes, Absolutely positive.

Our sex life is amazing.

That's what I was gonna ask next, so. But. But how would you. I kind of expected that. But why would it affect a marriage so positively?

I feel like he decided to start standing up for us instead of standing up for his employees first.

That gives me chills.

That switch in priority has strengthened us. I found out again why we're friends. I remember that he is hilarious and that we just really like spending time together.

In retrospect, would you want him, like, now, would you. Do you wish that he would have gotten a job instead of continued on with his business?

That's a hard question. At my heart, I am very much. I want to be secure, and I would very much love a 401k and Christmas bonus and that kind of thing, but I think he is well on the way to forming that for us. So he's come this far in such a little amount of time, and it makes me just so proud of how hard he's worked. Just his. Worked more his mind and exercised wisdom instead of the 90 to 100 hours that he was working before. And so I'm just amazed at how much he's grown, matured. And it's. It's fun. It's fun to watch him.

Yeah.

Because he's really. He's really starting to come into his own.

I'm so proud of both of you. I think, Leslie, that I'm sure Brian feels the same pride towards you in that you're a stalwart to protect the family and to do what's right. So. Wow, you guys, thank you for joining us today. Before we let you go, why don't we get some more customers for you? You've amazing business. Can you tell us just a little bit about that and where listeners can sign up for Crash Creative?

Yeah. So we, because of the pumpkin plan, we really focus on Facebook and Instagram digital marketing for lead generation. And, you know, we been really focused on that, especially the last couple years, just doing, you know, marketing different products, you know, finding customers for people. And we're@itscrash.com or if you just Google Crash Creative, we show up.

Great. So itscrash.com we'll have that in the show notes. Brian, Leslie, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you so much.

See you guys later. You can't touch this. I'm so proud of them. Right?

Yeah.

Can't touch this. I am. Woo. I don't know. These have me pumped. Pumped. Leslie was giving me chills there.

Yeah, I know.

Goosebumps. All right, here's what we're gonna do, Kels.

Yeah.

We're gonna recap what we learned. We got tons of new segments which could be a disaster. We're gonna try them out. We have the new segment called One Star Too Many, which I can't wait to get to. And I do have a tip. So a lot of people are asking me when I do public speaking events. They are podcast listeners and they say first they grunt in my face and then they say, mark, it's a grunt. I was trying to do a fast version of grunt. I'm sorry. Could you read our listener mail again, Kels? Hypocrite. And they. They want to hear more tips that we have in house. So I'm going to share that too. But first, whoops, wrong. Wrong button. But first, first, I do want to thank our corporate partners, make the show a reality. Nextiva is a voiceover IP phone system, but so much more. They are also what's called Next os. It's the newest CRM. Literally, jbone. You can enter any prospects or customers of yours into the CRM. It tracks them online and reports back to you how engaged they are actually on your product. So if they're saying, like, you know, jbones chef work is miserable, you'll get a notice to know you got to take action.

Thanks for that.

Yeah, but it's not miserable, dude. You're actually amazing chef occasionally. Sometimes you suck. And then there's receipt bank, dude, as a chef, how many. Like, you have to buy all these different ingredients. You track these things, and then you're like, what did I buy? Where was it? What did I pay for it? Receipt bank categorizes every purchase you make so you can reflect upon it. It ties into your accounting system. And God forbid the IRS comes knocking on your door and says, jbone, show us those receipts. Were you buying food ingredients, or were you going to that, like, you know, wherever you go, some bar, getting wasted, drinking. Shady place. Shady place, Exactly. The alley strip joint. Hey. And you're like, no, I can prove his receipts. Then you pull it out of your pocket full of all these single dollar bills from your strip joint you went to, and then you pull out receipt bank and you show them that.

I can write that off, though, right?

Someone said, last time I was out, he's like, dude, I love that receipt bank prevents asphalts. And I'm like, what do you know? We did two episodes about the asphalt prevention.

Yeah, I sure do.

I think there was, like, five.

I think it was five. Okay, well, whatever.

They're still coming.

I don't. I didn't even remember that. And someone's like, you know, I love that does that.

Okay.

At least one person got a kick out of it.

Well, Jaybone actually thought that there was clear voice technology on our next EVA phone.

I swear. Yeah, when I called her, I was like, wait, was that serious?

How do I activate that?

She's like, no, because on the handset, it says HD voice.

Yeah. No one's come to me and said, oh, wow, that was so funny. We said, yeah. If you haven't heard those past episodes, my dear friends, what we said was the new feature released by nextiva is clear voice, where people. People can hear the actual sound of your true voice over the phone. This is a great innovation. We are such schmucks. All right, Kal, all right. Tell me, what was your one big takeaway for today?

Okay, so, I mean, I think my one big takeaway is that life is about growing. So I think that vulnerability that you Feel when your business is at rock bottom. Like, they felt that was the opportunity to actually learn something and grow. That he might not have gotten elsewhere. You know, you had to live through that. But he's that much. I don't even want to say knowledgeable, but I guess wise, like she said, as a person.

Oh, groovy, baby. Is it. Is it awkward for me to want to be adopted by them?

No.

Okay. And I think I'm older than both of them combined. You put their two ages together. I'm still older than them, and I want them to be my new parents. Here's the reason. First of all, Brian very candid with his own feelings and thoughts. And he was reflective and said, oh, my gosh, I was foolish here. Heroic. Right? Because many people can't do that. The ego prevents it. Leslie. Stalwart. What I hear is a stalwart. And we gotta protect the family. And is also supporting her husband in his dream, but also protecting the family. And was navigating that precarious walk down the line extremely well. I also. What really landed with me is that please get a job moment. I think any entrepreneur listening right now can relate to when your spouse or significant other says, please get a job, it feels like a dagger has just been jabbed into your heart. It's so painful. And the fact that they face it together. And the other thing I loved is Leslie and Brian agreed one of us has to step away if this is gonna be successful. Otherwise our marriage is over. I love hearing the other side. And I'm also just grateful that they were that candid because money is a major instigator of problems. It isn't the root cause, but it is. It's that thorn in the side that keeps on pricking and pricking.

Yeah. And I think it brought awareness to their personality differences. And, you know, his stubbornness and pride, how that affected her and her need for security. You know, I think it just brought that all to light where they might not have realized that otherwise.

Okay. I love it. Can you see if they can adopt me? Seriously? Can you look into that? I don't know if it's legal. Right? Can you adopt someone's older than you? Why not?

I mean, I feel like you should plead your own case. No. Is it weird?

It's awkward. It's awkward. I think it's just. I think you just send a note to them, say, brian, Leslie, thanks for coming on. Mike would like to be adopted. And by the way, he needs some money. Could you just. You know, he wants to Go to college again. All right. Yeah, Real quick.

You told me a story years ago about how when you were struggling and. And then you moved past that point.

Yeah.

Your dad still would ask you, so when are you going to get a job?

Oh, my God.

Yes. It's true. My dad still says it.

He still.

My dad is 91 years old, and he still goes to me, like, so how's the job working out? The job search, Mike.

And so it's a mindset.

It's a mindset. So when I sold my second business, it was acquired by Fortune 500, literally became a millionaire in my early 30s at that time. And I was chock full of ego and arrogance and just a big dick. I was just a big dick. Not outwardly, but just in what I thought I was. I even saw a picture recently. Me, like, the hair was even greasier than it is now. And this tie with this cheesy clip of power tie. Power tie. And then behind me was the SBA Entrepreneur of the year award. And I just own this arrogance. And when I sold that company and that one day, I made more money in one day than my father had in his entirety of his life career. He started off at this oil refinery manufacturer called Foster Wheeler. You know, his first salary was like 4,000 a year. Like, that literally was his income. Right. So he still said, oh, maybe now you can get a job that you sold your business. And I was like, oh, okay. Like, there is that disconnect.

Yeah.

And so for us entrepreneurs, like, there is no alternative about running a business. And for other people, they're like, are you crazy? You're doing the dumbest thing ever. So I get it. Kelsey, we're changing some of the audio things on the soundboard here, so I don't have the you've got mail pattern baldness joke, which everyone loves. So do we have mail from.

We do.

Lay it on me.

This one comes from Chris. Carolyn.

Sorry.

I don't know why Godzilla, but what.

Is the best way to go from learning to execution? The Marketing Book and StoryBrand Podcast have led me to listening a lot of books over the past two years, but I fall short in putting concepts and insights into practice. Any advice aside from just man up and do it?

Yeah. So first of all, storybrand is amazing. There's a book called what? It's the Story Brand method, I think. Or no, Story branding.

Building a story brand.

Build your story. But yeah, by Don Miller. We're actually going down for the training. There's four of us going from the office Going down to get trained. Extraordinary. If you haven't listened to the story brand podcast, skip, I hate to say skip over this one and get over to that one. It is literally that good. Is mind blowingly powerful and his books. Gosh, read it. Just read it. But to Krista's question, what's the best way to go from learning to execution? Is always small steps, I think. You know, if you want to run a marathon the very first day, you don't of practice. You don't run a marathon the very first day. You try to learn about stretching and proper form and you build your way into it. The very first implementation of proper first, don't do the full system except one account. Allocate a small percentage if you and start getting traction. So whatever you learn, start executing in a small bit. The thing is, if you hold off on it, your mind will build reasons not to do it and will stay stuck in the old method. If you go in it all out and you're likely then to fail, there'll be a confirmation bias that your old way was the right way and you'll abandon it. So small steps is inevitably, from my experience, the best way to get started. All right, Klaus. I got a new segment. I don't have a segment punch, do I? Oh, I do. I got a new segment called One Star Too Many. Did you? I can't tell you how often I see a review of one of my books that says I'm giving this one star because I have to. It's quite frankly one star too many. And then they go on and say how horrible my books and work is. So I thought it was only fair to give homage. Homage. Give homage to these individuals. And now what we did is we. We do have a live recording of them or someone saying it. We cloak the voice. That's the case. We want to protect these people, but we do say their name, so I guess it kind of defeats it. I mean, in the reviews they post their name publicly, so that's fair. But we cloak their voice because I don't know. Here it is.

Amanda Abrams, CPA Outdated Profit first fad sure to be phased out. I would never advise my clients to open more multiple bank accounts to manage and simplify bookkeeping. It's a nightmare tactic. The book is quite outdated and I'm shocked that people are still buying into the Profit first movement. Profit first professionals are not financial advisors. They are unlicensed with minimal training in financial management. Add to that, it's a highly unregulated field. Beware one is better off consulting a licensed financial advisor that works with a reputable company like Morgan Stanley, SunTrust Investments, etc. The book and the Profit First Professionals are a fad. Here today, gone tomorrow. This book is not worth the money. Consult a licensed financial advisor.

Okay, so that was Amanda. And I want to. What I want to do is actually defend some of these comments because listen, just because it's a one star doesn't mean that I should disregard its significance. I think she's a good point. But then Amanda, the very next morning went on to review Clockwork. So she read Private first and within one day read Clockwork. Here's what she said about Clockwork.

A review of Clockwork by Amanda Abrams.

CPM voice got deeper.

Disappointing. Nothing new here. There was nothing monumental in this book. I was definitely expecting more. It was bland and there was nothing new. Profit first and their professionals are losing momentum these days. It's not what it used to be. Very disappointed in the book.

Amanda Abrams. Alicia, listen, here's my points. Why she's right. First of all, she's very integral in her disappointment in all of my work. I mean Profit first is disappointing. Clockwork was very disappointing. So first, I appreciate her candor. The one thing I'm curious about is she mentioned Profit First Professionals in both. So she actually talks about a company that I co own that is is not part of the books. Profit first did instigate the creation of Profit First Professionals. Clockwork is about business efficiency. But then she talks about this Profit First Professionals organization and how we're collapsing. Here's my conclusion. I think that she feels threatened by us. To be honest, I think that something must have happened where she's a cpa. She says that on her review I assume that either clients have gone to her and say you need to try Profit first or I'm curious about it and it's forcing her to change her business practice or deny those clients. Or secondly, I wonder if Profit First Professionals are taking business business from her. Here's my defense for her. I think her response is normal when you feel threatened. I remember I was, I was taking a ride in a taxi when I was somewhere because I couldn't get an Uber and the guy just gave me a taxi ride. This is about a year ago. And I said, oh, I just noticed there's no Ubers in this area. And he goes, that's a fad. I'm like for 10 years now. And what I believe is when you're an established industry and, and you've established a way of doing things. When that gets threatened, we automatically become defensive. When you get threatened, you defend. So in Amanda's defense, I understand why you hate me.

I'll say. I understand her argument for, from a bookkeeping perspective, to open all those accounts, it is like, it seems messy, but once you start doing, makes it a lot cleaner. You know, I feel like it feels like the antithesis of simplicity, but in reality it is. Just gives you clarity.

Yep. I. I reached out to Amanda and I left her message. I called her and I said, hey, Amanda, I'd like to send you an unlimited copy of Profit first. Whatever you want to distribute, distribute to your clients and to see if it's worth exploring. Here was her response. Okay, that was not so.

She does have a sexy voice though.

It gets deep. Do you notice the second one's even deeper. Yeah, right.

The inflection too.

It's like she's hilarious.

Her inflections were out of control. Disappoint, but disappointing. Yeah. All right, Kelsey, do we have anything else to do? Yes.

You have a tip for us?

Oh. Oh my gosh. Penguin's calling right now. Should I answer him live on the phone?

No.

Okay. I was wondering like, no thought to that. She's like, wouldn't that be so much fun? Hey, Penguin. That was the editor from Penguin just calling me now. Could you imagine? He's like, we have bad news, Mike.

Yeah, exactly.

Profit first really was fading. We just got this call from a woman named Amanda Abrams. She's our new author. You're gone. What do you got for me? Cracka?

You have a tip for us, don't you?

Yes. Do we have a sound effect for that? Yes, we do. So this is. I'm just picking random buttons here. So this is, this is a tip I want to share with our audience called the 150 rule. This is not true for all businesses, but mostly service based businesses. If you have a different type of business, the number may be slightly different. But basically, currently this is in 2019. If you generate $150,000 per employee per one full time employee, you're generally will flip into the profit side of a business. If you're doing less than that, you're likely at risk for not being profitable or losing money. And if you're above that, you're going to increase your profitability. So it's a real simple analysis you can do with your own business. Take your revenue. Say you do $1.5 million in revenue. Divide that by 150, that's 10. You should have 10 full time employees, and you'll likely be profitable. If you have 16 or 20 guarantee that, you're really gonna be in trouble with profit. The one thing we didn't get to ask Brian and Leslie was what was their revenue number. We could quickly divide by 150 and told them the number of employees that's likely optimal. So rule of thumb, just use that for some guidance. How do you like that one?

Awesome.

Yeah. Thank you, John Canney. John Canney throws money, too. All right, I think we're good now, right, Cal?

Yeah, we're good. But please leave us a rating or a comment on any podcaster that you use or on our website. Just go to mikemcalowitz.com and find the podcast that way.

Yeah, and are we still bribing people at all? Nah, we're pretty much done. Yeah, we use the T shirts. That's in the works, right? Yes. Okay.

But we'll come up with a new contest for that.

Okay, good. So then there's one last thing you can do right now, and it's time for you to get your free copy of my book, Surge. Yeah, you can buy it on Amazon or your local bookstore, or go to mikemcalowitz.com right now. Along the top, you'll see a graphic there saying, like, get your free copy of Surge Fireworks. Click on there. There's fireworks right now. Click on there. Fill out the form, download it, and sure enough, you'll have your free copy. All right, let's get out of here.

Bye, everybody.