Episode 87: Profit First in Style with Caitlin P.

Let's start with this. Let's hit it. You guys ready? Here it comes. It's beautiful. You've heard this before. It's one of the most popular songs of all time in Russia. In Kiev, in one building, fake marching and singing. I wonder what's going through his head. He's like, I can't believe this is what my career is.

He looks like, oh, my.

Oh, wow. What is he doing?

Tight zoom ins. It's like the. The only thing worse than the song is the videographer that performed this thing. It's all fuzzy, fuzzy brown mop like hair. And the zoom ins and zoom outs are just miserable.

Leave that Russian song alone. Join us for the Profit first podcast, episode 87. Yeah, that's how we do it.

Yes. This is how a song should be.

We start the show this way to bring up the energy a little bit. Welcome everyone, to the Profit first podcast. I am Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz. The author of Profit first joined the studio by my colleague Christina Buldak.

Hello.

And you are listening to the Profit first podcast where you learn the alpha and omega of profitability. There is so many ways to be profitable. Last week we learned how you can just exercise your way to more energy, which translates to more profitability. This week we're going to explore a business owner who started doing profit first in her business, and she's getting ready for the next stage of profitability. I'm going to coach her through it.

That's right. Profit is. Yes, it's good. I should have said good actually, during that break.

I got rhyme for it.

Go ahead.

Profit is good.

I'm sorry, I'll say it. Revenue is good, but profit is good.

Er, oh, okay.

I love that. Hey, how about this one? Revenue is keen, but profit is green.

There it is.

He's killing it today.

I'm fired.

This is awesome. So you can find our show on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein Radio wherever you listen to podcasts, whatever your podcatcher is. I use podcast Addict on my Android and the website profitfirstpodcast.com. guess what's there? Seriously, Go look all of our previous episodes and a wealth a bevy of great.

You may even find this video so you can get the La La song. Really getting energy flowing.

We're killing it today with the third world songs. Oh, no.

God, it is a third world.

Well, Russia's not third world, though.

No, no, they're not third world, but it might as well, be, because that's the only place the song was. No, not that Russia should be Third World. That's the only place the song was popular because someone in a third world country, they traded a pair of, I don't know, jeans or something, someone gave them this record saying, this is such a good trade, they took all this record home, they put this on, and for the rest of their life, they listened to the Lala song.

By the way, all the Russians listening, we love you and we don't want to piss you off like we pissed off Canada. Remember that way back when?

Oh, my God, we lost. Yeah, we lost.

Oh, I forgot about that.

Spasiba das Vidana. So, dude, we've been up to.

Bro, you know, I am getting spoiled with this. This local coffee that I buy here in Colorado Springs and my new French press. I'm serious. It's a really light roasted Mexican coffee. And the way it make. The way it's made in a French press, it's just. I drink it black. It's almost like juice. It's so nice. And of course, now the downside of all that is when you go somewhere else and you say, hey, let me have a coffee. It's like, oh, it's like, crap. Thank you. Yeah. So anyway, coffee's in my. In my world right now because we just did the Forbes launch. I was hopped up on coffee.

For me. I go upstairs to check on my daughter who just had wisdom teeth removed. I. I got drinks and water because we're doing so many episodes in a row. I chug water I dropped, drip it on my pants in the worst spot. I got a pee stain from what I was looking down. I'm wearing these new, like, gray pants and it looks like I peed myself.

Yeah. So we started calling him a UPS boy.

Yeah, some wearing these collar pants. Dude, never chug down water when you're wearing pants that stain with water.

So by the way, I learned from an old friend in New York, if you're ever on a subway and there's like shady people on there and you think you might get robbed or something, he's like, just spill a bunch of water right on your area. You know your area, and then just start babbling and drooling and they won't touch you.

You know, I met with Donnie Deutch. Remember that? Do you remember he had a show called the Big Idea, and we were talking in the green room before the show, and I don't know how the conversation came up, but he says once he was in a really tough area of New York. Came out of the subway by accident, and he said, there's one way to be safe, and he'll start acting like a crazy man. So he starts talking to himself, swinging his hands around like there's flies in the air. And he said, no one gets near crazy man, he says. I said, why is that? He goes, because the unpredictability. Even criminals want something that's predictable in their victim. And if you're unpredictable, people avoid you. So there's a lot of truth to that.

Wow.

Pour water down your pants or just pee yourself. Well, it's better. It's better than getting your ass kicked.

Make sure you're not wearing your adult diaper, though, because then it won't even show.

Oh, then everything's ruined. Everything's ruined.

Okay, terrific. Should we get on with the show?

Yeah. Yeah. So today I told you, we have a guest coming on, but we're gonna talk about her business. But before we start that, I want to learn who our sponsors are. Corporate partners.

They are Fundera, Nextiva, Receipt bank, tsheets, and Fundbox.

And thank you to all of them. We're give you more details on them at the end of the show. And by the way, at the end of the show, we will give you a rap summary of what we learned in this episode. Now, this is one of my favorite episodes because we talk to people that are out there, entrepreneurs just like you, who are implementing profit first in their business. And people are at different stages. Some people have started. Some people start and struggle. Some people have had great success. Some people are long into it. Well, Caitlin Poderos is no different. She's implemented profit first in her business that she founded called Style for Today. It's an online personal styling service for women. So be sure to check out stylefortoday.com. she started the company back in 2014 when she realized that not everyone loves shopping as much as my wife does and that she could turn her pastime into something bigger to women, to help women feel more confident about their own style. So it's an absolute, absolute abolute. It's an absolute privilege to have you on the show, Caitlin. Welcome.

Caitlin.

Thank you so much. I am super excited to be here.

And the crowd loves you. Take a bow.

I love them. I am.

Yeah. Now we get a lot of people listening to the show live. They just applaud like crazy. Hey, before we kick into what your business does, how did you discover profit first in the first place?

I actually discovered profit first because I kind of gotten To a point in my business where I realized that what I had been doing as far as managing my finances, there had to be a better way. Like, I was kind of just doing it. I was managing my finances, like, every few weeks. And I remember thinking to myself at some point that there must be a system out here, out there somewhere for managing my finances better. So I started to kind of ask around in Facebook groups for entrepreneurs that I'm part of. And this female entrepreneur group that I'm in, a woman, suggested you, and she suggested your book. And I will say that she totally butchered your last name. I don't even know what she typed out. But I. You know, I had found some, like, random online courses about how to look at balance sheets and stuff like that. But clearly that's not what I was looking for. So I was like, okay, why not? I'll, you know, I'll give this book a shot. And I think if you remember from when I first emailed you, I actually put it on my Christmas list, because obviously that's a normal thing to do, is put business books on your Christmas wish list. And my mom, who is, like, the best gift giver ever, and she's the type of person that does this, like, super thorough research on Amazon and has to make sure it's five stars, and she reads all the reviews. She saw that on my wish list, and she read all the reviews. And I remember when I opened it on Christmas, she's like, now, Katie, I just want you to know, like, I. I read all the reviews about this, and this guy seems legit. So, you know, I think you'll be okay reading this book. And I was like, thanks, mom.

Thanks, Mom.

That's how I ended up with it.

There's nothing better than a mom review. I sent your. You emailed me that. And I was just. I was laughing, and I thought it was adorable and wonderful at the same time. I asked permission to mail your mom a copy of the book for her to have. Did she ever get it?

Yes, she did. She called me or texted me one day, and she's like, oh, my God, you will not believe what came in the mail today. And I was like, oh, isn't that so sweet? Now we have matching mother daughter profit first book.

Oh, my.

And we asked. And we asked Barry about Mike McCallowicz's name. Barry, what do you think about the name McAllowicz?

That's a tongue twister right there. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's one of the worst last names. So. All right, so tell Us about what your business does and where you were, you know, kind of pre profit first. You said you were kind of struggling day to day or you were having these big flows, ebbs and flows. I want to know more details around what your business is. Yeah. What you're experiencing.

Yeah. So when I initially started the business, I started it with the idea that I wanted to help women with their personal style. But when I initially started the business, I decided I was going to do that via an online retail store. So, you know, I went and I purchased inventory and I had an online retail store. And what I was doing was basically selling like ready to wear outfits and what I was calling pre styled outfits. You could literally buy an outfit that was already styled with the top and the bottom and any accessories, whatever. In addition to that, I was also selling just you could buy an individual shirt, you know, if you wanted to. And I was also doing trunk shows. So I would go to people's homes or businesses or whatever and do little pop up shops and that was okay. But as I'm sure most people in retail and in the business industry know, managing and carrying inventory is insane as far as the amount of work you have to do. And then of course the issue of continuously buying more inventory with every season. And you know, you can't just keep the same stuff up. So that was a pretty big determining factor when at the end of last year I basically sat down and I decided that something just wasn't working, you know, with my business the way that it was set up. And that was actually right around the same time, obviously, you know, Christmas, when I found profit first. And I think reading the book and just kind of looking at my business as a whole, I realized that the inventory carrying piece of it was just, it was just not working for me. I mean, I was just constantly, you know, putting money on credit cards to buy more inventory and buy more inventory. And so at the beginning of this year I kind of sat down and I did a little exercise. Super scientific. I basically wrote down all of the different ways that I had generated income over the past year. And I either put a smiley face or a dollar bill sign next to it and if it got a bunch of smiley faces, it was something that I really enjoyed doing. And if it got a bunch of dollar bill signs, it was something that made me a lot of money. So I basically just filtered down and I realized that what I really enjoyed doing and what was making me the most money was working one on one with women to help them with their personal style. Individually versus me just trying to put an outfit together and hope, you know, that somebody out there would want to buy it. So I'm currently, right now, actually, literally as we're speaking, in the midst of transitioning away from carrying inventory, I basically closed up my online shop and now I'm focusing on working one on one with women to help them with their personal styling via an online personal financing platform and just some other really cool things that I've gotten into recently. But the problem is now I still have all this inventory, which I am going to do trunk shows to hopefully continue to phase it out. But I mean, the debt from purchasing the inventory is obviously still there as well. So I'm kind of in this weird time of pivoting between the two business ideas, or whatever you want to call it, and still trying to work on cleaning up what I have left from how I was previously running the business.

Okay, so I got some specific questions for you. I need to know some of the actual numbers. If you're willing to share that. Prior to starting the styling services when you were just an online retail store, can you give me a sense what the annual revenue was and what kind of money you were losing or maybe making when it came to. Yeah, give me a sense.

So I started, I technically started the company in June of 2014. At that time I was still working full time. So it was really, you know, just like a part time gig. And I, I didn't leave my corporate job until December of 2014. So in 2014, I think I sold like $4,000 or something. And then last, actually, I don't even think it was that much. Let's be real, it's probably 2,000. And then last year, 2015, I sold 11,000. And I have no idea what's going to happen obviously this year.

And how much credit card debt did you kind of ring up?

It was, gosh, I want to say like 12. I mean, it was like there was absolutely no profit. It was just constantly, you know, buying and putting it back into the business.

And how much inventory do you have left right now? How much are you sitting on?

I. I think if I sold every single thing that I had right now at an average, you know, 50% margin, I would pretty much be able to wipe out the credit card debt. You know what I mean? Like if someone came in and bought every single thing right now with that margin, but I don't know the exact number off the top of my head because I didn't do my homework.

No, that's. No, no, that's okay. That's okay. You know, the goal. It's funny, it's not about pinning down the numbers because you can get them down to the penny. But we got a real issue here. We got to get rid of your debt, and we're transitioning the business. So a couple more questions. So the current credit card debt you have is 12 grand?

Yeah.

Okay. And with your. You're pivoting over to the styling, the personal styling business. Do you have any clients now? Is that generating any revenue yet?

I have a few clients that I had done some personal styling last year, and it was just a few little things here and there, like a friend of a friend needed help. And I have a few women that have randomly just kind of found me. And as soon as I announced what I was doing, they were very interested in it. I think it was like last year, week that I actually made the announcement on Facebook that I was closing up the shop. And, you know, if people were interested to add their email to this list, and I got a really, really good response and everyone seemed super excited about it, but I haven't moved into the actual styling just yet.

And what do you anticipate you'll sell a styling for? What kind of revenue do you think you'll generate from that?

Well, I. Right now I'm kind of working on doing like different packages. So it would basically be like packages of styling starting at like 150, a 250 package, a 450 package, and then you could add on, you know, different extras, I guess.

Okay, so I got you. So minimally, 150. Okay. Okay. So let me give you a little bit of feedback and then I want you to ask me any questions you have and we'll get your business moving forward. The first thing is you mentioned the word pivot, and I always have a little bit of odds with that term because a pivot in traditional definition means adjust to serve what the client needs. But a lot of entrepreneurs. But it doesn't sound like this is your case, Caitlin, but a lot of entrepreneurs adjust what the customer needs, but ignores what we as the business owner needs. So I like to use the word alignment. And what I mean by that is you have to align with what customers want, but it also has to serve you. Meaning if you're doing something that you resent. Yeah, you can serve customers that way, but it's only a matter of time before you hate to do what you do. And if someone else loves to do that, they're going to beat you. They're going to be better than you. So it looks like you are aligning. So I just wanted to make note of that. But here's the other piece. When transitioning out of an old business that's not working, many of us experience what's called loss aversion. And just as you're telling this story, I'm like, ooh, it sounds like you're going down the path of loss aversion. Loss aversion means once we possess something, we will go to an extraordinary means, often illogical, to retain it. One example is your car. Say you have a car right now, and you are have a loan for the car, and that loan company comes to you and says, you missed a payment, we're going to repossess the car. Typically, we will go to extraordinary means, get an extra job, do whatever it takes to retain that car that we own. The funny thing is that opportunity to work harder to go to extraordinary means, existed to get a better car, but we didn't do it. And what that simply means is that when we're going to lose something, that we make an extraordinary effort to retain it. And what happens when businesses find that their inventory is not turning? You have what's called an inventory turn problem. You're buying stuff, but it's not selling quickly enough to recoup that cash. We go through what's called loss aversion. We're like, oh, well, I already own it. I can't just burn it and get rid of it. I got to sell it. And so we actually cling on to the old business, even though investing that time and effort in building the new business and in many cases will better serve you. Do you see what I'm saying?

Totally. I completely, completely agree with everything that you said. Yeah.

Okay, so let's look at your inventory. If by some freak of nature a lightning bolt came down and destroyed all your inventory, where would you be devoting your time going forward?

Where would I be devoting my time?

Yeah. If you didn't have to sell the inventory because it just evaporated by a lightning bolt, what would you be doing for your business?

Well, that. Honestly, I think I'm kind of at the lightning bolt phase right now, because I have. I decided that I am going to do nothing as far as far as, like, with my time. I'm going to do nothing to manage the inventory aside from selling it at trunk shows, which are, for me, it's a really easy way to just get out there, make some quick cash. You know what I mean? Selling Some things in a few hours and get back. And that's just like, usually, I don't know, it'll be like a Friday night for four hours or something like that. So it's not super time consuming. But that's actually the point I'm at because up until probably two weeks ago I was trying to still manage the online store and take online orders. And I got to the point where I was like, no, this is silly, like I hate doing this, you know, and it's funny because I kind of had to have like a real stuff sit down with myself and realize, is this just hard work and I don't like doing it or is it something I really don't enjoy doing? And I. This isn't the part of the business that I should be involved in. So I am ready to just. I don't know how to get rid of the inventory or how, you know, to make the money to kind of keep moving forward. But I'm at that point now where if it was lightning bolt did strike it down, I'd be like, alright, well it's like one less thing that I have to deal with. But I don't feel like right now I'm devoting very much time at all. I'm completely focused on this new model. Especially because I want to be able to kind of come to my customers with this new offering and say, this is totally it. Not like, oh, I still have a little bit of this and a little bit of that and I'm doing some of this over here. I want to be able to say, hey, this is what I'm offering. It's new and this is the only option. You can't order stuff for me online or anything like that anymore.

Okay, here's what I like to suggest to you. When it comes to closing the other business, we do need to rip the band aid in most cases. Here's some suggestions. Often you can get a tax write off for inventory. Speak with your accountant. But if it was a donation to some location, you may be able to donate all these items. For example, unfortunately there's women's shelters, battered women's shelters, unfortunately all over the country. Because they're needed. You can make a donation of this clothing to an organization like that. First of all, it's something that will serve, you know, the way people present themselves builds their confidence. So it actually caters to the needs that many of these, these people have. But additionally you get the tax write off and the benefit to your business is it's done and we get to Move on. So instead of leaking the inventory out, let's look for it to rip off the band aid. A tax donation is one way to do it. Another one's called a liquidation. You go to a liquidator, they buy in batch, and you do a Google search for liquidators, they'll buy anything in batch. You'll get literally pennies on the dollar. But you get it off your plate. And I'll tell you, from the logical standpoint, it almost doesn't make sense. It's like, well, why don't you take the time to sell this stuff? But from the emotional standpoint, we're still stuck, stuck in the old business. Even if it's just a trunk show here and there. You are revisiting the old business, and we seriously got to grow the new business. So that's what I would do. Okay, okay, okay. Now let's get down to the new business. This has me excited. It sounds like you ran profit first analysis. You saw that your business wasn't having a good inventory turn, meaning you're sitting on stuff, so you're not making money. You discovered something new. Have you implemented the profit first structure in this new business?

Yeah, I mean, I really did. As soon as I read the book, I started doing the 1025. You know, on the 10th and the 25th, I have my little day of sitting down and doing my finances. I didn't let up on that at all. I mean, it really has become a habit at this point. So it's just something I look forward to. And I have to say, what's so nice about doing that is I used to hate sitting down to pay bills and look at my finances. But when I started, I don't know, I feel like this is some sort of like Pavlov's dog experiment or something. But I realized when I started to do my finances, the same day I would cut myself a check, it became like I couldn't wait until the 10th and the 25th. Even if I was only cutting myself a check for $15, I couldn't wait. You know, it was. It became a positive experience versus a negative experience. So I have definitely continued on with that. When, you know, with the Profit first methodology, as I've continued, as I've started to implement this new business, the thing I am really trying to be cognizant of right now is that I know I have a tendency, just like you, just like you talk about in the book, to who want to spend the money, you know, like, oh, well, you know, I should really get this New email, you know, marketing software, or I should get this new website theme or whatever. It's like, it's very easy to fall into that trap of the expenses that we don't really need. And I think that I'm at that point right now where I kind of have to rein myself back in and say, okay, you don't need to get all that stuff. You can, you know, get people signed up with your website just as it is. So that's kind of the tough part right now.

Mike has a tool that helps with that.

Actually, I have a tool that helps with that.

Yeah, it's on your soundboard.

Oh, yeah. Exactly. That tool. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Oh, Chris.

Oh, yeah. I got a little confused there. So here's a couple things for you that will help you move faster. I first want to give you an accolade in recognition. You are going down the right path. You are challenging the believed norm in entrepreneurial society. Most entrepreneurs say it takes money to make money. And we all go down that path. Like, oh, if I want to grow, I got to push money toward it. I'm telling you, it is an abject 100% lie. It does not take money. And if your mom listens to that one, just tell her. Skip over that part with the. But it doesn't take money to make money. What it takes is better questions. And here's what I mean by this. If you ask more empowering questions, better questions about your business, you will experience better results. It happens all the time. You see, if you start asking yourself, how do I start marketing this business without spending a penny? And you ask yourself that, your mind will start clicking away, and all of a sudden they'll pop up and say, oh, my gosh, if I did, if I just supplied stuff for a fashion show, or if I just went to xyz, I would be getting myself circulating there. And I don't even need to invest anything except for a little bit of my time. Start asking better questions. We had an example here. Ron, my business partner, and I, we went to an event. We have a membership organization for accountants, bookkeepers. We're looking to grow it to the next level. And everyone at this event said, what are you willing to invest in to buy a customer? And they were all saying, dollar figures, I'll invest $100 to acquire a new customer. I'll invest. And we said, that's a horrible question to ask. We said, how do we actually make money to get customers? And all of them kind of looked at us and they did the face. They're like, what? We said, how do we get paid $100 to get a new customer? And then they, you know, these are sophisticated people, are like, we never thought about that. So I go out, I get paid to speak, and at the end, customers pay me to join my membership organization. I get paid, I get paid to write books. And at the end of people reading a book, they pay me to join the membership organization. So that exists for you? Caitlin, my question to you, and I'm not expecting the answer now, is what do you, what can you do that will radically market your company and, and will cost you nothing, Absolutely nothing. And that will negate the obvious. The website costs money. That's not where the opportunity is. Yes, everyone else does it. Yes, you should have it. But maybe the opportunity is finding one of the most influential people in your community that dresses like crap and offering a free style session for her. And now you have a, a semi celebrity in your community dressing the part because of Caitlin. And that's how you start marketing yourself. What's your thoughts?

That's a great idea. I love it. I love it.

Okay, so lesson one in starting a business is you got to start marketing yourself and you got to find ways to do it that don't cost anything. That's the profit first mentality. Second lesson here too is kudos to you. You raised up the profit account. I don't care if you make a dollar this year. The fact you've set up your profit and operating expense account and so forth, you're in the right rhythm here because as the business grows, we'll keep in this discipline, never, and I mean never get out of that operating expense account and spend another penny. If the operating expense account has $1, that is your entire expense budget, period. You never dig into owner's pay, profit or tax reserve. Those are all for your benefit. You have to work within that. And the question to ask yourself is, what you. Whatever is in my operating expense account, how do I make this work to grow my business? And you'll find a way.

Perfect. Yeah. And it's funny too, because I have definitely found that initially after I read the book and I, I said, okay, I need to sit down and basically, you know, have what they call in the South a come to Jesus moment with, you know, just sit down, figure out how I'm going to make this work. I was amazed at how many things were just these frivolous expenses that I really did not need. Or conversely, I found other ways to achieve whatever goal that was doing, you know, like file storage. I mean, there was one service I was using that was $10 a month. I found another service for $2 a month. Is $8 a bunch of money? Not. No, not, you know, for one month. But in the big scheme of things, it adds up. And it was just amazing how if you really put time and energy into it, you can find, you can make it work, you can make it happen.

Yes, yes, yes.

That's exactly what I was looking for.

It is the harder path mentally. See, it's funny, the funny thing about profit first is it is mentally. That's the mental exercise. It's a real, real drain on the mental energy. But so important, the easiest lazy path is to spend money. So you could spend $8 or $10 a month on the storage, because that's the first thing that was presented itself is probably a company that paid the most to advertise. So you found them, or you can think it through and do your research, and then you find something that's less expensive perpetually. And, you know, so it saves eight bucks a month, but that's times one year. It's a hundred bucks a year. Times 10 years, you're in business is a thousand dollars. Do that a hundred times over. You saved $100,000. No, it starts adding up so well.

And what I. Sorry, go ahead.

No, I was just going to summarize the exact same thing I was saying. I just. I just want to keep reminding you that there is a better way. It's going to take more mental energy. Keep expending that kind of cash, the mental cash, as opposed to the dollars, and it always will serve you better. What were you going to say?

Oh, no, no, I was just going to say that one little kind of mental trick that I started to do with myself was when I would have those moments when I would think to myself, oh my Gosh, it's just $8. What's the big deal? And then I would kind of do the math like you're saying, well, that's $100. I would stop and consider to myself, if someone walked up to you right now and said, here's. Here's $100 for free. Would you take it or not? And of course, the answer is always yes. So I started to think in those terms of it literally being money coming out of my personal pocket, money that I was taking away from myself. And if it were enough money, obviously that anything over $5 I would take. You know, I mean, it. It really stops and makes you think that it's not, it's not just some number. It's not some random dollar that. That's out there. It's your money, it's your income. It's the way that you're going to be able to go take amazing vacations or whatever it is that you want to do. And I think kind of tying it in that closely together has been a huge help for me.

I love the candor. I'm gonna give you one last exercise to do and everyone that's listening in, you gotta do the same thing. Get a hundred dollars from your bank. And maybe it doesn't have to be a hundred dollar bill. Get. Get it in mixed change and reserve it and just have it set aside. Second, get a pack of matches and tie it to that $100 bill next time you're thinking about spending $8 a month or more. Because it doesn't really matter if you're thinking about spending a hundred dollars here because it's really doesn't matter in the big scheme of things. I want. You know, you're burning that money and here's what you do. Take that money that you set aside, your money, light a match and burn your money. Burn it if you have the guts to do that. First of all, you're a freaking idiot. Secondly, that's the pain you got to feel. You see, when it comes to managing money, it's the visceral experience. I hate credit cards because when I swipe that credit card, I feel no pain. When that bill comes a month later, that's when I feel the pain. It delays it. You have to make the pain of spending immediate and you won't spend. And it's great. You could visualize it, Caitlin, and you can see your. That $8 going away for some of us. For me, it's got to be even more visceral. So I have actually. I got the money right here, Christina. Where it is. Where's my. Here it is. Pack of money. Here it is sitting right here.

It's got a water can.

You see the money sitting there?

Yeah, I see it.

It's hoot.

That's a fire hazard.

Yeah. That's ready to be burned and it's never been burned and I don't spend the money. So use that and it'll keep you in control.

I love it.

Caitlin, it was a privilege to have you the guest. Say thanks for sharing all these details about your business and your candor. You listen, you're a great entrepreneur. People should be buying or getting your direction on style. I wish you the style for men? Because I could totally use it with my stained pants.

Me too.

What? How can people learn more about you?

Well, you can go to my website@stylefortoday.com and I'm also on Facebook at forward slash style for Today and Instagram style4underscore today because of course someone stole my stupid username. It always seems to happen that ways to get in touch with me.

Well, thank you for being on the show, Caitlin, and please give your mom a big, big hug. And thanks for supporting Profit First.

Thanks, Caitlin.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Caitlin. And we want to hear from you in about six months or 12 months or both. We'd love to keep track of how you're doing. Yeah. And by the way, Profit first is so powerful. The methodology is so powerful. But what happens if you don't implement Profit First? So you get nothing.

You lose. Good day, sir. Oh, my God. My favorite movie of all time. That's Young Frankenstein, right?

I don't actually the actor, but I don't know if that was Young Frankenstein.

I was about to say Gene Hackman. It's not. It's Gene. Everyone listening right now. It'll come to me.

Oh, it's from Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.

There you go.

Oh, what's his name? Gene Wilder. Gene Wilder. Gene Wilder.

Gene Wilder. Yeah.

Yeah. Gene Wilder also had a hit song. I don't know if you're familiar with this song. Prior. Prior to his hit with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, he was a singer in. In Russia. Russia. In the most northeastern part of Russia. All right, Chris, we got some business to take care of right now. You know it is.

We do our partners, dude.

Yes. We gotta thank our corporate partners before we do a recap of what we learned today. Christina, who are our corporate partners?

Tsheets, nextiva, Fundera, Fundbox Receipt Bank.

Yep. And I like to thank nextiva specifically.

Yes.

Last week we talked about Fundera and the one stop loan source. Nextiva is a voice over IP phone system. And what it does is it's a corporate phone system at the price of a home phone system. Actually, a lot of our Profit first professional members are converting over to nextiva.

Yummy.

I was just talking with Linda Brown and she's like, oh, I'm calling for my next diva phone. And I was like, I thought you were in the same room as me. Because of clarity. Yeah, because of the clarity is your.

Hand on my shoulder.

I know. I'm like, oh, my God, whose hand is that? I'm like, what is that? Chewbacca or something, and it was Chewbacca. So Nextiva is VoiceOver IP. It's a scalable system. It works with any kind of Internet connection, and it's very sophisticated, or we love it. We've been living on the phone system since we had a phone system. I think it may be back, like, five years now. So check out nextiva.

And what happens if you do not use nextiva? So you get nothing.

You lose. Good day, sir. I love that you like that sound bit. All right, man. What did we learn from you, Chris? What did you learn?

What did we learn from you?

All right, well, it's very clear to me that Caitlyn is at that turning point right now, because when you said, oh, imagine a lightning bolt just vaporizes your inventory, she's like, no, I think I'm there now. So she's in this really awesome state of. She kind of knows she has to change, and she's accepted it. And. And most importantly, she's open to hearing from someone like you who can really shed some light in different areas to really help her make her next decision. So I just. I just like where she is. She's in a really, really powerful place. I mean, this is like. This is like a launching pad kind of moment, I think, for her.

Yeah, I love it. It's courageous, man, because there's social pressure, too. I bet you people are surrounded, but you have all this inventory. What are you doing? You failed. And no one wants to hear that stuff. It's courageous to see through it. It's the right move.

You know, one of my mentors told me, he's like, you know, if there's a CEO or a business owner who has, like, a bunch of factories around the world, let's say, and one of the factories isn't doing too good, and people come to him and say, oh, you got to put more money in, or whatever, he's like, you know what the real leader does? Shut down the whole factory. Boom.

Yeah.

I mean, that's being a leader.

Yeah.

It might not be a popular decision.

But it's the right decision.

The right decision.

Well, you know, I think as a country, we're obsessed with speed and convenience, and we think, oh, you know, $2 for an ATM fee, not a big deal. Or, you know what? I'm going to pay for gas for my credit card. I'll pay the extra 10 cents or whatever. And we associ. The speed with. I can get more done in a day. So you think that that's more success, but profit first isn't convenient. It's a lifestyle. So even though it may be a little bit of a disadvantage in the beginning for you to have to take the time to do it, once you do, you're going to realize how much money you're wasting every day and it'll change your life.

Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a thousand cuts.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks, Barry. Thank you. You know, I think she's at the cling it or fling it mode. Most business owners, when they make a shift, cling onto the past and it kill potential for the future. It's like. Well, I was gonna do an analogy with plants. It's like you have a plant that's not growing yet, you keep on watering it, and then you deprive the other plant that is growing with of water. It makes no sense. But there's this loss aversion that we. Once we do something, we feel we have to see it out. So she's at the cling it or fling it stage, and the most. Most entrepreneurs decide to cling to it and it kills them. The smart ones choose to fling it. I hope we've convinced her, go to that shelter or whoever can be a benefactor of what she has and give it to them. Donate. Yeah. You're not going to make the money that you quote, unquote, could, but you won't lose the opportunity of having a wildly successful business in the future. If she clings onto it, I think she's really stuck. So that's what I wanted to share.

Tremendous. Caitlin, thank you so much for being on the show. Mike, Christina, by the way, if you're listening to this, if you're listening on the web, you can hear us on itunes and stitcher and tunein and you can also rate and review the show. And the website profitfirstpodcast.com has all our previous episodes. But, Mike, you really got to tell them real quick because we're almost out of time about profit first professionals. How important is that organization?

Bruh. Oh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh. You gotta go to private first professionals dot com. Why? We have a collection, a membership organization of the best vetted accountants, bookkeepers, and business experts in the world. And I say world. We have a global presence now. And these are people that have been trained on profit first by me and our team here. And when I say team, it's six of us. We're a tiny team. And we have taught them, guided them through, made sure they implemented profit first in their own business, have mastered the nuances, and then they go to their clients and bring profitability to them. That's you. Now you need an accountant, bookkeeper or business expert. Anyway, tax season, I'm sure your accountant was running numbers for you. I'm sure right now when you're doing your books, you have a bookkeeper kind of checking over. Sure. You have a business expert that's giving you advice. Why aren't they helping you with profit? That's the most important thing. If Caitlin was had a Profit first professional, she was stopped what wasn't working months ago. She wouldn't have to wait for her own kind of challenges to face her to run up a credit card and so forth. Her experience is not abnormal. It's kind of typical, but it can be prevented. Go to profit first professionals.com right now. Do it for yourself. Click on the find button. We will hook you up with someone that you're hiring and paying for already anyway. But they'll do something special for you. They will drive profitability in your business starting today.

That's right. Changing the name of the game in business. That's what Profit First Professionals is doing. So thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you next episode. Who's next? Mike, by the way, Edwin Gaines. Oh my.

She's a business expert. Bring it. And yeah, you're gonna find. Well, you probably heard the book the four spiritual laws of prosperity. Guess who's coming on? She is the author.

That's right. See you next time, guys.

Bye.

Thanks, guys.

Sam.