Episode 67: Cash Reserves and Profitability with Robin Robins

Good afternoon. You're listening.

Oh, yeah, that's horrible. For God's sake. Thanks, Vincent Van.

You are listening to.

Oh, geez. You're listening to the Profit first podcast.

This is the one you've been waiting for, people. Episode 67 with Robin Robbins.

Oh.

Oh, we're gonna bring it today.

That's how excited we are.

I am pumped. Dude. This is gonna be a killer, killer episode.

This is great. Welcome, everyone, to the Profit First PO. I'm Chris Curran, the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalitz, the author of Profit first joined in studio by Christina Bulduk.

Hey.

And you are listening to Profit First Podcast, where you learn everything about profitability. Listen, last episode we were coaching Erica. Remember the episode? Coaching Erica through growing her infantile brand new business. Well, we have a guest coming on today who started a business from scratch and is doing $10 million a year.

Whoa.

That's right.

That's the show. That's what the show's all about, man. Making the money and taking the money home.

Revenue is nice, but profit is.

Prevents lice.

Oh, it does. I always just say that to see what he's gonna say. Christina, you know.

Yeah, I know, I know.

So you can find our show on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein Radio and of course, our website, Profit first podcast dot com. All our previous episodes are there, including all ton of other great information as well, because it actually is hosted on Mike Michalowicz dot com. So. Yep, you can see funny pictures of Mike. So.

So. Hey, Chris, what you been up to before we get started? I just want to know how you've been doing.

Yeah, I've been. I've been good. I'm. I'm still. Oh, yeah, yeah. I've been sick for four weeks. Yeah, no, I've been reading this book called the Drunkard's Walk.

I think I've even heard of it.

It's about the role of randomness in our lives. Like, yes, Okay. I have the average person, like, you think you know the probability of something happening. Many times you're completely wrong. It's just fascinating how randomness interacts in our lives.

So, just going down a similar vein, you know, what's going on with me is I'm reading a book. It was assigned to me. I'm in, like, a little book club thing called E Squared. And it's about. It's quantum. It's a quantum physics analysis, but it's experiments in quantum physics. So. Similar thing to the Drunkard's Walk, I.

Think oh, quantum physics is the best.

This is a very simple read, which is nice. So the very complex stuff, relativity of time and matter and space, that stuff is too complex for me to read. This one's an easy to digest investigation into quantum physics. Hey, before we get into our sponsors and getting Robin on the show, I want to thank Chris Murphy. We're getting a lot of shout outs from our. Our listeners. Chris Murphy has Physio uk, that's P H Y S I O uk. Check them out in Surrey, uk. He's a big fan of the Profit first podcast. A big listener. So, Chris, thanks for listening in. And Chris, man, this episode's gonna blow you away. Pow. So you better get ready there in the uk.

Put on your five pointed seatbelt.

Yeah, put on that five point seatbelt that you're known for in the uk. So our sponsors, I want to thank Fundera, Funbox, nextiva and tsheets, all that have been sponsoring every. Not all of them collectively, every single episode, but at least the last thing. 40 or so episodes. They all are so happy with what we're doing. They continue to support us. So thank you to those guys. All right, let's get down to business.

Let's do it.

So I meet this woman, her name is Robin Robbins. She's kind of hot, by the way. And I go to this event and she's speaking up there to the stage of IT Integrators, managed service providers, what they call them now. And I just remember looking at the audience, I'm like, wow, there are 700 people in this audience hanging on every single word she had. She is. And she is good. I mean, she is a good presenter. Powerful presenter. They're hanging on every word. She's educating them. They're all fired up. They leave the room, she runs over. And now she's running the business. She's talking with her team. And I'm just observing this person. This is the definition of an entrepreneur with a physical presence, someone that's built a brand around themselves but also can operate a business subsequently. I go visit Robin's offices. She invites me back there with a group of people to her offices. The epitome of professionalism. What blew my mind, 2003, that's only 12 years ago. Her whole business was just her zero revenue. Smaller than Erica's business from last week.

Yeah.

Zero. $10 million today. Today. And extremely, extremely profitable.

Wow.

She. I don't know if Robin's okay with me saying this, but she just. Her neighbor is Dave Ramsey.

Nice.

Like that's that's kind of the level she's living at. So we're going to learn the entire story of how to grow from startup to building a professional brand around yourself and a killer business is my pleasure to bring on Robin Robbins. Welcome to the show, Robin.

Hey. Hey. Hey. I was like blushing as you're introduc.

Was it the hot part? She's kind of hot.

Yeah. I'm like kind of badass. I think sometimes I forget that, you know, but so that, that was nice. Thank you.

Oh, no, you're very, you're very welcome. Let me ask you, Robin, you. You don't have any experience until you started this business in the IT space, yet you open the doors serving IT providers. How. How can you do that?

Well, I mean, the business I'm in is marketing and so one of the things that I'm very good at as a marketer is I'm a researcher. So I, when I opened my business, you know, I'd been in sales my whole life. I did work for, you know, I did work for an IT company, but not what, like what I'm serving today. And so I wasn't a total stranger to it, but definitely didn't work in one of the businesses like the, the members that I'm coaching today. And, you know, I was looking for a niche and I think that's probably right out of the bat. That's the first lesson I'd give everybody listening is you've got to have a niche when you're a generalist. It's very, very difficult to do business. So when I started, and I started because I got greatness thrust upon me when I got fired from my job, you know, I was like, okay, I understand marketing and I'm really good at selling and you know, what am I going to do? And I, I knew I had to pick a niche and so I ended up with, I ended up getting a gig with, with an association called Comptia and they serve the IT industry. And they wanted me to do a sort of a marketing coaching training program for their members for about six months and then do a present and then do a seminar and so forth. And anyway, I got that gig and it was all these vars that were in there and started having a lot of success with the members. So they started contacting me outside of the webinars that I was in. Actually, I was doing teleseminars at the time because there was no webinar and people were contacting me and they started hiring me one on one. And I just Found that I was really successful. When I first started I was doing marketing consulting for really a lot of different companies, everything from an MRI imaging center to medical billing to a computer training school to a software testing company. And again, I just knew I had to find that niche. And so when I got this gig with this association and all these vars started contacting me and saying, hey, would you work with me on one on one to help me with the marketing? And I started doing it and I was having a lot of success and I liked the people and it was like a no brainer. I said this is my niche and this is a true story. And again, it's very instructive for those of you listening who are kind of struggling, maybe in your small business. But you know, the first year was tough for me. I mean I lived in a, a nice apartment when I had a job. And once I got fired I moved to sort of the, you know, not so nice part of town. Got a cheap apartment, was running the business from it on a shoestring budget. I was bartering to get a website put up because I didn't even have enough money to pay somebody for a website. And you know, I'm doing all this and I come upon this niche and I start having some success there. And I wasn't rich by any means, but I started getting clients and I made a decision. This is going to be my focus, this is going to be my vertical, this is what I'm going to do. Desperately needed money. And I remember a guy sending me a check and he was outside of the IT industry, he wasn't in this niche. And I remember looking at the check and going, if I cash this check, which I desperately wanted to do and needed the money, you know, I'm kind of like violating my commitment to myself. And I remember I returned the check to him, said I can't work with you anymore or I can't work with you because I don't. I made a decision I'm only going to work with. At the time it was VARs, value added resellers. Now Managed Services is like, it's just a var, but they just do, you know, an ongoing service. And I remember that, I mean I remember the amount of the check was 795 bucks. And to me that was rent money. And I sent it back and I said, you know, this is my decision and I've never looked back since. So since that day I've worked with like it's somewhere around. We were looking at the numbers, you know, I mean it's been like thousands and thousands of IT companies have bought a product of mine or paid to come to a seminar, you know, after working with so many of them. And I'm a very hands on type coach and entrepreneur. I'm not, you know, there's some people who write books about marketing and they're basically delivering a book report. This is how marketing should work. And they look at big companies that are successful and they say, well look at these big companies, how they do the marketing and this is really good. Right? And the problem with that is they're delivering a book report. Well, I'm delivering a field report because I'm in the trenches with my guys. I'm talking to their customers, I mean like their end customers doing research, that kind of depth of research to figure out the marketing and sales and what are the messages, what are their customers want, what are the offers that are going to get people in the door. And so I've kind of, you know, I'm very much a researcher and that's how I made it work. I mean, I'm giving you like a really quick, fast overview. But you know, having focus, being committed, you know, and you get, when you, when you get results from people, they don't really care that I've never owned a managed services practice. They don't care because I know how to get results for them. And my, and not because I say so, it's because you can look at my clients and you can go on my website and you can see evidence of it that you know, you can't argue, you can't argue that my stuff doesn't work. I mean, you can't argue that any more than you can argue flight at this point, you know, so I don't know, does that kind of, I mean, I know that was the answer you're looking for, but that's it. It's as unsexy as that.

Well, let's go back to the diversity because I hear people say diversification, diversification. We've all been told that. And it sounds like when you started your business, MRIs, you're working in all different categories. It sounds like you were starting off diverse. What convinced you to move into one category?

Well, look, any business, especially a consulting business, but any business, you gotta have a focus. I mean, I was just looking at a survey that was sent to me as a new client and I'm working with a group of Microsoft partners and helping them to do marketing. And I said, you know, one of the questions I ask is who's your avatar, ideal client. And I could tell you this guy's in trouble because he said any size, any industry. That's how he started out. And I'm thinking that's not a customer profile. I mean, like, if it. So if we're selling IT services, you know, the CEO of a company who's got 10 employees is a lot different person with different needs, wants, desires, budget than a CEO of a company with 200 employees. The CEO of a bank and their IT needs are entirely different than a nonprofit in the way their IT needs are the regulatory compliance, the people they're talking to, their budgets, how they make decisions. So when any business. And I'm talking it, but this could be any business, you have to have a single focus in a customer market. Because if you try to be all things to all people, I mean, that'll work for, like if you're a Comcast, Xfinity or you're trying to be a, you know, you're the electric company or something like that. But if you're a small business entrepreneur, you got to start out with a niche. You got to start out with a focus. And every big company starts there, you know, but you need to. And diversification. You know, there's different ways to diversify than saying, we have 20 different customer types. When you have 20 different customer types, you can't even speak to them properly on your website. Let's say you hire a sales guy. Well, who do I go after? I mean, you got to focus them, you know, oh, well, anybody, Right.

What conference do I go to network with people. Like every conference in the world.

Exactly. You can't do it. I mean, diversification in my business is that now I have different product offerings and I have different ways of bringing a customer in. I have different ways of monetizing that customer, making profit from that customer. And then for me as a person, the diversification for me is making sure that I don't have all my money. First of all, I'm completely debt free. I've got at least personal. I got more than a year's income set aside, so I didn't have to take a paycheck for a year. And I wouldn't even blink. I've got six months operating capital sitting in a bank. So it, you know, knock wood, I'm not asking the universe to send me love. But if something terrible happened and I needed cash, I've got cash. I'm taking money out of the business. I'm investing it. I'm not just spending it as quickly As I get it, I mean, we have real estate investments. I've got other, obviously other. That's how you diversify, you know, you know, there's, you know, but going in and saying, all right, I'm going to have a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, all as my customer, and I'm going to try and service them all and go deep within those relationships and be a specialist to those. See, I mean, that's the one. Like someone was an IT guy. I was saying, I want to be the trusted advisor. I want to be the specialist, the expert. I'm like, well, how can you be an expert when you have 30 different types of customers? You can't go deep with any of them. That's why as a marketing consultant, I said I got to pick one particular niche and I got to know that better than anybody else. I got to know that customer's business better than they even know it. I got to know their customer better than they even know it. Because when I get to that, then I am the expert and I am the specialist. Because you can't do that if you're all over the map.

Yeah, I couldn't imagine asking my general practitioner doctor to do brain surgery on me. I mean, that'd be absurd. It requires such specialization. What I'm really curious about is when it comes to these numbers, you have a one year salary savings. Did you start that this year because now your business is making killer amounts of money or did you start that back in 2003?

No, no, when I started the business, I got fired from the job. I was walking my way out of debt because I was just stupid. I was young. I really didn't have anyone who taught me, didn't teach me anything about finances. I didn't have any examples of entrepreneurs in my life. And I'm not trying to. I'm not saying my parents were bad parents. They just, they don't even have that knowledge themselves. Right. So they couldn't give to me what they didn't even have. But I knew debt was a bad thing. You know, it wasn't Dave Ramsey as my neighbor, you know, inspiring me. I just knew I didn't want to be in debt. And it's true story, you know, when I first, I'm in Nashville now and I moved here for a job and I remember the advertising marketing agency I was working for at the time. I found out one day and I find out because I come into work and the name of the company was over the door and they had taped over it some other name or something. And I come in and I'm, like, talking to the operation. I'm like, what the heck? And this is a small company. I'm like, but what the heck's going on? And they're like, oh, we're trying to get new printers to do business with us. And I said, okay, so what's the taping of the, you know, on the door? She says, well, we've got really bad credit. Anyway. Found out that none of the printers in Nashville were going to do business with us because there was piles of direct mail that I had sold to clients that was supposed to have been mailed and wasn't because the owner wasn't paying the bills. And I found out that this agency I was working for was basically scamming their customers. I'm the salesperson. I'm selling these customers saying, hey, do this stuff. It's going to work. And we're putting together these campaigns and buying ads and supposedly sending out direct mail and email, broadcasting, fax, broadcast. At the time, the client paid for all that media. They paid for the postage. And here I find out it's not going out. And I was so aggravated. I was so pissed off. And I remember, you know, at the time I went down, it was like. It was like summer day because I got in my car and it was really hot, and I was sweating, and I was so angry. And I was, you know, I just remember, like, literally breaking out crying because I was like, I had to stay at this job because I needed the money. And I remember sitting there in the car saying. And I said to myself, I'll never forget this. I said, you know what? I'm a prostitute. Because I'm doing something I know is wrong for a man I don't like or respect because I need the money, right? I'm a prostitute. That's what I am, right? I'm no better. And I was like, I made a promise myself at that moment I was never gonna be in that position again. And so it took me a couple years. You know, I had a lot of debt I had to get out of that. I paid that off.

How long did it take you to get out of debt from starting your business?

Well, I mean, like. Well, first of all, I know how to sell. And any entrepreneur out there, if you're going to grow a business, you have to know how to get a customer in the door, because if you don't, you're dead. You got to get a customer in profitably. You got to know how to do that. If you don't know how to do that. I mean, that's why a lot of that's. Almost every business struggles because they can't get enough customers in or when they get the opportunities that come in, they don't know how to sell properly, so they don't know how to price. They win customers by cutting price and then it kills their bottom line. And it's like they end up working all year and looking back and they basically got a salary, you know what I mean? Or not even a salary. Like if they would go work for someone, they get paid more, they get a couple weeks vacation, they'd get health benefits and all this other stuff. But so you got to get a customer in the door. And I knew how to do that. And the second thing is, as soon as I started making money, I didn't just go spending it, you know, I paid off all my debt. I drove a crappy car, I stayed in that apartment. I didn't buy my first house until I had cash for the house. And you know, so I started out just saying, look, I am not going to be in debt because I think Dave might. This might be a davism, I don't know. But desperate and stupid hang out together and people with no money make really dumb mistakes. Mistakes and decisions. And so having money puts you in a position where, you know, you don't have to, you know, you have options, you have choices at least.

So what I'm hearing is as you scale your business and your income grows, don't scale your lifestyle at the same rate, you know, reserve payoff. You bought your house with cash. I mean, was it one time cash payment for your house?

Yes.

Yeah, that's the way to do it. Geez.

And it's because, you know, you save up. I mean, look, I mean, I see so many people wasting so much money on such frivolous stuff, you know, And I mean, I have a family. I mean, I don't want to be down on, but I have a family member that, you know, got to have the hair and nails done, got to have the nice purse. They got to, you know, all this and she can't afford it, you know, And Mike too, by the way.

Mike too. He, Mike needs his hair done and his nails and that's okay.

Look, I get it, you know, I mean, I know we all work hard, we're stressed out, we feel like we quote, unquote, deserve these things. But you know, I, you know, I was very, very disciplined with myself, you know, and if I didn't have the money to pay cash for a car. If I didn't have money to pay cash for a house, I didn't buy it, period.

I heard saying that in the Alphabet, reward would be alphabetically after effort. Reward is supposed to come after effort, yet so many people put the reward prior, and then the effort is a panic and desperation.

The other thing I'll say is, you know, a lot of business owners don't reinvest in their business, so they start making money and they just siphon it all off and they go on vacation or they buy a new car, or they buy this big house with a huge mortgage. And, you know, they don't reinvest. I mean, they're like. I was talking to a guy the other day, and he wants. He's telling me, you know, he's a million dollars. He's like, just shy of a million of it. And he kind of says it like someone who's like a whip dog. And we're talking and I'm like, well, why are you talking like that? He said, well, I wanted to be 10. I said, well, you know, I'm talking to him a little bit. I mean, he is the sales guy. He's the CEO. I'm like, well, dude, you've got the money. Why aren't you. Why aren't you investing in a salesperson? You need two salespeople right now. You could use it for your business on inside and outside. You could, you know, we got to talk, you know, a little bit more. And, you know, a lot of people don't even think that way. He was like, yeah, yeah, you know, you're right. But I mean, of course it's going to. That salary is going to, you know, and you don't pay them their salary in one month. But it's going to increase the overhead cost. But I'm like, yeah, but you should be able to recoup that. Like any sales or marketing person, they're not a cost. You know, they should be, you know, buying chairs in your office, that's a cost. You know what I mean? You got to have it and you got to buy it. But when you invest in marketing and selling, that's like the one thing people pull back on when they're struggling. And it's just a horrible mindset. You should be looking and go, look, if I spend a buck, I get 10 back. And I can't get this at the bank right now. So it's better to invest in my business. A lot of people don't think that way. And they're Timid about investing in marketing and sales and building their sales team for that.

Have you had this experience, Rob, perhaps observed it in others? We had an interesting guest last week on the show who was just starting a business. It's a very little business and they bought. Now let me give you a sense for their business. It's a $7,000 annual revenue business. I mean it is a itty bitty seedling of a concept. It's a hobby. It's a hobby. They bought infusionsoft, they have other tools. And one of the arguments I was making and they were resisting, I said it really sounds like you're buying the creme de menthe of capability for a business. It so supersedes what your business needs. You got to rewind. Have you seen businesses where they deem it an investment but it's really an over investment?

Well yeah, I mean I think I've seen a lot of IT guys and I'm speaking it because that's what I know. They're buying the latest, greatest high end software widgets all. I mean they're building a rocket ship and they got no fuel, it's just.

Sitting, you know what I mean?

I'm like dude, you don't need 20 pounds of technology. You don't, you have three customers, right? You could, you could manage them with a friggin spreadsheet. What are you doing? Oh no, I gotta have all this stuff in place. And it's because that they're attack and they like this stuff so they buy it and they play with it and they use it. So. And you know, every business is different. You know, you got, everything is, there's no black and white, there's 500 shades of gray and you know you got to, it's based on what you want to do, you know. So if some, in some cases, some businesses like we're going to open a dental practice, you know, you got to buy equipment, you got to have drills and X rays and all the dental equipment in a place. I mean you need that stuff before you can even service a patient. So there's always, you know, you can't just say black and white, you're over investing. But you got to really be the key to this, to this is if you're going to spend that money then you better be. Then show me your plan for how you're going to recoup the cost and at what point, like what's your break even point? How are you going to get there quickly, as quickly as possible and of course then start Turning a profit. Show me that plan. And that's the plan they can't show you. That's the two part. Good luck and hang in there.

That's so funny.

Talk to people, you know. Well, that's not a plan.

Yeah, that was our question with infusionsoft. I said, so how much is the return from infusionsoft? How many clients are you converting? What's the roi? And she says, I don't know. And that sounds like that's a dark void. That's a black hole. Tell me about Robin, your role, how it's changed. When you started your business off air, as you said, you had three partners. Me, myself and I. That was the group that started this business. Now you, how many people do you have working at your organization?

12.

Holy shit. I fell deeper in love with you. 12 people at a 10 million dollar company. You know, how amazing that's. How has your role changed over the years?

Well, you know, I'm at it, actually, I'm at another point where I'm. My role is, you know, I really have to make a decision. Is it really interesting that you bring that question up? Because I think every entrepreneur, you get to a point like where, you know, we're just, we just came in shy of 10 million. Like I said, you know, first week back in January would have been 10 million, you know, whatever. But so we were so close. But, you know, there comes a decision and you might hit this, I'm sure you hit this more than once. As you grow a business where you have to say, where is the enough is enough, you know, because in order for us to say from 10 million to get to 20 million, which is our goal. Right. You know, I can't keep doing business the way we're doing business. I can't. My role has to change. I have to bring in people who can replicate what we do. And really that's, you know, as any CEO of a business, when you start out, you're doing everything and you start hiring people to build your team underneath you. You know, pretty soon you get to a point where you're going to have to hire people who can then manage other people. You know, it's like the layers start coming in and you start losing control. And you have to be, you know, so much of this is getting the right people on the team, but your role changes. I mean, you have to, you know, now, like, I've spent probably as much time on recruiting as I have anything else in my business. Because, you know, in order to grow, I can't do more hours. I have to get results through other people now. I have to get results. You know, you can automate and system systematize your business as much as you want. God, God love Michael Gerber. I, you know, all those things are true, right?

Yeah.

You still, you know, you give me a brilliant system and you put a dummy in place, they'll find a way to screw it up, you know, and if you give me a half assed system but you give me some brilliant people, you'll be amazed at what they can do. So my role today is, you know, it is changing and it is more about leadership in the sense of hiring and recruiting and keeping really good people. It's also about providing the next level of opportunity for the good people you have because you know, when, when you're building a business and you know, you don't think about this when you're small, but you get a really good person, you know, and everybody listen, this probably has one person, they wouldn't trade them for all the tea in China, so to speak. You know what I mean? You're just like, this person is my person. I love them. And you don't think about it, but you got to keep, to keep that person. You just kind of think they're going to hang around but you got to provide new opportunities for learning, for growth, for earning on them. And you know, then as you add more people then there's dynamics in the team as far as, you know, is there drama? Can, can they get along? I mean there's like, it's amazing. All of a sudden you're running a business in the sense that you're not doing everything. And that's really how my role is changing. I can't, you know, like you said, you see me, I'm on stage, but then I'm running off stage and I'm managing the team, you know, so I need, you know, that's not, I shouldn't say managing because the people I've got in place, like, you know, Nicole and Jeff, I mean they're very, very competent in running that event. It's probably more just checking in and you know, we're always in communication about what's going on in a live event. You know, it's a living, breathing thing. You got it like you're by the minute sometimes changing things or dealing or responding to things that are happening. So. But yeah, you've got to get really good people and you've got to be able to build those people. You get a core of people you trust and A core of people that are really excellent, and you got to know that the rest, you got to get done with people that are pretty damn mediocre. And that's where your systems and process come in place. You know, you got to build that core team, executive team, and then everybody else. I don't want to say they're interchangeable, because they're not, but you're just. There's not that much great talent out there. And so part of your job as CEO is to make sure you can see where are we going. You got to be able to look around corners. You got to. You know, your team is depending on you. You know, you're steering the ship, and you got to make sure you don't steer it into an iceberg.

Now, your business toward the tail end, I assume you're experiencing the hockey stick kind of growth now. I assume it didn't every year add another million. Maybe it did. Is that true? And what's the experience like financially for a business that's growing at that rapid rate? How do you kind of control the faucet of cash flowing in and hopefully not out of your business?

Well, first question, is it a hockey stick? Well, it really wasn't. I mean, we've grown pretty ste. Steadily, year upon year. Every year. We had a couple, we had a dip. We never went backwards. Let me put the slowest we've ever grown was 2%, and I think that was in 2009. And our industry, when 2008, 2009, 2010, we saw so many of our clients go out of business. It was ridiculous. It was, like, unbelievable. We lost probably about 20, 30% of our customers just disappeared just because they just went out of business, you know, and so. And the other thing was I got pregnant for the first time, so I'm running a business, you know, having a child, and, you know, it was a lot with the economy, and then I had some staff, you know, it was just like the year from hell. I'm telling you. I like melanoma. Oh, my gosh. I had, like, five staff. Four of them turned over. I mean, and this was all. And there was more. And this was like, all in, like, a year's time. It was like the. It was, like, unbelievably stressful. So, you know, we went through that, and then from there, we kind of, you know, it's been steadily going up. As far as how do you handle the cash coming in and out? The thing that. The thing. Here's what I'll say is, you know, you've got to really get a handle on where your money's coming from. And what I mean by that is a lot of CEOs that I know or small business owners I've talked to, you just ask them simple questions like, what's your profitability? You know, where are you making your money? What's the most profitable products? You know, they can't answer it. In fact, they don't even know how much money they made until their tax accountant does their return and says, okay, here's how much money you made. You know, they have no clue. So, you know, we divide our company up in divisions, you know, profit centers. So I'm looking every year, I'm saying, okay, you know, there's producers Club, there's our product line, there's our sponsorship, there's our dashboard. There's a different thing. And I look at and I know how much energy and effort we're putting into each of these categories. I also know the profit for each one. And now what I'm doing is I'm starting to incentivize leaders. Not starting to. I've been doing this. Incentivize leaders within those departments to, you know, that are focused on profitability, they get paid a percentage of the profit. So they are perfectly aligned with, with me in the sense that I don't have to say, hey, you see that $7,000 extra nice lanyard you want to buy for our boot camp? It's really nice. I don't even have to put it. Look at that. Because the person I've got in charge now is looking at that with a hawk's eye. He's probably more than I am going, oh, we're not doing that. We don't need that because it's not a necessity. So you've got to really. You got to really watch your money. Because if you don't know where your money's coming from, you could have services and customers that are not profitable. And you got to get rid of that because, you know, so you got to really break it down and analyze your business. Every year I do this. I take a really hard look at every. We separate by class or profit center in my business, and I say, okay, what's going to get. Something's going to get shot. You know, we're taking something out to the Woodhouse and we're shooting it because it's not excellent and it's showing no signs of being excellent or I'm giving it, it's on death row. We'll put it that way. You know, one or the other, because you got to get rid of that because it drains your. Well, it drains your money, number one, but it drains your energy, your focus, everything. And you got to kill those things. And here's the other thing. There are years when things. There's nothing that's unprofitable, but there's things that are less profitable. And so those things got to go so that we can continue to grow the. The things that are really the meat and potatoes of what are driving everything else and being synergistic. So one thing's feeding another is feeding another.

There's a million questions I want to ask you. We are out of time. Rob, with your permission, I'd love to invite you back down the road to get digging deeper to your story.

Yeah, no, that's fine. This is easy. I mean, you're just kind of just talking about what I do every day.

Yeah, it's mind blowing. I got literally a page. I got a page of tips, Robin, for the folks listening in. And I insist, everyone listening in. You want to find out more about her organization, where can they go and find out more about you?

Well, if you're an IT company, obviously going to technologymarketingtoolkit.com would be the best place to go, because that's all for IT companies. VAR Managed Service Provider, Technology Marketing, toolkit.com. if you're not in it. It's not that I don't love you, but, you know, I just. I really don't do work outside the IT industry. You can go over to robinrobbins.com and that's with one B R O B I N R O B I N S dot com. There's some other videos and audio out there that are not specifically just for it. So you can download some other free videos that I've done and some other content out@robinrobbins.com either one.

Great, Robin, thanks. We'll bid. You do.

Thanks, Robin.

Thanks, guys.

Bye. Bye. Dude.

Oh, my God.

Right? That was my kind of interview.

Robin, Robin, leave on the last S for sweet.

Hey, I'm going to use that. So nice. They name me twice, but, you know, I like to.

Yeah, Robin, I coined another one because when you said you were cutting less profitable services that you offer or products that you offer, I was gonna. I want to ask Mike if you should ever cut anything that's profitable. And then I thought, you know what Mike's new name is?

What's that?

The Prince of Profit.

Thanks for saying it was a lisp. Lisp.

Did I listen the prince of profit.

Yeah, a little bit.

A little bit. Thanks.

We'll see you later.

Thanks, Robin.

Grace. Christina, if you don't have a page of notes. Actually, I see your notes. You do have a page. I got, look, that's my notes. Scribbles, checks like, holy crap. First of all, I love her drive and intensity and energy. I think that's a big part of entrepreneurship. A lot of people don't talk about, you got to bring that energy. Because as she goes, the business goes. If Robin came in, it's like, oh, business is no good. That emotion will transmit across the office and brings everyone down. She brings it and it's authentic, but she brings it every single day. I want to share what we learned, but before that, I want to thank our corporate partners who make the show possible. Tsheets time tracking software. If you have employees, like we're hopping 12 employees, or our office, we have five folks here. Or if you are managing a company, I'm sorry, projects that you have to track your own personal time for. TSheets is ideal for that. We also have Fundera. Fundera is a one stop shop source for loans of all different sizes. From that small few hundred dollar loan, which if you need to borrow a few hundred bucks, call Robin. But a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, they do the shopping of it for you and come back to you, usually within 24 hours of the loan. As Robin taught us, always use loans for investments, something that will make a return for you. Thirdly, Fundbox. Fundbox sources your invoices. So if you have some clients that aren't paying you as quickly as you want, but the money is due to you, fundbox will release those entire funds to you immediately. So it's a great way to fund your invoices today. And last but certainly not least is nextiva, who I now have a annual tennis match competition against one of the owners. I have to fly out to Arizona on my own time in about, I think, three, four months to challenge nextiva. Let it be known I lost last time, but when they're your corporate sponsor, you should always lose.

Oh, got it, got it.

Okay, Chris, I'll let you go first.

What'd you learn? You know, I got a whole sheet here. She keeps a lot of money in reserve. She's like, I got six months of living expenses and a year of salary. She's got all this money piled up, and guess what? That means she's well positioned. You know, I think of this analogy often of chess. You know, in chess, you can go on the attack and you can do all kinds of flashy moves, but. And that. That can be good for your chess game. You can win by doing that. But the other part of chess is your position. If you have a strong position, you're very strong. So it's. You're not going to get beat very easily. And you. When you operate out of a strong position, you're much more likely to succeed. So I think positioning yourself that way is great. The other thing was, she talked about providing more opportunities for her employees. I mean, who the heck thinks like that? You know, I got this great employee, but after two, three years, they're gonna get bored. Then what? Man, that's a great idea.

Love it. Love it. Christine, what'd you learn?

I'm, like, so overwhelmed with everything that she had to say. But no, the one thing that really stuck out to me was to be able to lose control to the right people. As you grow, you have to realize that you can't take on everything anymore. You have so much business and success coming in. You have to be able to pick the right people and to be able to rely on them and make sure that they're gonna make the choices that you would.

Yeah, yeah. And she got the right people on the right seats on the bus. You know, I took home tons of notes here. First of all, do the math. A $10 million company with 12 people, that's almost. Almost a million dollars per employee. It's about 800,000 plus dollars per employee. That defines a very profitable business. And I strongly suspect she'll do 12 million next year with 12 people. Unbelievable. People go to me all the time and say, mike, if I go for a niche, what if that niche falls apart? What if the industry collapses? I'm out of business. Well, guess what? Robin's niche collapsed in 2009. She said most of her clients are going out of business, and she grew 2%. That points to the power of niche specialization. When you are the best in the category people, the few remaining will still come to you. And that brings me to the next point. I wrote this down, that you don't have to be the expert in the industry from experience. You just have to have expertise for the industry. She doesn't have any IT background. I mean, think about it. If you want brain surgery, do you go to your doctor and say, have you had brain cancer yet? Because if you haven't experienced it, I don't want you to do brain surgery. No, you want to know that doctor how many times has he or she done brain surgery to remove a cancerous tumor? Not if they experience it themselves. So the smart customer knows that self experience is important, just repeatable expertise. And that's what she's done. She didn't do it, but she serves it company after it company and therefore they grow to her, go to her. And when the industry collapses, she's so well positioned, she's so strong in the industry, she still grows when the customers are going away and then the industry returns and she's exploding in growth. And then the last tip I learned is kind of the anyone who. If you have to define your customer by anyone who, that's you start off your sentence, you are not in a niche. Oh, anyone who needs me. Anyone who. No, she said the guy that. You know, if your sentence starts off with I serve the guy that. And now you're talking to somebody very specific. You're in a niche. So think about your business. Are you saying anyone who as your customer, you're not in a niche. Are you saying the guy or gal that then you're in a niche. Great takeaways.

See, brother, that is why you are the prince of profit.

I like that soft music.

I know. Can you give me some trumpet, please?

Oh, yeah. I gotta go back here. Is this it? No.

Jeez.

No. This one. Monster kill.

End with that one. That one's brilliant.

That's the one. No, I gotta end with this one. It's a shout out to the Star wars fans out there.

By the way, Matt Perosi, I think he was trying to play that clip over his interview.

He was, he was, yeah, yeah, that we did with him.

Yeah, we couldn't hear it, but yeah.

Who, who by the way, flew in from France to meet with me and we went out for dinner a couple days ago. That guy is just a adorable man. Yeah. And a great fun guy. Chris, we better get out of here. How? What can people do for us? Our listeners can do exactly what to help our show.

Yeah. Well, you can obviously go to itunes or Stitcher or Tunein Radio and give us a rating or review, hear all our episodes there too. And of course, the website profit first, podcast.com, all our previous episodes. A lot of great information of Mike's on the website. I mean, geez, if you want to talk about a website you can get lost in, that's one of them, right? Christina.

There's a lot.

There's a lot there. And she's the one who manages it. So she's like, yeah, yeah, there's a real lot.

It's just great. So. And by the way, if you want to learn any more about podcasting, you can always ask me. Fractalrecording.com and Mike, please lay it on us.

Profit first Professionals. There it is. I'm laying it on you if you want. Listen, you're an entrepreneur. You want to grow a profitable business. You want to have the next Robin Robbins business. We can help you get started. We're not going to do it for you, we're doing it for ourselves. But we can help guide you to a very profitable business. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com Click on the find button will hook you up with a professional that'll help you navigate to the highest levels of profitability you've ever experienced. And talking about that, next week we're bringing on John Royce. He's the guy who owns Hustling Hoagies and he's got an early stage business that needs to be more profitable. We're gonna walk him through the process next week on episode 68.

Cool.

Thanks, everybody. You're gorgeous. Christina, give us a note, please.

She's so sick.

Oh, you're sick.

Tears are coming down.

Well, thanks for listen anyway.

No, no, no finger. Push through. Go for it.

Come on.

That was good. That's the best you can.

And thank you to the prince of profit. Love you.

Thank you.

It's my pleasure.

See you guys.

See you guys later.

Sa.