Episode 247: Exploring Profit First for Contractors with Shawn Van Dyke

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I accept.

Okay, then. You're welcome to the show. Welcome, Kelsey.

Thanks, everybody. You can find us on itunes. Stitcher Tunein Radio, Spotify or Alexa. And please leave us a ratings or review and please subscribe.

Please do everything.

Please. I'm desperate.

EntrepreneurshipElevatedPodcast.com is the specialized website. We have Kaus. How you been doing?

I've been doing great. Well, I shouldn't say that. I feel like I've been feeling the winter moody blues.

You feel moody blues? Oh, my God. I gotta tell you, a couple days ago, I actually thought you were pissed at me.

Why?

I've never seen you upset. You were just. You were very much involved in whatever you're doing. And you know how I. I know.

Exactly what I was doing.

I come over and interrupt you constantly and you were. I was like, oh, shit. I thought I've gone too far. No, I was doing, like stretches in front of you and asking questions. I do stretch.

I don't want to look at your groin right now.

Well, first of all, hold on. You don't look at my groin because the way I stand into my stretches, you see my leg, right? Oh, my God. Listen, I just do different stretches, Jeremy. I don't know.

Maybe if your groin wasn't so big.

Thank you, sir. Oh, God, no. But do you. Listen, when do you stretch?

Never.

Yeah, dancers never.

No, I do.

Oh, when?

In the morning. Oh, I should do that before I go to sleep.

I stretch at work because I always forget to do it. I'm always in a rush to get to work. So I will put my leg on a desk and then lean forward. I'll do arm stretches and stuff like that. So whenever I'm talking to Kelsey, I'll often start doing stretches. But you were pissed.

I wasn't pissed.

What was wrong?

I couldn't get the. For one of our emails, the domain wasn't coming up and I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working. So I had to, like, do a lot of troubleshooting. It was just a real pain in my tickets, you know?

Yeah. Now I feel like a total pervert. Couldn't see your groin. Jesus. Hey, Kels, here's. And jbone. Here's the new little thing for this morning. I want to know. I'm gonna put something. I'll play something. It's an English phrase. I'm not gonna take the phrases. You have to guess the phrase. I will allow you to hear it in three different languages. Not English. Okay. You get picked the three languages. Any languages you want.

Yeah.

And we'll see if you can guess what the phrase is. So what language do you want? You pick the first Language and J Bone. And then you. And when you know the answer, the first one, say it buzzes in and says, I know the answer.

Okay?

So if you pick something like, oh, I'll pick Esperanto or something like that, you probably could figure it out. Jbone may tap in faster. So pick something that you think will help you answer it, but confuse jbone. You know what I'm saying?

So I'm picking a language, right?

Yeah.

So Esperanza.

Esperanza?

What's Esperanza? Is that a language?

It's a la language. What?

What are you talking about?

Oh, you guys are such neophytes. Esperanto is a blending of English and Spanish. You never heard of that?

That's Spanglish.

No. Oh, my. Racist. You are such a racist. That. That's slang. Okay? Esperanto was a language developed in the 70s to be the unifying language for the world. It never took off. It was an attempt. Did you just make a face of me?

It never took off. You just said it.

Oh, gosh.

It's not real.

I'm gonna place an Esperanto now. That's one. So one of the choices, Esperanto, and you get picked two others. Here's the Esperanto one. Pain in the ass. I'll play it one more time.

Are they all gonna sound like that?

Stephen Hawking's reading it. Yes. Yes. Here we go. Okay, Jeremy.

German.

No, no, no, no. The language. What's the phrase being said?

I have no idea.

Okay, all right, so you want German.

Yeah.

Okay. Do you speak German?

No.

Good. Okay, here it is. Here's in German. Ich essel. One more time. Everyone speaks German right now is like, are you kidding me? That's the phrase. One more time. Everyone knows what esse is, right?

Yeah. That's eat.

Yes. All the foodies know that.

So is it. I eat something in the kitchen.

I eat.

I eat.

You got that?

Oh, I. I eat cake. Let them eat cake.

Let them eat cake. No, close, though. Kallus. One more. What language you want?

French.

French. No, it's a very. It's not a common term. I mean, Kelsey says every so often, but it's not that common. Here it is.

Oh, boy. I eat a lot of.

Listen, that last word's the big one.

Sushi. I eat a lot of sushi.

No. You ready? I eat turtles a lot. I have to say it was a common phrase. It was. That was stupid. That was stupid. All right, next I'll do a common phrase. I thought you guys would speak different languages and recognize It. Especially when I played the S. A.

Weird word like turtle.

Actually, I should have said. I should have said Spanish, because I know in Spanish it's tortuga.

That's why I thought one of you picked Spanish. Spanish is, I think, the easiest to select. So here's the Spanish version. Ready?

I could have got it from that yoke.

Yo I como I eat tortugas. Turtles. Mucho turtles.

Yeah.

So easy.

One was really clear.

Yeah. The Esperanto was, like, the hardest. It's like.

And it didn't sound like Spanish or English.

I know. Yeah. Look it up, though. Google it up. All right, so that was another disaster. Instead of calling bits, we'll call them disasters. Here's the disaster for today.

What's the common theme among the bits? Mike's coming up with them.

So the idea was to be, like, entertaining. Listen, J. Bone, when you run a business, like, is so, like, you just need a relief. I was gonna originally call this the relief valve. Just to give people a little laughter, a little fun, and just to think about something different than business just for one second. That's what I'm trying to do here. And it's a disaster.

It's not. It's not.

No. Jeremy, I can feel your judgment. It's a disaster.

No, it's good. It's good stuff.

No, it's not.

It's good radio.

I love it.

It's good for us. I feel like we could do this all day long. I know. I just feel bad for the people listening.

No, you know why? Because the people that listen are our friends. Like, they're like our people. And we're their people. We're our people.

I love when they email me.

I know you're still the fan favorite, just so you know.

No, I'm not.

What do you mean? Do you get emails that I'm the fan favorite?

Yeah, people listen to it for you.

Oh, it's interesting. So I get the reverse when I'm at events, when I go to events, people like, I love Kelsey. She's so good. She's so nice.

Yeah. Because they feel they need to because they're talking to you.

Oh, maybe that's it. That's it.

Yeah.

Okay, good. My ego's fulfilled again. It's all about me. All right, Kelsey, do we have any listener shout outs?

We do.

Okay.

This one comes from jmcardy127. They write his name. Yeah. I mean, it's his itunes name.

Okay. Okay. I was like, that's a weird last name.

He writes, I was so Excited to find Mike Michalowicz, I listened to the audio version of Profit first and was amazed that he made his financial system seem so easy and interesting. I was really excited when I found that he had a podcast and I absolutely love it. It's so much fun and has such great information for me as a small business owner.

Oh, my God, do I love you.

Thanks, Jay McCarty.

Thanks, Jay McCarty. Also, did you want to apologize for some stuff you said last night?

No, I don't want to revisit it.

Okay. Okay. You sure? Just last week's episode.

Yeah.

Okay. I gave you the option. So.

Sorry, Zach.

Oh, I wasn't even thinking about that. So. Okay. So interesting. Interesting. You don't want to apologize and you just apologize. So I appreciate that. Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Okay. All right. Kelsey, have anything else to do?

Yeah. What you can talk about our sponsors.

Nextiva Receipt bank are two big sponsors. Those companies have been stalwarts for us. I think nextiva has been with us since day one. I went and visited them recently. Receipt bank is a. Is a productivity tool that we've been using for a long time and they've been a supporter for an amazing long time. We'll give you details on that as you know a little later on. But let's get to the business at hand. Kal. Yeah. And Jay Bone. His name is Sean van Dyke. After 21 years of being a numbers guy with a tool belt, he gave him the skills and experiences to know. To know uses to help other. This is. The copy's bad here. Others grow and streamline their business. Now he's in the construction industry as a consultant, business coach, and speaker. Sean is the offer author. I'm losing it. Of the paper punch.

That has nothing to do with the copy.

He's the author of the paperwork punch list. 28 days to streamline your construction business and released a brand new book called Profit first for Contractors. It is with absolute pleasure that we invite on Shawn Van Dyke. Shawn, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks for having me. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Kelsey. Great to be here, dude.

So let's get right into the meat and potatoes. You launched a book called Profit first for Contractors. We teamed up on this. You wrote the book, I wrote the forward. But you said, mike, there is a need in this community for contractors to master this stuff. Why you think of all the people, these guys, you know, these guys are out on the street. They know. They know business. They have street sense. But.

Yeah, well, well, they. They do. They're very they're very smart, very capable professionals. But the problem is, is that they, they spent time learning to craft, and when it comes to the business side of it, they ran out of time. Meaning they, they learned the craft when they were young and, and growing up. And then when they started these businesses, they thought, well, I can figure the business side out too. But now that's taking all of their time, so they just didn't have enough time to learn the business. And that's where they really start going down this, this hole or get crap trapped in this cycle that I describe in the book called the Craftsman Cycle. And it destroys the. A lot of construction business owners, their, Their. Their passion for why they got started the business in the first place. I was there, I suffered through it, and I always say I was just too dumb to do anything else and stubborn. So I just kept trying to figure it out, and then I finally figured out how to understand the business side of the construction industry and did it for my business and then decided I needed to. Needed to write the book, write the book for it.

Well, if people get stuck in the pattern of the Craftsman cycle, is it really within their capability then if that, if that's so much their passion, is it really within their quote, unquote capability to manage numbers, to, to run a business and remove themselves from the doing phase?

Yeah, it is. But, but the, the problem is that it's this vicious cycle that keeps them trapped, and you're not aware of it when you're in the cycle. So once you, once you get someone to help or you can kind of see outside, outside of that business, outside of that cycle, then it becomes very apparent as to what needs to change, and that's what profit first, and specifically profit first for contractors helps them, Helps them do is to break out of that cycle, as you say, you know, in your book. It's, it's profoundly simple. And once, once contractors can see how simple it is, it's not easy, but it is simple. Then they just start implementing the things that we talk about in your book and in my book as well, and then they break out of that. What I call. They break out of the Craftsman cycle.

So tell me, what are the differences between PF Profit first and PFC Profit first for contractors?

Yeah, so it's, it's funny that you asked that. That's the, that's the question that I get a lot of times before. People really kind of dig into the book, and maybe they're familiar with profit first, but it was the same thing that I Was thinking about when I first came across profit first. I even write about it in, in the book there, tell a little bit story about it. But the. What profit first does is it talks about helps you calculate your real revenue. So you, you take your, you know, you take your total revenue for your business and you subtract out your materials and your subcontractors. And for a construction business, those are very key elements of how you run your construction business. Now if you're producing widgets, then then the same thing over and over again. Then materials and subcontractors probably stay pretty consistent. But for a contractor, materials and subcontractors specifically can vary from job to job or project to project or business to business. And so what the difference in profit first and profit first for contractors is we, we go through the, we go through the steps in the initial assessment to determine the real revenue. Then we set some percentages based on the real revenue. And then the difference for profit first for contractors is we translate those percentages or those dollar figures back to the total revenue. Because when a contractor receives a check, let's say a deposit check for $50,000 for a, for a project, I don't want him or her to have to go back in and say, okay, well, on this project, how much do I have in materials and how much do I have in subs? Then I'll, you know, get down to my allocation percentages. So we take that and do a profit first for contractors has a translation step. So we work through real revenue, set some targets, or like you say, your target allocation percentages. And then we translate that into some numbers that I call PTRs or percentages of total revenues. Because I want them to be able to take that money. They get that check, and they know exactly what percentage of their total revenue needs to go into their different accounts. And that's the biggest difference.

Yeah, I get, I see it now. So a contractor's business, when they say they're doing, you know, X, say $10 million of revenue, what I'm hearing is some clients give the contractor money that immediately gets turned over to subcontractors. So the, the contractor isn't really using that money as much as managing it. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I've always said that. A lot, A lot of times the, the construction, a construction business can feel like legalized money laundering.

Interesting.

Because as soon as we get that money, it has to go right back out the door and it's. And we're buying supplies, we're paying deposits on things we're we're sending it to subcontractors. And for a lot of construction business owners, that money that's coming in is helping them. Unfortunately, it's helping them finish up their last job. And that's been, that's a real problem for a lot of contractors is they have to start the next job and get those deposits and get that income coming in because they've already burned through all of the cash because they didn't price it right or for whatever reason. So it's just this constant flow of, you know, money laundering as I call it.

Gotcha, gotcha. And I want to get into the book launch too. I want to learn about that. Just one more question about contractors. The implementation cycle. When you, I know you've helped countless contractors now implement profit first, is this something you go in, you implement the full system. Is there a rollout strategy? How's that work?

Yeah, so where I always start is we just start with what they're doing right now. And I know a lot of contractors when they reach out to me for help and I work with them in my coaching programs that they're not making any money, they're not paying themselves. They, they don't understand that the owner's draws that their CPA told them to take don't show up on the P and L statement. So I just know that profit zero tax account is zero, owner's comp is way too low. But I always start there with them and saying we're not going to change anything drastically right now. But just like what you say in your book and mine too, we're going to start with 1%. And so that's where we always start. They don't have to understand any of the number or any of the profit and loss because we'll get there. But if they can understand, you can operate, take that money in your account and put 1% into profit right now. You're not going to miss it. And then we, we develop a rollout plan based on what they're, what they're doing now and where they need to be. And sometimes that's four quarters, six quarters, maybe, maybe even an eight quarter rollout plan. But it's been so exciting to work with my clients and, and we'll do a rollout plan that's maybe, you know, over 18 months. And they say, okay, we're going to be here in a year and a half and they start getting there in six months and eight months and nine months. Because for the first time in their business they can see where the money's going. They don't have to know all of the financial and accounting stuff, but they just. They're looking at the bank accounts and they see these bank accounts and they can make immediate changes. And so it's really exciting when you working with a client and say, okay, here's the plan over, you know, over the next 18 months. And then they call me back in six or nine months and they're saying, sean, it's more money than I've ever seen. This has been so effective. So it's absolutely been awesome.

I've actually got emails from people who are not contractors who bought your book because they said, there's nothing out there specific to me. Retail shops is the big one. People are saying, you know what? I love profit first, but I need something that's more specific toward inventory management, what's out there. And they are on their own accord or sometimes through me, discovering profit first for contractors and loving it. But the funny thing is, your book, you're the first one to say, you know, dude, I mess up the launch. I totally effed it up, Mike.

Oh, man.

But, dude, I'm telling you, it's selling. I was telling you this morning, true story. Right now it's selling higher than 3 or 4 of Gary Vaynerchuk's book books, who's a very recognized guy. Sean, you're a much newer author compared to Gary, yet you're crushing it with what you consider to be a f'd up launch. What's the secret to that?

Okay, so here's what it is. And I think I should write a blog post or something about this how to F up your book launch and still crush it. And here, here's. Here's what it was. So here's probably one. One sort of secret that I figured out is I was about a month late publishing this thing than when we originally had talked about. I wanted to be out like everybody else before Thanksgiving so that people can order it and have it as Christmas gifts, right? So all real authors, all good authors and people that know what they're doing try to stick to that schedule. Well, I never written a book before. I had no idea. So writing the book was not that bad. Editing it, revising it, getting it published on Amazon, and designing book cover, all that kind of stuff. Oh, my gosh, that was. That was horrible because I was learning, you know, learning how to do all that stuff. So here we are, it's literally Christmas Eve, and I'm sitting in a. In a hotel in Nashville. We're Visiting family. And I'm like, I've got the book out there. It's published. You know, you can get it on Amazon, but I haven't announced it to anybody. Some people started buying it and so that I let it kind of go. I wouldn't say viral, but I wasn't publishing it because I didn't have the PFC website up. I didn't have the my email set up and all that kind of stuff. So here I am, Christmas Eve, sitting in a hotel in Nashville and saying I've got to send something out. And I'm like, okay, there's going to be some people sitting around on Christmas morning after they get around, after they open gifts. Everybody's going to get on their phones. We're going to check the Internet later, later on the day. So maybe I'll get a couple of book sales and this will be a good time that I can at least get my email blast out. What I think I figured out is because all really good authors published a month before, nobody is pushing their book on Christmas day. So if you put your, if you publish and push your book on Christmas day and no one else's art is buying any thing, if you just get a couple hundred orders, then you'll shoot up to number one on every list that you're categorized in. And that started happening. My wife was like, oh my gosh, honey, you're number one in home and design and construction. Then we looked at number one hot new releasing and accounting and number one new release in finance. And I was like, babe, this is going to last 12 hours. Screenshot everything. So we were having, we're, we're having family members like, hey, pull it up on your phone. Screenshot that, send it to me. Look at this category. Let's see. You know, so it was just kind of, it was kind of crazy.

That's actually a super smart strategy.

Who would have thought?

Yeah, the day when no one else does it is the day to do it. But this is now months after you've launched the book. When I checked this morning, it was ranked under 5,000, which just Amazon carries over 2 million books. Right? So you're ranked like in the 4,000 something of 2 million books. From my experience being an author, any book that's ranked 25,000 or better. So 25,000 all the way up to one, those books are regular performance, meaning every single day those books are moving and your book is in the upper legion of that category. And it's pretty amazing, dude. So congrats on that. But You.

Thanks, man.

You got another hack, man. You got into some airports. I saw pictures. I know there's photographic evidence. And I even made a suggestion, which I want you to share. Once you share the strategy, share the suggestion I gave to you to sell even more, if you remember what that was.

Okay. So I travel a lot, doing my speaking gigs and that kind of stuff. So I spend a lot of time in airports. And I'm always checking out the airport bookstore because it's, you know, I'll find myself taking a picture of those books that are displayed in the. In, you know, in the front. In the front shelves there, the book bookstore, because they're always usually really top sellers in there. And I like to read a lot of books or I listen to a lot of books. And so when I got this. When I got my book published, I thought, man, how do I get into airports? And I was like, well, I don't know if I'm breaking any TSA laws or any federal laws or whatever, but, I mean, I've got to imagine people accidentally leave stuff in airports all the time. So what if I accidentally left my book in the bookstore in airports? And I wrote on the. So I wrote on the copy of it. So I carry about three or four copies with me. And I'll write on the front, free book. And in the. On the. On the inside cover, I'll write a note saying, seriously, this is free. It's from the author. And then on the back, I usually say, you know, hit me up on Instagram and let me know if you found this book or whatever. And so I just started leaving them in. In airport bookstores, and I would take pictures of them, and I started posting some of those pictures, and I told everybody what I was doing, like, hey, this is at terminal B in the Atlanta airport on this day. There's a free book there for you.

I love it.

Just to have fun. Just to have fun with it. But what my audience saw, I started getting messages saying, man, you're killing it. You're crushing it. That is so awesome.

That's.

They missed. They missed the fact that they didn't realize that I put it there. So, again, it's, you know, perception is reality. They're like, man, Sean is killing it. I'm like, no, I'm just some dude with a backpack full of books just throwing them out in there for.

You know, I love about that is because it's integral. Like you. You. You were so can about what you're doing. I saw it. I thought it was hysterical. You're not the first to put books on bookshelves. And I've seen authors go into airports, put it in there. But their position, I guess, really there. And they're like, look, my book's there and it's a ruse. Yours is absolutely candid. It's fun, it's true. And people that skim over it, well, that's their own decision. Now, Sean, I did share a technique because I wanted you to start moving more books more quickly. What was. Kelsey doesn't know. I gave you a very specific tip to follow. I hope you're doing it. What was it?

Yeah, you said on the note that I left, just say it contains pornographic images.

As it may contain pornographic images.

Yeah, sorry, it may contain pornographic images.

It'll double the consumption easily. Right. And it's not lying. It's not lying.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Hey, one more question. You're actively out there now doing live events as a result. Tell me how what's come about and what you're planning.

Yeah, so, I mean, what I've got going on is just my. Well, it's crazy to say it now. I've only been a. Doing this business. I started my business about two and a half years ago or so, but I've. I do regular speaking events at industry trade shows all across the United States. And so we've got our big one coming up here later this month. This is February when we're recording this. I'm not sure when this is coming out, but I'll be out in Las Vegas doing a couple of speaking gigs out there. And then, you know, as the, as the book gets out there, I'm. People are reaching out to me to come and do live events for. Whether it's for their, their, their own companies or other type of trade shows or events in and around the construction industry. So it's just been. It's been really, really incredible. I'm really, really fortunate to have it's. And it's really all based on my audience. I didn't know what I was doing when I started this business. I just had an idea and I knew that I could. That I had figured a couple of things out on the construction industry side of things, and I just started sharing that information and it's my audience, man. They have provided me with any amount of authority or success that I've had. It's just because I've got really, really great clients and I've got a really awesome audience and they're the only reason I can do what I'm doing.

Now this episode goes live in April. April, right. So in April. I'll tell you though, anyone listening in. Sean is charismatic, entertaining, educating and comes from a position of experience. So if you're in any association or industry for contractors and want to bring a guy in that can drive profit for all of your attendees, I am telling you, you will be thrilled to have. Sean. Sean, if people are interested in hiring you for that or any of the services you have, where should they go?

Yeah, they can go to my website, shawnvandyke.com and that's s H A W N Van Dyke V A N D y k e.com and they can check out anything in related to profit first for contractors at my website. Specifically for the book Profit first contractor dot com.

Awesome. And we will have the, the book link on our website too. So you can pick it up at Amazon. J Bone, did you have something you wanted to say?

Yeah, Sean, I was just curious. You're obviously focusing on like construction. Is it residential, commercial?

Yeah, I have, I do both residential and commercial contractors.

I just had an idea like ever thought about leveraging somehow like with real estate agencies? Like because. Just because they work a lot of contractors.

Yeah, real estate, Real estate agencies are completely different business model and so that's just not where my first business that I ever started actually was a real real estate development, construction management firm. But I've, I just haven't spent 20 years doing that. So I couldn't walk into a, a real estate agency and speak to their problems like I can contractors. But there's, there's definitely some overlap there in those, in those industries. I'm just not. I, I think that there's an opportunity for somebody to, to be the profit first for real estate guru. But that's probably not me.

Sean. Thank you. That's a, that's the J Bone bonus question. We always throw one out at the end. All right, thanks so much for joining us, Sean. You're the man.

Thank you guys.

Alright guys, in a second here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna recap what we learned. We have a one star too many rating again for my books. And we have what we call the elevation point. That's the sexy name for a special tip I have for you. But first we. I like that. But first going, I want to thank our corporate partners. Kelsey, do you mind doing the honors?

Surely. So our first and favorite is nextiva. They're a true voice HD voice system.

Yeah. Tell us about that technology. Jaebone, you were impressed by that when you heard of.

How does it work?

You know, I don't know the technical aspects of it.

No one really does.

It works.

But the net effect is, this is when you make a phone call over nextiva phone. The person on the other end will hear. On the other end will hear your voice as it really is.

Yeah.

Your true voice.

Magic.

Well, it's not magic. It's nextiva technology.

That's right.

Yeah. When I call you on nextiva, you're.

Like, oh, my God, is that you, Mike?

I know it's you when I call you on your cell phone. Yeah.

You're like, I'm not sure. Is this Kelsey? I'm like, no, it's Mike. You're like, I can't tell. It's not your true voice. Yeah, True Voice technology. What else do we have? Receipt Bank.

And we have Receipt Bank.

Yep.

So Receipt bank captures all of your receipts and syncs it with your accounting system. So QuickBooks, Xero, whatever you're using.

And I don't know if you heard about the new plugin for Receipt bank called Recedibank. If you ever go to a CD joint like Jerry Bone does regularly, all those receipts. All those receipts can be scanned into the CD collection.

But separate.

Yeah, exactly. Separate but even.

Like, what is this?

So that anyone looks at your stuff like, oh, I see you went to Panera yesterday. You went and you got a Frappuccino over at Starbucks. Oh, you went to a little donation to your church, but Reciti bank has the real collection. Went to the porn shop again, Jay Bone, didn't you? Stay there. What's this new underwear you bought with the holes cut out. Interesting.

Really building a good reputation for me on this podcast.

I didn't name you J. Bone. There's a reason you're the only one.

Who needs me, J.

Bone. You know, there's that guy, Dirty John. You ever hear that? The story of Dirty John? This. You haven't heard of this murderer?

No.

Oh, it's a recent murder case. This guy, his friends called him Dirty John in college because his behavior ends up being a murderer. So he really. This nickname kind of set in. I'm just saying, I'm not equating jbone to a murder by any stretch. No, no, no. I'm just saying his nickname was jbone. It's just kind of interesting that he applies Radi Bank. He. He's the only. He's the only person to use that plugin.

Living into his name.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Okay, so what you learned Today, Kelly, what did you learn today? Do you want to sing that again? Because I don't have the button right now.

Okay. So I love that he took. Because he knows this industry so well. He knows they're all going to deduct or figure out their real revenue, unlike the traditional profit first system. So I love that he added that translation step. I think that's super smart. And it's automatic. So then you know how to figure out your numbers as opposed to, you know, thinking that it's part of your clump of money that you're automatically going to start out.

Good one. Mine's legalized laundering.

I know. I love that.

Yeah, that's a funny term, but it really gives clarity to how the money flows through a business. My second takeaway was the Christmas Day launch. Like, that is a smart. Maybe he fell into it according to his story, but that's freaking smart. You know, who is promoting their products on that day? The day up to it, you have all the, you know, holiday specials and the. They have the Black Friday specials day after Christmas. So it's all about, didn't get the gift you want. Come in shopping now, but the day of Christmas, no one's promoting anything except for Sean Van Dyke, who freaking has a book. That's crushing it. J Bone, did you want to share something? You had the mic in a position, like, do you have a takeaway that you learned that you want to share? Don't feel obligated.

No, no. I was going to say the same thing you were saying about the. The. The money laundering. I thought that was pretty cool.

Pretty cool, right? Yeah. You can probably use Recipe bank for that, too.

Yes. No, but then, but then also, like, the Christmas thing just. It just reminds you, like, just because somebody's not doing it doesn't mean they're not doing it because it doesn't work. It's just, you know.

Right.

Yeah.

I love it. Let's go to the next segment. It's called One Star Too Many. So it's so funny the reviews I get when someone gives me a one star. Sometimes they'll say at the end, I wish I didn't have to give it one star because it's one star too many. They think my book is worth zero stars. It's not worth the paper it's printed on. Well, I think it's. It's time that we give people that. Give the 1 stars to my book. Fair adieu. I just noticed this review is a long one, so we'll just, maybe just play a part of it and let that fade out because it's over. Minute and a half. Oh, but this came in from someone.

That's a really long review.

Yeah, I know. First time. It's really upset. Yeah, they really loathe my existence. And what we do is we cloak their voice because we don't want anyone knowing who they are. But we do say their name because they make that public. Thank God that's a one star. This segment's a one star in itself. Here it goes.

Drew McCoy. One semi bright idea lost in a sea of bad writing and worse advice. Don't waste your time. Tldr. X minus y equals Z and therefore Z minus Y equals x. Income minus expenses equals profit. And therefore profit minus expenses equals income.

Voila.

You've read the book.

All right, we'll leave it there. It goes on and on and on. So what his argument is, he still talk as I'm faking. What his argument is is that the book is such a waste of time because it can be summarized into one sentence. He argues, actually the whole formula of private first is x minus y equals z. And he goes, you could simply flip that to z minus y equals x. And there's the whole book. So I want to first defend this person. First, I want to defend that the math is they did is incorrect. X minus y equals z When you flip a variable from one side of the equation to the other would not result in z minus y equals x. It would actually result in minus z equals minus y minus Y equals minus.

Defending them.

Okay, I'm defending myself. That's funny.

I will defend them by ripping apart.

Everything that they just drew. Do your math. Right. So that's basically my full defense. Now here's the real defense. I get that the book can be summarized to one page. Actually, I think it can even be summarized to one sentence or two words. Profit first. And that's why on our resources page we have a section that says read the entire book in one page with the one page summary. Now here's my attack on Drew. My second attack. Any book can be summarized to one page, right? Name a book. Give me a book. Clockwork. Thank you, Jeremy. Clockwork. Focus on efficiency. There's a whole book is summarized. Give me another one. The Bible. That's a good one. That's a good one.

Jeremy, please summarize it.

Be good, be good. There's the summary of the bible. Anything else like this. Any book can be summarized. Of course. What makes a book a book is the storytelling. The bible. It's about Be good. But it's embellished. It's built up. The stories stick because they're stories. Clockwork. You build the concepts on stories. And of course, there's executable steps. It's about being efficient. But you got to, you know, do the 4D mix. And you have to know what the QBR is. And there's all these different elements, profit first. You set up all these different accounts. You have to have a vault. You need to consider what's called the 1025 cycle sort of these elements in it. But to Drew's point, it can be summarized down to take your profit first. So I get it.

Mm.

If he didn't. If he didn't mess up the freakin math, I would be his biggest fan right now.

Your biggest grape is the algebra involved.

Dude, that pisses me off because his opening sentence says X minus Y equals Z. Therefore Z minus Y equals X. My dude. That's not right, by the way. I studied math in. In college. Discrete mathematics. I was a big mathematics gearhead. So maybe that's why.

Yeah, maybe. I'm curious what the rest of that minute and a half was.

He goes, well, here's what happens. He goes, when Mike reviews our reviews, he starts attacking us, even though he's saying he's defending us. That's why I cut it out so quickly. Oh, that was funny. That was funny.

Good job.

Yeah.

All right.

Do you have a tip for us though?

I do. Let me hit a punch. Let's see what this one is. It's a long one. We're trying out different punches. Yeah. So this is called the elevation point. The one thing that if you, you do this, I think it can, it can be a game changer for your business. This one is actually a realization I had. Jay Bone, I was telling about you this, telling you about this earlier when we were in there, you were sharing about your recede bank purchases. Like, okay, okay, that's fun. And I gotta tell you something. And I said in Clockwork, I talk about the four Ds from doing to ultimately designing. In between, that's deciding and delegating. Any work we do, I. I concluded falls within these four Ds. And then the realization thank you to Adrian Dorrison comes in. She calls me and says we've been doing. She runs a company called Run Like Clockwork. They implement clockwork services. She does an analysis and she says, mike, we just found out there's another D distraction time. And she goes, all those four Ds that I've assigned in the book are for work. But a lot of time people spend at work is distraction. And if you don't account for that, you'll think you're working more efficiently than you are. So the fifth D is distraction. So here's my challenge. Track your day as you qualify yourself as working. You mean you're at the office or at your desk? Just track the stuff you do for the day and do this repeatedly for a week. Then assign one of the five Ds to it to see where you really spend a lot of time. Adrian pointed out, and I agree, how surprising, the surprising amount of time we put into distraction. The goal for an entrepreneur is to move from doing work to designing the outcomes. But we have to get through that distraction phase. That's the. That's the takeaway.

Excellent.

Okay, Kelsey, anything else?

Yeah, we have listener mail.

Duh. What's the. Oh, what's the listener mail?

So this comes from Matthew Patoli.

Hey, Matthew.

He writes, could you break down the best method for using profit first for personal finances?

Come on, man.

Yeah, I absolutely can. So I do it for our own home budget now for about five years. So profit first. I started about nine years ago. I've been doing it. Do you do it for your own.

I do.

How do you do it?

So I have my, like, I'll consider my operating expenses. It's basically my regular recurring household expenses and also my like, car expenses.

Okay.

So that's in one account. So that.

And what do you call it? Operating expenses.

Yeah, in my head.

What do you call it?

Household expenses.

Household expenses. Okay.

And then I have a sabbatical account.

Nice.

And then I.

What's the sabbatical account intended to do?

So that is I plan to take a two month sabbatical. So basically it's. I've allocated money so that I can have enough to cover those household expenses while I'm away for those two months.

Okay.

So I determined the percentage out of the amount of money that I needed and, you know, what money I had there. And then I have like a debt account. So it's my, like, school loans and I have a, like a consolidated loan from old credit card debt. So that's my debt account.

That's it.

So it's pretty simple. I don't have the five accounts, but.

Yeah, no, you don't. So for my house, I literally have about 20 accounts. So, you know, I go hog wild with this. So I have an income account. It says income. I allocate money out. I have household operating expenses, which is the Heat, the. What else do we. Electric, cable, tele, actually cable television anymore, but cable television and so forth. Then I have a mortgage account to pay the mortgage I have for each one of my three children college accounts. Now I do have the 529 plans or whatever, but I want to have an operating budget to get by any single semester so I can immediately pull from it. Because my thought is the stock market is very volatile and when I need that money to pay for their college, if the market is having a real bad month or week, I could be pulling that money out at a bad time. So I want to give myself a four or five month window so I have an extra semester plus in each one of their accounts I've been allocating to. I'm going to pull from the 529, but if it's bad, I go to the college accounts. Then I have the dream stuff. So my big dream, jbone, is I'm saving up to get a utv. You and I are going out there, dude. A utv, but an electric one. It's a UTV is like an atv, but it's a side by side. I already have started creating the trail of a mile trail, right, going off my house and there's 1500 square acres of property behind me going into the woods. So we gotta go out there with some beers.

What, what is a utv?

A utility train vehicle.

Oh, like the gators?

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, so I want to get one of those. So I've been saving for it and I'm Putting aside like 100 bucks, I think every two weeks. I started this a year ago. There's maybe $3,000 in there. A UTV, the one I want to get is probably about $12,000. So it's still going to take a while to get there. But when I have extra cash, I'll put some stuff, I'll put more money in there. I have a vacation account, we have a health emergency account, which I think everyone should have. If there's an emergency, we have some money to pull from there. And it goes on and on and on. That's the implementation of profit first. It's the exact same principle, but create the categories where you think. Think you'll spend a lot of money and have backup planning. So that's how I suggest you do it, Mr. Matthew.

Yeah.

Okay. Rock and roll. We good?

That's all I got. Yeah.

All right, take us out then.

Well, everybody please again leave us a comment or rating and subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast.

Yeah. And I want you a free copy of Surge. Surge is one of the books I've written. And what we're doing, uniquely with Surge, is you can get a free copy of it. No, ship, like, none of that stuff. Like, come to the website and pay $20 in shipping and handling. No, it's free. Go to the website, mikemcalitz.com, look for the offer near the top, click on it, fill out the little form there, push download, and voila, you'll have your free copy of Surge. All right.

All right.

Let's get out of here. Okay.

Bye, friend.

See y.

Sam.