Episode 59: Concrete Profitability with Nick Dancer

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Bring it, bring it.

That's right. You're listening to the Profit first podcast.

It's time for episode 59.

Yeah.

Jeez, this is a great show. Oh, wait, I can't say that I'm one of the hosts.

It's the best episode of all time.

Jesus. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I'm Chris Curran, the founder of Fractal Recording.

He is. And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit First. I'm sitting here in studio with you know who. Hey. Hey.

She's live.

Tina Balda.

Thanks for having me back.

We are never, ever, ever getting back together.

What do you mean, thanks for having me back? We couldn't organize this show without you, Christina.

I'm just being modest.

Oh, I guess she didn't listen to last episode that she was on.

Zing. Well, we're available as a podcast on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein Radio and of course, our website, Profit first podcast dot com.

Yeah, be sure to go there and start commenting and participating. Lots of cool questions and answers are popping up around there. Chris, man, before we dig in today's episode, I got to know, man, what have you been up to?

You know, I started reading this book called Getting Things Done. And I know this is. I think it was published in 2001.

Yeah, I know the book.

Yeah, you know the book.

David.

David Allen.

David Allen.

And it's all about personal productivity and about stress feet, stress free productivity. And I'm loving it because it's all about systems. You know, on this show we talk a lot about systems. How if you set up a system to be profitable, hello, you're profitable. So I'm, I'm really enjoying that book. What have you been up to?

So I'm going to dry cleaners in a little bit and I just want to talk about systems. Do you know the apparel that they dry clean? 80% is the exact same stuff over and over. It's a shirt or it's a dress or pants. Right? So there's these three things they do over and over. It is so systematized that for the $5 they charge to clean a shirt or that's not even $5, it's $4. The margins are massive. And, and I think the lesson. I was talking to dry cleaner. The lesson is this. The fewer things you do, the less variability what you do, the more profitable you are. So, you know, imagine that, see specialists. And then I said, you're. You're ripping me off. I said, why are you charging? And he's like, oh, I didn't mean to tell you that. You're just the profitability guy. So I wanted to share that. Oops, oops, oops.

So. So we're going to talk quickly, go over our corporate partners, and then we have a great. Am I going on the outline, Mike?

No, no. You're reading the wrong script.

I don't know. I don't have the outline.

Okay. I thought I emailed it to you. But here's the dealio. I first want to thank. Thanks.

He wants to thank.

I first want to thank tsheets for being a sponsor of ours from day one. We are 59 episodes in t sheets has been with us every episode, and so has Fundera. Funbox are the new boys, the new kids, the street. But the only other sponsor has been longer than T Sheets or Fundera is Nextiva. They were pre podcast and we said, we're doing a. Before I even finished the word podcast, they said, oh, we'll sponsor that. We like to be part of it. We're doing a poh. And he goes, well, sponsor. I said, party. We're doing a party at my house. No, no podcast. All right, we'll talk about them a little bit later. First, you are going to learn some insights that are going to blow your. Your mind away. And talking about insights, when we wrap up this little interview we're about to do, we're going to share our insights that we learned from our guest. Our guest is Nick Dancer, and he owns Dancer Concrete Design. And I know you're thinking listener. You're like, concrete. How can you make any money in the concrete? For God's sake, there's two industries you can't make money in. Concrete and dry cleaning. And I just dispelled your dry cleaning. And now, with no further ado, and my pleasure is to introduce a man who's going to dispel your understanding about concrete. You can absolutely make money there. It's Nick Dancer. Nick. Welcome to the show, Nick.

Hey, guys.

How you doing?

The crowd loves you, Nick.

The crowd. I hear it's 80,000 people.

They're standing on your concrete.

They are.

They're dancing.

By the way, the Hoover Dam, because I've seen documentaries about that. They use like a zillion cubic feet of concrete or something. Wouldn't it be nice to have gotten landed that gig?

A zillion cubic feet of concrete and I think three bodies.

Oh, right. Some people fell in when they were doing it.

They did.

Oh, seriously, Are there people in that dam?

Yeah, that's the. That's the rumor.

They couldn't do anything once they fell in. You can't get them.

Oh, my.

Anyway, just brought the whole show down.

In time for Halloween.

Can you imagine? Because concrete, it slows down your metabolism. They could still be alive, supposedly. I heard you can live in concrete for like, six years.

Oh, God. What?

That's cryogenics, I think.

That's right. That's right. It's cryogenics, Nick. Honestly, can anyone make money in concrete?

I think so. Yeah. Well, our specialty in our business is we don't pour concrete. But what we specialize is protect and enhance concrete. So. So although concrete is a great material for building and construction, it has some inherent weaknesses that it can degrade over time. It can dust. It's prone to stains and spills. So what our job or our business is, is to turn that into a finished surface.

It sounds like our show, over time, it's prone to degrade and spills everything.

Jeez, Chris, you are just farting. What kind of concrete are you protecting? Is this the stuff on my driveway or on the highway or something else altogether?

Yeah. So what we specialize is in interior concrete floors. So if you talk to someone in commercial construction right now, the three things that people want to do, they want to use reclaimed wood, they want exposed steel, and they want concrete floors. So what we're doing is taking flooring that was typically covered up with a carpet or a VCT or laminate. And what we're doing is we're going to finish the concrete to make the concrete the finished floor.

I got you. So what's the process to doing that just so we can get a visual for what you're doing?

Yeah. What's a standard process might be, is we're going to bring in the concrete polishers, which is. It's similar to like refinishing a wood floor, except we're going to sand the floor with diamond abrasives underneath a heavy concrete polisher. And we're going to progressively use different diamonds or chemicals to refine that concrete and make it a finished surface. So if you can think of a gray concrete floor, we might add some color. We're going to make it shiny, and during that process, we're also making it more durable and easier to keep clean.

So in this process, how often does it have to be done is you do it once in the property. The flooring is great for years to come, millenniums to come.

Yeah. What our attempt is is to make the longest lasting, most affordable floor to maintain for 100 years. So most floors are going to last 5, 10, 15 years maybe before they need replaced. Our process is going to actually turn the floor into a low maintenance solution that hopefully lasts outlives us. So our goal is to create. To create floors that outlive us. So it's important in how we approach those jobs if we're going to make a big claim like that.

Yeah, that's a big claim. I mean, it sounds great for the customers. Do your floor once and it's permanently done. I want it. But now I'm thinking you, you sell one time, you're done with that customer forever, right?

Yeah. So the reoccurring revenue model in our business is going to be reoccurring maybe with a contractor, a general contractor, an architect we work with. But typically, you know, we're kind of handing the project off to them saying this is a low maintenance floor, it's not going to cost you much to maintain. So in our business, we're always looking to develop that relationship that's going to sustain a relationship where we can go in and do these one off projects, but with the same contractor. So.

Okay, Nick. So I can see that this is great for customers. There's probably demand in that category, but it's hard to get recurring customers. Tell me about the history of your business. I know you've implemented profit first. Yeah. So the history of your business prior to profit first, I think you were. Were you struggling to some degree to make this concept as novel as it is to be profitable for you?

I tried to grow our business by forcing growth. I thought if I hired enough people, growth would just come. And that didn't work so well once we ran out of funds last winter. That's when Shannon, my accountant, introduced me to profit first and kind of talked to me about these perimeters or these guidelines we would set to grow the business in an organic way. And that way I could get out of the company's way of growing and stop forcing my growth on the company and just let it, let it do its own thing and also have a reward system set up to sustain that growth and also, you know, make sure I was compensated for my work.

Yeah. And Chris, Shannon Simmons is a profit first professional. She's extraordinary.

She's awesome.

She's awesome. So, Nick, before you bring in Shannon, you're trying to hire your way to growth and profitability. Give us more details. What was that like? What did you think would happen and what was the reality that you ultimately saw?

Yeah, so I thought we would always have room for improvement. So I hired a continuous improvement leader and then I also hired two salespeople. And during that process, I found out that during the size of our company, I still have to be the number one salesperson and that we didn't have all those systems like you guys were talking about at the beginning. We didn't have the systems in place to produce similar results with new salespeople. Those sales were still produced. With my knowledge of the business, my knowledge of the industry, or my relationships, I gotcha.

And I don't know how comfortable you are sharing numbers, but maybe your employees, but maybe you can share numbers. Where were you before you started playing profit first? What was the size of the business? What were the numbers like?

Yeah, we were at that point we were about a 10 person company. We last year we did a little less than a million dollars in revenue. Right now we are 14 person company. We will do over a million dollars this year in sales. And also our growth model, we're actually going to. Our biggest months are actually going to be November and December of this year when last year they were our weakest months, really.

Okay, so I want to see how those months flipped. But so let's talk about profitability. Prior to implementing profit first, you said you were losing money. How are you sustaining the business if you were losing money?

Well, actually I sold my car to make payroll and that was painful. That was a wake up call. I was about, I think a week into profit first, but it was a little too late. So like earlier this year, I did, I sold my personal car to get the payroll rocking sucked up. I realized I was getting a little lazy in my role in the business and just realized that we needed a systematized way to handle our bills, handle our incoming receipts, make sure taxes are taken care of. And it was about, you know, a month and a half into the profit first system that we started seeing like those glimpses of hope and being on the track we needed to be on.

So. Wow. So you lose a car, you get through payroll, you implement profit first. What were your first steps in implementing the system? What did you do specifically?

One of the first things I did was we started a tax account to save for taxes. I of course, like most people, don't like paying taxes. So I just thought I would always deal with that later. So what we've done this year is I actually got on payroll, so my taxes are actually taken out with my paycheck. And we also started an account that we transfer to every. Actually we do transfers every deposit Every deposit we make into the company, we do a transfer for tax purposes.

Oh, interesting. How many deposits are you making? Like one a day, one a week, five a day?

Yeah, we usually do deposits like once or twice a week. So that's when we do those transfers over. And we started a Profit first account in another bank that we make transfers to once a month. And yeah, I think things are. I like the idea of having the operating account and operating the business from that account and knowing that we're storing a little bit away for the future.

So I have clarity on this. So money comes in your deposits, you take a percentage and immediately put it toward tax. What's the percentage that you're allocating toward taxes?

Every deposit? Yeah, it's a combination account. It's called Tax and Equipment. So that is a 15% transfer from every deposit. We're putting an account for taxes and equipment purchases and that's like long term asset purchases.

Okay. And then you're also putting stuff away for profit specifically. Right?

Yeah. And actually that, that, that's been going pretty good. And we're at an income state where I don't want to take too much from the business at this point. And so we've been able to, and I'm, my wife and I live a pretty modest lifestyle, so we've actually been able to start a giving account. So one thing we've done is, and I ran it by Shannon was we want our business to impact the lives of others in a positive way. So we just thought we'd start an account with a percentage for charitable giving. So when somebody asks for money or wants to sponsor something, we don't have to think, we don't have to think about it so much. We just know if we're able or capable to, to be part of that at that time.

That's awesome.

That is really cool. You are the first guest. We've now interviewed quite a few guests that have implemented Prop first. The first guests I've heard that have set up an account. We have a saying here. Aaron from our team came up with this. We were doing a conference. There's about 70 people in the conference. And they said, you know, we want to set up an account for. And I can't remember what the purpose was, but say a charity account. How do we handle that within the five accounts that Profit first mandates? And she said, if in doubt, add an account. And that's become an adage here. You know, if you don't, if you have a new purpose and don't know where to Allocate it. Just set up another account. So this is great, Nick. You set up this additional account for charity. I want to understand the emotion. What, what did it feel like in your business prior to having profit first before allocating these things? And then what was the, your feelings about your business after you implemented this system with Shannon?

Probably payroll. Each week is probably the one that has the least amount of concern with it because we actually transfer from the operating into a payroll account and that has payroll taxes and payroll. So it's just, it's definitely a more steady model. And I think you can make better business decisions when you don't have those kind of concerns. You know, as the saying goes, keeping you up at night or kind of those worries that you have. And we, you know, the one thing that it's also offered is, is a little bit more stability in our business. When we work with general contractors, a lot of the times we work without deposits or we're fronting labor and material for a project and getting paid 30 to 60 days after the work's complete. So it's allowed us the opportunity to kind of operate as our own bank when we need to borrow money from ourselves to get over a hurdle.

So. Okay, so I assume it sounds like you're a little less frantic and I'm just putting. Inserting my own words here, but Prior sounded like you're a little more reactionary or a lot more reactionary. And now, now it sounds like you're much more plan going and that's removed some of these reactionary adjustments to the different financial demands on your business. Is that a fair assessment or how would you word it?

That's very correct. A proactive approach for us was to still, we didn't have a line of credit with our bank, so we developed a line of credit with our bank for a big job coming in. But through the profit first method, we haven't had to touch that. So that's been, that's, that's been nice too.

Wait, I'm confused. What. Explain that. I don't, I don't understand what the line of credit is. And you didn't touch it.

So we, we went to our bank and we had a big job coming in and we, we got a line of credit. As in a proactive method, like we might, we could run out of money during this, during this job. But since we had the extra funds available from saving through profit first, we were able to borrow from ourselves instead of pay the bank an interest fee for borrowing from them.

Got it.

Now we all Know there's a trade off or something. Nick, this has to be compromising your growth. I mean, if you're taking money out of your business, reserving for profit, reserving to give to charities, you're not plowing much money back into your business. Doesn't that kill your growth?

That's been a concern. We're. The charitable giving percentage is still in test mode to see what that percentage looks like. But we know that as we grow, we have a slow growth. I don't want to say slow growth model, but we're not a tech company. We don't need to do 300% growth. Our model is to be in business for a long time. And I was reading the new incorporated magazine and it was about slow growth companies and they said, if you just grow 10 to 20% every year for the next 20 years, what size would your business be? And I'm perfectly fine with our business for what it looks like. 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road. Not so much what it looks like. Just trying to meet a yearly sales goal.

Yeah, that's fascinating. What about reverse engineering? And what I mean by that is, as you have less money available in your operating expenses because you're allocating profit first and so forth, have you reverse engineered how to make your business work within those operating expenses? Like how did you make those operating expenses work? They're less than you had historically, but you're continuing this consistent growth.

Yeah, I think I work well in situations where I have limited options and you just make it work. I started this company with one deposit for one job. And the first two years of business, it created income for myself and it was just kind of me and a helper.

Nice.

So I just take that. I mean, it's, it's kind of like, it's no different than operating that. The business with that kind of mindset, we just, we now have more families involved in, in the company, but we still, you know, one of our core values is stay lean. We don't. I don't need to go buy a boat. I don't need to go buy a race car. Right now we're in a position where we, we want to stay lean. We want to stay competitive and grow this business the right way.

That reminds me of what you talk about Mike in the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, which is like, if you have limited resources and you have to make it work, your brain and your subconscious pretty much figures out how to do it.

Exactly. This is an application of Parkinson's law. And Parkinson was a theorist back, I think in the 1800s. Nothing to do with Parkinson's disease. This is a totally different guy. But Parkinson studies human behavior, and he finds that we have this unique skill set to make anything work. Regardless of the resources in excess or scant, we can find a way to make things work. And one of my favorite examples, and I use. Christina's probably sick of me saying this is toothpaste tubes. Yep. Yep. Do you want to share it?

No, you say it better.

So here's the idea. And Nick, tell me this is true from your experience. When we have a brand new tube of toothpaste, we use a longer bead. I mean, it's just natural. You say, oh, I got some toothpaste. You put it on. You don't even think about it. And if you pour water on your toothbrush to get some moisture on it and the toothpaste falls in the sink, you're like, screw that. That's disgusting, that bacteria and disgusting phlegm that's down there or whatever. And so we grab our toothpaste tube, our new one, and put more toothpaste on it. But according to Parkinson's law, and this is true, I assume, for you guys, too, when there's almost no toothpaste, the whole game changes. Now, we become innovative. We bend the toothpaste tube around the sink. We do anything to squeeze toothpaste out of it. One little doublet of toothpaste on one bristle hair is adequate to brush our teeth. And if the toothpaste falls in the sink this time, now you're like diving in after you don't even need tooth. You know, that's Parkinson's law, that our behavior is dictated by supply. We become more innovative and more frugal the less we have. Now, Nick, that's what I'm hearing as you're recounting this story. The implementation profit first. It sounds like kind of that's naturally who you were, but meaning your immutable law. Your value is let's be lean. But your actions were consistent with. You had the money. You saw a lot of money. You were spending it because you had to sell your car to support payroll. It sounds like you've reversed that now and are kind of far more innovative and far more lean because you're taking the money and reserving it for tax and profit and charitable contributions first.

Correct? Yeah. I. I think in your book, you. You talk about a guy who has a $3 million business, but he's driving a, you know, a $200,000 car. His kids go to private school. And he's living in a neighborhood way above his pay grade. And I, I definitely am prone to being that guy. So I just have, I mean, the profit first sets those guidelines. So I'm, I'm not that guy. And I think even the strongest biggest businesses still think with that mentality of leanness. I worked at UPS for Christmas time like 10 years ago and they actually pick you up in a parking lot to help the delivery drivers deliver packages. And any UPS truck is like the bare bones structure. I don't even know if we had heat in the truck. And I mean, that's a huge Fortune 500 company and they're bare bones in it. So why would I get too glamorous in my business?

Yeah, I heard Walmart, one of the largest corporations in the world by far. When their executives go to meetings and stuff and they have to stay somewhere, when they get a hotel room, it's always two to a room. And that frugality plays throughout. Now Walmart sits on so much money, they could easily afford the one hotel per person, but they stuck with that frugality and therefore their success continues. Nick, what would be your suggestion for folks listening into this? If they own a business around profit first, not if it's a good idea or bad idea. I assume you're going to say it's a good idea because you're doing it. But if folks are intrigued, how should they get started and make sure they do this successfully the first go around?

Yeah, I think understanding that the business income and your income are two different things. The one thing I notice with small business owners of companies similar in size to me is that they think everything is a business expense or that you can just write everything off and it's okay. And I think the biggest thing is just understanding that, you know, this business has to operate and you should get a paycheck for your role in operating it. But there's definitely a distribution of funds that you need to set aside for yourself and keep in the business and keep disciplined with it.

I love that. Yeah, the business is its own being, if you will. It needs the lifeblood of money too. And you gotta balance that. Nick, for the folks who need to get their concrete floors polished and with the value you're delivering, it sounds like everyone should be doing this. Where can they learn more about your services?

Yeah, the easiest way would just be online at dancerconcrete.com and that's-a n c.

E r concrete.com dancerconcrete.com Nick, thanks for joining the show and thanks for sharing your story. I really appreciate it.

Thank you guys.

Thanks, Nick. Great job, man.

You know, selling your car to support payroll is a biting crazy moment, right? That's the oofa oof. I wanted to ask him what kind of car it was, but I didn't have the courage.

I'm not sure how many people would actually do that though, make the self sacrifice.

It was a rusty 71 Pinto, right?

Exactly. I needed five bucks quick. You know, I think you'll be surprised how many people do do it. I know entrepreneurs have made the craziest sacrifices because once you have your team, like we have a wonderful team right here at the office, losing someone on your team is such a heartache that I feel and I have gone to extremes to not make that happen. But what I've also learned is if you have to get that extreme to save the business and their people, that means you haven't made the smart decisions of preventing that from happening in the first place, you know? So I think Nick got the burn and then he learned a better kind of consistent way to do it. Well, we got a lot of insights to discuss, but first I want to thank our corporate partners that make this whole thing a reality.

Love them.

There they are. There's someone clapping. So first corporate partner I want to thank is nextiva. They've been around literally supporting. They knew me when I was a struggling author trying to sell my car to buy food for my family and started supporting me back from the toilet paper entrepreneur days. That's nextiva. And so perhaps I have a slight bias towards them. Perhaps. But I mean, I love their phone system. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, I think now 10 of their phones that we're using and looking to expand even more. It brings full corporate kind of high end phone system functionality to you at the price of a voice over ip. It's competitively priced functionality is superior. And the one tip I have is just make sure you have a good Internet line. Yes, we have a bad Internet line, clearly, because we can't even do a Skype connection without dropping every 10 seconds today. But if you have a good Internet line, your phone system will rock and roll. And xdv. It better be that phone system. Fundera, what can I not say about Dara, please? Yep, wonderful people. Meredith Wood over there, we call her. This was a few weeks ago. Again, someone's looking for some money for a loan. Boom, bam, boom. 24 hours turnaround approval, three options. Boom, bam, boom. They choose one. It's single source Loans and funding for any of your business needs. So you just do the online application or you can call Meredith directly. We'll hook you up and they'll make the connection. Now, fund box. What do they do, Christina?

Also business funding.

Yeah, but in unique way.

Do you remember how they will give it to you upfront, no questions asked.

Based on what?

Based on if your client doesn't pay you pay.

You pay your what?

Pay your service fee?

Yeah, service fee. Good. They don't pay your service fee invoice. Right. So if you have outstanding invoices or service fees to your customers, they will release those funds to you immediately. So it's a great way to address that cash flow gap. I need money today, but the checks not going to come in for two weeks. You can get money for two weeks, two months, or however long it takes to come in. The cool thing is they don't take over the collection, so they don't call your client and say, where's the money you owe us? You continue to collect the money from clients, so you continue to maintain that relationship. When the client pays you, you just now turn that check over to Fundbox to replenish the funds you borrowed from them plus their service fee. It's well worth it. Last company, who did I miss?

T sheets.

I did not miss T sheets. I was thinking right now. I didn't say them yet. T sheets time tracking software. If you are an entrepreneur and you have one employee, which by the way means you are the first employee, so you would definitely have them, you need T sheets. Why? Because you need to track times to report to your clients. You need that for IRS reporting. And if you do payroll, absolutely, you need for payroll T sheets packages that all together, it makes a complex pain in the butt. Simple. So simple, so easy. You guys want to hear what I learned today first, please.

What did you learn, Mike?

I learned it's uncomfortable to talk about profit first for me because it sounds like. It sounds like I'm trying to get someone to tell me how great the book is, but it's really not my objective. But I feel that way. I feel a little awkward at times. But why I'm doing this is it's so critical that you listener entrepreneurs understand the impact of it. And I can't tell you. I've spoken with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people at public speaking engagements. Christina, I just returned from Canada, touring over Canada, spoke cumulatively to think five or six hundred people out there all talking about profit first. All of them own businesses. How many are Doing Profit first today. 4, 5, I don't know, barely any.

It's amazing.

The concept is. It's so simple, yet no one does it. I don't know why. So what I'm trying to do is drill it home. Listen, Nick had to sacrifice a car. He was about that morning. He was about to drive his children to school, but couldn't. He had to put them on a pogo stick to get to school. Cause he had to sell his car to cover payroll. I mean, it's absurd.

Kids get in the red wagon. Kids get in the red wagon.

Yeah, exactly. I'll pull you. Except for up the hill. You're on your own, kiddos. I mean, it's absurd what we're doing. And the solution, so freaking easy. I want you to hear the stories of other people that are doing this to finally convince you. Listen, at the end of this episode, implement profit first in your business. It's that easy. Just open the accounts and start doing it. It saved Nick's business. He's more profitable than ever before. And you can be too, by the end of today. Yeah, that's why I do. So I feel uncomfortable doing it now. I feel all fired up. So I fixed my own problem.

That reminds me of last episode. We were talking about head trash. And that of thing just that. That's a little bit of head trash talking, Mike. Because the prophet first principle, the principle behind it, is universally applicable. I even talked about it on my mystic show about spirituality. Your spiritual practice should give you some profit. Like. Right, right. That's why you're doing it.

God. Jeez. God. Who are you people?

So do you have a specific thing that you learned from?

Yeah, I learned two things. Two things. What we don't like, we push off to later. That was his exact words. I love that. Not that I love that we do that, but that's. He hit the nail in the face accurate. Crack that face wide open on that nail and think about it. Whatever gets pushed off to later never gets done. I mean, do put your profit last. Like, how dumb is that? Oh, it's the year end. It's the bottom line. It's like saying, like, say you want to get healthy and say, well, I'm gonna start doing my health last. No, you start taking care of your health first. So it's true. What we don't like, we put off to later. And when we put off to later, we ignore. Stop doing that. And then the second thing I learned was the tax account. He said his biggest problem was covering taxes or being Ready for taxes. And he had such a negative association with it. The first thing he did in profit first, and there's five accounts you need to set up. But the first account he set up was the tax account was interesting. Most people start the profit account. He set up a tax account that was smart because it took away that kind of pain of worrying about that, and it's been addressed. The other two accounts, profit was pretty cool. But the charitable account, one. Holy cow, What a genius this guy is. What'd you learn, Christine?

Well, I want to commend him on opening that extra account for charitable giving. I think that's awesome.

Killer.

And especially if you want to get more involved in your community. I mean, even as little as a little league soccer team, who needs jerseys and they come to you for sponsorship. That's awesome. To kind of have that money saved for them and it helps you out.

No, I love that.

And also just going back to having systems in place, he was talking about wanting to grow his business when he first started, and he just kind of hired people and hoped for the best, and then nothing really happened because they didn't have the systems in place. And that's so important to train people the way that you're trained and to get your knowledge out there so that you know that they're going out and they're going to sell your product and they're going to do the best because they were taught.

Mm. Mm. Love it. Chris, talk to me.

That's right. Because building off what you just said, Christina, he thought hiring more people would equal growth. And then he said something very interesting. He thought obviously more salespeople. He said he hired two salespeople. So. But then he said he realized at this, at the time, at the size his business was at, he still had to be the number one salesperson. And that's a rookie mistake. I think. I've done that, too. I've hired salespeople because I didn't want to. I wanted to do whatever bigger and better things in the company. Right. But no, I was at the point when I was still the guy, and I had to do it myself. That's a rookie mistake. So, I mean, rookie. Ish mistake, is it, Mike?

No, it's a rookie mistake. The number one salesperson at any organization is the founder, the CEO, the leader. Let me ask you this, Chris. Amazon, who you think the number one salesperson is for Amazon?

Yeah.

The founder, Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos, the founder. When there's a. When there's a $1 billion deal going down. Hell yes. Jeff Bezos is at the table talking about that. All the transactions online, that's all automated. But the real big ones that you. That are behind the scenes, Bezos is there negotiating, coordinating, cheerleading. The best salesperson for any organization is always the leader of the organization. Always.

And I just would like to also add, since you're getting all fired up, you're getting a little fired up. This book that I mentioned earlier, getting things done about productivity, stress free productivity. You know, the reason you need a system for productivity is because it gets stuff out of your head and into a system that's reliable. And when you do that, there's less crap in your head. There's less for you to worry about. And that's exactly what Profit first does. If you have all your accounts set up, you have that. The flow of money going where it should go, then you don't have to worry.

Dude, you're getting. You're going. Bobby. Bobby Knight.

I'm about to Bobby Knight you. All right, now get your face.

I don't want your crap. I want you to take profit for.

Once and for all, you know, Stop.

Being such a schmuck. I'm not here to play games. I'm here to win something. Like. That's Bobby McKnight, right? That's Bobby Knight or Booby Knight. That's what it's called.

We had our own character. Booby Night.

Booby Night. Booby Night. He's an angry guy. He loses his sense of any kind of diplomacy. He just.

Booby Newt.

Booby Nude.

Booby Nude.

That's better. Booby Newt. He spits in your face, but he cares for you. He loves you. He just slaps you around a lot.

And he's profitable.

He's profitable. All right, so Booby Newt yourself. Listener.

Yes.

Take your profit today. Set up that profit account. No more excuses, please. And if you need another don't Experience Nick Dancer's. Oh, thanks for the trying to do the link there. But please listen to Nick Dancer's story. Do not be the next person to lose a car or a house over your business. Start making it profitable.

That's right. And if you need help, go to Profit first Professionals dot com. There's people who can help you. Mike, take it away.

Yeah. Profit First Professionals Dot com. That's our site. We are a membership organization of accountants and bookkeepers who we. I personally. Ron, Christina, Aaron, Jackie. We've personally trained and tested out our professionals to make sure they can drive profit in your business. And I'll tell you something. They absolutely can. So you need an account or bookkeeper anyway. I get it. But you need a profit advisor. We got the package deal on these folks. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, click on find. We'll hook you up with the perfect profit first professional to grow your business to levels of profit you only dream of.

There it is.

That's right, Christina. Amen.

Amen.

And if you want to learn more about podcasting, go to my website, fractal recording dot com. This has been awesome. Don't forget our. Our show is available on itunes and stitcher and tunein radio and soon to be this Google play podcast thing. And of course, the website profit first podcast.com. you can absolutely binge listen to episodes one after another until you. Just until you can't take it anymore.

Yeah. And if you are. If you've experienced profit first in your business, we want to hear from you. We want you on the show. We want to know the challenges you face, how you've overcome it, and how things have improved. And we've had so much conversation about the mindset in the last few episodes that we decided to bring on a mindset Mind.

Mindspec.

A mind specialist. How to overcome limiting beliefs. That's what you're gonna learn from Stan Shields on episode 60 on how to overcome those limiting beliefs in your head.

Love it. Thank you, guys. We'll see you next time.

Soup.

Sam.