Episode 97: Profitability for the Specialists with Kaman Cheung

It feels like a Metallica concert's about to start, right? Oh, you know, it's cold in your way.

Well, it's either Metallica's in the house or you're listening to the Profit first podcast.

That's right. Something bigger, something better. It's episode 97. Lars Ulbrig, or whatever the drummer is for Metallica would be jacked right now. That's right.

Welcome everyone, to the show, the Profit first podcast. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractal Recording.

And I'm Mike Michalowicz, the author of Profit first and the brand new book that is changing the paradigm of how you position your business for success, Surge, Surge. And I'm joined in studio by my colleague, Christina Buldock.

Hello, world.

And what was that? Was there a weird like.

Yeah, what was that sound?

I don't know, like a plunger popped out. We were plunging toilets while we speak. And you, you are listening to the Profit first podcast. And listen closely. This episode, I mean, get your face right in front of that. There you go. Right in front of that speaker. Because we're going to go into the alpha and the omega, the entire circle of profitability. You will be more profitable by the end of this episode.

Yeah, that's right. Revenue is great when you're young, but.

Profit is better when you're done.

He kills it.

And we don't rehearse this. He's so quick at it.

Do people understand? We don't rehearse this. Anyway, we're happy you're listening. You can hear the show anywhere. You hear podcasts on itunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Tunein Radio. By the way, Stitcher just got bought, so they're gonna be back for the attack. And our website, Profit first podcast dot com. That'll bring you to Mike's website where there's all kinds of cool pictures of him and you can binge listen to these episodes, you know, on the weekend or something. Profit first podcast dot com. On this show we interview either a guest expert or it's do a live consultation or coaching. We do. We have different types of guests, right, Mike?

Yeah, we bring in the mix. And I think that's why the show is gaining so much popularity in that. Oh, my wife just walked into the room and now she.

And she looks gorgeous.

Yeah, she's the hair wig. I have a date with my wife tonight, so I'm getting a little bit pumped up. And so does Obi. Ron Kenobi just yelled down the hallway. So does he. He's Got a date with Krista, too. It's.

Oh, no. Some shows have listeners in the thousands. We have listeners in the tens.

Yes. And we dominate that space. We dominate that space. So. Yeah. But get back to what we were saying. We got guests of all different types. We sometimes bring in expert guests. These are people that have expertise in growing profitability. Other times, we bring in businesses that have been very successful in growing their business and they share their secrets. And other times we have businesses. Quite frankly, this is probably who you are. A business that is trying to grow now, but maybe struggling with profitability or some other aspect of their business. And that's what we're going to do today. These are our most popular episodes where we dig into a business, and we're going to be speaking with common chunks in a little bit. He has an Amazon business, and we're going to kind of dig into what's been successful and what's not been successful and give him some coaching around that all about profit. Yes. I take a deep breath there. Dude. What have you been up to, man? What have. What have you been around?

Yeah, I have to start working out, I think, because in my house, like, first of all, like I mentioned in a previous episode, we live at 6,680ft elevation, and when I go up two flights of stairs, I still get winded, man, because I don't work out. It's because I don't work out, Right?

Yeah, totally, dude. The best athletes for, like, the Olympics and stuff prepare in Colorado.

Well, dude, Colorado Springs, like, probably five miles from my house, is the Olympic training facility for the America.

Oh, well, there you go.

Boom.

Yeah. Because the elevated oxygen, you get less oxygen, so you're. You have to perform better. And purportedly, those athletes, when they then perform at ground level, they kick some butt.

Sea level, because.

Yeah, sea level. At ground levels, because it's all ground level. Sea level. Sea level.

What have you been up to, Mike?

Dude, I got a date with my wife. I got my check. I'm out. All of a sudden, I get a text, and she's like, hey, you want to go on a date? And I'm like, yeah. I'm actually excited. We haven't gone on a date. I can't remember last time we went on a date. You know, I'll do something. I was going to try. I'm going to try. Yeah. That was cool.

Christina blushes.

That was. Yeah. Christina's blushing.

There are women everywhere.

Yeah. Yeah. I might. I might. Of course, if I take her out to, like, a. A Cheap restaurant, like a Burger King or something. Then the chances of me having.

I was gonna say bowling. Milkshakes. What are you gonna do?

Oh, yeah, that's cute. Yeah. Me bowling. Bowling's a cute take.

Milkshakes are cute.

Christina, I heard we got a shout out in from somebody.

We did. It's a pretty long one. Let me see if I can just.

Kind of keep paraphrasing here.

But this comes in from Cynthia, and she says, for the past 13 years of being in business, I have read every freaking thing that I could find on cash flow, have to take classes on cash flow, and had nothing but messed up cash flow. As it turns out, the one thing that I was missing was profit. First shout out to you, Cynthia. I'm glad everything's working out.

Cynthia, you rock. We love you. So you know who also we love is the folks that make the show possible. I want to thank our four core sponsors, Fundera, we love you, Fundbox, nextiva, and Receipt Bank. And we'll give you some details on them in a little bit. We've been actually sneaking in some stuff during the show about our sponsors. That's our new little technique.

We've been, like, mind tricking.

You mind tricking. Oh, my God. Like, we give a cliffhanger, and then we're like, next diva. Next diva. Next diva. We pump it down your throat.

Barry, do you like when we put in the dimensions of the. Of our corporate partners?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, I love it. How about you? Darth Vader? Okay. Yeah.

Are you sure that's Darth Vader supposedly.

No, it is. It's from the movie.

It's from. From the. When he gets. I think it's when Luke pushes him off. I don't know.

It sounds like the Little Mermaid when Ursula gets stabbed by the ship.

Hold on.

When does that scene happen? Because he doesn't get pushed off. That's when. Why is Luke. Why does Darth Vader do that?

No, Darth Vader realizes that he thinks Luke and Leia are dead. Or no. When he finds out Padme's dead.

Oh, and Padme. Yes. Thank you, lumberjack.

That's it. Hawaiian lumberjack. He's always listening. He's taking care of clients and giving trivial feedback instantly. I love that guy.

Dude, we need a picture of the Hawaiian lumberjack, please.

Yeah, we do. And by the way, he goes by Huluj now, because Hawaiian lumberjacks. So we took HLJ and compressed it to Haluj.

We'll have to wait for him to wear his Hawaiian shirt. In order for it to be an accurate picture.

Yeah, yeah. All right, we better get to our guest. Cuz that's why people are listening to the show, not to listen to H comments. His name is Common Chung and he started his Amazon business full time in January 2015, so not that long ago. He's past the year and a half mark. And he does a mix of private labeling and retail arbitrage, which quite frankly, I don't even know what that is. And his first year, I don't know what retail arbitrage is. And his first year did 100,000 in sales. But when he looked at his P and L, he was like, this ain't working. And he discovered profit first and he's ready to turn his business. So, Common, welcome to our show.

Hey, how's it going? I'm excited to be here. My first podcast. I love you guys sound clips, but you guys gotta get some Game of Thrones sound clips on that.

Yeah, yeah, that's actually a good idea. Do we have any Game of Thrones stuff?

I don't think Christina do one from memory.

Oh, I don't know. I'm only on episode three.

Christine's pointless button. This is all we have. It's totally not appropriate.

That's for your date tonight.

I know, exactly. Maybe I should play that clip. All right. So Common, how did, how did you discover profit first in the first place?

So I, I get, I get coaching. For me, I think coaching, if you do anything, coaching is the best way to go learn about stuff. And my was Robin Johnson. She's a pretty big Amazon seller, big coach. And she started a book club and people threw out recommendations of what books to go through and yours came up and it got voted in. That's kind of how I got introduced to you.

That's wonderful. What is retail arbitrage?

So retail arbitrage is pretty much you go to retail stores and you buy stuff either on sale or on clearance, and then you just flip them on Amazon for full price. Because Amazon, I mean, when you go to retail stores, they're just trying to clear out inventory so they could bring in new inventory. So they really deep discount a lot of the stuff. But when you go on Amazon, people are still paying retail price for it, so.

Really?

Yeah. So like, for example, especially like at the end of Christmas or something like that, like people are just getting rid of Christmas decorations at 90% off because the season's over. So you would come in, buy up the lot, and then pretty much you probably hold it till next year. And then you sell it at full price again because people need Christmas decorations again every year, so.

Oh, I see, I see. But, but I presume that's a somewhat risky proposition because. Because you got to sit on that money. I mean you got to spend that money and then sit on that inventory, keep it somewhere, and then you got to hope you can sell it the next year. I mean, is there a risk associated with that arbitrage?

Yeah, I mean, I mean there's risk with any business, right? That's what I've learned. I mean, that's just one example. So another example is, for example, recently Memorial Day happened and Nike had huge Memorial Day sales. You would buy it at the Memorial Day sale and it's deep discounted there or not discounted, but it is discounted on sale. But then after two weeks they go back to retail price. You could just flip them a few weeks later. There are a lot of ways to do it.

Why don't the stores just move their products online? I guess they are to some degree. But why are they trying to clear out inventory at their retail store when they could also just be put online like you're effectively doing?

I mean every store is different. My. I'm the way I kind of deduce it is, I think that for brick and mortar stores, space is money. Right? So they don't want to carry the inventory, they don't want to keep it because they even in there, they have to keep it somewhere if they want to sell it online. So if they don't have the money to put it in inventory, they'd rather just get rid of it. So.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So okay, so is this what you're doing kind of your 9 to 5? Do you go to retail stores? You're seeking out the best deals and then putting online or what's the structure of your business on a day to day basis?

Most of it is that we call it sourcing. So you kind of just go to the different stores and source. So me and actually my wife actually quit her job to join the business this past month. Nice.

Oh wow.

What we're doing. So profit is definitely a lot more focused. I mean when you, you think you work hard when you're by yourself, but then when your wife quits and this is your only source of income, you, you realize there's actually a next level of working hard. So.

And do you have children? Do you have a family?

I mean I do, we have a two and a half year old, so.

Oh, wow. So okay, so you got three Mouths to feed. One business.

Yes.

Okay, so why don't we start digging to the numbers? I know last year, year end, I think you did $100,000, but there really wasn't much money left. What's it looking like this year? And what's the profitability looking like this year?

So, I mean, last year, like I said, we did $100,000 in sales. As of right now, we're at $72,000 in sales. And.

Okay, we're recording this on June 8th. So you're only halfway through the year. Not even.

Yeah, and with retail, usually whatever you make between January and September, you double in Q4. So we're on pace to double what we did last year. So it's pretty exciting. But I mean, at the same time, profit, it's getting better, but it's not first.

Okay, well, we'll make that happen. Where, where does your profit stand right now? Like, what kind of profitability do you have on that $72,000 of sales?

We're looking at an ROI of probably like around 25 to 30%.

Okay, so say we. Let's just take the optimistic one, 30%. So we're saying $21,000 flow. Are you saying $21,000 flows through to you and your wife?

No, because that doesn't include operating expenses too. So we're probably even looking at the. At 20%.

20% of top line.

Yeah.

Okay, so 14,000. So tell me if this sounds accurate. So you spent. You had $72,000 of sales, but you also had to buy that inventory, the materials, and therefore you subtract that out and that brings you to 21,000, which is basically your gross profit. But then you have to pay for the operating expenses. Maybe do you rent space or something for storage? Or is it all out of the house?

All of it's out of the house. But I have to pay for subscriptions, Amazon fees. I'm part of. I continually do coaching because I always believe in investing myself. So I always set aside somebody for that. Stuff like that. Supplies, like boxes and shipping supplies and stuff like that.

Okay, so 14,000 is coming into your pocket really, at the end of this so far. So we're halfway through. That means you'll do 28 if we just double it. But because the last quarter stronger, you may do about 40,000. So not bad, but you ain't going to get rich. And I don't even know that can support your lifestyle. What are the big challenges that you are facing? Maybe we can start tackling that.

I think cash flow is always important, especially with me trying to grow my business. I mean, yeah, we're getting profit, but the best way to grow it is usually. And I mean, this kind of runs against what you've been preaching your book, but I just dump everything back into the business, you know, so we really are living. We're living like a. You know, it's. But it's great. I mean, we still have savings and we have stuff we're doing and we're not like eating like you're drinking bread and water every day, you know, but at the same time, if we continue at the current pace and don't grow, then it might get to that point.

So, yeah, yeah. You know, you're in a unique situation because an early stage business, you want to grow. And so many people say, well, I got to put more money back into the business to grow.

And.

And I think that's usually bullshit for most people. But if you need to buy inventory, there is no way around that one. So if you're plowing your money back into your business to buy inventory, I get it. But the key is buying inventory that generates the most profit. So how many SKUs are you carrying right now?

Right now? Last time I looked, I'm carrying a little over 300 SKUs.

Oof. Okay, so just so everyone knows what a skew is or skew. What that is is a serialized number that identifies a unique product. So a pair of jeans would be a certain SKU, but a different model would be another SKU. So each item. So you carry 300 SKUs. Do you know the profitability breakdown for each product? Like which one makes the most margins for you?

Yeah, I actually do. There's actually a piece of software that we use that works really well with Amazon that gives you your profit for each sale that gets made. So it's pretty cool.

Okay, and what's the big money makers for you?

My biggest money maker is actually a golf training aid that I sell under my own brand. So that pretty much is 100% ROI. So that's my biggest moneymaker. Toys is a big category for me too. So toys average around 30 to 50% ROI. But I mean, just like any other store, that's just the average. Some days you do better and some days you just have to take a loss just to get your money back so you could get more money for better, better turning inventory.

And do you sell anywhere else besides Amazon?

Right now we are only selling on Amazon, but we are gonna be expanding into ebay. So that's another thing I'VE tried other kind of like channels. I've tried Etsy, tried other kind of selling platforms as well. But I mean, Amazon's kind of, kind of the big fish. So it's kind of, it is. If you, if, if you haven't figured out Amazon yet, then the time you're spending to figure out the other smaller channels is wasted. So.

And what about your own store? Have you, do you have your own online platform, your own store?

No, that's also on the to do list. But I mean, once again, it comes down to cash flow and time. So of course we have the proper cash flow. Then it'd be like, okay, I could spend time on subscription, the subscription on the, like we're looking into Shopify or BigCommerce or some of those platforms so we don't have to build everything ourselves, leveraging their expertise and their technology. So. But I mean, yeah, just like I said, it just comes down to cash flow and time. So.

Yeah. So let me share some thoughts with you because I want to be clear. You want to increase your sales so that you can increase profitability. You want to bring more money into the business, into your pocket, but also you're looking to expand the business because you know you can only $100,000 in revenue in the miracle world. You could squeeze out $100,000 in profit, but you could never squeeze out 101. And you're looking at to squeeze out as much profit as possible. But that requires you to grow your business. Is that a fair description?

Yeah, that sounds perfect.

Okay, so a couple ideas for you of how to do this and anyone can, regardless if they're in an Amazon platform or in any industry, is there's that saying that floats around. The riches are in the niches and we support it and believe it emphatically that the average consumer is seeking the average product and will probably make one purchase in that category. So the average golfer is looking for a golf training aid, but then there is that specialty group or subset within that group of consumers, the golfer that wants to get every training aid on the planet so they can beat their best friend down the street and is willing to spend any dollar. And that will look for the atypical products. They'll look for the common products, but then they'll also look for the atypical. Like if you sold jeans, for example, most people just buy jeans. Everyone's got their four or five pairs of jeans. But there's some people that buy 100 pairs of jeans, different styles, designers, and they look, they go from the main platform to the specialty shops. There is, I'm sure there's a shop out there that is known for its variety of jeans, just like there is a shop known for its variety of golf training. And I think common, that's where the opportunity is for you. The big margins are in the hard to find items that the elite customer wants. Who's not the common customer is looking for the specialty items. So I just encourage you to consider if you're having success in golf training in this one aid, it doesn't mean that that's the only product you may want to start seeing as they're complimentary products and then seeing can you find kind of off the beaten path type products and sell that as maybe through your own store, maybe still through Amazon, but as a unique premium for the people who get addicted to what you're selling. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, that totally makes sense. In terms of. So if I'm understanding it correctly, you want me kind of just focus on a specific type of, I guess, customer Persona or customer.

Exactly, exactly.

Demographic and kind of really hone in on their specific needs and then charge a premium for that because people.

Exactly, exactly. And what you can do too, every item right now ships from your house. So that means every item, I presume you and your wife are packaged, maybe your two and a half year olds doing too. But it's packaging, right. And then you're mailing it out. Is that accurate?

Actually with Amazon we actually just ship it to Amazon and then Amazon handles all the shipping and all the customer service and stuff like that.

Okay, so Amazon has, yeah, the Amazon prime program. And for sellers like yourselves, they have a proprietary, I think it's called Advantage or some other program like that that can ship products. Here's the key. When you ship your product, if you can get advertising material in there. Now when it ships through Amazon, that may not be possible. If you were shipping it direct, you definitely could. But if it ships through Amazon, if in the packaging you can have a notice or something saying thank you so much for your purchase. When they open the package, they see thank you for your purchase. By the way, we have the most unique variety of specialty items for golfers who are looking to improve their game. Go to such and such website. That's one way to do it. The second way to do it is to set up a capture page. You see Amazon, if they're shipping it for you, I suspect you know the name of the customer and maybe even the address, but you definitely don't have their Email. You can't email them directly unless you go through the Amazon platform, I assume. Is that true?

Yeah, that's true. That, that's, that'd be against their terms of service if you try to talk to them directly.

So. Right. But, but quite frankly, that's where there's big opportunity for you. So here's another idea is when you ship an item to them in the package, when they open it saying, hey, we've prepared a proprietary video of the 10 coolest golf products and reviews. If you go to this website. Now, you bring them to your website and on there you get the email sign up and then you do a video reviewing your own products and perhaps even other products. But the idea is now you have the email address and then you can start selling people new, better, additional products.

Oh, I see. So you're pretty. So okay, you're trying to create an email list then, right?

Yes. Yeah. So the most. Yes. Wow. Hold on, I got it. Yes, yes, you got it. And the idea is, listen, Amazon's a wonderful platform and I understand the rules and we gotta abide by them, but we gotta make your business really profitable. Common. I mean, we gotta really ramp things up. And if we're gonna do it, we gotta find an outlet to do it. And historically, it's proprietary, unique products that dictate the biggest premium. And it's a proactive communication to the customer saying, hey, customer, we just introduced this new product. Do you wanna buy it? So the Amazon platform, you can't do it, right? Yeah, you can't, you can't. So now we're gonna be able to do it. Every time you sell a product, I want you building your list. And this is why categorization is so important. If you're selling toys and you say, hey, sign up our list for the, you know, get the 10 coolest golf products out there. No one's gonna do that when they have a toy. So the key here is if you start categorizing and playing into a niche that every time you sell a product in that niche that you can start building your list by giving them some additional, you know, additional benefits. Dude, you gotta be saying, you gotta be. This is the most amazing call of my life.

It's mind blowing. I'm speechless. So that's why I'm so nice comment.

Hallelujah.

So what kind of platforms would you be able to do to get like, are you talking? Would I have to build out my own website or are there platforms there that exist that have email capture stuff?

So, yeah, so for email capture stuff, you can use programs like. As common as Constant Contact was a very basic platform. They have their own squeeze page there, activecampaign. If you want to go crazy, which is kind of means expensive, you can go infusionsoft. I would definitely have an Xtiva phone system on the side too, so you can take out the phone calls. Hey, that's one response. But. But, yeah, so you can get a platform very inexpensively. I would check out with what they call autoresponders or email blast systems. They also do email captures and check out things like Constant Contact, ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, Mailchimp. There's. There's AWeber. There's so many out there use one of their Squeeze pages. And that's all it has to be because you don't even need a fancy website. You just land on the Squeeze page and says, hi, this is common, and I'm going to share with you this video. The 10 coolest golf products. Give me your email address so I can deliver this video to you. They sign up and you can literally email them the video or it can go to a subsequent page, what's called a thank you page. And you have the video right there. But now you're starting to build this list.

Wow, that's. Yeah, I mean, I'm excited to get started. I just. Yeah, I just love the opportunity.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. The whole idea of profit first is when people hear profit first, they say, okay, I'm taking my profit first. I need to cut my expenses. That's the first 10 or 20%. Yeah, but we have to start thinking outside the box. To really be profitable, you have to be innovative. And what innovation means is you have to do what your competition isn't even considering. And I suspect if 100Amazon sellers came on here just like yourself, that one, if any, are doing something like I just suggested, and that person has the opportunity for the most growth. So I want to be you.

Awesome. I want that to be me, too.

Good. Hey, and also, I heard you were working with Cindy Thomason too. What are you doing with Cindy?

Yeah, so I reached out to her because, like I said, I'm really into coaching. That's kind of the best way I learned.

Yes.

And I actually emailed you and you referred. You referred her to me, and she really helped me out. She, like, I think with everyone who's read your book, they get kind of really ambitious. Like, okay, I gotta open up all the accounts that they set up and I gotta put in all these percentages. And she kind of grounded me. And she was like, hey, let's just start off slow. Let's get you in the process. Let's open up a few of the basic accounts. And she saved me from a lot of stuff. I started the tax account super high, and when I went to go buy stuff for my company, I'm like, well, I have no more money now because it's all in this tax reserve. She did stuff like that. And she helped me kind of find the banks that I needed to do that, because when I went to my bank to tell them this crazy system, they actually had their manager come over and try to talk me out of it. They're like, are you.

Oh, my.

Serious?

Yeah, they did there.

What bank was that?

It was Chase bank, actually.

Oh, my God. Freaking shame on them.

I was just like, oh, I just want to open up these accounts. Like, well, what are these accounts for? And I was just like, well, what's gonna be for profit? What's gonna be for tax? What's gonna be for, like, owner, owner, profit and stuff like that. And they're like, well, you don't really need all that stuff. You actually just should put it in one. And I was just like, oh, God, that killed.

Should have got the guy's card. You really should have given me the card.

Give me this card. I want to flame him. So here's the irony. And let me. I'm not going to pick on Chase because I kind of get it. So many banks, accountants, bookkeepers, are stuck with the traditional way of doing things, and they simply say, you don't need that, because, you know, it's always with this old way that's. And by the way, it's never worked. Having one bank account and never being profitable has never worked. But because they're used to it, they keep forcing us down your throat. So I hope you saw through that and said, no, screw you. I'm going this path. I'm doing it.

I did. Cindy said, just try another bank. So I tried another bank, and it was great. They did it right away. They didn't even ask any questions. They actually even showed me a program where I don't have to pay extra bank fees because.

Oh, what bank is that?

It's Citibank.

Citibank.

Good to know. Look at you go.

Citibank. Congratulations. Good. Yeah.

So I don't know if it's national, but what it is is that, hey, you know, open up all these accounts unlimited, too. And if you spend $1,000 a month on their Citibank, Credit card that gets rewards points as well. Then they waive all your bank account fees, so. Or pretty awesome, so.

Well, that's awesome. All right, we got, I'm just looking at the clock now. We got to get going. So Common, thank you for coming on the show. If people want to buy stuff from, from you on Amazon because you got heard some cool golf training stuff plus toys, how can they find more about you?

Most of my golf training stuff is what I focus on. So if they just type in caddy space elite on Amazon, C, A, D, D, I, E, space, E, L, I, T, E, my training will come up. So that's going to be the best way to support my business. If you guys want to help do that and hopefully within the next month, I'll have an email list that you guys can sign up for.

There. Now you're talking. Now you're talking. All right, Common, thanks for coming on the show.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Common. Great job.

And hang tight. We got a question for you at the end. Hey, so in a second we're going to recap what we learned. Yes, we are going to just have a lot of fun. Also, I'm looking at my notes here. What else we have to do. But I do want to say one thing. I was getting totally jacked about what Common saying with Citibank, the only thing is to spend credit cards to get points to reduce fees. I'm not a big fan of using the credit card. You know, here we only use debit cards and when your debit card is used up, it's happened a few times. Oop, it stops. You can't use the card. It forces you. Look, what's going on with our account. Did we not transfer money appropriately? Are we maxed out? Do we miss something? So debit cards I'm a much bigger fan of. But the other thing is you don't need to use a credit card to reduce fees. Like you can talk to the bank manager and say, hey, I like to get the fees down even more to zero. Would you do this for me? And there's definitely banks that have no fees whatsoever. I mean minus like listen, if you overdraw or something, they'll get you. But just there's no minimum balance fees and stuff like that. All right, first I want to thank our corporate partners. Thank you again to Fundera. That's a one stop shopping for loans. You know, Common could use that if he was interested in buying a lot of inventory. If there's a big opportunity. Fundera would fund that.

That's true.

That's true. Nextiva. We plugged them in there. I, I snuck it in pretty well, didn't I?

Yes, you did. Yeah.

You're. You're tired.

I am. I'm. I'm. Yeah.

You don't drink coffee.

I don't drink coffee. I know, I. And I'm trying to lay back on the egg on the, on the soda.

We're. You and I are gonna do jumping jacks and push ups.

Yes.

Then Fundbox is one stop. No, it's not one stop. It's. It's zero stops actually. When the money's not coming in from a client of yours, there's an invoice due, but they're not paying. Fundbox releases those funds to you. So there is no stop of funds. It just flows right in.

That's right.

And then receipt bank is a productivity tool when it comes to expense management. Every receipt, we are using it here now a lot. You see my little baggie?

Lifesaver.

Yeah, lifesaver. This used to be this baggie here. If you can hear it, this, you better have heard that. This bag I used to manually enter into our system and now it just gets scanned in by receipt bank and sorted.

You take a picture of it and boom.

Boom. Alright, what are you up there at, miss Tired? What did you learn today?

I think one of the big things that hit with me is be willing to do what your competition isn't willing to do. And I think that applies in everyday life as well. I mean, I'm having a situation with my Internet at home and if I hadn't called and made a bigger stink about it, like the new company actually is giving me a much bigger discount than I would have gotten because it was their error. And I was like, you know, so many people just don't open their mouth or they just pay it because it's easier instead of to go through the hassle. And I think that applies to business too. If you're willing to take that extra step, the benefits will be bigger.

I like that. Now you're getting jacked up today. I like that. Yelling at him. Yeah, I like that. Chris, what about you? What'd you learn?

Well, I think Common's attitude is a really good attitude as well. He, you know, he's doing this full time and now his wife is helping him full time as well. I like the, the change in his hustle, you know, like he was hustling a lot by himself. But then once his wife left her job to come on board now he's taken the hustle to another level. And I think, you know, you don't want to work too hard and burn yourself out. But I mean the hustle aspect of this is, is real. You know, I mean, my brother, my older brother is a perfect example. He just, he works very hard, very long hours and he kills it. So hustling is, is part of the, can help profit a lot. I think.

It really can. I mean, yeah, you can't hustle forever though, because you can burn out. I mean if you're always working the 12 hour days, at a certain point it's just, it burns you out. But to get this spark started, I think you got to do that. My big takeaway was the fact that online arbitrage and real retail arbitrage exists, I never really heard of, I actually never heard of that term arbitrage used in that way. But what a fascinating idea that it simply points to. There's these gaps in the market that the common person isn't aware to. And if you're smart, like common is, you take advantage of that lack of awareness for the consumer. So you buy cheap here, you sell more expensively there and the consumer isn't aware of that opportunity. That's what you know, that is the strategy of arbitrage. It's just cool to see playing on Amazon. So I thought that was a fascinating insight.

Well, and plus the whole online a line appeal now you don't have to go to the store anymore.

Right.

Just one click and it's at your house.

Yeah, for the customer comes out, they come out still winning. So I like it.

Win, win.

There you have it. So by the way, he mentioned Cindy Thomason, she was on episode 5 of the Profit First Dude.

Good memory. Good.

Well, no, I went to the website and searched.

Can't touch this. That's right, can't touch this. Dude, you are on your game. So yeah, Cindy Thomason and Robin Johnson, they are the one to punch when it comes to Amazon sell and driving up profitability. And here's the funny thing, Christina, I've been approached actually. I may be speaking at an Amazon conference saying, Mike, you know so much about Profit First. Can you teach it to us? And the response is, I can teach you the basics. I can't teach you the Amazon level like Cindy Thomason can. So Cindy is a Profit first professional. I trained her, our team here trained her on Profit first. But now she's elevated it into that niche and that's what Profit First Professionals do. We, we take the core concept of profit first and then elevate it to speak specifically to a niche. And, and what Cindy found out is you don't go all in right away. You have to start very slowly and roll it out very specifically to be successful.

The riches are in the niches.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

There you have it. So, and. And profit first professionals, by the way, is. It not only supports this show. What is that?

Is that common? Are you. Are you typing away? Are you taking notes, Common?

Yup. You know, you guys have such valuable information. I don't want it to go to waste.

Nice. Okay, we'll give you a high.

Thank you.

Well, profit first professionals is the biggest supporter of this show. And like you were just saying, Mike, you guys, you and Ron Obi. Ron Kenobi are training these accountants and bookkeepers to help businesses be profitable.

Yeah.

This is how common found us. All you have to do is go to profitfirstprofessionals.com if you want to, only if you want to improve the profitability of your company. I don't care if you're an Amazon seller, if you're a lawyer, if you do long haul trucking and anything in between, come to profitfirstprofessionals.com. click on the find button, fill out the quick form there. We will introduce you to an expert like Cindy Thompson. Like Robin Johnson will find you an expert who will drive properly in your business, starting with your very next deposit.

Brilliant, beautiful, bodacious, and a little bit salacious. And by the way, thank you for listening. And if you have a friend or a couple friends who have businesses, turn them on to the profit first podcast. This is where we drip information on you twice a week to make you more profitable. And thanks to Mike. So spread the word. Profitfirstpodcast.com all our previous episodes and next episode.

Mike, big Doug's coming on. He grew a landscaping. Oh, did I look at the wrong one? Number? Hold on, let me. Who's coming on, Christina?

One that we already recorded.

One we already recorded coming on. Who did we already. Who is that?

I don't remember.

We don't know who's coming.

Episode 98 is next.

Surprise for all of us. For all of us.

Thanks, everybody.

See you next time.

Oh, my God.

Bazinga. I thought you were gonna whip along to the beat.

I was always trying to. You got to end it on that.