Episode 91: Next Level Profitability with David Lauterstein

All right, Chris. Oh, that's nice.

Are you red?

Bruh, Bruh. Bruh.

Thank you.

That means I'm ready when I do. That's my I'm ready signal. I do that when I'm ready.

You are now entering the zone of the Profit first podcast, episode 91. Oh, that was loud, bruh.

Eat.

What's up, huh? Bruh, Bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh.

We're bouncing again. We're gonna tell you. Bouncing too. That's right.

Welcome to the show, everybody. It's the Profit first podcast. This is your bi weekly getaway from the world where you get to listen to some yahoos talk about profit, which ends up helping you in the long run. We promise.

It does.

It does. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

He is Chris Curran. And I'm Mike Michalowicz. I'm the author of Profit first and that newly released book that you hopefully bought already called Surge. And I'm joined studio by the wonderful Christina Boldach. Hey, you're listening to the Profit first podcast where we. Brad. Where we. I had to do it because this. The beat was right there. Where we teach you the alpha and omega of profitability. You know, we bring in experts who've grown profitable businesses. We bring in people that face the biggest challenges. Remember a few weeks ago we had Dr. Rob on. Yeah. And we bring in people that are experiencing Profit first right now. One of the coolest pieces of feedback we've got is there like a piece of skin hanging off my lip. I'm talking like this lip flapping. We bring in guests who say, my favorite part of the Private first podcast is when you bring in a real business running Profit First. And now I've had multiple people say you brought in a business that does about 10,000 annual revenue. And I thought I was the only person that planned. I thought every business was at least a million dollars. Thank you for bringing on the small business. We bring in all types of businesses and today is going to be really cool. We're bringing on a business. It's a retail business for the gay community. It's called Nasty Pig. And. Well, we'll ask David in a little bit why he.

How fitting.

How fitting how he picked that fitting name. But first, before we do that, I want to thank. Well, I think our corporate partners. But, you know, instead of me just rambling on, we should also say where you can get this amazing podcast that we produce. Right, Chris?

That's right, because you might be hearing us from the website right now, which is profitfirstpodcast.com or better yet, listen to us on any podcasting app that you have, whether it's itunes or Stitcher or Tunein Radio or Google Play, just launched recently, or any other podcaster. I personally use Podcast Addict. It's on Android, so that's where you can find us. And that's right. This show's about profit because revenue is David, but profit is Goliath.

I mean, you so set me up. You totally set me up.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, that was too easy. That was way too easy. But no, let's keep this going. I like it. You're making it fresh. And a lot of people don't know because it's so professional, this show. They don't know that's made up on the spot because we're so professional.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, God.

Beyond speaking of professional, we got another shout out this week.

Oh, what's that? Who's that from?

This is from Chris M. He wrote in. He said, hey, Mike, we've never met, but I read your book, Profit First. Your Burke. I don't know what book is.

That's fine.

Mike has a book.

Yes. It's like a river, and a book meets.

Yeah, exactly. Profit First a few months back and soon after implemented the Profit first system in my business beginning December of last year. While I'm still in early stages of the system, I've managed to save $26,000 into my profit first accounts. This works. I'm sure you hear these kinds of stories all the time. So shout out to Chris. Congratulations on your success. We're rooting for you, dude.

Oh, dude, he gets a monster kill.

Monster kill.

Awesome.

And this one's for Chris. Thank you.

Ooh, that's a good. I want that sound effect. Good job, Chris.

That's actually a real beverage. It's an energy drink, people. Come on.

Okay, well, kudos to Chris for his success. We'd love getting that feedback. Please email me. My email is mikemicalitz.com Email Christina. It's Christina with a K K R I S T I n a mikemicalicz.com or leave a comment on your favorite podcast broadcaster and we can. We can kind of, you know, feature you on the show.

Yes.

So, dude, before we introduce our guests, just kind of know what you've been up to.

You know, I. I'm speaking at Podcast Movement in July. I don't know if I told you guys that. Yeah, I'm doing a Q A session on audio engineering, but I will say podcast Movement. That's the name of this conference. It's in July, the 6th to the 8th in Chicago. If you're a podcaster or in the. In the field of podcasting at all, it's just a great event and I'm really honored to be able to speak there. And I'm going to be meeting several of my clients who are hosts there. And unfortunately, you won't be able to make it this year, Mike, but maybe next year.

I do want to get out there. Yeah, I feel, you know, we've been doing this podcast long enough now that I'm starting to meet some people in the podcast community, other shifts, and I'm really impressed by the quality and the candor of the people, how sharing they are. There's some communities are very competitive, but I find that podcasters very sharing. I. I do really want to get.

Out there very much so. That is true. Yep.

So me, I go upstairs, I look out the window at my yard, and it's like a meadow. And, you know, it's embarrassing when your yard has become a meadow. There's more flowers and weed type things.

Like thigh high barley and stuff or what?

Yeah, yeah. It's the type of weed that when you mow it for like two days, it looks like grass and then it turns all flowery and stuff.

You know what? That's a good sign. It means you're working your butt off instead of working on the yard.

Yeah, maybe. Talking about working his butt off. His name is David Lauterstein. He started a company called Nasty Pig, which ironically, my wife calls me, so maybe I'm related to the company. Thank you. David Larstein is the king of long shots. He took a shot at growing nasty big. He built his brand from nothing. Nothing people. He did have a business. He didn't have a business plan or marketing strategy. And fast forward and Nasty Pig is exploding now. People told him, first of all, it's a crazy brand name. You can never go mainstream. Not a single department store will pick you up. And he said, guess what? I don't give two Fs about them. I'm going in. They are literally the little brand that could. And after this episode, you're going to want to learn about Nasty Pig yourself. The Nasty Pig himself, David Waterstein. Welcome to.

Hello, gentlemen and ladies. How are you?

Hello, how are you?

Thank you for having me.

I've never heard someone lead off with gentlemen and ladies as opposed to ladies and gentlemen.

Well, you know, Yeah, I guess I think there were two of you and one lady. I got Confused.

I'm just, you know, it's okay.

I put my gender priorities backwards, clearly. So I apologize. Ladies first. Which would be me. So tell me what you want to know.

All right. Okay.

Okay. So you. How did you come up with nasty pig? Like, that is the most controversial name, isn't it?

Well, you know, it's named after my dog, who is named Piggy Puff. I named my company in 1994. It was named after her, but ultimately, it was also sort of a, you know, it was kind of a subversive play on the idea that, you know, people say that men are pigs. So it's kind of sort of owning that a little bit, but at the same time acknowledging that things like misogyny is completely unacceptable and that you can kind of own those parts of being a man, but you don't have to cave into the trappings that come along with it. So it's a little bit. It's a little bit poetic. But, you know, that's kind of where it stems from, is that it's okay to be a guy and to have those parts of you, but, you know, reject the bad things that come along with it. So tell us about that.

Tell us about the products that you sell.

So we design, manufacture, wholesale, and retail. Everything from underwear, jeans, socks, hats, sweatshirts, rubber sheets, harnesses, you name it. We're kind of a little lifestyle brand, and we do.

Yeah, I have a very particular lifestyle when you go to rubber sheets and stuff like that.

Yeah, well, you know, it is a particular lifestyle, but the riches are in the niches, as they say. So I discovered that. So that's what I'm working on, you know, but we offer a lot of products, a lot of product categories.

Now, how did you get started? Were you offering all these products? Or did you start with just jeans, for example, or maybe just sheets?

I started selling these homemade prism defraction goggles out of a pink hello Kitty knapsack at nightclubs.

Wow.

It started with just this little, tiny product. I wanted to start a company really badly. I was raised on hip hop, and I saw these hip hop artists turning crap into gold. So I followed that lead. I turned $1 into two. And then we used the money we made to start buying fabric, and we began telling our friends that we could make them shirts and pants, and we started selling to our friends. So it's really a little. It was that easy, you know, there was no business plan. Nothing other than a desire to make something. So, yeah, that was back in 1994.

Okay. And all your products are under the nasty pig brand, Right?

That is for better or for worse. That is correct.

Okay, so everything's under your brand. In 1994, you make your first product. I presume you don't have a background in manufacturing. Retail. How did you learn to do all the stuff that you're doing now?

Yeah, I'm a poetry major.

Are you serious?

Yes.

Where'd you go to school?

I went to SUNY Binghamton. So, yeah, so I was a poetry major. I have no idea where it all came from. I just wanted to make something. I wanted to start a brand. I wanted to represent. I came out of the closet, and I wanted to represent. I saw that there was no real cultural representation, and I just kind of felt like it was my calling to inspire people and to do something cool. So I just began making things and selling things. And then I. I saw this little tiny store on 22nd street that was 7ft by 8ft. It was the size of a closet, and it had a for rent sign. And I called up and I found out that I needed.

Are you saying you went back into the closet?

Well, that. That. That would not be possible. Once I move or open my mouth, there's no hiding me. This little tiny store. And I called to rent it, and they said, well, you need to incorporate a company. So I called, like, 1-800- incorporators or something like that and literally just began making it up as I went along. I had to learn. We just learned how to do everything one step at a time. Sometimes I have no idea how I got to be running this global company that manufactures all over the world, but, yeah, it's just a lot of hard work and a lot of learning.

And so give us a sense for the size of your business, maybe the number of products you're selling, how many customers you have. If you can give us revenue numbers, too, it just gives our audience a good sense of what you've grown.

So we did 3.2 million last year. We do about 1.4 on our website, 1.3 to wholesale accounts, and the rest in our retail location. So we sell to about 80 stores around the world. We've got a very large, you know, b2c.e.com audience. And, yeah, we sell about 60 different SKUs. We are a seasonal. Well, somewhat seasonal business. We make a lot of underwear that acts as the fuel of our business. And, you know, we just constantly change up our offerings and make stuff that ideally you can't get in. Get at H and M or the Gap. You know, that's Really, I really consider my business. It's me against Amazon. I tell my staff all the time all we have to compete on is our culture and our differentiation. So, yeah, that's kind of my philosophy.

Do you sell at all through Amazon or you're exclusive of them?

One of our partner companies, one company that we work with that we sell to, sell some of our stuff on Amazon, they've approached us. But, you know, for me right now to go through the trouble of setting up all of the. My website kicks ass.

So.

Effort in, effort out. I don't want to set up all the SKUs and deal with it. We took a meeting with Amazon last week and I told them that I'll find my own drones to deliver product with right now. Nice. Yeah, go ahead.

Flying pigs.

Why is your website kicking ass?

Why? I think it's authentic. I think it speaks to our customers. It's not an out of the box website. I talk to my customers in a way that no one else can speak to them. I've got what I call the Nasty Pig magic formula and it kind of comes through in everything we do. So we make a great product, we make it easy to order and you get the experience of having a company that shares your values. I'll work with you.

Yeah. As I'm pulling up your website, I think Amazon wouldn't use your tagline, which is fun clothing that gets you laid.

We actually got a write up in Page Six yesterday in the New York Post about that. So, yeah, it's a good. That tagline works. I tried to write many, many, many mission statements and I really think that that one that I wrote in 1994 is the best one.

I think it's fantastic because it speaks to exactly what you're offering to your community.

Right, Exactly. It's, you know, as I learned business I did go to, I got a free education here in New York at Fast Track. And the more I learned, the more I left behind some of their conventional ideas and went back to that tagline as my mission. Like, that's what I'm about. So, yeah, so that's why they come back. Because who doesn't like to get laid?

Yeah, it's good. Touche. That's a good point. I mean, yeah, if anyone's listening to show saying, I don't like that you're not fit for this show.

Yeah, probably. Probably. I think I'm a big fan.

Yeah, I'm a big fan too. I'm a big fan too. Okay, so let's talk. So your business, you Got a niche. You're doing $3.2 million. You're cranking. You're cranking. And you sent an email to me. You're like, hey, Mike, I implemented profit first. Why did you implement profit first? Why does a guy like you nev need that?

Well, let's talk about cranking.

Okay.

Hey, now, you know, you know, a car can crank along and be kind of getting nowhere fast if it's not doing the things properly. So while I was focused squarely on revenue and growing my business, my sister, who actually just started a company following in her insane brother's footsteps, recommended your book Profit First. And I read it. And from the opening, when you began to talk about Frankenstein's monster and all these different things, it was as if you were speaking to me, Mike. I felt like I had found my long lost husband. And what I realized was that my focus was really, you know, I was consuming cash as quick as I got it in, and I was the exact. You know, you definitely made me feel like I wasn't alone in my pursuit of my business and all the things that I was really doing wrong. Even though sales were up 25% last year and my revenue and my profit was up, I realized how much I was doing all of the things that you said. And at one point in your book, you said something like, take a breath. And I did. And I was like, this man is speaking to me and probably a million other guys like me. You're doing us entrepreneurs a real service by letting us know we're not alone.

Oh, well, thank you. That. That means a lot. It really means a lot to hear that. So. But tell me about the position of your business. So you told me 3.2 million before you started focusing on your profitability. Were you not profitable? Were you living check by check?

So. So we were. So we were. We were finally achieving profitability. You know, we've been profitable all along. And then in 2013, was the first spring of 2013, my business was. I was flush with cash. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to rent a new store. And I had no budget, and I renovated, and it cost me an arm and a leg. And then I was going to pay for it out of incoming profits and incoming sales, which didn't materialize. And before you knew it, I spent a quarter million dollars that I didn't have and I wasn't able to recoup. And then I found myself in not, you know, in not just trying to pay that off, but in growing a manufacturing Business. And as you manufacturers know, you need money to make things all the time. So in 2014 and halfway through 20, you know, I found myself in stuck and still stuck. And that's when I stumbled upon your book. After I had to take a. They call them alternative lending. We can call them predatory loans. I had to take one last September. I went to my bank and tried to get a commercial loan and they told me that Due to my 2014 numbers, I wasn't eligible. But I told them, I'm reading this book, 2015 is going to be great. I'll be back at the end of 2015 with my tax returns. And don't you know, I just got approved and I paid off those horrible loans with a nice low interest, five year loan.

Oh, congratulations. Tell our audience how if you're trapped under debt, you're not you can't get loans. How. What's the method you use to turn it around? What are the specifics that you did, David?

So well, what I did was basically I knew my 2015 was improving, so I worked very closely with my bank and I let them know, you know, that I was. I knew where I was heading and I let them know where I was heading. And. And then I proved it with my tax returns. Half of dealing with bankers nowadays is convincing the people between you and the underwriters that you're the right guy for the loan. And I showed them how smart I was, and I showed them that I could do what I put my mind to. And after I was able to show them that we recouped our losses in 2014, they went to bat for me because they believed in me. And in business, every great business leader has to get the people around them to believe in him. So, you know, you can't get anywhere with shitty numbers. But if you make your numbers good, people will take you a lot more seriously and go to bat for you. So, yeah, so it was a long process. It took about eight months, but I got it.

It's kind of ironic that to get money, to borrow money, you actually have to have money. It seems the reverse.

Well, you would think, right? You would think. But the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, your dreams are worth a lot more than someone else's risks. So as entrepreneurs, I think that's something we all have to become comfortable with and really understand is that what looks like a giant P of cash to you can look like a giant pile of poop to somebody giving you money. So, yeah, that's what I'm learning.

Are you allocating now a percentage of your income to profit immediately?

Oh, yes. So as soon as I read your book, the first thing I did was I went and set up four separate bank accounts.

Boom, boom. Nicely done.

So one for profit, one for taxes, one for. One for operating expenses, and one for production expenses. But I did. What I did in October was I spoke to my accountant who does my books every day, and I told her, every day you were going to take out 1% and put it into profit. 1% put into taxes. And then I diverted the money that would come in from my American Express receivables and my checks from my companies, and I put that into my manufacturing account, and everything from MasterCard and Visa and PayPal went into my production account. So I had money being divided all the time, and it really started working. Because what I found was that when it came time to cut my big purchase orders to make stuff overseas, I had spent all my money. So now I've been tucking money away that I couldn't touch for production, and then along with money for. Towards profit and towards taxes, and that money accumulated pretty quickly. So.

And did your business. I mean, if. If the same amount of money is coming in and the only thing you're doing is dividing up money to other accounts, didn't that negatively affect your business? Did you have to shut down stores? Did you have to reduce your product offering? What was the other side of this?

None of the above. So what I'm doing is, what I did was I'm starting to learn to live with less, as you recommended. I went and I began trying to cut some expenses I didn't do near. The one thing I wish I would have done, Mike, is I wish I would have gone right in and tried to cut 10%. But my sales were strong, things were good, and I was able to tuck that money away and then use that money. You know, after my first quarter, before I rose it to 2%, I took the money that was supposed to be for profit, and I paid down some debt. I took all the money that I this year that I had saved towards taxes, and I actually put it towards my funding my Iraq, which was fantastic.

Nice, nice.

So I was able to get. So I recouped some losses from 2014, and I'm getting a refund, and I was able to pay my full IRA contributions.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

It felt pretty damn good.

Yeah. I hope people listening in are like, listen, listen. What David's doing, it's working. Good, good. And the irony is we've now interviewed so many people that are implementing profit first that when you, when you start dividing money up, the logic is, well, clearly you have to compromise life. You have to compromise, cut all these different costs. You have to reduce stuff, remove stuff. And most people like, no, nothing really changes but profit increases because you become more frugal, you, you are more selective in what you do, but you don't have to cut the significant things that you have. So David, tell me where you stand now. What's the next obstacles you're facing? Your business to get you to the level that you want to go.

So the obstacles that I'm really facing and that I'm facing head on is that this year, last year we saw 25% growth and this year we had a great January, a great February, we had a tough March. And what I'm realizing is that my business in terms of cash flow can be very fragile. So what I'm really facing is how to sturdy up every single part of my business. So I'm attacking everything from my expenses to looking at all of my sell through on every single product for the past three and a half years, tightening up my manufacturing strategy and recognizing that basically if my business ultimately it is better for my business to contract under its own weight and suffer through some hardship than to keep propping it up with debt. And so right now, but what I've done is, other than getting a low interest loan and taking off a horrible loan, which by the way, you'll love this, put $31,000 a month of operating capital back into my business. Wow, how do we like that number people?

31,000 people here like it. The people like it, like it.

Thumbs up, thumbs up from the people.

But then I also went out to my landlord at my retail space and I said, look, you know, the neighborhood is changing. We lost three clothing stores on the block. I've been a tenant of yours for 16 years. Give me a rent reduction. So 1500 dollars a month came off my rent for the rest of the year. I reached out to my landlord at my office and I had, you know, I was back on rent and there are their accountants sent me a real estate tax bill which he had mailed, which I never got from 2014. And I got, I negotiated that off. I was like, you're supposed to send me everything, you know, electronically. Can't send me letters and then send me a statement. And it appears so what I've been going to bat, I called, I called ups. I'm negotiating low rates with UPS and you know, I'm just attacking everything and recognizing. And then, most importantly, looking forward and looking to my customers and asking myself, what do they really want from me? I'm reading the Pumpkin Plan, so I am calling.

You are reading some amazing books, David. Amazing books.

I want to be that. That hick of a farmer with straw in his mouth and a pair of overalls.

Oh, my God. I really good body. Yeah. So are you mocking my lanky body?

Oh, I was just envisioning the dude at the pumpkin patch. I just assumed he was kind of gnarly.

No. Oh, there's a picture of me with straw, kind of posing. I thought you were mocking my lankiness.

All right, stop hitting on me, Mike. Stop hitting on me.

I'm trying to get you a little pumped. I'm trying to get you excited about me.

Calm down.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's my man. So here, listen. I want to give you a couple tips for your business, David, and then I got a little game we're going to play. So here's the tips. You can ask yourself better questions. Better questions get better answers. And I encourage you. Everything you look at every day, you ask yourself, how do I double my revenue with half my current costs? And it's an absurd question. I'm saying, how do you do 6.4 million by spending half of what you're spending today? Which I know is absurd, but big questions will find the stepping stones to get the answers. You have a lot of things going on, manufacturing this and that. I just want you to ask a bigger question. And then I think six months from now, we'll do an episode and you'll say, oh, Mike, this is what I did. So how do I double my revenue with half the cost? And I suspect you'll find it. The other thing, very profit first specific is you can set up a drip account. When you have a business that spikes, you get these high points, and then it drops. You said, did a great January, February, and then March kind of sucked. What you can do is normalize that money by having a drip account where you put all your deposits in for January, but you let it drip into your true income over three months. So January deposits come in, and then they play out over January, February, March. The February deposits come in. They play out over February, March, April, and now your income will normalize very quickly, but it'll flatten out those spikes. That's called a drip account. We often do it with seasonal businesses that sell for holidays, for example, the Christmas season is very big for some businesses. They make all their money in two months, but they need to drip it out over the remaining 10 months so they spread that money out. And the way they see their business is radically different. So that's my two tips for you. I got a little game I want to play through real quick. Ok, good, Chris. And you're the other. You're the other player.

Okay.

Okay, here's the game. I've pulled up some terms that are popular in the gay community, but are also also popular terms. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to ask Chris, you first. What is this word mean? And then, David, you have to tell us what it really means.

What is this word mean?

Did I say that? Yeah. What does this word mean? Okay. Does that make sense, guys?

Yeah.

David, you game?

I would say it's the most fun I've had with two adult men in a long time.

Well, you're married now. You're married. All right, Chris, here it is. Chris, you want some game show? You got some game show music over there.

I do. Okay, here we go.

Here it is. Welcome to the game show. What is this gay word? Chris to you first, the word basket. What does it mean? What's a basket? Give me your straight definition, Your straight definition. What would you think? Yeah, how would you use it?

Like an Easter basket. You put, you know, some things in it Or a shopping basket, you pick it up when you go into a grocery store.

So it would be fair for you to say, David, where did you hide.

My basket, for example, on Easter morning? Absolutely.

Especially Easter morning. David, what does it really mean?

Care for Chris? Setup?

Well, yes. Yeah. Hiding your basket, huh? So your basket is your combined penis and testicles as seen through a pair of underwear. So if you want to hide your basket on Easter morning, you let me know.

Oh, yeah. All right. The next one is full house. Chris, what does it mean to have a full house?

That's when you play cards and you have three of a kind and a pair in. In one hand. That's a full house.

So would it be fair for you, Chris, to say, I possess a full house?

Sometimes when I play cards, I could stand up and say, I have a full house here.

Right. And, David, was it really me?

You know, I have no idea. But I'll probably give you an even gayer answer. It's where the ulcer. But I don't even know what a full house is. Odds are I've done it, though.

No, no, no. So here's what a full house means according to this definition. And then I want to hear the even gayer definition. This definition says it's a term used to denote when you have more than one sexually transmitted infection at one time.

You know something I'm learning here. I thought I was going to learn about, you know, about profit first, so I'm learning about gator.

All right, I got two more. David, do you know what a Girl Scout is? Before I ask a Girl Scout other.

Than the kind that sells cookies, no.

Wow, dude. From the gay dictionary that you sent me? 50.

Sent it to you.

Oh, you didn't. Who sent this to me?

I don't know.

Maybe it was my wife. Someone sent me the gay dictionary.

It was on your bookshelf.

All right, well, a Girl Scout is a military man on leave, currently seeking sex. He's Girl Scouting, but I guess that's something like it. All right.

Oh, I should write the book.

You should write the book. Here, let's do one more, and then we'll call it a day. Do you know what a $9 bill is, David?

Oh, my God. No. I feel like. Where are you getting these terms from?

From the gay dictionary.

The gay dictionary from 1912.

You're stumping the nasty pig here.

How about yesterday? Do you know what yesterday is?

So. Hey, wait a second. What is stumping? Now, why did you look that up in your.

No, no, see, well, I'm doing the cleanest ones. I got stuck. All right, we'll do stumping. Let's do stomach. Here's my guess. This will be our last one. Stumping. I think stumping is like stomping, but, like, where? Where? No, no, that doesn't work.

I don't.

Chris, you have any idea what stumping is?

No way. You crazy.

Yeah.

And, Mike, in the interest of keeping the show on the air, I will not tell you what I think. Stomping. It's stomping. It means. So we must have two different definitions.

Oh, my God, I am bright red.

I did not realize that this would. This podcast would go this direction.

Yeah, we embarrass gay men on the show. So here's the embarrass.

Everyone.

Everyone's embarrassed. I'm embarrassed. All right, so what does stumping mean? As. As PG as you can make it.

I'm really. Mike, you don't want me to go here, Mike.

All right, we'll skip it.

Skip it for our curious listeners. You go research it up and start blushing yourself. But. Okay.

All right, when the podcast ends, I'll let you know what I've been told it means.

Okay, you tell Us after the show. That'll be our bonus material. Hey, David, if people want to buy some Nasty Pig products and learn more about you, where should they go?

They can go to store.nastypig.com they can come to our retail store at 259 West 19th Street, New York City. Or you can Google us and find us at a number of stores around the world.

Thank you, David. I encourage everyone stop by the store. Even if you listen, maybe you're not in the community that wants to buy products like this. David has made his business wildly profitable. Meet with the owner, get really curious. And I found when you learn about other industries, if it's not your industry, you often find opportunities for yourself. David, a privilege having you on the show. And I'm gonna look up what that word means. Well, I'll listen to you afterwards. Just hang with us and we'll hear what it means. Okay, perfect.

Thank you guys so much for having me. And, Mike, I think what you're doing is an incredible service to entrepreneurs. And if I make encourage anyone who listens to this, like, really read his books because they make a fuck ton of sense.

Well, thank you, but I think we lost our listeners an hour ago, so. Oh, David, thank you. All right, hang tight. We're gonna talk to you in a second. And we in the studio here gonna talk about what we learned from David on today's episode in just a minute. But first, I want to thank our corporate partners that make the show possible, please. You know, I said we have the Nasty Pig himself coming, and Fundbox said we're there. Fundera says we already did business with them. Nextiva says we are the phone providers for them. Receipt bank said, we scanned so many Nasty Pigs in our lives, that's all we do. And tsheet said first customer we ever worked with was Nasty Pig. So none of that's true. But the sponsors are still with us, and I want to thank in particular, Receipt Bank. Receipt bank is the most recent sponsor to our gaggle of sponsors. When you go to Nasty Pig and you make a purchase just like any other retail store, they will print out a receipt. And you. If it's. If it's a bit. If you buy those rubber sheets for business purposes, you can write that off as an expense. You know, I don't know what business you're in, but you can write off as an expense. You scan it with Receipt Bank. It absorbs it in it, then links it to your bank account. It sorts it reconciles it for you, and it categorizes It. So when you have to do this for tax deductions, if you need to report it to a client of yours that you're a rubber sheet collector, whatever it is, receipt bank automates that whole process for you used to be the shoebox. No more. Check out receiptbank.com. we use them in house here and love them.

Yeah, and our other corporate partners are really special as well. We, you know, we talk, we highlight one each episode, but really, all five of them are great. Go to the website, profit first, podcast dot com. You can click through and see them all. Because you use them all, Mike. They're all really special companies. They're not just, you know, people we have on to take their money.

No. Yeah, well, it's exactly right. I mean, their money's wonderful. It. Don't. Let's not deny that.

But we use it all, too.

We use our stuff. No, they're great companies and great people. Check them all out, please. So, all right, what did we learn today, Christina?

What'd you know? Boats. Ton of stuff. I don't know what a boat ton is either, but I'm just making up words.

That's a gay term. You know It's a gay term.

Is it?

Yeah. You wouldn't. Yeah, I can't even say it on that.

I know, Barry. I agree. I learned that David is a badass, and I. I just find. I find people like him so fascinating who just can take an idea and they're like, yeah, you know, I don't have a business plan. I'm just gonna start doing it. And I've always been a planner. I'm always like, no, I gotta plan out my steps and write down a list. And he just went with it. And he grew this wild success. And sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, you know what? I got this awesome idea. Let me see how far I can take it.

Love it. For me, it was clothing that gets you laid. That was my takeaway. And here's. Here's why that's such a power. Here's why it's such a powerful tagline. He is speaking to his community. If you're offended by that, I'm sure David is happy about that. Because you are not his customer. If you are intrigued by that, if you get. You see the humor in that, if you connect with it, you are his customer. We have a responsibility to filter out the people who aren't a fit and filter in the right fit. That is a killer tagline. And we're navigating his website right now.

We'Re looking at baskets.

I've never seen so many baskets. I went to the underwear stacks. I'm like, oh, I can't click off it fast enough for the right community. This is perfect. It speaks so strongly to it. This can't be on Amazon. David is a freaking genius.

He is a genius.

He's speaking to the community that he's selling to so effectively. So. Well, I'm not surprised at 3.2 million.

Riches are in the niches. Bitches.

Well, you know, after an F bomb was on the show, you can say bitches easily, so.

Exactly.

I know, I know. What'd you learn, Chris?

Well, two things. Number one, he said early on that early in the interview that he learned as he went along, which is, it's great, you know, the attitude of learning and growing and expanding and gaining wisdom right as you go. The other thing was he mentioned his quarter. A million dollar project, which he had a bunch of money sitting there and he's like, oh, I have this idea, I want to do this and that. And he ended up spending a quarter million dollars. I don't. And it ended up being a debt for him for. For a while. I think this happens to all of us business people and entrepreneurs. I think not on that scale of a quarter million dollars, but there's always that little bit of money, you know, you have set aside and you're like, oh, I want to do this. You have some maybe not crazy idea, but little stretching, you're stretching, you're reaching a little too far and then it gets you in trouble. So I think Profit first helps prevent that. Right, Mike?

Profit first does exactly that. And that's why we started. Well, that's why I started Profit First Professionals. I want to tell you about that in a minute. But it's amazing how when money just flows into our business and we are not pre allocating it, we just see money piling up. We make these decisions that feel very logical. I can open a new store. I can do all these things. We spend all the money without accounting for all the other requirements for that money. And I want to congratulate David. He's very human. It's all of us do that. We see money and we look at the immediate and we don't consider the long term. That means you're a human being. By allocating money to these different accounts, it gives us a different awareness. And the greatest irony is nothing else needs to change. You don't need to make more money. You don't need to do anything else. But by pre allocating money to different purposes, operating expenses and so forth, it becomes very clear what you can do and when you can do it. I think it's courageous for a guy who's doing 3.2 million. You know, revenue is vanity, profit is sanity. That's not my life. Yeah, I stole that from someone else. But it's the absolute truth. When we see the money flowing in, we're like, oh, let's look at the vanity. More stores. More, more, more. But when you allocate profit first, it brings about sane thinking. You do smart decisions. I'm proud of David. Many people at the 3.2 million dollar stage think they're beyond profit at first. No, no, no. I don't care if you're doing 10,000, 3.2 million or 32 million. It's worked for every company that size and bigger.

That's right. And speaking of drip accounts, this show twice a week can drip into your brain. You can basically absorb all these profit tips every week. You can also rate and review us in itunes and stitcher as well. And Mike, really, Profit first professionals, you know people, you're not alone. I'm speaking to you. Who's listening? You're not alone here. There's help to make your company more profitable, right, Mike?

Yeah. And this is regardless of the business you have. Nasty pig. I remember originally reaching out, seeking a profit first professional and I actually, we asked David off air. I'm not sure who he's working with, but we connected him. We've had some of the most traditional businesses. We had a company, it's a hundred years in existence that's decided to implement profit it first. We've had businesses in all fields, manufacturers, lawyers, everything conservative to the most liberal you've ever seen. That would put David to shame. Well, all these types of businesses can benefit from profit first because profit is sanity. Here's what you need to do. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com we have accountants and bookkeepers and coaches waiting for you. Now these are folks. Listen, you hire accountants and bookkeepers anyway, I know it. Why not hire one that can specialize in, in driving profitability in your business? They've been certified by our organization. They've been trained in our methodology. Many of our elite members have been trained by me personally. All of our members have been trained by our small crew here. Six of us here, we meet with them regularly and they know the method to drive profit in your business. One step, go to profitfirstprofessionals.com, click on the find button, fill out our little form. We'll match you up with the best suited Profit first professional for you immediately. And you'll have results like Dave. Now you won't be losing money, you'll be making money. Remember, revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity.

That's right, Profit first. It can help all of us. Find out about it. Grab it, hug it, love it. Profitfirstprofessionals.com thank you to David. Thanks, Mike. Christina. We'll be back next episode. Right, Mike, With.

Yeah, you know, listen. We do major gear shifts from Dr. Rob to David Larstein. Now we're going on to Zarek Bohoxian. He was born in Armenia. He moves. Listen to this. For safety. He moves to Iran. Right. Think about that. Then comes to America and has to get started. How does a foreigner build a successful, profitable business? Zarek is going to tell us a story. It's a humbling story. From being spit on in a restaurant. Who's the waiter because of his accent. To designing the system that runs the International Space Station. Zach is the guy who did it. He's gonna teach us all of that. And you can do the same.

Yes. We'll see you next time, everybody. Thanks for listening.