Episode 95: Refreshing Profitability with Jacqui Rosshandler

We have a Magic 8 ball here. Let's ask Chris. Are you rolling by?

I'm rolling there, yeah.

Yeah. Let's ask the major eight ball. Jackie, is your baby gonna pop out today?

Oh, hell no.

Okay, you're good, you're good. What's it gonna take to get that baby out? Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay.

Actually, Barry has an answer to that. Was it gonna. What is she gonna need to have to give birth?

You're gonna need a couple of horses.

Or a couple of mules.

Yes, yes, yes.

Oh, no, not at all prepared.

All right, we're rolling here, Chris, we're ready to ride.

Oh.

Oh. I hit the damn timer.

The timer, hit the timer.

So, Chris, this is the first time we've ever done an episode in studio where everyone's standing, all the equipment, like the timer, the recorder, it's all down. So I got to squat down. I don't know.

I know. Can you get the lumberjack to take a picture?

You guys, lumberjack's not even here. His desk is covered with boxes. We gotta get shipments out.

Really?

It's a. It's a train wreck.

Two man show today.

Yeah. Two man. It's just me and you.

That's right.

One and two.

I think it's a three man show. It is a two man show.

Well, you're listening to the Profit first podcast on npr.

No, not really.

No.

But you are listening to the Profit first podcast, episode 95. Yes.

Oh, my God. Almost coughed up a lung.

I know, I know. The reason I get jacked up like that, Greg Eisenberg.

Eisenbies.

Eisenbies. Eisenberg was the guy from that TV show, Bad Born, Born and Bad. Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad. Greg. Like, dude, I love the grunting in the beginning. So that was for Greg.

There you go. And I almost hurt myself grunting. Well, welcome to the show, everybody. We really appreciate you listening to the Profit first podcast. My name is Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Frack the Recordings.

And I'm Mike Bukalowitz, the author of Prop first, don't forget. Also my newest books out there called Surge. And you, you're listening to the proposal for you. You are listening to the Profit first podcast and you're in the studio with Christina Bulldog.

Hey there.

So standing today. Oh, this is the podcast where you discover all the elements of profitability. We talked about how you do it in aquaponics, in ponds. We've talked about it and how you're a badass. Quite a few weeks today. We're going to talk about how you do in bre.

This is serious too. This is a serious episode. You can hear us as a podcast everywhere. Itunes, Stitcher, Tunein Radio, Google Play or any podcatcher. I use for Android, I use Podcast Addict. There you go. And our website, profitfirstpodcast.com and here's my challenge to you. Go to profitfirstpodcast.com you'll see all the episodes including this one. You can comment on each post. If you have questions or comments about the guest or Mike or something I said was stupid, comment on it, tell us and. And also you can share your experiences there as well. This is an interactive show.

I got to pull up the comments. I haven't recently. So we got to look because we may have questions in there for us. Yes, we've been asking for those. So do put them up there. We will look. We haven't.

Well, you get an email every time there's a comment. You should get an email.

No, dude, that's not happening. Because I went there and there was like really four or five comments up there.

Yeah, I didn't get email.

May's going to my spam filter. Let's look.

Set that up. Yeah, let's find.

So, dude, we've been up to, man.

You know, my wife and I went on this hike the other day and I, you know, I was on Google Maps and I'm looking at this hike and it's like, oh, five and a half miles. Not bad. Okay, what 20 minute miles? That's what hour and 40 minutes, maybe two hours. I'm like, okay, cool. We go there and apparently we didn't know this, but the first mile and a half climbs 1350ft in elevation.

Oh my gosh.

And once we were like halfway up, we're like, what the hell? And then so we got to the top and we're like, oh my God. The view was spectacular. But I really didn't know it was this extreme of a hike. I didn't know. But here's the thing. If I knew it was an extreme hike, we wouldn't have went on it. So what we did is we got to the top, we went all the way around. It was so cool. We would have never had that experience. And I wonder in life, the things, you know, the things we rush into as fools. Sometimes it's better not to know how difficult something is, right? Just run. Just go do it.

That's true, right? You have never done if you knew. Yeah.

Anyway, what have you been up to?

Well, here's My new thing. I'm doing a little new bit for us. It's my. My stupid comment on Facebook. I like to make jokes on Facebook, but, you know, they're risky. They're risky daily. My. My old roommate, Phil Nunnelly. I haven't spoke with Phil since college. He's a great guy. Phil Nunnally says this is 25 years ago. Phil Nunnelly, who hasn't heard from me, but we are friends on Facebook, said we. I guess he's referred to him as wife. We went to Target today, and I could barely get in the bathroom for all the transgender people beating down the door. Ha, ha ha. Right. So my response. Phil spelled F I L L, because of course, Phil, were you one of them? Oh, question mark.

Yeah.

He hasn't heard from me in 25 freaking years. And literally, could you imagine, like, you wouldn't go to your college or high school reunion, someone you haven't seen 25 years? They say something like, oh, are you a transgender? Yeah, you would never. You would never. But on Facebook, I feel so emboldened.

Oh, man.

Wow. And of course, there's the old jokes. What's Your last name? McCracken. You know?

Yeah, yeah, he's heard that a million times. That was who I called him, actually.

Oh, okay.

In college, no, I would call him Phil, but I always write F. I L is how I spelled it.

Like chick, fil A but not fil A. Yeah, right.

Today's guest is going to be amazing. But first I want to thank our shout out we got and then our corporate partner. So once you say.

Yeah. So this comes out from a mystery listener.

Ooh. Can we get the evil laugh, please? Underneath this, it's like I'm standing.

Sorry, sorry, I can't do it.

Go ahead, Christina.

I can give you that.

He says, Hi there. I've been listening to your podcast on and off for several weeks and have just started to read and listen to Profit First. I am so happy and excited for the future success of my business. I've just graduated with a master's in accountancy and started working on my business at a more full time level. I just wanted to say thank you for that and I truly do appreciate all you do. I hope that after I have been in business for at least a year and I've established a client base, I too can become a Profit first professional.

Oh, yeah, we'd love to have you on board. That's cool. No wonder they didn't share their name.

I know.

Because right now they're not Profit first professional. Right now they're embarrassed. I mean, how can I not be? It's like once they become. They'll be telling their name to everybody.

Yeah, it's like a seed that's growing, Mike. We need to nurture the seeds.

Nurture the seed.

Nurture.

So, by the way, my new coordinator that I hired, she. She. She's a profit first podcast listener. She told me.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

Is that how she found you or you found her?

No, she's local here in Colorado Springs and.

Oh, you've made her one.

Yeah, no, no, no.

She.

You know what? I don't know. I think I met her husband and then. I don't know when she started listening. I met her a couple times, but she just started listening. She's like, oh, I listen all the time.

So let me get to this part. On my script here, it says soft sponsor. Thank you. Company one name is so Company one name is T Sheets. Company two name is Fundbox, Nextiva, Fundera, and Receipt Bank. I want to thank all those companies. We'll give you more details on what they do. But those aren't just companies that support this mayhem of a podcast, but they also are companies that we use. We use all their services and truly love these companies. And don't forget the end of this episode. You're about to discover something unique and interesting, and we're going to discover or discuss what we discover that we think is unique in interesting at the end. God, why am I stumbling so much?

I don't know.

It's a freaking standing. I may not make a standing.

Right.

And this stupid vibration thing like my. I'm not staying straight enough. That's the problem.

Oh, you're still wearing that thing on your shoulder that vibrates.

Three weeks. Three weeks, AKA three hours. Her name. Her name is Jackie Ross Handler. You know, the first time I met Jackie was I was doing a pilot TV show called Bailout. And the concept of the show was businesses that needed to have a major shift in their paradigm. Well, she has a business called Eat Whatever and it's a breath mint, but it's a really cool concept. I'll ever explain why it's 2 mints you take kind of in sequence. It's not even two mints. It's two kind of pills you take in sequence. Fascinating. Well, she's doing it. She comes on the show. I'm the host, and my job is to challenge her to in. Her challenge at the time was marketing. I said, why don't you have people walk around, eat an onion in front of someone and then take your breath mints and see how it just immediately defeats that. And she's like, I don't know if it works. So on the show, I grab an onion, I take a huge bite out of it, and I go, hi, how are you?

Her face turned green.

Yeah. And she got divorced from her husband a day later. Oh, well, that's what she said. I don't know if it's coincidence or phenomenal.

Oh, man.

Is that right, Jackie? Am I being right?

I'm laughing quietly.

It's totally accurate. Well, Jackie, you now are the inventor also of Woof Mint, but. Well, first let me welcome you to the show. Then I'll ask you questions. Welcome to our show.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Welcome.

Yeah, thanks for joining. So what exactly is eat whatever?

Eat whatever is an internal breath freshener. So, you know when you've eaten onion or garlic and you brush your teeth or you chew gum and you just, like, cannot get rid of that smell. And that's because the smell is actually coming from your stomach, not your mouth. And all those other things just target your mouth. So I created a breath freshener that targets your stomach as well as your mouth. It contains two components. One is a vegan gel cap that you swallow. That's the one that gives you the fresh breath from the inside. Then you suck on the mint for a bit of instant mintiness in your mouth.

So what's in a gel cap that gives you freshness on the inside?

All natural. Good stuff. Parsley, peppermint, sunflower oil. The gel cap itself is vegan. It's made out of seaweed.

The.

So there's no artificial anything. There's no animal byproducts. It's all nice and clean.

So one of the killers, particularly in the sales realm, is when someone has rotten breath. Like, I've been to an appointment or a meeting and I'm talking to the person next to me, and, like, your eyes start watering and it's so distracting. Jackie, how do you approach someone and say, hey, you should be having some. Eat whatever.

You know, it's funny. Cause every time I offer it to somebody, they say, are you trying to tell me something?

Thank you.

Most of the time I'm not. Most of the time I'm just like, here. You know, this is what I do. It's easier than giving somebody the spiel. I just give them a pack and then they work it out. But there are definitely times where, I mean, I was in a spin class this morning. Person next to Me had rank breath, and it was just revolting, and I had to sit next to it for 45 minutes, and it's just not fun. So how do you do it? I think, yeah, you just kind of offer them the product that's generally the easiest way. And. And if they get offended, then they're. They're crazy because you're doing them a favor. Really?

You're doing a favor. Yeah, but it's the old booger on the face. Like, if I tell you, you got a booger hanging out. It's embarrassing in the moment. It helps you, but it's embarrassing in the moment. And I couldn't see myself in a sales meeting or something where some guy stinking up the room with his breath and saying, hold on, everyone, please stop. This guy's got to take this breath, man.

I just figured out a way around it. Mike, how's that? Take out your phone. Go. Oh, my God. I just got an anonymous text message from someone in this room that says you have a booger on your face. It wasn't me. I just. A text message from someone.

That's a stupid idea. That's very public. I actually have a friend who works in an office with a guy who he said had the worst breath. And he said to him, he was like, listen, your breath is terrible all the time. My friend makes these breath fresheners. I'm gonna start buying them for the office. And it's changed their lives, apparently, the whole office. Than, like, every day for introducing this guy to eat. Whatever.

Do you ever get any pushback from customers, though? You know, since it's a pill, that would be my concern, because I'd be like, oh, God, I gotta take another pill. Yeah, no, I mean, like, you know, like Advil. Or you get, you know, like, is it concerns with the liver? Like, I said it in a bad way.

I don't know how many pills you're taking, but. No, there are definitely some people. Sometimes, like, elderly people, are a bit worried because they're taking a lot of medications at the same time. A lot of their medications make their breath smell. So we do have fans who say to us, like, my medications make my breath smell bad. I've been taking your product, and it's helped a lot. There are a lot of young people who literally swallow anything. So that's the upside. But for sure there are. And I kind of say to people, look, everything new, everything you eat, you swallow. Like, it's not that. I mean, it's a tiny gel cap, but it's a Mental thing. And for some people, that's a block. And, you know, you can't please everybody, I guess.

What are some of the innovative marketing you've done to get whatever out there?

Oh, my God. I've done a lot of crazy things. One of the funniest that you can see on YouTube if you go to the Kissable Breath channel, is I ran around Miami in a fake kissing booth handing out samples of Eat Whatever to people in the streets and did videos. And that was pretty fun. And got some, some attention doing that.

How did this kissing booth work? Like, you were sitting there.

It was like a box over my head, and I had my arms out the side of it.

But were you kissing people?

I was. I was pretending. I mean, I was really encouraging couples to kiss, like, giving them product and being like, okay, guys, kiss. Tell me if it's worked, sort of thing. But there are a lot of, like, weirdos who were like, can I come back and test it on you? And that sort of thing.

Oh, that's always fun.

That's always fun.

You get used to that after a while. Selling a breath freshener. I gotta be honest.

Did you have any creeps come up to you and bite a whole onion and blow it in your face, or was I the only creep that did that to you? So what about, what about going to doctors who are assigning. You said when people eat medicine, sometimes it changes their breath. Do you build relationships with companies? Like, maybe a doctor who's assigning medicine saying, here's one other thing you can give as a sample to these people that have.

Yeah, I do that with my dentist. So my dentist puts the packs in her goodie bags for her, for her patients, doctors. I haven't done. That's a good idea. Maybe that's something I should.

Yeah.

See, I need you in my life.

Like, you kind of do. Like, I think I've been a life changer for you. I, I, you know, every. I think this is gonna be a routine. Like, every five to eight years, I'm gonna jump in with your life, like, totally, and, like, leave. I'm a turning point person for you.

I think it's important.

Yeah, the baby will make some difference. But you'll make more difference, Mike.

Right, right. That your baby will be born the first day. They'll be, you know, it's, it's tradition. I know you're originally from Australia, right?

Yes.

So I don't know if you know this tradition in America, but whoever's had the biggest impact on your life, you assign your Baby's first name, that person's last name. So when your baby's born, her or his first name has to be Michalowitz.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

What a beautiful name.

The next 24 hours, then.

Oh. How can you be at spin class if you're about to have a baby? How come you're at spin class?

Because I'm insane.

You are insane. So you come up with this product, Woof Mints. I think it's a killer idea. How did you come up with this idea?

Well, it was pretty interesting, actually. Eat whatever works beautifully for humans. My business partner's daughter went to her vet, said, my dog has the worst breath ever. I've tried everything. My father's involved in this product. Eat whatever. Do you think I could give it to the dog? And the vet looked at all of the, you know, ingredients and said, absolutely. This is human grade stuff. The dog will be fine. So we tested on the dog and the dog's breath was incredible. So we realized, okay, there's something in this. So we started creating a little modified version for dogs. And we did some clinical trials with the New York Animal Medical Clinic, and the results were great. And it was deemed completely safe. And we launched December, sort of early December last year, and we launched in conjunction with Barkbox, who were very helpful with us in giving us some sort of great articles, talking about how the product is really fantastic and how their dogs love it and. And now we're selling it everywhere. And it's, it's kind of amazing. I mean, it really, really works for dogs. And I think people even notice it more than the human version because dogs are in your face so much. I mean, if a dog loves you, it is breathing on you, it is licking your face. So once you've given your dog wolf mints, you can really notice how amazing their breath is after taking it for a couple of days.

So we have an office dog, Daisy, and her breath is a little rotten at times. How do you get a dog take a pill? I could never do that with my dog.

Yeah, usually we just put it in their food and they'll just eat it. Otherwise, a little pill pocket, a little cream cheese or peanut butter, whatever their favorite little snack is. We haven't had a lot of dogs that won't take the. Take the product.

So I want to get into understanding how you pulled an idea into reality. I mean, you did with Woof Mints, you did with Eat Whatever. There's thousands of people, like three people listening to the show, but there's three people Listening to the show, who have amazing ideas. But the question is the execution. How did you take these concepts? Perhaps start with eat whatever and make it into an actual product?

Well, that's the thing that makes you an entrepreneur, right? You actually make the idea happen. So I always tell people I had no idea what I was doing. I asked a lot of questions. I sounded like an idiot. I mean, I went to trade shows. I sort of had an idea in my head, at least for whatever, that I wanted to create a breath freshener that was internal. So that was my idea. I guess the first thing that I did was I went to a. The Natural Products Expo in Anaheim. And at the time it was much smaller. Now it's kind of a behemoth and would probably pay. Very intimidating. But I went there and I started talking to gel cap manufacturers and I learned a little bit about gel caps and that most of them are made out of pork or beef. And I don't even eat pork or beef, so that wasn't going to work for me. But I did end up finding like a vegan gel cap manufacturer. And so I would, you know, call companies and I would sound like an idiot and I would ask silly questions and they kind of thought it was funny a lot of the time. I think maybe the accent's helpful and. And I just, you know, try and start learning things. And I made plenty of mistakes. My packaging at the beginning was all wrong for major retailers. But I guess the good thing was I didn't have millions of dollars to spend. So I always think to myself, had I been given a lot of money at the beginning, I would have blown a lot of money at the beginning. It was good that I was bootstrapping and sort of finding my way because it allowed me to make those mistakes and they weren't so detrimental to the whole business in the end. But yeah, just asking a lot of questions. The other thing I find that's really important is asking other people in the business or in similar businesses. So I had a lot of friends in the beverage business and I asked them a lot of questions about distributors, about margins, things like that that I had no idea about. People are often worried that other people are going to steal their ideas. They're not. I mean, it's. It takes so much work to create a product out of nothing that I really think that you're better off asking questions and learning things than worrying that people are going to steal your idea because the chances that they will are just slim to none.

Do people feel threatened, though, by you I mean, you're going to similar businesses. Maybe you went to other people that made even breath mints. Are you going to other people? And they're like, oh, here comes a new idea my way. I'm not going to share anything.

I don't think so. And I've had a lot of people approach me who, I mean, I'm friends with people who make gum, who make mints. I've had people ask me for, you know, what packaging company I use who make mints, and I'm 99.9% of the time happy to share all of those contacts because it's not really competition unless they're making a gel cap that you swallow that gives you fresh breath internally. I don't feel that it's a the same kind of product. And I like sort of helping other entrepreneurs because it's good karma always comes back.

Talk about some of the failures you had. You said some of these ideas you had were totally wrong. You weren't prepared for the retail market and stuff. What are some of the big mistakes you made in the beginning?

Well, it's kind of funny because one of them was that my packaging originally sort of said Suck and Swallow all over it.

I do remember that. That's when I met you.

Yeah.

I'm wondering why those creepy guys were approaching you when you had that box over your head saying, suck and swallow on it.

Okay, terrific.

Now we know the answer.

Now you know the answer. So, you know, in some ways, it got the package, it got the product some attention, and it did get it into some stores kind of quickly. But, you know, people like Duane Read said, look, we like your product, but there's no way we can sell it like this. Bed Bath and Beyond said, you need to change it. So we changed it. And that was okay. It probably would have saved me, you know, a year and a half if I had gone into the market originally with packaging that was more mainstream. But then again, maybe it wouldn't have gotten the attention like the PR that it got without having that crazy packaging. So you live and learn. I don't know the answer to that.

I remember you went through the rebranding for Bed Bath and Beyond, and the original concept, you said, you know, suck and swallow doesn't work. So you came up with Suck harder and swallow faster. So what did. What did you rename or rebrand it to?

It's incredible that it's just not a household name yet. No, we changed it to Swallow a gel cap, Suck on a Mint. So it's not very Naughty anymore.

That's funny, that. I mean, that little difference. Interesting. And are you in the Bed, Bath and Beyonds? Are you in these major retailers now?

So we're in all of the Duane Reads. We're in quite a few Whole Foods Fresh Market Fairways, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Trial Dust, and a whole lot of different stores. They're kind of interesting to deal with. I think the product is in some stores, but not nationally. No.

And now tell us about some of the smart things you kind of came across on your path. Is there anything you did? Just not knowing the industry? You just did it. And it's like, oh, my God, that was a great decision.

Good question. I think that some of the seeding that we did was a good decision. I think we, you know, we didn't do things like spend a fortune putting them in, like, gift bags at the Oscars. And I think a lot of people do things like which, you know, unless your product is available in every corner store, there's no point in really doing that. And those gift bags are usually not, you know, Brad Pitt isn't usually digging into them. It's usually gives it straight to his assistant. And, you know, it doesn't really have the impact when you consider how expensive it would be to give away thousands of product and probably pay a fee on top of that. Really clever things I did. I don't know. Leave that with me. Maybe I'll come back.

Hey, by the way, I have actual, actual audio from the Bed, Bath and Beyond representative. When you asked them if you could. If they could have your product.

Oh, what'd they say? What's here? Nah, it ain't gonna happen.

Yeah, that was it. So.

Inside you're laughing so hard, Jackie.

Yeah.

Yeah. So is there suggestions you have for other folks who are innovating to grow their business to pull off what you've done successfully for themselves? What would you tell other people that are aspiring to do what you're doing in their niche?

I would say make sure you're creating something that isn't just a Me Too product, because there are so many out there. So, you know, unless you're really differentiating yourself somehow, there's no point in creating another Me Too product unless you have millions of dollars in marketing, you know, to spend on marketing, and then that's fantastic. It's, you know, it's an interesting game going into mass market. You're competing with big brands that have, you know, big marketing spend. So you have to have something that's innovative and special. And I think also you know, the big thing with business for me, I always say, is go with your gut, because you get a lot of different opinions about things, but at the end of the day, you always have to go with your gut. So whether it's packaging or the name that you choose, all of those things, at some point the buck stops with you, and that's why you're doing it. Gosh, I. Again, I think, you know, asking people who you respect, their opinions. I think networking is a very big thing. I think, you know, the friendlier and nicer you are, the more chance you have of being successful as a salesperson. Mike, I think you'd agree with that. There's lots, you know, gosh, there's, There's. There's a lot of lessons I've learned along the way, but there are a couple that I can think of on the top of my head.

Well, I think there's one question everyone's asking in their head. It's about profitability.

Yeah.

Christine's like, oh, what's coming? What's coming? Oh, Lord. When it comes to profitability, what have you done? You've been in business for so long now. What have you done to ensure your sustainability and your profitability?

Well, I think we've tried to keep our. Our operation very lean. So we haven't spent a lot of money on, you know, hiring people. We outsource people to do our social media. We outsource people to help us with our shipping, and we find good ones. You know, we don't. We don't waste too much time with people that aren't great. So we're happy to pay a little bit more for somebody who's fantastic, but at the same time, saving money on office space and things like that, we haven't. We have really haven't wasted a lot of money on those things. Another thing that I. That we've learned along the way is when it comes to trade shows, doing every single one isn't going to help you with your profit. So you have to be sort of careful about which ones you. You end up doing. So trying a few and then working it out is pretty important. Talking to other vendors, learning from their mistakes, what they spent money on that didn't work, that's always kind of helpful. But, you know, we really. We make money and we pour it back into the business a lot of the time, and we don't spend money on superfluous things. I think that's been really important for us.

All right, Jackie, you gotta go have a baby. But before you leave us. Where can people learn more about Woof mints and whatever?

Wolf Mints are available online@wolfmints.com eat whatever is available in stores all over. It's also available@eat whatever.com and Amazon.com yeah. Both websites have plenty of information about the product, where it's made, how it's sold, what's in it, et cetera.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. Great to chat to you as always.

Thank you, Jake.

I'll talk to you in five to eight years.

Best of luck. Best of luck with everything, Jackie.

Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

See you, Jackie.

Bye.

So in a second, we're going to recap what we learned. I'm also going to answer a question that came in via email, the 70 page question. And I have an idea, Chris, for that. But we'll talk about it. Kind of. We'll cut this. We'll literally cut it out. But I got an idea. And then. But first I want to thank our corporate partners.

Yes.

Who did I say isn't featured? I can't remember who it was. Was it Fun Fox? No, that was last week.

I believe it twice.

Who should it be? Who do you want it to be?

Are you guys still standing by the way?

Yeah.

Oh my God.

I think so. We can't see our script. I say Fundera.

I was just gonna say that.

Okay, so first I want to thank Receipt Bank. I want to thank nextiva. That's our voiceover IP phone system. Receipt bank is it gives you technology to scan your receipts and instantly with your iPhone fund box, which is invoice financing. And who am I missing? Oh, tsheets. Time tracking software. Fundera. Fundera is one stop loan funding. It's funny as Jackie's building her business here and she said I had no money. There was a time, I'm sure when she found it was working, the product was selling. At that point, she may have needed some more money to get bigger distribution, better distribution. I don't know if Fundaira existed back then, but if it did, I wish you would have gone there because you can get a loan literally overnight, 24 hours. They turn loans around 24 hours. Now they don't provide the loan, they shop it out. So they'll look at your local bank, they'll look at large lending lenders and they'll find the best option for you. So Fundera, whatever you need a loan for, use them. But the lesson I always have behind that is don't just borrow Money to borrow money if I got to market more. But you have no idea if the market is going to work or not. Don't borrow money for that. Figure out what's working first.

Right.

I love. Well, we'll talk about a second, how lean this business was when she started and how it resulted in good decisions. Chris, man, what'd you learn today?

You know, I learned a lot. One small thing I learned was that she's not threatened by so called competition. I really like that. In fact, even in my book, I talk about the being, you know, in a competitive mode or a cooperative mode. And really there's just. The world is too big to worry about competition. I mean, in some industries there is some direct competition, and in that case you have to worry about it. But as an entrepreneur, not much. But when you asked her about profitability, I thought it was very interesting that part of her answer contained the fact that she outsources people instead of hiring them as employees, and she's willing to pay more for quality. And it reminds me of when I used to be in my family business selling roofing and siding. You know, in the, in the roofing industry, you always have the real cheap guy, right? The guy who says, I mean, if a normal roof is five thousand five bucks, the normal roof is five grand. He'll come in and say, I'll do it for 2,100 bucks. And some people actually buy that. But here's the thing, the guy doesn't actually do it for that. He ends up charging you more or he never comes back. So the line is cheap, is expensive. And I really, I really like the fact that she's willing to pay more for quality and that helps her profitability. That's what she said.

Oh, totally does. That's what she said. That's what she said. No, I believe you, man. You don't have to. That's what she said line after that. I believe you. No, I agree with you. What'd you learn, Christine?

That it's not always the best decision to have investors up front because the more money that you have, the more of a chance you have to spend it stupidly just to overspend on things that you realize down the line that you don't really need.

Yeah, for me, a few things. I thought that the suck swallow tagline is a good one because it is edgy and it was intentionally that way. And you know, if people get offended by it, that's the consumer base. They'll never buy from you anyway. There's another group that says I get it. It's funny. And there's another group that says, I don't even care about it. I just think it's a good product. So I think that was cool. Is edgy. But at a certain point you get to a certain size, you have to comply with the large corporate mentality. You know, as we produce this show, people are like, mike, it's. It's kind of edgy. You goof around a lot. You insult your college buddies on Facebook. Like, why do you put that on air? That's not what the big radio stations do. You'll never get big. And I'm like, the only way to get big is by being innovative, different, and authentically myself. Plus, it's the only way to be happy.

Right?

I'm not gonna fake be yourself, be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. I mean it. A couple other things. Accent was helpful. Over and over again. I hear it's these elements that are not mainstream. Help you stand out. Okay, that was it.

His note page looks like a treasure map.

Yeah, I know. Avoid the me Too product. Oh, that's what. Yeah, that was the last thing they avoid the Me Too prop. Like, what the hell does that mean? Yeah, and you know, that's the bane of so many startups. So many startups go, oh, I got to simply do what everyone else is doing. And oh, that's the death nail. Can you imagine being a little business saying, well, the big companies do this. I'm going to replicate it. Exactly.

Why?

Yeah, you're get your ass handed to.

You and charge more.

Try making the next Coca Cola. Try making Coke's product copy it verbatim and say, hey, look at our soda product. Tastes like Coke. Just like. But it's not Coke.

It's more expensive.

Oh, yeah, More expensive. Yeah, you're done. But if you come up with, what was that product? Was it Surge? I'm promoting my book Surge. The reason it surge, it was ten times the sugar. No jolt. Jolt.

Oh, yeah.

Ten times the sugar content or caffeine or something of. Of Coke.

Surge was as well.

Oh, was it? Oh, and they exploded because they were different. Yeah, but people, like, people have heart attacks. People, hopefully not. But it's the uniqueness and the oddity that got people's attention.

Yes.

We gotta be different.

Well, I hope people buy the book Surge because it's wonderful. And by the way, we give our takeaways for the guests. But what you're listening. You have a business, you're an entrepreneur, you have ideas. We would love if you go to this post of this episode and every episode and give us your feedback. What was your takeaway from this interview? Or maybe even what was a question you might have asked? How about that? And maybe the Prince of Prophet will get back to you. Or Obi Wan Kenobi.

You know, I do have one thing we'll add at the end. There's a question came in from Helen Faulkner about Prophet first. So maybe we can do our little fade out thing and then I'll read the question and I'll give you the answer.

All right, so we'll, oh, this is cool. We'll end the show and then we'll do a fade out. Then you'll do a little bonus Pete.

Oh, yeah.

Seriously, rate and review our show in itunes. And Stitcher. You can do that? Of course. You can hear us in anywhere. Anywhere you hear a podcast. And another thing I want to say, I feel like I'm. I'm stepping up on a soapbox here. But look, you're listening to this show. Why? Because you want to run a more profitable business. You want to create the life that you want to live. And you're listening to Mr. Michalowicz because he has so much knowledge and experience in this area and he wrote the book Profit First. But here's the thing. In your business, there's other people who can help you. It's called an accountant. It's called a bookkeeper, it's called a coach. I mean, there are people that can literally meet with you and talk about your profitability and say, hey, let's figure this out.

You know, we've done 95 interviews and every single one had a little profit tip, a little profit lesson. Jackie's the conversation we had, Jackie, today, just interesting ideas about mistakes that are made in retail and using the wrong packaging and stuff. Well, listen, we've done more than 95 interviews for my books. I've done now hundreds and hundreds of interviews. Our members, accounts, bookkeepers, coaches, hundreds of interviews combined. It is a huge volume of knowledge. And we've put together, we stitched together all the things that make businesses profitable and all the things that don't. And a lot of things that people do don't make businesses profitable. Don't go another day in your company trying to focus on the top line. It's time to focus on profit. But you need a method to get there. Profit first works. We have the proof. We have the case studies. I'm revising the Profit first book and re releasing it with more and more case studies. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com you can do this. Second, go to profitfirstprofessionals.Com click on the find button, fill out the little form. We will introduce you to a Jackie, Christine and I are shaking our heads back and forth. Go to the profit first professionals forum by clicking the find button, we will find you an expert that will guide you through profitability. And here's the one biggest bonus. When you visit the website, you don't have to have eat whatever bread death mint in your face. They can't smell your stinking breath, but they'll get in your face. They'll get in your face. Oh man, will they get in your face about profitability. It's time today, starting now, to make your business profitable once and for all. One easy step, profit first professionals dot com. Click on the find button plus two steps fill the form. Three steps click on submit. Four steps and you're in.

That's right. And you think an accountant or bookkeeper will cost you money? Well, guess what? If they help you be more profitable, they'll make you lots of of money. So profit first professionals.com thanks again to Jackie Ross Handler, our guest and thanks to you, Mike. And thanks Christina. And thanks of course bro, to our background players, the lumberjack and Obi Ron Kenobi. Love it. So we'll see you next episode. Everybody stick around for the bonus in about 30 seconds. I don't know.

See you.

Bonus time.

So, Chris, this question came in from Helen Faulkner. She owns the Saddle Camp and if you want to check out the website, saddlecamp.com au seems like there's an Australian theme going on today.

Oh, wait, hold on. This. Is this her pa her question was how many pages?

Oh, and her question is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pages and not double spaced. So hang tight. I got a long reading to do. Take a deep breath. Hi, Mike. First off, a huge thank you from my family for your brilliant book. My husband and two older boys, 5 and 7 years, are at the movies to see civil war with our wonderful neighbors. Thanks to our owner's draw account. See, they're making some money. There's severe winds outside today, so I've canceled our bookings, sat down to paperwork and without guilt or worry over them spending too much money, sent them out for a great day. Then here's the real question. So here it is. In summary, I have three choices. I can ramp up the heat, beg Laura, she's. Well, you heard me talking about Laura already. To come up five days so that I can take a week off so I can afford. I can hire someone to give me more time. Or I can cease running our supportive, albeit also profitable, program through the school term and devote more time to the other business. Or I can accept that my thought is a lovely idea, but it's not. When it's going to work out, stop banging my head and call it quits. You know, here's the answer. None of the above. She forgot to give answer D None of the button. If you want to grow a business that you're passionate about, when you start implementing private first and it tells you that you can't run your business profitably, it doesn't mean you can't run your business. It says you can't run your business profitably based on how you're currently doing it. Ask a better question. Ask the question, Helen. How do I run my business profitably? Do I need to double my rates? I will tell you there are consumers out there for your very cool Saddle camp who are willing to pay a massive premium because you only work with four students at any given time. You know the people and they have the right money. The right people with the right amount of money will say, wow, that's exactly what I'm looking for. And we'll pay twice, three times, five times the rate. You got to ask a better question. How? What steps do I need to make to make this exact business I love already profitable? And the answer will start becoming obvious. Double the rates, run more efficiencies, attract a different type of client, extend the length of the training, whatever it is, start asking a better question. The problem I had is reading through your whole thing. It's wonderful. I'm so thrilled you're doing profit first was you're not asking empowering questions. You're asking, do I need to shut this down? And if you ask yourself, do I need to shut this down? Or do I need to do more of what's not working? Your answer will come back and say, here's how you shut it down. Here's how you do more of what's working. I'm at telling you. Pick answer D None of the above. I want you to ask a better question. I want you to start asking, how do I make my existing business that I love wildly profitable? Keep asking. The answer will come to you. Maybe it's tonight while you're listening to this episode. Maybe it's tomorrow while you listen to the episode again in the shower. Maybe it comes two or three weeks later, I don't know. But it is going to come to start asking better questions. That's how you get profitable.

Awesome. Thank you, Mike. So everyone be more profitable. And just for that, I'm going to give you a little punch. Oh, let me turn up the fader. That's it. See you all next time.

Later.