Episode 47: Growing a Colossal Business with Donna Leyens

Timer started so you can.

Ow. Hold on, hold on.

I was checking the level premature. God, he's an hour.

You are listening right now and you probably know it. To the Profit first podcast.

Yeah, but did you know it's episode 47? It is. Bring it.

Yes.

Ooh, Where's Kravitz Gouch? Dawn is not. She's not getting into it. She's just blushing.

Really?

She's like, what? Now she's dancing. Now she's dancing. Oh, yeah.

This is your first in studio guest, Mike.

First in studio guest. Not only is she in studio, it's like a sauna in here. Right, Donna? Really?

I dressed appropriately?

Yeah, yeah. She's got a sleeveless shirt on. Because it must be. I don't know, it must be 90 degree and humid. Really? Here and outside it's 80s.

Is that why Ron takes his shirt off quite often?

No, Ron's. Ron's fully clothed. Just. He's not even listening to us.

Puts a bed set on. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I am Chris Curran, the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First. And you're in, if you haven't figured it out yet, for a high energy show where we talk about everything, about profitability, the alpha and omega. How do you get your business making money? Not only that, how do you get to take what you make? That's why you started your business in the first place, right?

Right. All the other details of your business are like side notes to the one main thing. It's like, how much did you actually earn?

It's more than the make, it's the take. I like that.

The take.

I'm going to tweet that out right away.

Please tweet that. You're tweeting as we speak. So we're also available on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein Radio and of course, the website profitfirstpodcast.com and you can listen to all our previous episodes as well. We've had some doozies.

We've had some doozies. It's funny, we've had some shows that have been out of this park raving fans. Roger Dooley was a big hit from a while ago. Still thousands of downloads. And then we've had some that haven't been as exciting.

Well, that's pretty honest. I mean, but. But they're all. We. We try to give some value. Like we actually prod and, you know, poke our guests and harass them to give us good information.

Well, you Know what the idea is, is so many people give blanket corporate answers like we've had. If you listen to a lot of podcasts, you get these corporate kind of, you know, by the book, paper answers. And we want to get the real human side and we do it through poking fun at people ourselves in a.

Nice way, no pressure. Donna, by the way, talking about poking.

Fun, let's poke some fun in our corporate partners.

Yes, please.

Dude, it was three corporate partners as of last week. Yesterday. Yesterday morning. PHONE RINGS RING we'd like to join. And so we have four sponsors for the show. I love that. God, we're back.

We're back.

Corporate sponsor number one, nextiva. I get a call. I gotta tell you about the call. Chris, actually make a note about this when we talk about him in detail. I got a call from an accountant in California right before we went on here. His name's Jeff Winger, raving about his experience with nextiva. I mean, raving cool. Second corporate partner we have is. Is Fundbox. That's the new one. And I'm going to tell you all about them. Fundera, not related. They both start with Fun and Fundera and they actually work together occasionally. So Fundera has been with us a long time. For investing, sorry. For getting loans, if you need loans. And then, because without question, tsheets, one of the coolest companies out there when it comes to time tracking, they're the ones to go to. So we'll talk about them too.

Nice.

Do you want me to tell you who our guest is today?

You know, let's. Let's get right to it. Okay, I know, actually, I'm not going to say anything.

Yeah, okay, well, you already heard your voice. We already mentioned her name. This is not a swap out for Christina. Donna Lyons is a business partner of mine. So I. Here's the deal, Chris. I go to a coffee shop. Don is remembering this story, right? I go to a coffee shop with a mutual friend. We have before Don and I meet, meet each other. Because I call my friend and I say, tara, there's this book I wrote, the Pumpkin Plan. I wish I knew somebody could coach this concept. And she's like, I got to introduce you to Donna Lyons. Let's go to this coffee shop. We go there, we sit down over coffee. That was supposed to be a 10 minute meeting. Goes like for 10 hours. Snow coming. Remember that? Snow coming down, Donna. We couldn't like leave then I try to leave. My car slides off the road. It was, you know, you found someone that just can take what you're done. It's a perfect complement to you in that moment. Donna has subsequently taken the pumpkin plan and made a book that's a thesis and a theory and it's a how to book, but it isn't actionable. It's. It's the elements, but it's not the all encompassing approach. You definitely can't read the book and coach your business through it. You need an outside expert that can kind of round out everything. Donna took the pumpkin plan and has spent years now developing it, maturing it, and has built. I co founded with Donna, but Donna is the president, the chief cook, bottle washer. She's running the organization and it's taking the pumpkin plan to a level I never knew it could be taken to and has turned around companies. So with no further ado, it's my pleasure. And the audience is already going. Well, I'm introducing Donna Lyons here on the show.

Hi.

Welcome, welcome.

The stadium.

Yeah.

I didn't know it was so crowded in here.

Wow. Yeah.

And they, they can obey your every will and command, so shut up. See?

Yeah.

Wow.

Cheer again. They're a little slow. They're a little slow, but they are. Shut up.

Little slow.

Oh, now they nailed it. Yeah, they're a great. They're a great group of kids. Why I said a swap out is because we only have two speaker or microphone systems here. Christina normally joins the show, but Donna was able to come in studio. So it's a real privilege. You're the first guest ever to be here in studio.

I think I should have a T shirt or something that says that.

Yeah, actually, we gotta get you a profit first professionals T shirt. Yeah.

And then we can just write on it. First guest in studio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right on the back. So tell us, why don't you tell us a little about the history of Provendus from the starting to how it's matured into what it does today.

Well, you already told the story of how we met at the sleazy diner, which was actually a mistake. When the meeting was set up, we were supposed to meet somewhere that had a very similar name, but we were told to go to this place. And I actually drove past it the other day with my husband and I said, look, that's the place where Mike and I first met. And he was like, ew. Really?

Oh, yeah.

And their burgers are disgusting.

Yeah. But we did obviously hit it off. So the pumpkin plan is an amazing. It's an amazing concept and an amazing method. And after the book came out, so many people Were emailing Mike and saying, the concepts in this book have changed my whole business. And it was so powerful that we really decided we have to take these methods and make it easier for people to implement. And so we developed a whole suite of tools that go along with the book. And we have now the pumpkin plan action guide. And it's online. It's actually all accessible online. If you work with a certified Provendus coach, they can put you onto this amazing website where you can watch videos and download the tools, and they help you work through the pumpkin plan step by step. I feel safer already.

So, Mike, you're gonna get to the what the actual pumpkin plan, what the main idea is, right?

That's right, brother. And I'm gonna share that. And I want to talk about Donna, how you've taken it and helped companies become more profitable. Guys, you can't hear it on the radio. On our podcast, there's sound effects everywhere. We have the window open because it's so hot in here. And a truck just went racing by. There's never been a truck on this road outside the studio. And then now the dog, the in studio dog, Daisy, is snoring. She's already. When I started talking, she started snoring.

The show's that wondering who was snoring.

Yeah, that's the dog. She's bored with me. So the pumpkin plan. I was writing a book about business growth, and I was working with a consultant. His name is Frank Minutolo. He's no longer consult. He's retired. And he was sitting me down, and we're talking about business growth. And he just looked at me totally out of the blue and said, well, you got to study pumpkin farmers. And I'm like, what? He's like, you know, there's a faction that grow colossal pumpkins, and they understand that there's certain sequences you have to go through to organically get explosive growth. By trimming off some of the pumpkins on a vine more, the nutrients and water and focus of the farmer goes to one pumpkin and explodes. So you gotta study this. So I studied it, and I was like, oh, that's. That's it. This method to grow colossal pumpkins translates into growing colossal business. So, Don, I thought maybe why don't you share what are the key steps to growing colossal business? And then I want to understand all the ways to grow that colossal business, but do it with profit throughout.

Right? So the key to everything, Mike, is to understand where you start. So if you were going to grow a giant pumpkin, you would actually have to start with a special seed, as you know, so you couldn't just go to the grocery store and buy a packet of pumpkin seeds and and throw them on the ground and expect that one of them is going to turn into a one ton pumpkin. And I'm sure you've all seen those or you've seen them in the newspaper. You know, they're the kind that your kids want to climb on top of. It's as big as a car. That doesn't happen by accident. The first thing you start with is a seed that has the capacity to grow that giant pumpkin. So it's the same thing with your business. If you don't start with the right foundation with that special seed, then you don't have the capacity to grow a giant business either.

Can I ask you a question around that? What if I have an existing business, I have a company that's running? Maybe it's not the colossal seed. Is it still salvageable?

Well, what I would tell you to do is to look at three elements in your business. And those three elements, where they intersect is what we call the sweet spot. That's your special seed. Are you ready? You want to hear what the three elements are? Ready?

Let's deep dive in this.

Okay, so. And you have to know these three things in order to be able to grow your business. And when we think about business growth, I would say that two of these elements are not going to surprise you, but one might. Okay, so the first is you have to know who your top clients are. And I'm sure a lot of you out there listening have heard this before. Who are your ideal clients? You have to focus on your ideal clients. But if you really want to get down and dirty, you need to really evaluate your clients and figure out which ones are actually not profitable for you. Because there may be customers. Whether you sell a product or a service, there may be customers that actually take up so much of your time and energy that you're actually not making money from them. On the flip side, there are clients that love you so much, that are so easy to work with, that talk about you to their friends and they talk about you on social media and they're your biggest fans. And those are your most profitable clients. And if you know who they are, you can target what you do and how you do it to what makes them happy. And they'll buy more from you.

Do you remember we went out to Chicago together, We met with a company called Strategics. Yes, you and I think the founder's name was Peter. We're having a conversation about distinguishing these customers and the level of profitability a top client brings versus a non top client. I don't remember the numbers. I don't know if you remember the numbers, but do you remember that conversation?

Yeah.

Give me a sense for what you guys were talking about at that.

So it all boils down to the 8020 rule.

Yeah, right, right, right.

And which is.

Is that Pareto's principle?

Pareto's principle, Right. And I'm sure that some people may not believe it or understand it, and it took me a while to understand it, but when I did, the light bulb went off. The Rule says that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. So if you apply that to business, Basically that means 80% of your revenues come from 20% of your clients or 80% of your profits come from 20% of your clients. So what's happening to the other 80% of your efforts?

They're only generating 20%, right?

Exactly, exactly. So your top clients are your top 20%.

And is there. I don't know if there's a formula, so I might be throwing a spot here, but is there a formula or a method for determining who those top 20% clients are, especially with profitability?

Yeah, well, I couldn't give you a formula right now and say like A minus B equals C. But there are steps that you can go through to start to determine that. We actually have a tool called the client assessment where we take our clients through, and it's actually in a spreadsheet form. And we start by listing all of your clients and in revenue order. So we start with revenue and. And then we look at all these other factors and try to figure out who your actual top clients are. And then the next step is to put them into some sort of category.

You know what's funny is because we're in studio, Chris, we should do in studio more often. Donna has the client assessment chart right here. I actually printed out. I don't know if Donna, if you can see this, like 70 or 100 copies of the client assessment, she is coming and presenting at the Profit First Global Con. She's a keynote. One of the distinguished keynote speakers. We have four keynote speakers. Donna's one of the four and is going to be speaking about this process. So I was looking in depth of this, and this is an interpretation of what is in the book. So it's funny, when I wrote this, there's many three elements. Donna has built this out and really identified, but almost formulaically what matters you know, is a client referring you to someone else? Yes or no? If they're not, they're a great client, but they're referring to someone else, they're an even better client. Do they, are they a one time deal? Is it a great year this year, but next year they're not going to be doing something with you? Well, that degradates them or is there potentially residual income year after year? Once you sort out these clients based upon these factors, is there any more steps for picking that or is this sheet everything?

Well, this sheet is a lot of it. And I think for individual companies there might be other factors that come into play. One of the things that is on the client assessment that I would emphasize is we talk about something called immutable laws, which are really your deepest held values. Those rules that you will never break and that you won't break in your business. And your clients have to be aligned with your immutable laws. If you have a client that does things or behaves in a way that goes against what you deeply believe as a business owner and as a business, then it's very difficult to work with that client successfully and they will drain your energy and ultimately won't be good for your business. So even sort of what I would call those fuzzy factors come into play. So yes, you can total up how many clients they've referred to you. And yes, they pay on time or they, you know, they pay within two weeks and that type of thing. But you also have to consider, you know, do you, do you run quickly in the other direction when you see their caller ID come up on the phone?

You know there's financial consequences to that. Yes, because I'm thinking, I'm not going to say our names, but there's a couple clients that it's like, oh, every time there's a call, it's a difficult conversation unnecessarily. So when they come up my call list, that's the last call I'm going to do. At the very end of the day, I just naturally push them off. So even then, that little subtle, almost subconscious sorting of clients, I am making my better clients. I enjoy working with a priority. They're getting better service. And the clients I don't share values with, don't connect with, they're getting a lower degree of service from me. So it definitely plays out in actually the execution, right?

It does. And the other thing that I would say to consider is how much of your time do they take up or your company's time if you have a Customer that no matter what you sell them, there's always a problem. They're calling up to say it arrived, the box was dented, or whatever their complaints are. And they take up five times as much of your time as a typical client. And you have to consider that that is also cutting into your profits because it's taking. Time is money.

Yeah. So there is a real cost associated with it. So I know you had five steps. We're not. I want to dig deeper into the sweet spot, so I'm calling it audible. Let's keep digging in here. You said in addition to the top clients, there was two other elements. What were the other two pieces?

Yes. So the other significant piece is your unique offering.

Okay.

What makes you different? And the answer is not, oh, because I'm the best. A lot of people say I'm the best at what I do. We all are. We all are. And that means nobody stands out because everybody thinks they're the best.

Right.

You have to be unique from the competitors in your market and in a way that your top clients care about.

So could you give an example?

Yeah. But I'm going to tell you why you need to be unique.

That's even better.

Have you ever had somebody say to you, well, the guy down the street will do the same thing as you for half the price?

Yes, absolutely.

That's why you need to be unique. If you're not unique, then you're a widget.

Right. Meaning it's just a price game.

Exactly. Then you're competing on price, and nobody wants to compete on price.

Right. But isn't like a dentist a dentist? Isn't a lawyer a lawyer? I mean, how do you stand out?

Well, there are a lot of ways that you can stand out, and you have to find your what makes you different? And there's a whole combination of elements that go into what makes you different. So first, you should look inside yourself as the business owner and say, well, what's my unique experience that I bring to the business and how did I form this business around that? You look at your mission. You want to have an inspiring mission for your business. But then you also want to look at something that we call area of innovation. And your area of innovation can be in one of three categories. And a lot of companies want to beat the market in all three categories. You can't do it.

What are the three categories?

The three categories. Are you ready? Price. And I'm going to tell you right now, if you're a small business, you do not really want to compete on Price. The second category is convenience.

Convenience. Gotcha.

And the third is quality. But I'm going to qualify the quality. It doesn't mean high quality, it means a quality. Okay, so a specific quality, such as I'm the most efficient or we get the best results or we're the fastest or we have the most bells and whistles or you know, something, a specific quality that will make you stand out.

Okay, so it's a little bit of a catch all, but something that's a unique, definable quality. And we have a little guest here that has a comment about price. What do you think about competing on price?

It's like parking your car in certain neighborhoods in the Bronx. You just don't do it.

Okay, that's interesting. You just don't compete on price.

You don't?

No. Unless you're Walmart or Costco or Starbucks. So Starbucks actually, believe it or not, competes on price.

How's that?

Because they distinguish themselves. Years ago when Starbucks came on the market, nobody ever sold a cup of coffee for more than 50 cents. And Starbucks came on the market and said we're gonna sell you a $3 cup of coffee. And, and everybody said they were crazy. And I don't know, 10 years later, however many years later, they're laughing all the way to the bank because they created an experience around that price. But their pricing was part of their branding.

Yeah. Krista, my wife, as Donna knows, and Chris, I don't know if you, you met Krista too I think, right? Yeah. So she now buys the Starbucks. There's a certain cup you can buy from Starbucks that they refill it. But there's all these periphery items that are significant premiums. The couch Roman for coffee, which think back 10 years ago, 20 years ago, where you'd run into it, you know, Dunkin Donuts was the prestigious brand you run into the quick check. Could you imagine accessory products for your coffee? I mean it sounds ludicrous.

It does sound ludicrous. But this is the 8020 rule at its best. Because Starbucks has identified who their best customers are and they know that if you're willing to spend $4 on a cup of coffee with them, a certain percentage of their company, 20%, I'm sorry, of their customers are willing to spend even more money if you give them more stuff to spend it on.

So what I'm hearing almost is you increase price, it actually then invokes the customer's perception that there must be an associated quality. Or maybe they define it for you.

Yes. Unless you charge a high price and your product actually sucks, then you have a problem.

Yeah, but I think a million people could argue they have a better product than Starbucks. Starbucks, I would argue, is not the best coffee in the world, but the increased price has put them into a different category.

Yes, and it's also what comes with the price. So it's more than just a cup of coffee. So you have to have that perceived value. So they had. So it's not just a regular cup of coffee, although you can buy regular coffee there. But they have all different types of specialty drinks that they pioneered and introduced. And it's also the environment. I mean, I personally don't like to hang out in Dunkin Donuts, but you walk into any Starbucks and you see lots of young or even not so young people sitting there with their laptops, taking two hours to drink their cup of coffee, sitting on the sofas, or sitting at a table with their computer plugged in. It's a place where you go and it's the whole environment that they've sold for that $4 cup of coffee.

That's fascinating, Chris. I know I stepped on you a few times. Did you have something you wanted to ask?

Yeah, well, I just had a comment I took a sales class years ago with it's the Sandler method. David Sandler, whatever. And he. Donna, before, when you mentioned that some people, or maybe you mentioned it, Mike, some prospects will ask you, well, the guy down the street is a lot cheaper than you. And. And David Sandler. Wouldn't you know what he would say to that? He'd say, you know what? That then. But there must be a reason you're not down the street right now buying it from that guy. And that makes them say, well. And then they actually state why they're not down there buying from the cheap guy. Right.

Because that's interesting. So you make the prospect argue why they are not even talking to that. Exactly.

Yeah. You turn it. Turn it the other way.

Oh, I like that.

Instead of saying, oh, well, no, instead of starting to sell and start to tell your benefits and features, you say, well, okay, you can go down the street. Why aren't you down there right now then? I don't understand. That's because his whole thing is to struggle and kind of play dumb. Like, I don't understand.

Why would you so. The stupid salesman technique.

Yeah. But here's the other beauty to that question. If they tell you why they're not down the street, that's fabulous information for you to then use going forward because you know why they don't like the other guy and what they like about you and potentially grow what you do better than all the other people.

What's the third element?

You had the third element. So this is the one that I think does not immediately come to mind when you talk about growth, but you cannot grow without it. And that's what we would call scalability or systemization. And I think that a lot of service based businesses especially run into this as a roadblock. They kind of hit a wall. They can't grow anymore. They don't know how to grow anymore because they don't have any systems in place in their business to support their growth. And what happens is if you don't have the systems, then even if you have these great top clients and you know your unique offering, at some point you can't make any more of your product or service, any more clients because nobody but you can actually perform those tasks.

So I got it. I'm going to do a John Stossel on you saying what? Hold on a second here. You're saying, Donna, if you want to grow your company quickly and be profitable, fire clients, raise your prices, focus on what makes you weird and different than everyone else, and systemize it so you don't do the work. Don't do the work. That's how you grow.

Isn't that awesome?

Yeah. Don't work, don't work. Jack up your prices and fire everyone. Sounds crazy.

Mike, you just came up with our new slogan, actually.

You like that.

I do like that. I think it's going on our new website for sure.

Talk about different. It's funny, but it's. The vast majority of people don't do it. And when, you know, when all the traffic is going to the east, you're going to find a lot more space by going west.

Yeah. And actually I think you guys talked about this with another guest on another podcast, the Blue Ocean Strategy.

Yeah. Casey Johnson.

Yes. And there is something to that. Why sound like everybody else? Why do. Why would you want to be like everybody else? And especially people who are starting new businesses. This is the first thing they do. They go and look at all their competitors websites and figure out which ones they like and then they try to be just like them.

Right? Yeah. It defeats everything.

It does.

It's funny. We have another podcast we started called GMAP Grow My accounting practice. We had a guy on named Joe Woodard who was the opening guest. He is huge in the accounting space. It sounds like he's your doppelganger. He was saying the exact Same stuff of pick a niche, play into your own values, have that your business be a platform for it, focus on only certain customers, your good customers, and over cater to them. It's just fascinating. How come so many businesses don't do this?

I think it's because it's hard. It's hard to stay focused. And especially, especially if you're a business owner and maybe you don't have, let's say, a board of directors or a partner, and you're making all the decisions on your own, and you're making decisions based on a lot of different thoughts that are going through your head, which can be overwhelming, and what you see out in the world, which can be overwhelming. It's hard to stick to one thing and to focus. And I see this even with clients that I work with. So I'm supporting them, I'm guiding them. We've come up with a strategy and they say, okay, this is my niche and this is the work that we love to do and that we're best at. And we come up with the whole thing. And then an opportunity comes up in left field and they want to chase it. They say, oh, but so. And so is doing really well doing this. I want to do this. And then you really need an outside side, impartial person to be able to say, okay, what happened to our original strategy? Are you abandoning it? Why? Why do you want to do this other thing? How will that really benefit your business? And to really be able to kind of see the forest for the trees.

You ever read the book the Dip by Seth Godin?

Yeah, a long time ago.

So the premise of that book, Chris, is the hardest part of a business is after the ideas are gone, announced the execution, and you have no customers or very few customers. That's the belly of the dip. And it's the scariest part. Most people jump off and start the new idea because that's the easiest and there's the most energy around it. Oh, new ideas are fun. There's excitement. I can make millions. And so we live in this fantasy of I can make millions with this new idea. It starts entering the dip and people jump and start over again. That's what I'm hearing. You look at the other guy and you copy it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. There are shiny objects everywhere, and I.

I think fear is a big part of it too. I want to ask you about that, Donna. So you know these three elements of the pumpkin plan. You know who your top clients are and firing them and your unique value and also the scalability and Systemization. I think there's a lot of fear in. Of changing your business. If I'm in a business and I'm doing it one way, and yes, I want to grow, but you're telling me to fire some clients and pass off some of the work. I mean, there's a lot of fear involved there, right?

Yes, there is fear because there's that fear of what if. What if I fire these clients and I don't replace them? The truth is that if you fire the clients that are not your best clients, that are draining your energy and your resources, then you and the other people in your company have time to focus on bringing in the better clients who are going to be more profitable and easier to work with. You can't fire half your clients and then say, look at all this time I have. I think I'll go play golf and go out to lunch every day. Then it won't work unless you've set up the systems for your business to grow automatically without you. But the truth is that it's scary because it's the unknown. The truth. But the other truth is that the people who do it see tremendous benefits from it. The other thing people are afraid of is to define a narrow niche. They are really scared of excluding people.

Are you talking about Chris Curran himself?

It took me seven, eight years to do that.

Yeah, I think you're waffling a little bit again. I think you are. And I'm not trying to be a total schmo to you, brother, but I think you're like, oh, I'm going all in an authors now. You're like, but there's other opportunities.

No, but I'll. I'll. I see. It's a tough question, though. Donna, Donna, here's the thing. After so many years, I'm focusing on my niche, and I'll make this quick. You know, producing podcasts for business authors, right? That's my niche. Business authors. And now all of a sudden, out of the blue, I get a referral to a big company, Dun and Bradstreet. And now I have Dun and Bradstreet as a client.

Right? So what do you do?

So now, after spending three months, becoming a preferred vendor and getting the contract approved, everything, now it's like, and by the way, my pricing is higher for that kind of corporation now. I. And whenever I mention, oh, Dun and Bradstreet's my client, people are like, no way, dude. Cool. So, like, what's wrong with going after another three or four Dun and Bradstreet's.

There are two things I don't want to say, right or wrong. Because there's nothing wrong with pivoting if it's the right pivot. But what I will say is this. I'm going to give you my own personal experience. I worked with a service provider who was not an expert in my particular industry. It took them so long to get up to speed understanding what I really do, that I started to feel frustrated. And I'm sure they were feeling frustrated, too. And if you are an expert in a particular industry or a particular type of client, your systems are down for those clients. Your knowledge gets deeper and deeper of what those clients need. So every time you diversify out of your core clients, it's more work for you. You may have to get different resources in your business that you didn't have before. So it could be more costly. It takes you longer to do the work for them because you're sort of reinventing the wheel. Now, if Dun and Bradstreet, for example, if everything you do for them is almost exactly the same as what you do for your business authors, then it may be efficient, but it may not be. The other piece of that is the marketing.

I'm building on it. Exactly. That's a big piece of it. I'm thinking to sell to Dun and Bradstreet, you have to know how to do these vendor relations. You said you spent three months preparing for it, but I believe in niche shifts. Just because. Chris, you started with authors. It's a beta experiment. As size business you have. If you had 5,000 authors and. And Dun and Bradstreet approached you, I think it's a mistake. If you have two authors you're working with and then Dun and Bradstreet comes on, that's one third of your business is in corporate. Maybe that's the better niche in the first place. Maybe the authors was the wrong choice and you can still do a shift on that size business, right?

Yeah, that's probably the case. Yep.

Yeah. We got to get out of here. Donna. Absolute privilege. How about this? Would you be willing to come back for next week's episode and.

Sure.

All right, here's the.

Yeah, I was going to say we.

Recorded all in sequence, so you don't even have to leave your spot. It's not like it's come back a week later.

You mean it won't be cooler when I record the next. No, it'll be just as hot.

Yeah.

Still be sweating.

Donna, if people want to learn more about Preventus Group, what you're doing. Where can they go?

They can go to our website, which is Prevendis P R O V E N d u s group.com and Mike, are you gonna ask me what the word provendus means?

Okay. No, I'm not. I'm gonna save as a cliffhanger for next episode. So now you listener got to listen to the next episode.

Yeah. Cause you really want to hear this.

It's actually a cool story. I know the background. Donna, privilege to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us, Chris. We got 2 minutes and 40 seconds to share what we learned. Share our sponsors. So in other words, we're gonna go over. I got some doozies of stuff I learned today, but I want to talk about our sponsors first.

Okay, totally. Thanks, Donna.

Thank you.

So here's what I learned, brother. I mean, here's the sponsors. I want to talk about Fundera.

Yes.

Dude, how many times have you heard businesses go for a loan and they walk down to the bank, they get rejected or maybe gets accepted, but they're dealing with one bank and it's one deal. And it's either, you know, and you.

Got to explain your whole situation takes like an hour or two.

The guy comes out there, you know, the bank manager, he's got that white shirt, his only white shirt that's wrinkled. He takes his one jacket off. That's the only wears. There's like those yellow pit stains, you know, like you don't know if you're buying a bed at Sleepy's or if you're at a bed. Like, why are you doing that? Fundera does the shopping for you. You apply online. You don't leave your burning hot basement like we have right here. You don't. You just fill it out and they do the shopping for you. That's how you do it.

That's Fundera. Love it.

Fundera, Fundbox, not related, but they both start with fun. And that's why I'm doing sequence. Funbox is like a factoring company, but a million times better. Here is the dealio, my brother. If you ever have an invoice, Chris, you can't collect, like most of the invoices that you sent to me. The guy's not paying you on time. You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, totally.

Fundbox will release those funds to you immediately. If I owe you $1,000 or $10,000 or 100 or 100,000, you just click in your accounting system and it's counting system agnostic. It could be Xero, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, any of those things, you click what you. The ones you want to get funded. Fundbox pays you that money instantly, immediately, and, yeah, in full. And then when you collect the funds, you just return it to Fundbox. So when I actually pay my bill, it goes right to Fundbox. Now it's all automatic, plus a fee for their service, but it's a great way to address cash flow.

Love it. Fun Box.

Nextiva. Dude, dude. To this guy, Jeff Winger. He's Winger cpa. Go check. Google him right now. It's an amazing accounting firm. He's an awesome guy. He calls me. He goes, dude, I'm listening to Profit first podcast. I listen to gmaf. He's like, I hear nextivo over and over again. I need a phone system. I'm calling him, calls him on Friday. We're recording this on a Thursday. So this is about a week ago. He calls me and says, mike, best experience of my life. They are the coolest company ever. They did the setup for me. He goes, you, you wouldn't believe. He starts lecturing me how good Next TV is. You wouldn't believe how capable this phone system is. The cause I'm making say, I'm calling you over right now and I'm gonna transfer it to my cell phone because I gotta like. He starts just bragging about how awesome they are. So gushing, gushing. So go to Jeff Winger, CPA and say, dude, next Diva. I love him too. Next you have a little party. And then the last company, but definitely not least is T Sheets, time tracking software.

T Sheets. Love it.

I gotta do payroll today. Actually. It used to take me an hour. Actually, Ron would do it. Used to take Ron an hour. Now Ron. Click, click. Look. Done. I just. All of a sudden, it gets approved. Literally in five seconds, payroll's done, and it's accurate. And you know, Ron's not that good with math. It avoids all that stuff. So it's fantastic.

Hard gold. Ron has a heart of gold.

Hard, you know, he. To put up with me. Donna, anyone. To put up with me is amazing, dude. What did you learn from Donna today?

Yeah, well, the three elements to the pumpkin plan are obviously tremendous. And you know, as usual on the Profit first podcast, there's these core really powerful principles that are so powerful, but they seem so simple, they're almost deceiving. But I think if any business owner or any entrepreneur sits down and goes over those three elements and maybe, you know, maybe has a chat with their spouse or. Call Donna, please. I mean, this. These little distinctions can make such a Big difference. One little distinction I got was when she talked about quality that she didn't mean quality in general, like the quality of your business or quality of your product. She meant like a quality like how fast you deliver something or how, how much bass that you mix into someone's podcast or, you know, that's a horrible example, by the way.

Or the quality of the term the base.

Yeah. So, yeah, thanks. So that's really cool of like thinking about specific qualities of your business that you excel in.

Yeah, I like that too. Because people default to. One assumption of quality is they say, oh, it's like, you know, fancy. It's a fancy car, like a Mercedes.

We provide good customer service.

Exactly. That's where our quality is. There was a guy I know, he makes brakes for automobiles. They simply change the color of the brake because the brake you can see through the spokes of the wheel or whatever.

Right.

And by changing that, it was such a distinct unique color that it started selling more aggressively because of the unique quality. No one had this color before. So it pointed back to what Donna kept on driving home was be different. Be different, be different. I love that all this stuff, everything she talked about drives profitability. If you have a distinct quality, you make more money. Donna was talking about the A20 rule. You work with your best clients and you focus on them. You dump the poor clients. You'll be more profitable if you have a unique offering. We talked about quality, but these other ways you innovate. She talked about Starbucks more profitable. You systemize where you're not doing the work. More profitable. This was the ultimate profit first podcast. Everything she shared was the exact how to to be profitable.

Awesome.

God, dude. Hey man, we gotta get out of here, right? Yeah, yeah. I hear the music coming on and everything. Where can people find out more about the mighty Mr. Chris Curran who services anyone that need a podcast.

That's right. Fractal recording dot com. That's the website. I produce podcasts focusing on business authors and. And focusing on. We'll. We'll find out where my niche takes me. But everything's going well and people love it. So.

Yeah.

How about you, Mike?

Yeah. So I am the co founder of Profit First Professionals. Also co founder of Prevendis Group. If you want to find out about either organization, go to Preventus Group dot com. Check out Donna Lyons. She's leading that organization. Amazing consulting going on Prop First Professionals. Ron Saharian leads that organization. I'm the author guy behind the ideas and Donna is a leader that's executing it. Ron's the person that's executing on it. And then. Hold on one second, one second, bruh. I nailed it, dude. He's back, so. And Ron's leading. What's going on with Profit First Professionals? If you have a business, if you own a company that needs an amazing accountant or bookkeeper to drive profit in your business, go to Profit first professionals dot com. And if you need a business coach to grow your business, go to preventusgroup.com. that's it.

Dude, that's awesome. Take care of your pets and take care of your.

Right there.

Yeah. Oh, good.

Thanks for watching, everybody.

The last little sound effect I need is actually your laugh. Like, I want your laugh to start throwing in, because the only laugh I have is that one, you know?

Oh, nice. It's like Jackie the joke man, right?

Yeah, totally. Exactly.

Funny laugh.

There's always a pleasure hanging with you, brother.

Awesome. Profit first podcast dot com. Check out all our episodes, all our previous episodes. Maybe you want to binge listen from episode one, right?

Oh, that's the best, best way to spend a weekend.

Thanks, everybody.

You hate when I do that.

I love that. Oh.