Episode 28: Systemizing and Running Your Business Effectively with Tina Forsyth

From the studios of Fractal Recording, this is the Profit first podcast.

This might supposed to say the number. I don't know why I'm looking at my notes, but it is episode 28.

Oh, my goodness.

Ramp it back up. Yeah. You're grabbing your heart.

Yeah. Oh.

Yes.

This is a great song.

I love this song.

Welcome, everyone. The Profit first podcast. This is where we have a lot of fun and we talk about Proffitt. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz. I'm the author of Profit first the book. I'm the co founder of Profit First Professionals, the organization and the co host of Profit first podcast.

Yep.

And you know what we do on this show, Chris?

I know what we do.

But do our listeners know we rock it?

Yeah, tell them, please.

We talk about the alpha and the omega and everything in between when it comes to profitability. And it's like a walk in the park. We have fun.

La la la la la la la.

You gotta fade that one out. Don't fade me out.

Okay.

We have a lot of fun talking about profit. Who said business has to be serious to the point where you want to kill yourself?

Jeez.

I mean, you got. Listen, you got to be serious about making money, but you got some fun doing it.

That's right. And you can find our podcast on itunes and stitcher and of course our website, profit first podcast.com. you can see all the previous episodes. We've done a lot of awesome ones. Great guests, great information. So what have you been up to, man?

Dude, I flew through an airport, which I won't say which airport it was, right? It was the one in Chicago called o' Hare. And I go into the restroom. You know, sometimes you get off the plane, you're like, I go to the bathroom so badly. But, you know, they start the landing, they're like, oh, we landing. And you know, we'll be landing shortly. We got another like 6 hours to go when they announced that. But whatever, you can't leave your seat. Then you land and then. Then you gotta wait for everything to get off the plane. By the time you get to the bathroom, it's like, I just gotta go. I walk in. I am not kidding you. This guy who is a larger man, older man, pants to his ankles, going to the bathroom.

Oh.

Like, you know, like when you were, like when you were like 3 years old and you dropped your pants, that's what this guy did. And there was one urinal open of Course, the one next to him.

Right.

And I had to go so badly. So then, you know, what do you do? You look in the stalls like, damn it. They look like they're all occupied. I can't hold much longer. Do I use a sink?

Right?

No, no. I go next to this guy and he's just doing his deal. I mean, going to the bathroom.

Was he like, mumbling and stuff?

No, no, he's going to be anyways. Done. He bends over and you hear a little squeak as he picks up his whitey tighties.

Okay.

Dude, I can. Oh, my God. It's like a nightmare. I can picture all of it. What have you been up to, my friend?

I went to New Media Expo a week and a half a little while ago. It was great. Podcasting, YouTubers, bloggers, content creation, and we learned a lot about it. It was great. It was in Vegas. It was good.

That's awesome.

Loved it.

That's awesome. Yeah. There's some tips you came back with already you're implementing here.

Yeah. And I'm gonna be doing a couple recordings on fractalrecording.com about all my experience and everything.

So one of the tips was don't give Mike Michalis a soundboard because he does this stuff all the time, right?

Oh.

Okay.

Wow.

Never give Mike Picalo. It's a soundboard.

You just figured out how to stop the sound. You play sound?

Yeah, that's it. That's the only way I can kill the sound. Let's go to Brah.

So you're gonna always end with bruh, bruh, bruh.

I keep on forgetting to do the shout outs, and now I even forgot who it was. Oh, my God, is that the worst. Fill time. Fill time. Oh, shoot, I forgot. Well, here, I'll give you the essence of the shout out. I got an email this morning from someone who read profit first, and she said, damn it, I'm still looking for it. While we're talking, I can't find it. She said that she's had a business for five years, never been profitable, and this last year, she lost $39,000. She found profit first, first quarter, profitable, already has turned it around, and here's the deal. And I'm not. I gotta be careful. By sounding like I'm a cocky or like a know it all, or like I'm. This isn't my invention. This is the pay yourself first method. The only thing I said was, well, why don't we apply it to business entrepreneurs and business owners, and that's what people are doing. And by taking your profit first, it forces you. It forces you to find other ways to run your business. It forces you to become efficient. So take your profit first. So these shout outs are coming in left and right. I literally get at least one or two a day. And now I'm like, I gotta start announcing them. Of course this was a dud because I forgot that.

Well, we didn't have it up on the screen.

Her name was Annette. I think grand. Annette. Annette. It was Annette.

Thanks, Annette.

Thanks, Annette. Okay, you know what we're talking about today?

I do. We're gonna mention our sponsors real quick. Nextiva.

Nextiva, that's what we're talking about today.

And tsheets is another great sponsor.

Yep.

And also Fundera. And we're going to talk more about them later, right?

Yeah, we're going to detail them later. And if you want to sponsor the show, we'll definitely listen to you. We'll take your money. But there's some other folks that stepped up. I'm not going to mention their name yet, but there's a couple steps. People have stepped up, said, we want to talk to you about being a sponsor. Could be an accounting software package. Who'll be the one?

See, we're at the point though when we might have to, you know, we have to be careful who we let sponsor our show.

Yeah. Because they don't know what they're.

No, not really. We're not really there.

No, not at all. So today we're talking about systems running your business. If you can run your business efficiently, that's where the profit is actually. That's the essence to it. I don't care what business you do. If you can get the same result faster and easier, that's where you find your profitability. Well, today's guest is Tina Forsyth. She is a profit first professional means. She's certified in profit first and she's a business coach, actually. She started working online back in 1999. She's a jewel of all trades when it comes to running and growing a profitable business. She is the author. We have a lot of authors on the show. She is the author of an award winning book. You know how many awards my books have won? None. But she has won awards for the Entrepreneur's Trap. It's on Amazon, all your favorite bookstores and so forth. She's the creator of the CEO Business School for Transformational Leaders. She's the founder of the International association of Online Business Managers. With no further ado, business coach Tina Forsyth. How are you, Tina?

I'm doing awesome. Wow.

That was cool.

There you go.

Wow.

There you go. What's your favorite band, Tina?

I tell you.

Favorite band.

My favorite band, I would have to say Queen.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

I love Queen. What's the best album? What's the best album they ever did?

I don't know. I mean, I. I came into Queen in the day of, like, in the 90s when they had their best of albums. There was, like, a blue and a red one.

Yep.

So I like the blue one. I don't know what it's called, but I call it the Blue one.

Yeah, I had those, too. Yeah. Because they went on for decades. Best album, in my opinion, is News of the World. What was the one with Fat Bottom Girls? That's. That album's incredible, too.

That might be. That might have been on the red one.

Yeah. Bicycle Race.

I like all their songs.

Yeah. Yeah. A Crazy little Thing Called Love is a must. Best friend. I can go on about Queen forever. I get a little emotional.

Yeah.

So. So, Tina. Oh, you, Kai, you are good.

Yeah.

The lima beans. Neither lima nor a bean. Disgust. Linda Richmond.

So.

So. I didn't realize you get Saturday Night Live in Alberta, Canada.

Yes, we do, believe it or not.

How long have you been in Alberta?

Since birth.

Okay, so you're in. In the same city since you were born. Do you do most of your business coaching in Alberta? Is it more regional? Is it countrywide? Is it North America?

Definitely North America. I actually do very little. I kind of joke about the fact that I rarely leave my house because none of my clients are where I live. They're everywhere but where I live for the most part. So through Canada, the U.S. and some other countries and such, too.

Now I'm curious. I was up in Toronto maybe about a month ago, and I was talking with a Canadian entrepreneur, and he says there's a lot more business for him in the US do you find the same thing, or is there more business in Canada?

I think there's kind of this underground in Canada in some ways. And because I've worked online and kind of in this virtual way for so long, for like, 15 years now, people don't realize how many Canadians are out there. It's kind of like, in a very Canadian way. We're always kind of around, but we're not, like, shouting it from the mountaintops. So I have, like. I do have a lot of US Clients. I do a lot of work with. With Americans, but there's a heck of a lot of stuff going on up here. In Canada.

There's a lot going on in Canada.

There is, yeah.

And in population wise, 30, 40 million people, I think.

I have no idea.

Well, I think it's somewhere in that range. It's amazing spatially, such a bigger country than the US or maybe not such a bigger, but bigger than the US Isn't it?

I don't think so.

Oh, really?

Geographically, I think that's what I meant geographically, size wise, geographically, but population wise, no smaller.

Yeah. That's weird because at the top of Canada is it starts to go toward the pole and it's like all frozen and no one lives up there, right?

Yeah, basically.

By the way, we're offering Alaska to you if you guys want it.

Oh, no way, man. I love Alaska.

I've never been to Alaska.

Alaska is the greatest place you'll ever go.

Is it really?

Oh, my God.

So. So, Tina, where the type businesses you're coaching?

Mainly? I work with a lot of people, like coaches, speaker, authors in that area, so other online type folks. And I've worked in that industry now for well over 15 years.

So the people you're serving are they make their dollar based upon their effort, right? If you're a coach, I got to be out coaching. If I'm a speaker, I got to be out speaking. Yet you find a way to systemize these people. How do you systemize the unsystemizable?

Nice.

You know, I look at systems from the perspective. It's kind of like when you talk about profit and everything. Like, that's what I love so much about profit. First is, okay, here's a formula, here's a system, follow it done. I mean, that can be applied in so many different ways to someone's business. And I think for a lot of us, and this was myself as well in the earlier years of my business is especially when it's just us or it's us and a little bit of support and we're doing all the work and we're flying by the seat of our pants and we're making it up as we go. That's sort of what happens at the beginning. But at a certain point, that's not sustainable anymore. And I mean, if you want to have a life.

Oh, no, no. Oh, my God.

It gets crazy. If you want to grow, you know, if you want to grow beyond kind of what we ourselves can do individually. If you want to grow, you have to have something, some systems and processes in place.

So where do you start? I mean, it sounds, well, the day I open my doors, do I Start systemizing, or is there a good time to start systemizing?

I think the. I mean, I think it's a good. I don't think it's the first thing you need to focus on. If somebody's in the earlier stages of their business and they need to go out, I talk about that as being. You have to prove your business model. Like, go out, get clients, get customers, whatever it is, make money. Like, you have to do that in the beginning. That's. That's step number one. And in that stage, you kind of want to be aware of systems, but it's not something. Something you need to jump right into. But it's one of the things I talk about with my clients is the idea of the bursting point. You know, when I get to the point in my business where, okay, I myself can only do so much, and I've already got a lot of my plate. And, yes, I've probably been doing a lot of things and running a lot of things and might be a little bit of a control freak, like I am. If you want to grow beyond a certain stage and you continue to try and grow with having just everything on our own, on our own shoulders, then that's where you're going to burst at that stage, and that's where it becomes a lot more important.

So. So how you measure that bursting point, I assume as the solo entrepreneur, at least at that stage, you're solo, you can just do it by your. By gut feel. You can't take anymore.

Yeah, literally. Like, it can. It can be directly from a client perspective of, you know, I can't take on one more client. There's just not enough hours in the day. It can be even energetically and emotionally. Like, if I have one more thing pop up, you know, or one more thing, unexpected thing, or anything else that's going to pop on my plate, I'm going to, you know, jump out the window of my office. There's really. There is a gut element to it, too, though, because I think we get into business not realizing how much work needs to be done to run these things, and that gets exhausting.

You said that some giggle word. What made you giggle like that, Chris?

No, she said it makes something like jumping out the window. I thought she was going to say strangle someone.

That too. That too.

All right, so now this is a tenuous situation. I just learned that word tenuous last week, so I use as much as I can. Now this is a tenuous situation because I'm at the bursting point, Tina. I can't do any more work. I'm exhausted. But it's bringing in just enough money to support my lifestyle. How do I roll back or spend money on building systems when I'm just getting by and I'm about to burst? How do you navigate that?

I think there's a space where we need to look at. So part of what comes into play with systems is looking at team getting a little bit of support. And the beauty of the world we live in today is you can get virtual assistant support. Other levels you mentioned online business managers is a higher level of virtual support. There's all kinds of ways to start to dip a toe in the water of getting support and then starting to build systems alongside that. That doesn't have to be like, oh, tomorrow I need to go out and hire a full time employee. You know, that's a bit of a big gulp for some people and not necessarily that doable. So it's almost like a teeter totter approach, I think in some ways to that.

So systems are. It's a big buzzword. Right. So every entrepreneur knows I got to systemize, I got to scale it, I got to nail it. To scale it. We talked about this actually during our last, last episode. Got to nail it, to scale it. I need systems. But convincing someone that they're actually working, I'm sure it's a different game. How do you get people doing it? But then how do you get them actually convinced that this is the way to go going forward?

Usually they have to get to the point where it hurts is usually what happens. Because it's the system piece. It's not the most exciting thing in the world to talk about. Nobody leaps out of bed in the morning and goes, woohoo. I get to create systems today. Yeah, kind of thing. For the most part it's not the exciting side of business. But usually the people that I work with, they usually come to me when they're in that bursting point or they burst or they're kind of getting close to that where it's like, there's got to be a better way to run this thing. Everything, you know, everything's falling apart. Things aren't getting done, they're chasing people down. Things are getting done the wrong way. They don't know the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and so on and so on. When it kind of gets to that really painful piece is usually where people kind of take a moment and say, okay, wait a minute, there has to be a better way to get this done. Bazinga Exactly.

Yeah, I was listening to you. But also Chris had muted my sound effects. I was getting so PO'd I wanted to bazinga earlier. Yeah, damn him. He was ruining my system. So, Tina, what is the first. If there is a first thing. I'm sure every entrepreneur is different, but do you commonly find one thing that every entrepreneur of the types that you work with should be systemizing and they're not?

I think the first step to looking into systems is to centralize and get stuff out of your brain. Is step number one, how do you do that? I think so. Especially if and where you're going to have other people help in the business at some point. Virtual assistants or other types of people, you can't be carrying around all the TO DOS and what needs to be done all the time in your brain. So the first step that I always have people do is set up some kind of a project management tool to do list whatever it is. There's all kinds of software out there that are all kinds of options that people will use for this. But the step number one is really get everything out of your head, all of the TO dos. Here's what needs to be done, here's how it gets done, here's when it needs to be done, et cetera, et cetera, out of your brain and into an online tool that other people can see as well.

Give us some online tools. Our audience loves to hear of different apps they can be using. What would you suggest?

I'm a fan. I use Central desktop, which is probably. It's like a virtual office project management type tool. Teamwork.com is another one that we really like and use Other people will use. Things like Basecamp or Asana is a really simple version of a project management tool. There's probably 2092 of these out there with that. And it's ultimately a matter of finding one that works more so than which one is the best one that's out there.

Right. I've actually tried a few. And one thing that happens to me, Tina, when I get everything out of my head and onto something, whether it's a piece of paper or a project management tool, is I'm totally overwhelmed. That's where I stop. I don't do anything.

Yeah, I can imagine.

What's the part that's overwhelming, though? Like, what is a piece that you find overwhelming?

No, I have just so many. My to do list is ridonkulous. Like it's longer than this building.

And then I'm like, oh, spilling's like a Foot long. It's so tiny.

What are you complaining about?

I know.

No, I think with that too, but. But to that point exactly, is that once we get it out of our heads, like, for me, I found when I used to carry everything around in my brain all the time, and I can do this, I got to do that. And here's this coming up, and boom, boom, badoom. It was amazing to me how heavy that was. Once I got it out of my brain, it's sort of being able to, like, see it for what it is. And in some cases, looking at that list and going, holy smokes, look at all the crap that's on my plate that I need to do. Also brings up that question. You touched on this earlier, too, in the intro around Profit first, where it's like, hey, we need to do this better. We need to do this differently. Looking at a to do list, if it's way too long, then chances are things need to change. With what's on that to do list, like, who else needs to step in and help out? You know, what needs to be on there, what maybe doesn't need to be on there. At the end of the day, it can really be a bit of a reality check.

Come to think of it, I think there's a. I end up, like, knocking a bunch of stuff off the list because I.

Because you documented it.

Yeah. And you see, wow, that's not as important. So gone.

You know, Tina, I totally agree with you is when we get stuff out of our head, we get that conversation out of our head. Now we can focus on completing things instead of memorizing them, because otherwise it's this perpetual conversation like, oh, what did I have to do? What was that? Oh, yeah. Oh, God, I can't forget this. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Yep. Yeah, yeah.

And profitability comes from efficiency. So. Okay, so you set people up. So step one is if you're going to build systems, get all the crap out of your head and document it. So at least we have that under control.

Yeah. Even if it's just a giant old to do list for now.

Okay, great. So you can even do it on a piece of paper. Then once you do that, what's the next step toward moving toward systemizing your business?

You really want to sort of a sidestep. But also really important on this note is to really know what should be on your plate versus what doesn't need to be on your plate anymore.

Like delegation.

Yeah. I mean, but more so than knowing what to delegate, it's knowing first what we should have on our own plates. And this is part of where even if it's just somebody by themselves versus somebody running a much bigger company, it's sort of taking that CEO mindset to the way we're running the business is at a certain stage of growth. I should not be the one doing everything anymore in my business. And yet I come from being a control freak. I know what it. I'm a recovering control freak. You know, I know what it is to want to do everything and feel like I should do everything, and I have to do everything and all of that. But at the end of the day, every. Every step in my business where I've been able to let go of something and delegate or get somebody else to step in and do the work for me, that's been the step where my business will grow in certain ways. But also from the freedom and enjoyment factor as well, too. It's like, know for ourselves what it is we want to keep on our plate versus the things that might be time to let go of.

Okay, so I'm totally with you. What's ringing in my head, though, is the resistance I hear from entrepreneurs saying if I start delegating, I start doing giving to others. I'm not making as much money and I'm paying them. I'm not financially ready to start delegating. I got to keep doing myself. I'm sure you get that resistance too, right?

Yeah. But I have to tell you, Mike, this is one of my favorite things. When I read Profit first last year. And the reason it is, I do enjoy this book. Yes. But it was one of the biggest questions that this book answered for me. That's why I always say page 48 is my favorite page with the taps. Right. The allocation.

Yes.

Because when people come to me and say, well, team, what am I supposed to spend on team, I don't know, etc. It's like, look, you have a percentage for your operating expenses there, and if you're going to follow this model, then, yes, you have availability to hire some help. It doesn't mean you need to go out and spend thousands, tens of thousands, whatever, tomorrow to bring people in. I mean, it might be 100, 1,000 here and there, whatever it is along the way. But I think it's really just this choice of how do you want to run your business? I mean, if somebody wants to be just solo doing it themselves and they're happy with that, that's fine. I don't have a problem with that. But most people I know do not like having to do every single little thing.

So you've implemented profit first with some of your clients already, right?

Yeah.

Okay, so when you implement it, let's educate our audience about profit first. Basically, we're flipping the formula so we're taking instead of sales minus expenses equals profit. Profit is no longer leftover. We are taking our profit first. Once you implement this with your clients, what's the predetermined percentage or how do you derive a predetermined percentage for profit with your clients?

Tina, how do I drive it?

Yeah, how do you get.

I just tell them what you say in the book.

Okay. Okay. So you go with. So there's a thing called taps, these target allocation percentages. So you grab the percentages from the books and say, here's where you should go. What's the. Now, these people have never taken profit first in their lives. They probably never had profit at the end of the year as a result. What's their initial response and how do you navigate it?

Well, sometimes when we look at their numbers, their initial response is yikes. Because they're way off in various ways from profit or owners pay usually. But, you know, it's funny too, Mike, because a lot of people that I work with, they actually, in some ways are spending way, way, way too much on team. I don't run into. Because I work with people kind of at the six figure and above range for the most part, too. A lot of times they've hired team, and they've kind of gone down this. It's almost like the pendulum swung too far the other way, where they're like, I'm hiring everybody under the sun to do every single thing for me. And then all of a sudden, they are spending a boatload of money on team and other operating expenses, and hence the reason why they barely have anything else left over at the end of the day. So it's really taking a purposeful look at. Okay, here's the budget for what you need to be spending on this stuff on the operating expenses side, and let's get that in line so that you can actually truly apply.

Okay, so if you're. If you're forcing this budget of profit first on them, I shouldn't say force it. They want it. But it reveals very quickly that they or their team may be too many people. No one wants to fire anybody once you hire them. How do you navigate that?

Make a tough choice if you have to.

I like how you talk.

You know, I mean, honestly, like, it's like, go up, make more money if you. If that's and depending on somebody's business model, that may not always be an immediate thing. In some cases, some people can kind of get some more sales going and gear that up if need be. But really at the other side too, I mean, I love my team. My team's like family. I've worked with the same team for five or more years with some of them. But at the end of the day too, like, we're not here just to serve our team. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna let my own business and let my own livelihood suffer because I'm too afraid to have a hard conversation with somebody.

It almost sounds like, you know, to save one person that you can't afford to have, the whole company will pay for it and tank, you gotta make that decision of removing that person. It sounds like that's what you're saying.

Yeah, I think that comes into play at times. It definitely does.

And as you implemented profit first for some of your clients, what's been the result? And I'm not necessarily looking for only the good things. I mean, what kind of challenges have you run into too, when you implement this? Take your profit first mentality.

For a lot of people, it's been more about. It's just that flat out, stop spending not only on team, but in some cases, hiring coaches or joining masterminds or being part of other programs. I mean, some of that stuff runs rampant out there in different ways. And people spend money in the, in the industry I work in. Much more so than they need to, in my opinion. I mean, honestly, it's a bit of a rude awakening for some people.

Yeah.

Where they just need to. Sorry, what was that?

It's like a cold bucket of ice overheads. The ice Bucket challenge.

It's surprising to me too. Like when I read the book last summer and I started implementing it then in my own business and then I talked about it in a mastermind group that I'm a part of in. I think it was September or something last year. It was like, all right, everybody read this book. This was a room of people who are kind of six figure and up, et cetera, in their business. And people went crazy over it. And a lot of them, it was almost surprising to me. Like, when I did the percentages for me, I was pretty close to everything, except I'd never put profits in its own account. Right. So had no money left over at the end of the day. Go figure. But when I applied the numbers, like when I did the assessment, I was relatively close for like, what I was paying myself and operating expenses and so on. But a lot of other people, it was like they never knew what the heck they were paying themselves or not. Like, people just flat out did not know their numbers at all, which was frightening to me.

Yeah, it is scary. But that's very typical.

It's so typical.

It's very typical. So, okay, so you implement profit first. It forces people, make hard decisions because there's less money for operating expenses. You said one of the things they cut is the coaches. You're a coach. Are they coming back to you saying, thanks for this great idea, Tina, by the way, you're fired?

I mean, not yet, but no, I totally get your point in that regard. I'm not going to work with somebody unless if I feel like they're in a space that they're able to work with me. So that's part of the way I approach. I don't like, sell to everybody who's going to say yes when I'm working with people, especially from the profit first side. It needs to come in from that perspective. But yeah, I really do think it's just flat out that space of get real with what the heck's going on.

Yeah. I find that what's your money here now we've been working together ourselves that you have a ability to position yourself as an investment. Something, Chris, you need to distinguish yourself is that when you advise a client to become more profitable and you say you got to cut costs, it's to distinguish the difference between a cost, which is something that has no return, or what Tina is doing. Tina, you're a coach. You're actually giving them methods to become more profitable. You're an investment. They put money into you with an expectation of more money in return.

Yeah, exactly.

Tina, where can people find out more about you if they want some coaching services? Oh, and I forgot, I got to ask you one more question, but tell us that first.

Yeah. Tina forsyth.com.

And that's spelled T I N A F o r s y-t dash dot com.

That's right.

If you look back at your own business, doing the coaching you do, systemizing businesses, but also helping people leverage their teams, increase their revenue streams, what lesson would you teach your younger self or your prior entrepreneurial self about profitability? What could you have done earlier to be more profitable as a business?

It's just that flat out the idea of making profit a habit, I mean, that was the number one thing I took away from the book was, oh, damn, I need to pay. I was paying myself First, I'd always done that, but I had never put money into a profit account. And I talk about that when I talk about profit first with clients. And just in general, it's like, not that I'm going to kick myself on it. I'm not big on regrets. But if I was to go back and say, oh, if I had implemented this model, you know, like 15 years ago, gee, I wonder how much more money I'd have in the bank kind of thing. Because I ran my business for many years going, okay, I'm making money. Money comes in, money goes out. Where the hell did it go?

Now, your situation is interesting because you already. You already were paying yourself first. And I don't often hear that from some people. A lot of people say, oh, I never even thought about paying myself. You're paying yourself first, but you're not taking a profit. How are. I mean, ultimately, that profit goes into your pocket. How are they different?

Well, for me, it was looking at my business and going, I've always been good at paying myself. I mean, I'm a single mom at this point, too. I don't have a choice, right? I have to. My business supports our house. So that's always been important to me. But it was that idea of working my butt off year in and year out, because I've been in business for quite a while now and then looking at my business at the end of the day and going, where the hell did it all go? Kind of thing. Because it's just that typical idea of, okay, I'm going to make more money, or, oh, when I hit this, everything will be fine. Or, oh, when I hit this milestone, the skies will part and angels will sing and I'll never worry about money again. And every time I would hit one of those milestones, I would be like, where the hell did the money go? You know, like, it's like, why is it not all just sitting in my bank account? Because, of course, the whole bank balance accounting and the Regency effect and all that stuff that you teach in the book, right? It's like, oh, that's what was going on. And so for me, it's been so much more empowering to be able to actually, it's like I've paid myself first, but, like, the business was never paying itself first.

So now that you're. Oh, that's a cool way of saying the profits, the business paying itself first, which then gets handed over to you. Now that you've been. When did you start implementing that process of taking your profit first for your business.

July 30, 2014.

See, it's like a birthday. Correct. It's like a freaking birthday party. That's the day you're like, I'm gonna be profitable. How many quarters have you. Have you had a profit distribution every quarter since then? Every day?

I have, yeah. Yeah.

So two or three quarters of profit.

Distributions Three times so far.

Yeah. I love it. And did you do something special with your family?

Well, I didn't. I mean, the first one, honestly, the one that came from 2014, covered my butt with my own personal tax this year because I had a. I had a change in marital status that meant I had. I had to, you know, myself now earn all the money as opposed to sharing it with a spouse. But that. So, I mean, but that saved my butt. It was like I had to pay probably 10,000 doll thousand dollars more personally than I had to pay the year before. But I had that all saved up in the profit account. Like, that was my disbursement from my profit accountant in 2014 from, like when I started July through to the end of the year. So I didn't have to have like a, ah, panic moment. Which maybe that's not that exciting. It's not like we went on vacation or whatever, but I'm like, yeah, well.

Not going to jail is pretty exciting.

That helps too. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But that was a good thing for me. It was like, because before it would always be like, oh, you know, I'll find a way to make it happen. I'll make it rain or whatever. Like, I'll find a way to make it happen. But that's just such a stressor.

Such a stressor. So now the business is doing it and it sounds like you have profit coming again this next quarter. Hopefully you're going to be using that for your own reward and not just the government's.

Yes, exactly.

Okay, Tina, wonderful having you on here. I got Chris. This isn't too atypical a load of notes. I got to go and review with you. So, Tina. Thanks again, listeners. If you want to check out Tina and you got to, it's Tina Forsyth dot com. She's on Twitter @tina forsythe. She's at LinkedIn @tina forsyth. She's in Canada as Tina Forsythe. I mean, it's that easy.

She's in a human body as Tina Forsyth.

She's in a human body in Alberta, Canada. Tina, thanks for joining us.

Awesome.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.

Oh, that was like a walk in the park, you know what I'm saying? I'M like, I was learning so much. Wow.

Yes.

You know, this is. That is a Russian song, but they call it the La la La song. So if you're in front of a computer right now, go hop on YouTube, type in Russian, la la la, and listen to the song. There is not a single word said. It's just ha ha ha, la la la la la. It's the most frolicking walk through the park song you've ever heard in your life.

And the guy on the screen is like, just kind of walking around with this weird, like, eerie smile.

Eerie smile, robotic walking.

It's, you know, it's really weird.

It's old school Russian. It's like Russia in the 50s or 60s, the height of communism. And they just, they, they tried to do something that was very kind of western. And that's what they pulled off.

Wow.

I think that's my interpretation.

That's awesome.

Actually came out last week.

So we're going to talk about our takeaways from this interview.

Yeah, we heard some juicy stuff and I know you have a big question that I gave you to give to me.

I have a question for you, Mike McCallowitz.

What did you give me? First we got to talk about our buddies. Our corporate partners.

Yes, our partners.

The first one is Bruh. Bruh organization.

Which one you pick next?

I want to talk about nextiva first.

Nextiva.

You know why? Because nextiva is an awesome voiceover IP phone system. This whole show is around profit first. So the people that become corporate partners are ones that think and believe and it's true, can drive profitability for us entrepreneurs, us business owners. Voice over ip dude, if you're still on a POTS line system, this is what that means. Smoke weed every day. That's what a POTS line. That's what a POTS line is. Wow. Yeah. You're smoking weed and maybe it's legal. I know you're in Colorado and all that, but voice over ip, it's over the Internet. It's way less expensive. You don't have any infrastructure necessarily. Your office. Here's one of the features I love. I travel like a son of a bitch and I am all over this planet, countries. I don't even know where I am. You hop on wifi or you hardwire yourself in like you do here at the studio, and you got whole phone system with you instantly and your customers don't know the difference.

That's very cool, Fundera. Fundera, tell me their story. Yeah, well, the thing is, a lot of times businesses need money Moolah brah, moolah.

I tried to find the money effect. That's right.

Yeah. So if you need funding for your business, it's one thing to try to go to a bank and fill out all the paperwork. It's another thing to go to Fundera and fill out probably a web form or something and. And they go out and shop all these different banks and vendors and everything and figure out what loans they can get you, and they do all the work.

Yeah, it's not a web form or something. It is a web form. It's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Could you imagine going bank to bank filling out all those forms? I mean, how lame.

Loser.

Loser. Hey, hop in here. Why don't you hop in your little scooter there, your Vespa, and shoot on over to every single bank with your helmet hair trying to get no Fundera. It's not only the modern way to do it, not only is it far more efficient. You get a better deal. Dude. Yeah, T sheets. Talk to me.

T sheets. Time tracking.

Time tracking for entrepreneurs, businesses.

Time is bazinga.

Time is bazinga. Yeah, I'm getting good with this board.

Time is money. And you know what? If you track your time, your employees, time and everything, and tsheets is an automated way to do all that, and you use it.

Yeah, we use T sheets now in the office for months. It feels like months. Love the system. Here's the cool thing. I didn't know it actually saves you money. Employees, when they come in, they click in and it registers their time. I was talking with the folks over at tsheets. They said there's a drip of about 5%. An overstatement of time in the old traditional sense where people write down cards or something like that. They overstate it by having a punch in clock or something like that. It saves 5%. Now, tsheets isn't cheesy like the old punching clock where you stuck that paper and it goes. Puts a hole through your hand, you know, when it misses? No, this is just a click. And my employees, because I do some stuff virtual, they text it in. And so I'll get a notification right away saying, oh, Christina's online. She just texted in, she's starting her workday and I can go, hey, Christine, it's Mike. Just checking with you. Let's do our morning huddle. And she's. What's up?

She's on the beach.

I know. That's the other thing. Well, I don't know if you know this feature. T sheets. Can activate the camera on her phone without her knowing so I can see what's going on.

Wow.

Yeah. That's called illegal.

Hi, Christine.

Let's put a wiretap. Yeah. Yeah. No, it does not do that.

Yeah, it does not do that. Shut up.

No, it does not. That was a joke. That was Matt Rissel yelling. Hey, Matt, we're gonna keep on sponsoring. Keep on talking about you. What do you think about what we're saying?

Shut up.

Oh, my God. We're a bunch of idiots.

Yeah.

Dude, number one takeaway today. What was it?

Well, I like the. I like the. The one, two punch that Tina talked about of first doing a brain dump your to brain dumping your to do list and then figuring out what should be on your plate and what should not check. Sounds simple, right? But, you know, we all know the simple things are the most powerful. Like, that's why meditation is amazing.

Yeah.

So that's a great one. And also the whole idea about team. A lot of businesses have too much team members. Too many team members.

Yeah. You know, I think it plays into the ego. It feels. You feel empowered to have more people working with you, surrounding you. Right.

So bring me a pen.

Yeah. Somebody. For God's sake. You the one rubbing my foot and feeding me grapes.

What's your name?

What is your name? Shut up. I didn't ask for your name. Chris. What's your name? Shut up. Do not answer that. All questions are rhetorical. Your face turned red. You're so embarrassed. So here's what I learned. Stage one, she says, is prove the model. Some people systemize too early, right? You automate the unnecessary, and that will kill your business. I never heard the term the bursting point. I love it. Wait till you get to the bursting point. That's when it's time to systematize. Get it out of the brain. You said that. Delegate. You said that. The other thing is, she said, determine. Once you go through your list, everything is documented. Determine what should be on your plate. That was interesting, because my. My thought was always like, I'll just get everything off of my plate. No, she's saying there's certain things your best talents should be on your plate. You're an employee of your own company, too. Do those things right?

And one thing, one great thing. This is a little. We need, like, do you have any, like, music that makes it real serious?

And, like, how about this?

How about the.

You have something? I thought I do. There, that's good one.

Ready? This is. Yeah. Profit is a habit.

That was the worst cut You're a sound guy. That's it.

No, I. Drama, my friend.

No, I love the drama.

I don't know if she said it or I just thought it when she was talking, but profit is a habit. We should get T shirts made with that. Honest.

Oh, yeah, that's in my book. By the way. T sheets, dude, they have incredible T shirts. There's like this whole T shirt trend going on. T shirt T sheets has the softest T shirts. Fundera now has them.

Really?

Nextiva. And look at what I'm wearing.

Yeah.

Can you read that?

I'm what Will is was talking about.

I'm what Willis is talking about.

Oh.

Do you get it?

What you talking about, Willis?

This shirt is so uncomfortable. Not just because you had to stare at my nipples for five seconds to figure out what it's saying. That's uncomfortable. The shirt's uncomfortable. There's this big movement towards soft shirts. Dude, I know you got a question for me, and I'm killing the clock here.

Yes. So in your book, you actually talk about the Pareto principle.

What is that? Yeah, nice. Dude.

What is that?

Pareto was an Italian economist who was in Italy, hired by the king to determine the distribution of wealth in Italy. Found out that 20% of the Italian population maintained 80% of the wealth and 80% of the population. The poor only maintain 20% of the wealth. Awkward distribution. He starts studying the economics of other countries. Exact same things. Then, no lie. He goes into his garden. Pareto's a gardener. That means he's badass. He goes into his garden. He notices that 20% of the pea plants are yielding 80% of the pea pods. And 80% of the plants are yielding 20% of pea pods. That means the majority. I'm sorry. The minority of things we do in our business yields the majority of benefits. The lesson in profit first is this. If you take out your profits first, 10%, 20%, 30% of income. A meal goes to a profit account. There's less money for operating expenses. It forces you to focus on. On the few things that are working and yielding the most profits and stop doing the things that aren't. It forces focus. Take your profit first. It re and reverse engineers profit into your business.

Love that 80, 20 rule. That's deep. Actually, that is pretty deep.

Yeah.

And practical at the same time.

It's. It's a deep. Yeah. De practical. I don't even know how you blend those words together.

Deepak Chopra. Cool.

Dude, I've forgotten. As our next episodes, as we're fading out here Kill the music. As we're fading out here next week we have Eric Knight and John Wood. We're gonna be talking really techy stuff and we're gonna be talking the most non technical business ever. I'm not gonna tell you what it is. It's dirty, it's stinky, it's dirty jobs.

Interesting. Yeah, I have a few guesses, but we'll save it.

All right, man, real quick, about you.

Yeah. Fractal Recording. I help businesses produce podcasts for themselves. It's like a blog. It's like the modern day blog, having your own podcast, but it's much more powerful.

Way more powerful. And you're controlling music. You're doing things as we're doing this. You're marking up things that you will not be editing.

That's right.

But I'm just saying quality stuff. So you got check out Fractal Studio. And guys, if you're an accountant, if you're a bookkeeper, if you are anybody of importance, go to profitfirstprofessionals.com. check it out. We're trying to find the best bookkeepers and accountants in the world. Hold on one second. I'm sorry, bruh. Almost, Almost. We're trying to find the best bookkeepers and accountants in the world to come together and drive profit in business. Tina's woman, she's a financial expert, she's a business coach. She's driving profits in business. And if you're an entrepreneur, work with our people. People like Tina. Let's fade out in that one.

Thanks everybody for listening to the show. We really appreciate it and really. Go to profit first podcast dot com. You can comment on all the episodes and rate us.

Rate us. Let's keep this going.

We got more downloads than ever. So thanks, everybody. See you next time.

Spade.

Dina.

Oh, oh. Oh, God, we suck.

All right, we got that.