Episode 72: The Irony of Success and Profitability with Matt Shoup.

I'm in. I'm in the bathroom. Is that okay?

Yeah. I can see Matt right now. He's in the bathroom. He's in front of the mirror. This music's playing in the background, getting real romantic.

And with that, you're listening to the Profit first podcast.

It's unbelievable. They said you wouldn't pull it off, but you have. You've made it to episode 72. Yes, welcome.

72.

70. Cool.

Oh, yeah.

What's up?

This is awesome. Welcome, everyone, to the show. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Malowitz, the author of Profit First. I am in studio with my colleague Christina Bulldog.

Hello, world.

And we're here to teach you and to learn about and to master everything about profit. And, you know, the last few episodes we've been talking with people that are early stage business. They're facing different challenges. Today we're bringing on an expert. An expert. A entrepreneur who's growing a wildly successful business in the painting industry. That's what we're going to learn. And I'm just. Just pumped, man.

That's right. And I just. I don't know, I just ate a little bit of chocolate cake and now my mouth is salivating. So I'm trying to. Try not to slobber. But by the way, you can find our show on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein radio and your favorite podcatcher. Wherever you get your podcasts, listen and subscribe to the Profit first podcast. And that's our website, profit first podcast.com, all our previous episodes, etc. And this. I love this show because it's all about profit. Revenue is awesome, but profit is fulsome.

Wholesome, Wholesome, Wholesome, wholesome.

Okay, terrific.

Then what have you been up to, bro?

Oh, you know, I think I have to start working out.

Clearly. Clearly, Mr. I'm salivating over my Lava chocolate cake.

No, I'm serious. Like, I kind of got sick last week and I. Or, well, three weeks back and.

And.

And I kind of like. Well, I don't really work out. I don't run anymore. I don't do anything. But so what I'm gonna do, since I live in Colorado Springs, I. I think I'm just gonna become disciplined with my hiking. Just make sure I go hiking, like maybe twice a week. Well, you think that'll be good enough, Mike?

Yeah. Yeah. It's a way to get started, right? Exercise.

Gotta start somewhere.

Yeah.

Then increase that as time goes on.

Exactly what you've Been up to Christine. I saw it in the personal updates on the huddle today. You got a little date with Alex.

Yeah.

Yeah. Hanging out. My boyfriend.

Yeah. What are you guys doing?

I don't know. I think we're gonna go see the Revenant. I'm a little. I'm a little hesitant because I've heard it's very gory, but it looks really good.

I heard that people were walking out of the theater the first 15 minutes.

I heard a couple people got sick. But it looks like a good movie, so hopefully I can.

Wow.

I can handle it.

So up with me. I had like a. You ever do this, like you move your hand or part of your body and there's like all of a sudden like a pop. Not like a broken bone, but it's like a. A nerve and it gets like really hot. Yes, I just had that.

Really? Is it because I slapped you with the.

No.

A week later, my hand's still throbbing. No, I went. I went upstairs and I grabbed for a napkin and my hand just goes pop. And then like this heat. Where's the heat come from?

What is that? It wants you to bring the heat.

Can they capture that? Like when it's snowing outside and freezing, I can't get any warmth into my fingers even with the gloves. I should just grab for napkins all the time.

That's not anything serious, is it, Mike?

No. Maybe it happens maybe once a year. Like something just an awkward movement and I hear a pop or I feel it at least, and it gets really warm. Am I weird? Have you ever experienced that?

I have experienced something like that. Or maybe it's just the blood vessels that are boiling over. I don't know.

Thank God she's not a doctor. All right, so let's thank our corporate partners before we get. And you notice I say that now because my hand's still swelling. Our corporate partners. Do you mind sharing, Christina, the four.

Absolutely. Nextiva Fundera T sheets and fund box.

That's right. That's right. Wonderful companies that make the show possible and they make this episode possible where I'm bringing on my personal friend Matt Schoup. He grew a business from brand new startup to multi million dollar success in the painting industry. We're going to learn how he did it. But here's a couple of highlights from Matt's life on his journey. Do you know he's been thrown out of six. Six schools?

What?

Two in New Jersey, four in Colorado.

Like colleges or just.

Well, we're going to learn. He's been Thrown out of six schools or six schools. He's been thrown.

Badass.

He's been throwing out two bars in Mexico. But like that one, like, who has it? But here's my favorite accident. He's made some accidents. I gotta tell you, his three accidents, all true. First, he painted a house without ever asking the customer, and the customer found the color to be awesome. So I want to learn about that. He. He's painted a baby. His company painted a customer's baby the color blue. Oh, the baby was pissed. And his note here is the mom was really pissed.

How long did it take the lawsuit to reach him?

Yeah, to play. I don't know. But my favorite thing is in Mexico, he tried to order a drink in a Spanish McDonald's. And the translation of the words he used, he ordered a vanilla vagina. And that's probably why he got kicked out of two bars in Mexico and six schools. This guy grew a business that had at $1.160,000 of personal debt back in March of 2005. He personally became a millionaire in 2008. He's a multimillionaire. Today, with no further ado, I want to welcome Matt Schout to our show. Matt A.

What's up, everybody?

What's up, Matt? How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. I'm high on Spanish coffee right now. So how are you guys doing?

How do you tell us about the vanilla vagina order? Like what? What's that all about?

Yeah, between coffee and alcohol, we're talking about. I don't know if I was drunk when I wrote you those notes, but yeah, I was in Spain. I lived there in college and I went into a McDonald's. It was a hot spring day. And the translation for the word ice cream cone, if you get the Spanish language just a little bit wrong. You know how Spanish has the little nye, the little squiggly line over the end? So the word for ice cream cone, it's cono. So a cone of ice cream, you'd order. And if you add the little nye, the little squiggly over the N, in Spain, there's Spanish. It's real different. I've spent time in Spain and Mexico and they use profanity like it's going out of style over In Spain, like 5 year olds use the equivalent of the F word. So cono means literally F this, F that. You can put it before, during, in the middle, after, upside down on any word. But what it literally means is vagina. So I walked into a McDonald's in the middle. I remember like it was yesterday. Beautiful sunny day. It's hot. I just want a 50 cent. The little McDonald's ice cream cones. And I went up to this beautiful young Spanish woman. This is before I was married. Emily said, it's totally cool to share this. And yeah, I said, hey, I'll have a vanilla vagina, please. A vanilla vagina ice cream cone. And she looks dead in the face and says, caballero. Hey, cowboy. That'll be more than 50 cents.

Oh, my God.

I turned B right. I immediately knew what, what I did. And she was playing, she was having fun. And then she said for hero to go.

Oh, that is awesome. I love when people have a sense of humor because when they're quick like that. Yeah, especially quick like that. So quick.

Absolutely.

It sounds like you had a pretty crazy childhood. You get kicked out of six schools, you do all this stuff, and then you go on to find a paint business. How. How did you ever get into that line of work?

Hey, I grew up right up the street from you in Montclair, New Jersey. And from a real young age, guys, I had to learn how to go get what I wanted in life from about age 8, just. Just on my own. So I've been studying and really interested in entrepreneurship and business and just how people work. How do you go get what you want in life? How are the ways that you can do that? And the whole sit down, shut up, do what you're told, follow the rules environment, which is school. And literally a lot of everywhere else they put a kid through.

Right.

Growing up, I literally got thrown out of. Nobody knew what to do with me. So from age 9, 10, they kicked us out of New Jersey or we moved out of New Jersey. I don't know why we went to Colorado, but I started mowing lawns and shoveling snow and trading baseball cards, all the stuff you do, pedaling candy. And had little businesses growing up, which continued to get me kicked out of school. And then I graduated high school, went to Colorado State University, and I was at an 8am I don't know how I made it to an 8am Biology class on a Monday morning. And a recruiter for one of those college painting companies came in and said, hey, this is the only time in my life that school really ever caught my attention because I was waking up from the night before and barely made the class. And this guy comes in and I was never paying attention in class. He said, hey, you know, I made 20 grand last summer running a Business. And that's all I heard was 20 grand running a business. And then I looked at him and I said, man, if that guy made 20 grand, I could sure whoop him. So I signed up for a little. A little shitty handed out. And then six months later, I'm in knee deep in a painting business in college. And I learned about the business. I really learned how not to paint. And really that business is all about basic business skills, profit being one of them. And I made 100 grand over four years painting in college. And then I learned how to spend it twice as fast as I made it. So I graduated. I graduated with about a buck 60, buck 70. 170,000 in debt. Went and married my beautiful wife that I met at a bar after I lived in Spain. So the vanilla vagina girl didn't really work out. I came back and that's when I met him. We got married. So, yeah, man, I basically found myself, I don't know how, working in a bank in a suit and tie. I don't know why I even ended up there. I thought mortgages were sexy and that business would be really cool. And literally March of 2005, I got thrown out of a bank with a box with an engraved name tag from the bank with my name in it. And that's a fun story, but I literally had. Had nothing. I had an empty box and $170,000 in debt. And I said at that moment, that decision, I'm going to be a millionaire as fast as possible. And here we go.

So, okay, so you find out you're absolutely not cut out for the corporate world. I mean, not even close. This is 11 years ago, 2005. You. Do you still have that debt at this point? 160 grand of debt?

No, I still have the box that's actually sitting right next to me. And I don't have, I don't have the debt. No, we're, we're. I'm a multimillionaire. My family.

No, did you have the debt that in 2005?

Oh, yeah. I mean it was. Yeah, it was, yeah. 100. I don't have the exact numbers. 170,000 upside down. Yeah.

Okay, so you. So 2005, you got a box in your hand, you have 160, $70,000 of debt. You're freshly married. I'm going to start my own business. It sounds so great, but doesn't reality set in and it's pretty freaking hard.

It's absolutely hard. One of the biggest lessons I've learned is I was Sharing my story a lot. And I speak to other entrepreneurs here in town. They call me, how did you do this painting thing? And it was just that belief. I didn't really know or care what was ahead of me. I just decided at that moment, I said, this is my. All my stuff's in a box. And the bank president said, put your shit in a box and get out. And he knew I had done the painting thing. So he pulled up his little corporate tie and said, you know, why don't you go do that painting thing? And I looked in my box and I said, well, I'm going to take this name tag because you don't need it anymore. And he goes, that's fine. Go do that painting thing. And I just decided, here we go. I had no idea it was hard, but I had no idea how hard it would be. But I decided that it was happening.

Okay, so you got thrown into entrepreneurship and obviously ends up being the biggest blessing during those early stages of the business. Tell us what it was like and perhaps some of the lessons you've learned from the early stages as you're getting the business going.

You know, it was fun, exhilarating, scary, exciting, and it was, it was the best worst day of my life. I had about a 12 minute drive home and on the ride home, I just said, okay, I've got. How much money do I technically need to start my company? It was $100 to open the bank account. And that first hundred dollars went into crooked cut business cards at Kinko's. I had these little crooked cut cards and went and bought some contracts at Office Depot. And I literally went out and walked across the street from a condo we lived in and just started knocking on doors and said, hey, we're going to be painting a bunch of houses in your neighborhood this summer. I got chased by dogs, bit by dogs, thrown, thrown out. I get thrown out of a lot of stuff. I just went out and started creating money. All I knew is that I needed to just be $5 ahead of the dollars that I needed tomorrow.

So I love it. So it sounds like you're cold calling, you're just knocking on doors, but is that the sentence you're using? You say, hey, I'm painting some houses in the town, which you're forecasting the future, so you're not lying. Does that get some people excited? Did you land some projects?

Oh, I landed, yeah. I walked back in the door with $5,000. Yeah, it's just I went and took the first day. Oh, yeah, yeah. You just go Out. Well, let me walk this through. So I went out. I got fired after lunch, went home, ate some more lunch, had to go to the bathroom, went out, told Emily, hey, I got fired. I got to go do this painting thing. And I needed $800 in 27 days and again, made the cards, got the contracts, went out, and I set up some appointments for the next two or three days, and then closed those deals, sign those contracts, and I took 25% down. So I literally was having somebody buy something before I created it. And that's kind of been the story of everything. When I shoveled snow, you can produce revenue, which translates to profit. You can produce profit before your product even hits the hands of the people buying it, is what I.

So that you got to tell me the secret. How do you do that?

I just do. It's having. It's the decision for me. It's that faith and belief in myself with absolute certainty that it's happening. So it is talking about two days, two months, two years in the future, in the present. And then what happens is when somebody gives you that money, now you have to. So it's one of those things where you have to have the belief first to create the deal, to create the sell. And then when you now have the money now you have the responsibility and duty to go see it through, or you end up stealing money, being a con man, whatever that is. So it just. It forces you to make that commitment from that belief that you initially had in yourself.

Didn't the first person say to you, hey, tell me or give me some references?

No.

How do you get past?

Her name is Cindy, and I have a video of her on my website, and I can go grab something or send you a clip, but she. I knocked on her door, and she's from New Jersey.

She's like, oh, you're from New Jersey. Jersey.

How you doing? And we start talking, and her husband was in the roofing business. And she goes, man, you remind me of a young version of my husband. And you know what? He went out and crushed it because he believed in himself and people believed in him, and I believe in you. And she goes, I don't need your references. You know, whatever. If you screw this up, I'll kill you. I was like, okay, sounds like a deal. And knocked it out, did an awesome job. And she still, to this day, we just painted something for her a couple of months ago. So, no, I didn't have any references, but that was just one hurdle that I didn't care about. And again, as Long as I was one step ahead of it. That's all I needed at the time.

You know, the lesson I'm extracting here, and Christine's heard me. You've heard me talk about this, is the power of commonality, is that even if I don't have a reference, I was once, Matt, traveling through Russia, and I ran into someone from New Jersey. And when I heard his accent, his American accent, and then found out he's from the same state as me, I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. And we became instant friends. But I'll tell you, I run into people from New Jersey here every single day. The office, I run into five people from New Jersey. You know, there's no excitement. It's in these circumstances where you're in a situation where there's very few people that have a common bond over a common experience, and that seems to supersede references. Matt, were you able to leverage other techniques to sell to people at those early stages?

You know, I was at the beginning. I was always great at math. So as I was kicked in and out of schools, I was always just F and good with numbers. So there was always that. Don't want to call it churn. But I knew that if I spent two hours knocking doors, I'd get chased by one dog, bit by two, get seven leads, do four estimates, and get two jobs that would produce me X. So I always knew what my time was worth, and I never had a problem working. I mean, since eight years old, it was like, hey, you want something? Go get it. Figure it out. So that wasn't hard. And then, you know, you mentioned commonality. And the other thing that I've really learned a lot over the 27, 28 years that I've been doing this thing is the people will tell you at the logical level, oh, I hired you. Yeah, because of your references. But at the. At the limbic core, caveman level, is, you know, this person gonna kill me or is this person gonna help me win? It's that fight or flight. Do they inherently trust you? And they can't put it into words, but they'll logically say, oh, yeah, I hired you because you have a shiny marketing brochure, which. Which is crap. I hired you because, you know, you painted the line straight. That's not true. That's what they say. Just at that core level, guys, they. They just inherently trust you, and it can't be explained sometimes. So I. I go into connecting with people at that level.

So it's interesting, the folks listening in this show, I'm sure many are aspiring to, to hopefully achieve what you have. Multi millionaire. You're a multimillionaire. You've, you've pulled yourself out of a deep hole financially. And I think they're, they're trying to buy that shiny brochure. They're trying to find solutions to sales that maybe I'm hearing from you don't work. Do you have some tips on how someone can build that rapport and trust without those big expenditures?

Yeah, absolutely. I talk about the initially marketing. Everybody asked me, matt, what did you do for marketing? And marketing is just the name of getting your word and yourself and your brand out to the market. So there's always that balance of time versus money. I had zero money and all the time in the world to go do things that would quickly produce 25% deposit check in my bank. So that $5,000, I said, how quickly can I get that? Then when I started running out of time because my calendar was filled with appointments, I had some more money to leverage. And then I tried the craziest off the wall marketing ideas. We had our logo on urinal cakes at an old Chicago. I've got a Rockstar ninja sign spinner that dances on the corner. He has like 8,000, 10,000 likes on his Facebook page. Just stuff like that. Basically saw what everybody else did and then I just went 2 degrees to the left and looked at it another way. And then, and then just did the opposite of what everybody else was doing. So when somebody said, hey, that sounds kind of crazy, I went and did it. And most of it didn't work. But the things that worked, everybody else is doing now.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting. You're the innovator in the marketing. Tell me how your role changed. Day one. Clearly you're the sales guy. I assume you're the guy doing the painting or finding people to do it. How has your role changed once your business got to say the first 500,000 or million dollars in revenue?

Yeah. So we did just under 500,000 the first year. So I actually, I absolutely suck at painting. If I paint your house, you'll throw me out of it. I don't paint a straight line. I learned in the college painting days that I just didn't know how to paint. I don't like it. So the first year I was doing the knocking on doors was hanging out in Home Depot's paint section just helping people learn about paint. And then I ran out of time. So I was hiring crews, I was selling. And then I was managing two or three crews. And then when I started stepping back, I said, what, what am I good at? What do I really excel at? Which for me was generating new, new leads, new interested people, and then selling. So then I'd hire somebody to, to help manage. And it freed me up to maximize, improve the sales model. Until I then got too busy with that and then I stepped out of that.

Gotcha. Gotcha. What about hiring? You know, I've met you face to face in Colorado. We've gotten together a few times. You have an extraordinary team. How do you bring on these. Yeah, how do you bring on these people? And particularly in the early stages when you can't woo people with money alone.

Yeah. And it's, you know, I love that you asked that because when, when somebody comes to me and gives me their resume and asks for a job, they ask for a job description and what the salary is, I just, I throw it aside and then throw them out. What, what? Our recruiting model. And I don't hire employees. I recruit phenomenal people that are team members. And there's a huge difference in the approach is we look for people that catch our attention as we're doing life. I use the example. I was at a Subway sandwich shop ordering a sandwich. This guy's like, hey, welcome to Subway. You're awesome, I'm awesome, we're awesome. Woo. And he's like the most limbic, jovial, phenomenal guy and he's working at a subway making like $9 an hour. And I said, hey, what do you want to do in life? And he caught our att. So we funneled them in to our team meetings. But at first it wasn't like that. At first I'd sit at a coffee shop and meet, have 10 appointments scheduled and four caramel macchiatos throughout the day. And I had 10 quote unquote painters that were coming to tell me how great of painters they were. They wanted X per hour. And it was very. What are you going to give me? Here's what I'm going to give you. And two out of 10 showed up. One was drunk, the other had his pants down, and I spent a whole day to find nothing. So we now take one hour a week where people that catch our attention as we do lives, we invite them in to see what our company's about and then we help them figure out what they want to be when they grow up. And along the way, if an opportunity we have happens to align with where they're at in life, then we'll talk about pay and all of that stuff. And we really don't have an interview till it's actually an interview. We just hang out with people that catch our attention and we see if we catch they catch our attention and vice versa and then just get to know them at the, at the human level. And that's how we've done it. Yeah.

Give us a sense for where your business is today. How many folks you got working at that shop of yours?

We've got between and we're seasonal, so we'll have a piece where it really ramps up. We've got about 90 people between office sales, marketing, estimating crews. We have, we have independent contract crews, employee crews, all that. And it's a lot of people I directly work with and lead an executive leadership team of four other people that run. It's about a $2.5 million revenue company, which revenue doesn't matter. Right. We'll talk about profit in a minute.

Well, $2.5 million, that's impressive. And what I'm hearing is you're at the stage, actually you're even demonstrating it today that you aren't necessity for the day to day survival of your business. Because literally called you this morning, said, hey, can you hop on a podcast? I really want to get you in the show. You're like, yeah, you can do it today. How have you afforded yourself that flexibility that your business doesn't depend on you all the time?

Yeah, no, I love that. And actually we were working literally when we sent you that video, we were working on a strategic operating plan for our business. And one of the things we realized, other than the fact that we really aren't following the pumpkin plan and you're going to pumpkin slap me, is that when I come into the business, I literally ruin. Not ruin. I, I think I'm giving people autonomy to make decisions, but I'm such a control freak that it's better when I'm not there. And I've developed and found these leaders. Right. We just talked about how did you get all these leaders around the table? And then I give them a role, give them, you know, give them all the autonomy and authority to do so. But then just by me walking in the room, I don't even realize that I just take over. That's just what I do. And they literally, they threw me out. I don't have a key to my own office. And when you called, they're like, you know, do you want to go talk to Mike or do you want to keep sitting here interrupting our meeting? So they said, go talk to Mike.

You know what's so funny is I think many entrepreneurs say I'm not good for my business, I need to get out. But they don't. They say it, they don't really believe it. And they insert themselves and they continue to insert themselves because they know what's best and they damage the business. How did you make that change from just that logical realization to a truly emotional realization that you executed on? How did you really get yourself out of the business?

It actually happened yesterday. And I can literally tell you the exact moment because it just happened yesterday. But part of this strategic operating deal that we're doing is you lay the lifeline of the business. This whole story that I'm telling you, we basically relived M and d Painting's entire 11 year story yesterday. And once that got out and we had a chance to look at it from 275 different angles, the executive leadership team that was there, that I have said, hey, this is your thing to run. I left and I had to go run and grab. I was going to bring him some Spanish coffee back to the meeting. They're like, all you are. All I'm good for is getting them coffee, right? Like an intern or something.

And we question that with the way you make orders.

Well, you know, Mike, we'll go to Spain and I'll show you. I'll show you how you order coffee and ice cream the right way. So no. So I leave, I leave there. And I was, I mean, literally everybody listening to entrepreneurs ask yourself this question. I just had to meet with my attorney to update my will. And he goes, matt, you've got everything in order about if you die tomorrow or you and everybody goes or whatever. What happens with this? That, what about the business? Is that clear? And I get this tinge. I go, oh, man, it's not clear. I think I know that they know and they really don't know. So we get this lifeline of the business done. And they said, hey, Matt, go get me some coffee. So I went home to do that and I just had this sense of peace. I go to open the car door, I get in, I stick the key and I hear the little beep. And I sit down and I just, I took a breath for a minute because I don't do that often. And I sat there and I go, whoa, whoa. I actually have a minute to take a breath. And I said, if I got hit by a truck on the way home and died, I feel with 100% absolute certainty, clarity, period. Bottom Line that if I die right now, that that strategic operating meeting will keep going. And that Emily would roll in there, my wife would roll in there and say, hey, you know, here's what the family wants. And they would absolutely execute without me, period. And then I. With my coffee and then just ruin the meeting again. So that's why they threw me out of the meeting. I get thrown. They threw me out today, and then they're crushing it over there.

Tell me about the profitability. I know your business is extremely profitable. Can you give us a sense of the numbers? And then how did you pull it off?

Yeah, no, and I was, I was thinking back over that because the first million for me was. It was the easiest, hardest million that we ever made. And I talk about, if you think of building a house, it has to be built on a foundation. And the foundational things that I did in the business were maximum profitability, maximum revenue with minimum expenditure. Make that thing as lean and mean as possible. And we did that really quickly. So that first 2014, we did about a half million. We were up to 1.2 million in 07. And that was the most profitable time. And when I got there, I started getting away from some of just the base, just the basic fundamentals of how you treat people and how you just run good business and then grew revenue for revenue sake. And then I started seeing revenue grow and profit going down, but I was chasing the revenue. So I said, this just doesn't make sense. I then went back to those fundamental things that got me to the first million.

And can you share some of the things that make the bottom line grow bigger?

No. Yeah, absolutely. Is when, just like your book in Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, when you've got three sheets of toilet paper left, you're really counting them. When you've got a big roll, bankroll, whatever, you just don't think about it. So putting money aside, like right now, we'd like to sit on 10 to 15% of projected revenue in just cash in the bank. If we know we have access to that cash, we're just more likely to spend it. So what you talk about, like accounts, we, we know we have the money, but we put it in a place where it's not accessible and say, this is all we are going to operate. You know, we just, just only needing to be one step ahead, just like in 2000, 2005, even though we know we have it. And that's great, but. But that doesn't mean you just need to go spend it, swipe it and just give it out.

So. So even a company that's doing a couple million plus in revenue is you're setting aside hundreds, I guess, two, three hundred thousand dollars, you're sitting aside in cash just to reserve it, and you're getting out of your sight, out of your mind.

It is. Yeah. It's putting it in a different place, knowing that it's there, but not giving anybody access to it. And honestly, it's really me that spends it. My team is. That's the other reason they threw me out there. Like, you're the one spending all this, man. Get out of here. So it's just having that. It's just that human control over. It's the plate scenario that you use in profit first, right? You'll eat what's on your plate. So either hide the plate or put it on a smaller plate.

And what about as you've come into personal affluence, and deservedly so, what do you feel? The perceptions of employees, you know, they're. One negative perception I often hear is they're working hard. It's their sweat. But you're getting all the cash. Is there any. How do you manage that? Is there resentment? Do you hide it? Does it not matter? How's that work?

Do I hide just in terms of.

Your affluence, your own personal wealth?

Yeah, I did. I did for a while. I was on a podcast that interviewed millionaires a couple of months ago, and when I became the millionaire, that was always my goal. Right now it doesn't matter the number. I didn't want people to know. So it's this thing where I decided in 05, right? It's. It's millionaire Matt, Here we go. Boom. And then when we hit that, it was this really great thing. And then all of a sudden I'm like, wait, I don't want to tell anybody. And that was really just because of what I cared about, what people thought. And your raise is effective when you are. If you want to make a million dollars, go find a way to make a million dollars. Why? You know, and I was really beating myself up for a while about sharing that with people. And I actually, this millionaire podcast interview reached out to me about 2008 or 9, and I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. And then it was finally just a few months ago that I said, you know what? I'm okay with that. And people are going to think what people are going to think. You cannot control other people's perceptions and reactions to you Winning in life. So why, why would I stop winning in life for my family? Because some dude down the street isn't winning himself. And that's where that comes from with people. And that kind of sucks, but that is how it is.

That's the reality. Matt, believe it or not. We just raced through the show. It went through, it felt like a second. Matt, if folks want to learn more about your painting business, but also you've built a whole speaking career about what he's done. Matt, could you share where they can learn more about you?

Yeah, it's Matt Shoup dot com. Everything's on the website there as m.

A t t s h o u p dot com. We'll put that in the show notes. And if you need your house painted, it's m&e painting.com mande painting.com.

If you need your baby painted to call. We do a really good job.

I know. You tell me in 30 seconds or less, how did you paint a baby?

So Raul, my painter, he forgot to turn the spray key in the sprayer and the sprayer blew up while the lady was outside admiring the beautiful job. Actually black, it wasn't blue. And he was, she was standing, oh, this is beautiful. You guys are gonna be finished in an hour. And he's like, yeah, okay, here we go. Boom. Blew it up. He called me Matteo. The baby I painted, he's black, she's crying. And yeah, the baby was okay. And I'll share the rest of the story another time with you guys when we have.

We gotta get you back on the show for that. Matt, thanks again for joining us.

Hey, thank you. See ya.

Thanks, Matt.

See you later.

Wow.

You know, it's funny, the last few weeks, these shows are getting faster and faster. I swear they're 40 minutes.

I know. I swear to you, you blink and it's done.

I know, I know. I want to learn from Christina and Chris what you've learned in a second. First, I want to thank our corporate partners. Nextiva is a voiceover IP phone system provider. We use them in house. Fundera is a single source funding site. You go to Fundera, they will shop the funding for you and provide you with those funds sometimes within 24 hours. We have our members. We have 118 members as of today that are profit first professionals. We as members use them for ourselves or for our clients. Fundbox is a single source funding for invoices. So if you have an invoice that's past due, Fundbox will release those funds to you. You continue the Collections and return the money to Fundbox. It's like a factoring business. And the last one is tsheets. Tsheets is time tracking software. We use it in house. Everyone's a fan of Teensheets. Not because their software is great alone. They're just a great company with great people. Actually, all these companies, we know them personally. They're all great. You listener, check them out. Spend the 10 seconds on each site. Fundbox, Fundera, Tsheets, Nextiva. See what they're doing. I promise you, you'll be impressed. Chris, what did you learn from today's episode?

Yes, our corporate partners are very special and I want to congratulate you, Mike. Ever since Christina slapped your hand with a fly swatter, you have not screwed up calling them corporate partners.

I this fly swatter, well, it's still. I'm gonna put it back. I actually hit it from Christina here for next week. It'll be right here.

Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

So what I learned. Well, he made a decision when he was leaving that bank job that he was going to be a millionaire. And you can tell by the way he remembers that moment that that was a pretty serious moment. And how did he make it happen? He says you just. I gotta have faith and belief in yourself that it is happening. It just that rock solid. No doubt. Belief is awesome. You know, I don't know if everyone's built to have that strong of faith or belief, but you can, you can do it. I think anyone can do it. And the last thing is the numbers he remember. He said that he knows if he goes out and works for a certain amount of time, that he'll end up getting a certain amount of business. It's just a numbers game. And he had the discipline to just freaking work the numbers game. And guess what? But he won.

And he did it.

He did. I love that his numbers included two dog bites and some other statistics like that. Christina, what'd you learn?

I think it's fascinating how he talks about bringing on new team members and I say team members and not employees into his company because he's not just looking to fill a seat and he's. What did he say? That he. They take notice of people while living their everyday life and that's the people that they go after. So if you kind of stop. Stop searching so hard and just kind of observe what's going on around you, the people that you are looking for will start to stand out.

Yeah, it's true. And this is kind of off the cuff, but what about our team? Here, you know, we're. We're coaching people on finances. We're working with accounts and bookkeepers, educating. What do you think about our team here?

I have never worked in any type of environment like this before, and it's extraordinary. It's fascinating.

I feel the same way. And the funny thing is, I don't think. I don't think. I know. Not a single person here comes with the skills to do what we're doing. But everyone came with the attitude, right? And look what we got.

Well, because you can teach skills, you can't change a personality.

Yeah, that's true. So I. I love. Yeah. I never felt. I've never felt an environment this strong, and. And I've been fortunate to be with. Associated with some very great companies. There's just a pulse going on here.

Well, plus, you have Mike Michalowicz at the helm, who, for instance, on Cinco de Mayo, makes.

I didn't make margarita here for that, but. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And we did it. We. You know, part of it, too, is, is if we're working together, we see each other more than we even see our family, so you might as well treat like a family. And Christina lined a bowling day for us. Yeah, that was two weeks ago.

We all kind of bake things for birthdays. Yeah, it's. We, like, celebrate, like, special occasions like we do with family. It's great.

Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's awesome. And the final game, the final round of our bowling.

Oh, God.

There was five of us competing. Who, Chris, do you think got the lowest score?

I'm gonna say You?

No.

What?

Second guess.

Is it obvious? Yes.

He was so pissed off.

He won the first game, though, right? Yeah.

So it's funny. Ron's competitive spirit. Like, we're bowling. My first roll or second roll. I hit a strike, right? And I just see Ron grit his teeth, grit his teeth. He's angry. He's like, oh, my God. He's like. McAllister's a ringer. He starts. He went ape crazy. He starts throwing the ball down, and, like, I go, dude, this is lucky, man. Well, he wins the first one, and let me point it out, not by many points. The second one. He gets cocky now, and he's like, he's got it. He's horsing around a little bit. And everyone, including two pregnant women here, destroyed him. It was so funny.

It was great.

It was funny. But I'll tell you honestly, Obi Ron took it with a big laugh, and it was a Real good kind of conjoining of our family or just, it was just a fun experience. And Ron took us all out for lunch. Yeah. Because he lost for me. Here's what I learned. The power of commonality, like your biggest sales piece is not that brochure. It's not that beautiful website or the glossy reference page. It's simply, do you have a bond with your customer? I'm not surprised, but just hearing it from Matt just opened my eyes to that whole concept again.

Beautiful. All right, great episode. Wonderful success story.

Right?

That'll brighten your day. If you're an entrepreneur, a business owner.

Do the same for your business. Why not? Matt did it and I mean, look, look at his track record. He didn't come from an easy life and he pulled it off. No excuse for you not to do the same.

There you go. So this has been awesome. By the way, how do you hear the show? Any podcatcher you want. Itunes, stitcher, tunein radio, there's others. Google Play is going to launch soon. And of course you can hear all our episodes and find them all and find the funny pictures of Mike Michalowicz and our guests@profitfirstpodcast.com.

That'S right. And you know what, One more thing you can, what you can do and where you should go is go to profit first professionals dot com. Yes, that's our website. That's the site that Christina, Ron, myself, Aaron, Jackie, who's a bowling maven, we found out as the ball rolls down the aisle, she starts twisting her body and the ball follows her body.

She literally twists her entire body and.

Like curves and it's a mind meld. That's the site that we collectively support. ProfitFirstProfessionals.com is an organization of accountants and bookkeepers. Our members go out and teach the profit first method. They help help businesses become more profitable. We don't care if you're a brand new startup or if you have a match sized business or bigger. If you're not achieving the profits you want, we have the solution. One of our accountants or bookkeepers. And you need an accountant or bookkeeper anyway. One of our accounts or bookkeepers will guide you through achieving profit levels that you deserve and desire. Now here's the step. Go to private first professionals.com, click on the find button. We'll hook you up with the appropriate member and you're off to the races with Private Profit.

There you go. Hey, profit's the name of the game.

And, and not having profit's kind of lame.

Look at how quick you are.

Cheeky smile that you said on your face.

I wish we got a picture of that one.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks again to Matt and Mike and Christina and Ob Ron even though he wasn't here. Check us out next week. Right, Mike?

Episode 73 coming up.

Yep.

Dr. Sabrina Starling and her client Chuck Parmley is joining us. Chuck's got a overhead business. Overhead business? Overhead garage business. You know, garage doors that open and close. And believe it or not, you can be wildly profitable in paint and you can be wildly profitable in garages if you take the right steps. We're gonna discover where they are. Plus share a couple of our tips with Chuck on achieving the highest levels of profitability he's ever had. Boom.

All right, thanks, everybody. Hashtag profit first. Rock on. Peace out.

See ya, Sam.